Hey guys, been gone for awhile. Been netdecking for a minute and have been trying to figure out the best deck/archetype for the eternal Meta we have going here. I saw a lot of Mardu Vehicles doing well, but I think Boros does best. Here's my list:

UPDATED

2 x Toolcraft Exemplar
3 x Inventor's Apprentice
1 x Heart of Kiran
1 x Kytheon

2 x Selfless Spirit
3 x Veteran Motorist
3 x Honoured Crop-Captain
2 x Smuggler's Copter
3 x Harnessed Lightning
2 x Declaration Stone
3 x Thopter Engineer


2 x Pia Nalaar
2 x Depala, Pilot Exemplar
2 x Aethersphere Harvester
2 x Renegade Freighter

2 x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2 x Fleetwheel Cruiser
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar


8 x Plains
8 x Mountains
2 x Needle Spires
2 x Clifftop Retreat
2 x Aether Hub


Pretty straight forward aggro deck. Enough tricks to make it fun to play. Both Toolcraft Exemplar and Inventor's Apprentice are powerful 1 drops that work well with all the artifacts and can power most of our vehicles out of the gate.

Veteran Motorist and Depala are no brainers for any Vehicle deck. Selfless Spirit can go above and protect against sweepers/removal. Honored Crop Captain is a fun little 3/2 2 drop that get's amazing value when you go wide. Dec Stone is standard removal and is great if you go past t 7 and to get rid of the hard to remove critters. Harnessed Lightning is awesome. I wish you could aim it at their face, but it still does wonders. With Aether Hub and Aethersphere Harvester you can drop some big baddies for 2 mana.

Thalia, Heretic Cathar works good in theory. Great for dropping the turn before you swing in for lethal to keep all new blockers tapped. But I rarely find times I want to drop her, so she could easily be replaced. Bygone Bishop is also a card I don't like to ever play T3 unless I have to, but you get good value and as our 1 drops interact with artifacts, it can help with that and draw. Out of 40+ games with this deck I think I have cracked a clue 2 times. But a 2/3 that can fly is still good. Pia Nalaarhelps get an artifact on the board and can beef up our Vehicles and stop a creature from blocking. Great for getting in lethal. Gideon of the Trials is a good 3 drop that can immediately pilot a vehicle or stop damage from something painful to deal with, but anything could go in his spot.

Pia and Kiran Nalaar work great with artifacts and vehicles. A no brainer. Chandra, Torch of Defiance is iffy for me. I use it normally for removal. If I can use her +1 abilities, I usually have things under control. Archangel Avacyn seems like winmore to me. I have to purposely keep mana open to use her and many times win the game with 3-4 Land on the board. She does work pretty neat with Selfless Spirit to sweep, but it also kills all my creatures too.

The Vehicles:


Smuggler's Copter is just an awesome card. 3/3 flying and digs. What's not to like. Favorite T2 play. With a T1 1 drop I can have them down to 10-11 life on t3 and swinging in for lethal the next turn usually.

Aethersphere Harvester is great. As stated, can pump Harnessed Lightning. But it's also a 3/5 vehicle with lifelink if needed. It can block almost anything that comes out T5 or earlier.

Fleetwheel Cruiser is freaking awesome. Best T4 play. As long as they don't have something with Power 3 or greater on the board, it immediately does work. Even if they do, I still swing. Acts as removal with a few points to the face worst case. If he doesn't die T4, it's game over.

Skysovereign seems win more, but sometimes the removal is necessary.


22 Land may seem low, but I've only gotten mana screwed once and that was my only loss so far. You can keep almost any 2 land hand as long as you have one source of R and W each.

If I could get rid of Thalia and the PWs, I've got more room. I just don't know what, if anything, I should replace them with.

Thoughts?

Haven't played Duels for over a year, but impressions would be your curve is too high. To run 5 drops one should have at least 23 lands, preferably 24 or even higher. Somewhat mitigated by the fact you only have two 5-drops, but they're still 5-drops. Further you have the anti-flooding card Bygone Bishop.

Notable missing cards: Heart of Kiran, Kytheon, and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar.
Other possible cards: Abbot of Keral Keep, Renegade Frieghter, Thopter Engineer.

I'd look at cutting the 5-drops, Bygone Bishops and possibly Aethersphere Harvester for some of the above cards.

Agreed on basically all fronts with Banedon. wtf at running 5 drops like Avacyn but omitting Gideon, Ally.

In a fast agro vehicles deck I'm not completely sold on Gideon of the trials but Gid AoZ is the truth. Being able to make pilots every turn against control that can't answer him is game over.

If you want to keep it low to the ground with 22 lands drop Skyship and Avacyn as well as P&K or Chandra. I would think about Magma spray or Bomats / Walking Balista. If you have cheep removal an unanswered Bomat is nuts and it replaces itself late game. If you want to keep the 4-5 drop bombs more lands will be more consistent.

I updated the list. Took out the 5 drops and some of the blah cards. I've never built an aggro deck.

why I still have problem lacking of land

how about the card Sram's Expertise

I am giving immortal's deck a try, shameless link to my brewing post with my more midrange-ey version:

viewtopic.php?f=61&t=21879&p=619645#p619645

Right off the bat I consider the manabase a bit iffy. I haven't been able to consistently cast the RR and WW spells.

I would consider Wangjin's suggestion as my top suggestion as well. Sram's Expertise is very close in power level to Pia and Kiraan Nalaar, Pia and Kiraan require you to spend mana in order to use their special ability, while Sram accelerates your play. You can switch P&K to Expertise and skew your manabase slightly in favor of white.

I run Cultivator's Caravan over Renegade Freighter, I consider this card one of the true all stars in my deck. It has very similar stats, you are trading trample for +0/+1 on offense or +1/+2 on defense. I also use Renegade Wheelsmith in lieu of some of the removal. Wheelsmith isn't instant speed, but as long as you have a vehicle in play you can tap him in response to any instant speed abilities your opponent puts on the stack.

Basically I use tempo plays instead of straight up removal, if you include the 2 CMC removal spells your curve will look more aggressive, but I have a similar number of low cost 1-3 CMC spells. Instead of removal and cheap/aggressive creatures I try to focus on synergy and tempo, with a bit more at the top of the curve.

If you just tossed Start your Engines into your list it would not perform optimally IMO. Drawing a hand with 2 lands, 2 creatures, 2 removal and SyE is not as exciting. But if you want to evaluate the potential of this card, try it in my deck where I run zero dedicated removal spells, with the exception of SyE and Nahiri, every other card is a vehicle or creature.