@MarioLL - What do you think about Hero of Leina Tower as a replacement for the Wasteland Viper against non-aggro decks? I toyed around with the idea of her early on in the deck's inception. She's a viable spell target on turn 2 and scales well into the late game if bad draws or removal keep you from swinging anything beefier.

Hey, Sagarys! I'd go with 21 lands, but be ready to go down to 20.

Definitely, there are too many sweet buff spells and too few slots in the deck for them! In my GW Aggro I used all four Rancors, but I think two could be enough.

You're spot on with Hero of Leina Tower. On paper, she looks good anytime in a game. But is she better than Wasteland Viper early? Is she better than Centaur Battlemaster later?

Let's count. Turn 6. Opponent used End Hostilities. Empty board. Hero comes in. Turn 7. We play a cheap buff spell with trample, Rancor or Unnatural Predation, and sink all mana in. She is 6-7/1 with trample. She is also exposed to any removal.

Turn 6. Opponent used End Hostilities. Empty board. Centaur Battlemaster comes in. Turn 7. We play a cheap buff spell with trample. He becomes 7-8/7-8 with trample and we have open mana for some protection, either with another buff or with source of hexproof (Ranger's Guile). If you have another buff spell in hand, he probably swings for a win. If we use Become Immense, it's coming cheap thanks to destroyed creatures in graveyard and makes overkill. I like it better :)

So the scenario is to play just enough threats to be swept away, saving heroic creature and Become Immense and Ranger's Guile, then rebuild with a big trampler and win.

Have you thought of Hardened Scales instead of Solidarity of Heroes. Might be more consistent over all. Love the deck tho. +1.

I have looked at Hardened Scales. Now I haven't crunched the math so my gut could be wrong, but the reason I gave it a pass is because I think I'd rather be spending the mana on a spell that targets one of my heroic creatures for the trigger. I think you might be right that over the course of a long game it may yield more counters, but this deck's game plan is trying to optimize for an early game win. Thanks for the suggestion though. If you end up trying it out and have success, let me know!

Hardened Scales and Solidarity of Heroes share one weakness: they don't put counters themselves. If a creature is clear, or if we don't draw buffs or Bramblewood Paragon, they do nothing at all. Blank cards.

Hardened Scales could be great in GW / Abzan Outlast deck with High Sentinels of Arashin, Ajani Steadfast, Battle Mastery, Phalanx Formation. The Fight deck goes a different way. It's more primal.

I noticed that MarioLL made a mistake in his scenarios up above. He said that Hero of Leina Tower would be a 6-7/1. However, the wording is in +1/+1 counters, not +X/+0 until end of turn

zebeg, thanks, man. I counted all the buff as Rancor, not +1/+1.

So, Hero of Leina Tower will immediately get +5/+5 or +6/+6 from her heroic ability, depending how many lands are in play (I assume 5 or 6) (becoming 6/6 or 7/7), then Rancor kicks in additional +2/+0 trample. Now she's an 8/6 or a 9/7 trampler. She won't die easy to damage-based removal (2-3 cards required), maybe something like Death Wind or Crater's Claws. Numbers are similar to Battlemaster, however with Centaur Warrior we still have mana open to play protection or another buff spell. I like the Battlemaster scenario better, but it's a thing of a personal taste, metagame, and a particular game (how many buffs we have saved in hand so far).

Sagarys, I've been writing too much in your deck's topic. Sorry about that.

MarioLL don't be silly dude, this is exactly why we put decks up on this site. This has been fantastic. I hoped for feedback, but I never would have guessed that I'd get this much help refining the deck.

Speaking to the Hero of Leina Tower subject - I do agree that in a late game wipe scenario, Centaur Battlemaster does come out ahead. But I think where the Hero will really shine is everywhere that Wasteland Viper falls short as a game progresses. Where the Viper will lose steam, the Hero will get stronger. And in mana screw situations or poor draws where your bigger heroics aren't in your hand but you have her, she can still perform the task, albeit at a higher mana cost. I think I'm going to swap her in and sideboard the Vipers for aggro, then see how the deck runs like that for a bit.

Gonna hone the decklist here in a minute too.

Let's not forget, Hero of Leina Tower can swing for 5 on turn 2 with a Giant Growth if the situation calls for it.

I think I'm going to try out 2 Rancor and 2 Ranger's Guile for the slots opened up from trimming the land down to 21 and cutting Solidarity of Heroes. MarioLL, let me know if you get an opportunity to test that out. I have the Guile's, but I actually have to order some Rancors. I thought I had some, but it appears I do not.

Since the deck is very Heroic heavy, I added Thrive to the sideboard and added an breakdown entry for it as well. While my Rancors are in the mail, I'm going to test Thrive out mainboard for a bit. It seems like it could be a very nasty kill move once you've taken over the board.

Sagarys, thanks for your kind words. I met some people who acted like they were the only competent Magic players in the world. It's good you are a nice guy. I enjoy helping you tweak the deck.

After a bit of testing the newest version:

Hero of Leina Tower totally owns it. If the opponent plays one creature per turn, it's an easy win, because Hero fights everything successfully. One mana fight spells are better, because they put counters on her, but Epic Confrontation's toughness bonus helps quite often.

When I played against Abzan Aggro, the hardest creature to get through was Heir of the Wilds. He'd make a nice addition to the deck. He's a bit viper-y and he's a warrior, too :)Setessan Oathsworn is good for clearing the board and bluffing attacks when opponent played some creatures of his/her own.

Tuskguard Captain costs , so it's ok to cast. After outlast or Bramblewood Paragon he gets rid of Fleecemane Lion and survives.

Staunch-Hearted Warrior and Centaur Battlemaster: I'm totally dissatisfied with them. Almost always I sighed when drew Battlemaster. I wished it was any buff spell. Maybe it's ok to lower creatures curve and include something like Nessian Courser? Four mana creature is good when it adds something to the board immediately. Like Surrak, the Hunt Caller. He's also a warrior! I thought of Polukranos, World Eater, but we have better ways to transform mana into damage on turn 5.

When fighting multiple creatures in one turn, I found Ranger's Guile ineffective. It's great in Midrange and Control matchups. In Aggro it's better to have indestructible effect. Luckily, Green has one in a form of Mortal's Resolve. So, in the main: 3 Resolves. In the side: 3 Guiles to bring in instead of 1-2 fight spells in Midrange and Control matchups and 1-2 Rancors.

For those two matchups sideboard should reflect going for a bit longer game. Thus, hand refilling is crucial. There is Warriors' Lesson, Life's Legacy, and my favorite Fruit of the First Tree. To activate Fruit we can use fight spells to make our Fruited creature fight with a purpose to die.

See, MarioLL? Who wouldn't love this kind of feedback?

I'm stoked to hear that Hero of Leina Tower performed well. I had high hopes for her. As for Centaur Battlemaster, I think I needed to hear someone else say it - because I've had largely the same experience with him. Sometimes it's hard to get him out, and half the time when you do, you've already got another beefed up Heroic on the field that's doing all the heavy lifting for you. When everything comes together perfectly, he can be an absolute monster, but I fear that doesn't happen often enough. I'm going to keep him in and continue testing for now, but he's definitely in danger of being cut and replaced. I'll start looking into his replacements.

And for the sideboard recommendations, I think those are spot on. I'll construct the sideboard now.

Thanks again man. I really appreciate your help. Feel free to chime in any time and as much as you want.

If you're looking for sideboard, I think I might have a few ideas.

Strangleroot Geist is great against non-burn aggro, as it gives you two well costed blockers for 2 mana.

Oxidize. Fairly self-explanatory.

Dryad Militant might be useful vs any deck running Snapcaster Mage, in particular Delver, cause delver is everywhere.

Beast Within for planeswalkers. With the way your deck works, the 3/3 should be fairly easy to deal with.

For mainboard, I fell like you might get some use out of Wolfir Avenger. You have a lot of 3 drops, but some regen might be useful.

@SpatulonMk3 - Strangleroot Geist is great. I wouldn't want to use him here though only because he would detract from the early game plan of the deck. If given the choice, I'd much rather hit Hero of Leina Tower with Gather Courage on turn 2, pump her 1, and kill my opponent's aggro creature outright.

Oxidize is definitely useful. If I start coming up against artifact decks regularly, I may consider swapping it into the sideboard.

Dryad Militant is another fantastic card, but like Strangleroot, if given the choice of how I want to deal with Snapcast Mage, I always want to kill him with the fight mechanic and pump a Heroic in the process. Delver is of course an issue, but not one I face personally terribly often. If it's common in your playgroup, then absolutely bring this along.

As far as Planeswalkers go, if I can't Trample one to death by the time it lands, I'm already probably failing at my gameplan. I also run the risk of it being a dead draw if the walker never makes it out.

Wolfir Avenger is another amazing card in the right deck. Here though, he'd be competing with a source of Trample from the Tuskguard Captain AND the deck's primary fight target/game-winner Setessan Oathsworn.

I definitely encourage to test this stuff out though. I could be horribly wrong. Or it might just work way better in your local group. Playtesting might be the most fun Magic activity after deckbuilding!

At any rate, I agree with MarioLL's suggestion to add Surrak, the Hunt Caller. Also, have you given Wolfir Silverheart any consideration?

I was looking at the ruling for Mutant's Prey and it looks like to even target the creature it has to already have +1+1 counters on it. You could drop 2 of them for Warriors' Lesson for some much needed card draw?

Also Vines of Vastwood > Ranger's Guile I think.

Thoughts?

Hmm, the ruling on Gatherer is a little vague. Is there another ruling you found? I'd like to check it out. I still feel like a Heroic creature will be a legal target when the spell resolves. Regardless, I think you'd be fine swapping in some card draw. It's in the sideboard. It really becomes a decision of preference and/or strategy. Vines is an awesome spell too. I think it'd be at home here for sure.

And @Spatulon, the Silverheart could be a decent swap for the under performing Battlemaster.

@unseen_enemy - I looked up a couple rulings. It appears you are correct about Mutant's Prey. That definitely decreases it's value in the deck. That said, the deck needs its fights to stay productive. Pit Fight becomes a viable alternative. It's a little more expensive mana-wise, but it maintains the instant speed. But as I said in my previous post, it's really a matter of preference. If you can swap some other spells in and continue to have success, go for it! And let me know so I can add it to the deck breakdown!

Also, after considering it, I think your suggestion for Vines of Vastwood is spot on.

I trimmed down a copy of Mutant's Prey after the revelation. Gonna see how it affects play before I replace it. I swapped it Vines of Vastwood for Ranger's Guile and brought that up to 3 copies. If anyone gets a chance to playtest the new build, let me know! (looking at you MarioLL :P)

Updated the deck breakdown to reflect the updated decklist.

@MarioLL You're right and you're wrong about the Solidarity of Heroes, no it doesn't put counters on, but when it targets most of the heroic creatures they would get counters and then it would resolve. So for the Captain and the Paragon, dead card but for everything else in the deck decent or out of hand depending on the board. You're right though that it is a bit inconsistent in a deck that is trying to jam pack damage like this one that doesn't really care about having a large creature later.

I agree with you totally about Surrak, the Hunt Caller. The more I look at Staunch-Hearted Warrior the more I wonder if Surrak wouldn't be better; more often than not his Formidable is going to be on in this deck and that haste granting is going to be huge for pumping out massive amounts of damage on the quick with your opponent needing an answer quick. Also at 2 copies I don't think him being Legendary is such a issue.

I really like Surrak, the Hunt Caller as a card, but I'm curious about how useful it'll really be in this deck. He's coming down turn 4. At that point there's already a good chance that your Setessan Oathsworn is your workhorse. At that point, haste is only really helping you on your Centaur Battlemaster. I can see Surrak being a valuable sideboard asset against decks heavy in removal or control. But is he always going to deserve that mainboard slot over another creature (not necessarily the Staunch-Hearted Warrior)? I'd love to see some different opinions on the matter.

So, I'm personally not a huge fan of Planeswalkers, so I probably wouldn't do this in the when I play it, but instead of Surrak, the Hunt Caller, I could see an argument for Garruk Wildspeaker or Garruk Relentless  ^Flip at the 4 CMC slot. GWS brings a mana boost to make sure you can get the Battlemaster out or to provide extra pumps on a turn. An extra creature never hurt an aggro deck. And his board-wide buff is pretty nice given the deck's goals. GR brings extra creatures and a sort of built in fight mechanic. His transformed side isn't fantastic, but his sac ability would help you make sure you can get your Heroics out in case of a bad draw.

Thoughts on that as well?

Love much your deck! I have some suggestions that might turn out good. If you want, you can try them. Instead of Giant Growth you can drop in 3x Aspect of Hydra. You can also remove 1x Tuskguard Captain and 1xForest and put in 2x Ordeal of Nylea . they will boost your mana pool majorly! .