I wanted to hit a nice mix of early agro pressure as well as have beaters to finish in a mid-range landscape.
Although this deck leans on life-gain (which seems to contradict agro decks, this is life gain with an ulterior motive. The gain is for pumping up Ajani's Pridemate and for card draw advantage should you face a slow-control deck and you side in Erebos. The early life gain does wonders in helping outlast the early onslaught of Rabble-agro decks until you can start slamming down hammers.
Early pressure is provided with Soldiers of P, and Fleecemanes.
Potential early game beats provided by Ajani's Pridemate. And early Nyx-Fleece or a couple early drop life-lands (Blossoming sands/Scoured Barrens) makes his formidable very quick.
Abzan Falconer works as the pseudo Mogis Maurader, in that he drops and gives Pridemates and Monsteroused Fleecemanes flying (as well as anything else with +1/+1 counters)
Mid-range win cons consist of Siege Rhino and Wingmate Roc.
- Planeswalkers' abilities all aid in either counter generation (Ajani; both) or life gain triggers (Sorin). Added bonus of Ajani Steadfast bumping counters on Sorin to ultimate quicker and help keep opponents battlefield clear.
Hardened Scales can get things out of hand early...turn 1; hardened scales, Turn 2; Pridemate, Turn 3, drop life-land (Pridemate 4/4), cast feat of resistance (Pridemate 6/6 w/pro-opponent color for the swing)...or drop Nyx-fleece turn 3, swing with Pridemate and watch him get a +2/+2 every turn the Nyx-Fleece is in play. Hardened Scales, dropped early, will do serious damage until it's is dealt with, if your opponent has anything to deal with it.
The goal would be to get this off game one so your opponent will concentrate on sideboarding for what he will believe is a straight agro deck and leave himself open to the other cards in this deck in game two.
Banishing Light is for troublesome removal of things that would prevent attacking. Main-boarded due to cost effectiveness, but can easily be sided out for Utter ends if the matchup will allow added time to get the mana to cast it.
Abzan Charm, was contemplating Reap what is Sown, because of the 2-mana type (as opposed to 3) makes it easier to cast, but the Charms versatility won out, with me.
Bow of Nylea provides a constant source of +1/+1 counters or life gain, used to trigger Pridemate or Falconer surprise flying combat tricks.
*Still working on Sideboard but as of now I am leaning heavily on the follow:
Erebos for other life gain decks and card draw for slower matchups
Dark Betrayal for heavy/mono-black matchups
Glare of Heresy for heavy white decks
a couple Utter ends
End Hosilities for Ramble-red type decks or Bile Blights (one each?)
Ulcerates for pesky 3 toughness baddies (think mantis Riders)
Hero's Downfall for stubborn Stormbreaths and the like.
As always suggestions are always welcome.
Edit (10-23-2014)
I made a couple changes.
First change was to pull the play-set of Soldiers of the Pantheon, and replaced with Sylvan Caryatids. The opportunity to drop a turn 3 Siege Rhino and a turn 4 Wingmate Roc, made this an easy swap.
The other change was to take out the Ajani, mentor of Heroes and replace with a Garruk, Apex Predator. There were multiple times I found myself holding either a Steadfast or Mentor while the other was on the battlefield. The addition of the before mentioned Caryatids made up for the increased casing cost of Garruk over Mentor. Also, having Steadfast on the field with Garruk was often end game with Ajani ramping up Garruk's ultimate quicker.
