If someone makes a manabase that can handle this AND avacyn AND colorless flickering AND Gideon, please correct me.
I think it can be done if you go up to 26 lands. I've been testing out something like this:
3 x
Essence flux3 x
Dauntless River Marshal2 x
Hanweir Militia Captain1 x
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy2 x
Declaration in Stone2 x
Eldrazi Displacer4 x
Eldrazi Skyspawner2 x
Bygone Bishop3 x
Reflector Mage2 x
Make a Stand2 x
Thought-Knot Seer3 x
Whirler Rogue1 x
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar1 x
Archangel Avacyn2 x
Reality Smasher1 x
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets6 x
Plains6 x
Island1 x
Wastes2 x
Prairie Stream2 x
Glacial Fortress4 x
Crumbling Vestige4 x
Evolving Wilds1 x
Meandering RiverI ran it through a hypergeometric calculator and came up with acceptable numbers for the mana curve. In practice I have not had much trouble with mana including the double blue. If you can handle double white for Gideon, you can handle double blue for Whirler.
Thing is, this is really a mid-range build rather than an aggro build; as far as creatures go you don't have a lot of power or good options at the 2-drop spot since you aren't able to run the double white or renown creatures and 1-drop creatures/spells that help them get in for their first hit. Sure you can toss in rattlechains and/or dimensional intruder, but TBH I don't really find them that impressive in a deck that's not built around flash creatures. Is it better to give up the 2-drop spot entirely to removal and mana fixing, and run 8 tap lands in order to get more power at the top end to handle ramp/superfriends, or is that too much invitation to get run over by aggro?
Thanks for having a look, yes it seems your analysis is correct. This is no longer an agressive deck, more of a mid range deck. It should be fun to play, and handle aggro well enough, but might run into trouble vs bigger decks. This is why my original build tried to get the 4 flash fliers early. They put out alot of early damage, shorten your clock significantly AND allow you to have board presence at eot of your opponent if you feel a whipe coming, although Make a Stand helps with that too. If you go for this slower build, they make less sense, I agree.
At 26 land I feel you really want the drowners though. The smashers make less sense (they are still very good, don't get me wrong) here since there's less early flier pressure. Am I nuts for suggesting to sub em with drowner?
I personally went up to 25 land in my build, cutting 1 drowner, and swapping in 2 make a stand with the roil spouts.
Your second list is what I was expecting to do first when doing azorius, and is likely a very strong list. I Would probably try to fit in 2
Rattlechains, since topplegeists with flash is pretty nice
.... -1 plains +1 Island -1 Anointer -1 Freeblade +2 Rattlechains ?
Lol just tried to play some games with your second list. over 4 hands, the 1 waste appeared 3 times, EAT IT HYPERGEOMETRIC CALCULATOR
Rattlechains to help flip Kytheon and later flashed topplegeists already won me a game even through an on curve gideon into emblem killing my kytheon
Make a Stand is really good with flash fliers too. Since you can afford to keep mana up sometimes. Yes it wants to be used agressively, but this gives you more options... I like options.