Well, let's see. What I would cut..

Creatures: Steeple Roc, Boros Mastic, and 1 hired Torturer. This gives us 15 creatures.

Instants: All Riot Control and Crypt Incursion. Good sideboard tech but that's about it.

Sorcery: Keep both.

Artifacts: Lose all cluestones.

Land: Keep all the gates, and bring the land count up to 17.

That's a 41 card deck, and if I were pushed on what else to cut, it would be one of the blaze commandos. I'm only really including them because of potential legion's initiative value, as a 6/4 is a powerhouse, but 5/3, not so much. The possessions would side out against slow decks for whatever sideboard we wanted, be it cluestones or others.

I think thebeardedshuffler has the right idea. The cluestones might be a good idea against slow decks as they can ramp into a bigger DttD.

Ok we got one Wear / Tear for the sideboard, the rest was crap. I put all the cards we definitely won't use in the maybeboard, the rest that COULD in theory be played in the sideboard.

What do you think of the list above? Also, mana wise like that we have 7 lands for each color.

Is anyone from EU so that we might playtest today on Cockatrice? I'll probably be online in about 1-1.5 hours.

Heavily reccoment dropping the boros mastiff for a hired torturer. 3 toughness is very relevant, as is incremental damage when we have spare mana. A 2/2 is just a 2/2 and won't live very long.

Other than that, looks okay.

The Mastiff becomes 2/3 with Legion's Initiative though. And it can always be there to either chump-block or discourage them from attacking since we can counter-swing, hopefully with lifelink.

Hired torturer is always a 2/3. If the mastiff needs our single other specific card to be worth playing, I don't think it is, personally.

We have so many 3 drops already though. Switching one to a 2 drop could be in our favor. And the torturer's ability will only be used lategame when we don't have any other plays.

I'm also for mainboarding at least one torturer. He's good in stalemates and soaking up extra mana. Either for the mastiff, a firstblade, or a plains I think.

Our average CMC is already over 3.5. 16 lands is asking for trouble.

Wait a second. Our primary win-con is in the maybe board!? How will we ever win if we don't play the Goblin Test Pilot ?

Here's something to consider regarding cluestones: They give us card draw.

We only have 4 gates. We really want to trigger our gatekeepers, so anything that gets us closer to our 2nd gate is something we probably need. We're probably going to use Toil on ourselves. Also having 41 cards makes it that much less likely of drawing a 2nd gate soon.

If we're going to run mastiff and the firstblades(which I think we should), then we should probably not maindeck the possessions, as they can be eliminated with a block. Possessions work great when you are the deck that does not swing early, but your opponent's deck will.

I think we should maindeck cluestones over possessions, and side in the possessions in case someone out there is that much aggro. And really, with this format, we may be as aggro as it gets.

Another consideration:

Gleam, Initiative, and Weapon Surge, all work best with more creatures. I'd like to see us get to 16 critters, but if we find we're really that mana screwed then I guess we cut one for a land.

Did you all see this? 16 land/16 creatures. It's set up for all of you to be able to playtest. Thoughts...?

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mazerunners-aggro/

I think 5 mana draw 1 card is about the most terrible card draw I've ever seen.

As for the viashino firstblades, they at least swing for 4 when you cast them, and have double interaction with legion's initiative, that makes them okay where the boros mastiff is dead weight. Having a single 2 mana creature will make such a small difference to our matchups.

Lastly even your "aggro" build has an average CMC of nearly 3.8. I would not feel comfortable running 16 lands in that deck at all. I'd still cut the mastif, cut the cluestones, throw in the possessions and 2 more swampa. I'd also cut one mountain. We need black mana highest priority, white and red combined second.

You don't just play the cluestone and then draw all in one turn. You play it, use it for mana, then once you've built more mana up, you sac it to draw. Or if it's late game, maybe you do draw right away. Fine. Look, we need to get to our 2nd gate or we've got 6 Pillarfield Oxen.

So did you playtest the Aggro version and compare it to another, or did you just calculate the ccm?

The thing about Sinister Possession is that if they have a Gatekeeper and we attack with a Gatekeeper, they might just as well not block.

What I meant with that is that it has it's place in aggro strategies.

Every card does something, and can be useful if the right situation comes up. But we have to decide if overall that card is better for us than fixing + card draw.

Again, we have 4 gates. We're a bit short. I can't think of a better solution than card draw. Anyone else?

Why waste the time? If you'd crack a clue stone to draw something useful, why not just make it a useful card from the start, and save all that time?

We don't need to ramp into the guild gates quite that hard. We can play some keepers before we have the gates down, and not doing so would probably be a mistake. We have 6 keepers so we'll get some first play value out of about half of them, and once legion's initiative hits the field they'll all have their value again.

Also no, I did not playtest it because it won't ever load for me for some reason. But maths is your friend. Sinister possession does not devalue any of our firstblades, etc. As the boss says, they'll just block or keep attacking into a situation that'll let us kill them off, which is fine. You just hold the firstblades in hand until the right time, and we'll do most of our damage in the air with the drakes anyway.

We have to run at least 40 cards. I'm thinking specifically about getting us closer to the gates(I think maybe I hate Pillarfield Ox more than you do). And in our build I'm still not sure the SP's would be that useful.

It's a 1-drop card, so if we have it, we play it early(it's less useful later). Our build wants to attack fairly early, at least by this format's standards, so that means we play a SP, and shortly thereafter, we want to swing, and they are happy to block, and off falls the SP. So that's 2 damage.

I think the gatekeeper vs gatekeeper scenario might be a bit idealistic. Conceivable, yes, but it doesn't sound likely.

Anyway, I think it's worth playtesting both ways. You're talking about holding creatures in hand and letting them swing, hitting both of us for damage. Hmm. Off hand, I'm skeptical of that as a winning strategy. But I'd be willing to hear about playtesting experience with it.

Basically we are not an aggro deck and trying to pretend we are will get us in trouble. If the SP's cause them to block with dudes and kill them off then fine, that means the SP's went from annoying enchantment to removal.

We're not going to be winning via ground combat, we just don't have the power for that. We'll win through incremental advantage in the air, and fat asses on the ground, finishing up with a toil and trouble or debt to the deathless.

As for accelerating us into gates, the earliest that would help us get a keeper out is turn 5. Again, hardly an aggro scenario. And the only creatures I want to hold in hand are the firstblades, they must be played when we get maximum value out of them by forcing bad blocks or getting in with damage. Because playing them for low value (like when they can chump with their possessed guys) means we've just played a 2/2 which is terrible. Gatekeepers, I would play as soon as possible, even if we don't have 2 gates on the field, to absorb damage.

I just wanted to comment on the 15 vs 17 creatures thing about the Gleam of Battle and Legion's Initiative : the Hired Torturer s don't gain any benefit whatsoever from those. From Weapon Surge , yes, but so does the Mastiff.