Hey everyone! This is my first standard deck and I'm happy to say it's for my favorite guild: Boros!
This is a deck designed to take advantage of the power of both boros creatures and the mechanics they offer us: Mentor.
Something I've noticed from playing with mentor during the prerelease is that boros likes boards to be wide enough for mentor to have targets but tall enough that mentor gets value.
This is what helped me choose the creatures in this deck. Some of them provide the mentor buff and some of them benefit greatly from the buff.
The card that started to get me thinking about this deck was actually Swiftblade Vindicator. I first saw this card and thought just how insane it was! Vigilance and Trample on a 2 mana 1/1 would be good enough on its own but Double Strike!! She gains more from each mentor trigger than any other creature in the deck.
There's quite a few key cards to the deck. All of them are good, especially here in this style of deck, but some of them shine brighter than the others.
Here's a quick overview of the key players of the deck:
Swiftblade Vindicator: See above.
Healer's Hawk: It might not look like much, being a 1/1 for 1 but this card stands out by having flying. This little fella might be unassuming but stacking mentor on this fella you can really swing the game in your favor. Valuable against both aggro and midrange due to the lifelink.
Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice: The Grand Mama of the Boros Legion, Aurelia herself! I first fell in love with her in Gatecrash with her first iteration. Her current version lives up to her legacy as well. 4 mana 2/5 with flying and mentor. Good, but not the real selling point here. It's her ability that triggers at the start of your combat. Give a creature +2/+0, if it's white it gains vigilance and if it's red it gains trample. (It gains both if it's both colors). This ability is huge not only because of the combat potency! Aurelia by herself enables endless mentor triggers over the course of the game! Also she's fine on an empty board since she can target herself with her ability. A masterpiece and a wonderful edition to the deck!
Risk Factor: The best aggro card draw card I've seen in a long damn time. 3 mana instant speed your opponent chooses if they take 4 or you draw 3. A great card for you to play either way. You get vital damage in or you get more resources. And not only that but it has jumpstart too! You get a second chance at which effect you're looking for! And it makes topdecking lands in the late game actually viable. Miraculous! Truly a wonderful addition to the deck!
Chance for Glory: This is your all-or-nothing card. In dire straits, you can play this card to eeke out a win where otherwise you couldn't. You can also use it as a way to force a win. With the effects of this card, you can easily set up a two- turn lethal with it given that it provides indestructible to your creatures... indefinitely! Using this at the end of your turn lets you take two (or three) vital combats in a row, especially using this next card....
Huatli, Warrior Poet: Initially, this card slot was taken up by a Cosmotronic Wave which acted as a way to open combat for an alpha strike but Huatli does everything that does but better since you can frontload the mana cost and even get the flexibility of a planeswalker for the extra cost. She can also create trampling creatures and provide you with valuable life gain against other aggro decks. I had initially designed this deck to not use any cards from Ixalan because I wanted it to last with minimal or no changes after Ixalan rotates but Huatli proved to add too much for me to pass her up, especially at such a low real-world cost. A wonderful addition who will be sorely missed when Ixalan rotates.
Tajic, Legion's Edge: Honestly, I didn't even have Tajic in my initial decklist. I wanted him there but I didn't feel like he did enough... until I read his passive ability to prevent noncombat damage dealt to the other creatures you control. He single-handedly stops your creatures from getting burned off the board. Plus being hasty with mentor does a lot of good work if you can curve Swiftblade into him with Aurelia to follow. Truly, I've never given Tajic enough credit but his GRN version impresses so much more than his DGM counterpart.
Banefire: While only a two-of, Banefire carries its weight and then some by providing us with an alternative to beating the stuffing out of our opponents. Instead, in conjunction with Risk Factor, we can burn our opponents out. This is especially true since after a certain point Banefire can't be countered. A finisher and a win-con that works beautifully with all the cards in our deck!
