Why wouldn't you have a Favored Hoplite ? It's a good one drop heroic card that by turn 3 will be out of hand.

maybe try Alpha Authority stops removal and triggers heroic

I was running Favored Hoplite for a while, but decided to give Nyxborn Shieldmate a whirl to see how it ran, and like it a little better. Usually, I have better things to targer then the hopilite so I wanted a one drop with a little more utility outside the first couple turns. I might go back though, have to play with it a bit more. I'm also considering Soldier of the Pantheon

Alpha Authority is too easy to play around with all the Devour Flesh still running around I think, folks at my store dont seem to be switching over to Bile Blight , but if that becomes the removal of choice I will probably put it in. Gods Willing also triggers heroic and has a similar affect, plus I get to scry. I don't want to devote too much of the deck to defending myself.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I would take out the Eidilon of countless battles as you are not using that may auras or tokens. I woud replace it with Loxodon Smiter

The eidolon is pretty lame in this deck, no doubt about it. I've actually think part of my problem might be just being to slow out of the gate. So I'm going to throw Favored Hoplite back in

I would put a playset of Alpha Authority and a playset of Bioshift . So that way if someone is able to destroy the creature you're pumping, you can transfer all the counters to another creature. That will also trigger the heroic ability too. The Alpha Authority helps to protect it and if you have a Hero of Iroas it'll only cost one green mana.

I've addressed the Alpha Authority vs Gods Willing and my lack of desire to run cards purely about reacting to opponets removal above. Bioshift is bad, plain and simple. Purely reactive, and a dead draw most of the time. Saving a couple counters is not good enough for the 75 in a standard environment. The point is to win the game, with this build you need to push damage through as quickly as possible, hence the preference for pump spells. If the game drags long you are probably going to end up outclassed by your opponents board anyway, so protecting your creatures is not worth devoting more than a playset of something to it, excluding the control matchup, in which case I have Mortal's Resolve in the sideboard