Be aggressive! B-E Aggressive!
If you've been to a high school football game, you've probably heard cheerleaders sing this popular chant. It is true for the start of a Standard format in Magic: The Gathering as well. Last standard, at the start of Shadows Over Innistrad, white came out as the clear winner of all the aggressive decks. Red, not so much. Although some of the white cards have rotated, white still has plenty of tools to be aggressive. Coupled with the drain, sustainability, and sideboard options that black brings, we've got a deck on our hands.
Card for card analysis:
x4 Thraben Inspector
The little one drop that could. Reasonably, this will be a 2/3 for one that draws us a card when we need one. This card is obviously very good for a strategy like ours.
x4 Expedition Envoy
It's a 2/1 for one, and also happens to be a human. The "dragon" keywords on Dragon Hunter were hardly ever relevant, and although this card is "just worse" because it doesn't have them, it's what we have to work with. Swinging for 10% of your opponent's starting life total on turn two is still fine.
x4 Thalia's Lieutenant
This is the build around. This card is obviously good, so there's no need to go into too much detail.
x4 Zulaport Cutthroat (in sideboard)
Zulaport Cutthroat has been the all star of combo / "Aristocrats" style decks ever since it was printed. This little 1/1 Blood Artist also happens to be a Human. Most decks that run Zulaport never swing with it, and basically use it as an easily removable static effect. Here, we've got Zulaport to assert our dominance in creature v. creature matchups, especially other aggro decks. We also have the ability to swing for damage with our Zulaport Cutthroat, as he can easily be pumped up to a 2/2 or a 3/3 with all of our team builders. Against any removal or burn deck, they pretty much have to get rid of the Cutthroat first, as soon as he hits the table, which draws attention away from our other threats.
x4 Toolcraft Exemplar
While not a human, this guy swings for a lot of damage assuming we have an artifact. Hitting for three on turn two is always going to be good. In terms of artifact generation, all of our artifacts and artifact makers can come down on turn two. We have x4 Copters, x4 Thrabens (which make Artifact Clues), and 1 stitcher's graft. That's nine ways to make artifacts on turn two for our little buddy. Although he doesn't get pumped / doesn't pump Thalia's Ltn, he's still pumped by Gideon and Always Watching.
x4 Smuggler's Copter
A new card fresh out of Kaladesh, Smuggler's Copter gives us that great 3/3 body in the air and that looting ability. It's also something that Zulaport Cutthroat can do when he's not swinging. Smuggler's Copter can be given vigilance with Always Watching, which is just plain silly, as it makes combat very hard to profit from for our opponent (assuming we have anything on board). I feel that this card will be very strong, especially in aggressive decks like ours that lack much evasion.
x2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
This card is great, but it is three mana, and legendary. The ability to make opponent's creatures come into play tapped will be increasingly relevant the more common vehicles become (especially Smuggler's Copter), as our opponent will not be able to play a fresh creature and immediately man a vehicle with it. First Strike is also a great and often under-appreciated ability.
x2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
Another legendary three drop, this one being a new Black and White card from Kaladesh. It's black, and white, and a human. Right up our alley! Kambal's ability to drain our opponent for TWO life (essentially a FOUR life swing when they cast any noncreature spells) makes it an immediate MUST KILL for burn decks that want to take our life from 20 to 0 using standard's inefficient and sometimes laughable burn spells. Important to note is that this ability goes off on CAST, meaning that if we're at 3, and they try to cast an Incendiary Flow on us, we'll gain 2, drain 2 first, and then just go to 2 instead of dying. With "gain life prevention" effects like Atarka's Command rotating fresh out of standard, this ability seems very strong in these burn match ups. It's taxing ability and Human affinity makes it a fair hate card to put in our mainboard, as it is also a 2/3 and is good against Control and those weird Artifact combo decks people are talking about making.
x4 Always Watching
This card is great. +1/+1 to the team (minus tokens) and Vigilance. Helps us win most combat trades and has wombo-combo synergy with Smuggler's Copter and Stitcher's Graft.
x4 Declaration in Stone
Since we've only got room for a very limited removal package, we've got a playset of very hard removal. Straight up exile for two mana, which can maybe hit more than one thing. Since our deck is fast, our opponent will likely have to spend precious time cracking the clue token, instead of putting things on the board to block or kill our creatures. This is a trade-off we're more than happy with.
x4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
This guy is nuts, and just gives you free wins sometimes. Although his tokens don't get buffed by Always Watching, everything else about him is great.
x1 Fragmentize
This card will be increasingly important in Standard. We're going to run a few more in the sideboard (meta depending) but I think having one mainboard is pretty tech. There will be a lot of hits, including: Pilgrims Eye / Filagree Familiar (ran in Emerge decks), Vessel of Nascency, Vehicles, Artifact creatures, our opponent's Always Watching, Stasis Snare, Quarantine Field, and any sort of Panharmonicon / Aetherhub b.s. your opponent might be trying to pull off.
x1 Stitcher's Graft
This is important to have, because it's a cheap as heck +3/+3 for one of our creatures. The downside (not untapping) is completely irrelevant if we've got Always Watching in play, and whatever we throw it on will dominate combat by being the biggest thing on the table (potentially even after a Gearhulk hits, if you've got enough other pump going on). If you don't like Stitcher's Graft, you could also run Gryff's Boon.
Note: Sideboard is just a suggestion, and is subject to meta game changes.
