How does this deck fare against mono-black devotion? I've been trying to build Boros Aggro for a minute and getting blown away by mono-black...

It all depends on if you Mainboard gods willing. If he tries to hit you with all of those removal spells, you just grant your guy protection from black and it foils him. I took it out for dragon mantle because I don't see many mono black decks, but if you do, definitely run 4x gods willing. Launch the fleet is also really good for feeding the Demon, makes him irrelevant basically.

Run Ordeal of Heliod instead of Dragon Mantle and run Madcap Skills and I think Legion's Initiative would hurt you because lets say you got all these buffed up dudes, you use Legion's Initiative then you lose all those counters.

I considered running madcap skills instead of Launch the Fleet, and it is certainly nice for getting those T4 kills. With that, the deck actually can kill turn 3 but its a very specific hand you need to have. T1 Favored Hoplite, T2 Madcap skills (Swing 5), T3 (Swing 5) then Titan's strength and boros charm b4 damage. However, i feel launch the fleet has been much more helpful with the turn 4's and is less vulnerable to a blowout in this meta. Consider this start:

T1 Soldier of the Pantheon. T2 Upkeep titan's strength, scry into dual land (Swing 5), play favored hoplite. T3, Play land, phalanx leader, then go combat with soldier and favored hoplite. mid combat, use coordinated assault on leader and hoplite, triggers both buffs, you just turned 3 into 7, he's at 8. T4, Launch the fleet on all of them, and then that's pretty much game if you happen to have either coordinated assault, titan's strength, or even boros charm in hand (in which case you would hold one more mana back and not target the soldier of the pantheon with the launch). Even if you don't, thats still 15 damage, and will most likely result in a scoop unless the guy is playing board wipes.

Yeah, that is a smart thing to do, my friend runs a Heroic Deck and it does very well except it absolutely sucks against control. Madcap Skills is an very important card to his deck

Hammer of Purphoros is amazing against control. It can usually finish the game as I'll always get a nice amount of damage in early. Once it comes down turn 3, he can wrath the board turn 4 and I'm fine with it because every land I topdeck is a dude. So end of his turn I make a golem, my turn I make another and swing for 6. Then any dude I get also has haste, so if I stumble upon a soldier of the pantheon or other weenie its not a bad draw.

I still think you should use Madcap Skills instead of Dragon Mantle

Lagonna-Band Trailblazer helps sideboard against burn decks

It is also a early blocker that can be buffed up.

Dude put Madcap Skills in over Dragon Mantle

I've tested this a lot, and dragon mantle is invaluable in that it cantrips and it costs 1 mana. It really helps get draw manipulation for a stripped down aggro deck, and that helps it be a lot more competitive. The extra card is a lot of times more valuable than the two for two trades that madcap skills usually gives me. Its not worth including just to get a slightly better damage output turn two, when i usually have the kill by turn 4 anyway. I can get a scry 1 plus the 5 damage turn two with Titan, and then if I hit a land I can dragon mantle or play another creature. It allows me to keep a lot of one land hands, where madcap doesn't.

I like the theme of this. I'm going to work on a real heroic deck (not the casual Double striking horseman i have right now) That will probably use alot of the cards youre using. Thanks for the idea!. Already +1 earlier.

Looking over my options now, it kinda sucks how wizards just decided to prevent aggro from having any real answers to anger of the gods or drown in sorrow outside of playing three colors for mardu ascendency.

Took Brave the Elements and Boros Charm, even Rootborn Defenses away. Not much else in these colors that answers a sweeper. I guess I'll just have to play around it.

The more I'm looking for ideas in the new format the more I'm relizing how badly pure aggro and pure control is being hurt. It's like wizards wants the entire new meta format to be midrange.

Yep pretty much. Thats exactly how I saw it too. They want standard to be battlecruiser magic with fatties, because thats what the majority of players like. They want their big f**ing mythic creatures beating face. And with three colors, the mana isn't good enough to run aggro, so control and midrange are your only real options. And control is probably still going to be around, but it'll be esper for sure. Mardu control looks good on paper, but in practice it can get knocked around really badly by jeskai tempo or temur midrange because they counter your wincons easily with Stubborn Denial.

Honestly, I'll probably go with MIdrange Mardu Smashers for this Sunday's win-a-case at this LGS I've never been to. Fabled hero is a placeholder for better stuff, like mardu charm and/or crackling doom. I'm still testing it out.

I figure a first place prize of six booster boxes and 5th-8th 1 box is worth a little trip and 25 dollar entry fee.