Mitrian

Gift of Orzhova is another good enchantment that fits the theme. Hard to go wrong with Resto and Thrag, as well, although they kind of make the deck into more of a "Good Stuff" deck rather than a straight Bant Aggro deck. The downside of going all aggro of course, is that you don't have any interactive answers to bombs, so the deck is strictly a race to victory deck, and if the opponent can stabilize, you've probably lost. The counters in the sideboard is a good start to deal with that though. Maybe some tempo, detain and/or removal as well -- Detention Sphere and/or Oblivion Ring, Hands of Binding, Ray of Revelation, Unsummon, etc.

Very solid build, and a perfect example of why I hate that they reprinted Acidic Slime in M13. It's a winner, but not very fun to play against. :)

Which ones do you think don't fit?

While true, that seems odd to point out since, in this decklist, that would be... Victim of Night, Sorin's Ultimate and Thrull Parasite's abilities only, none of which you'd use on your Knight of Glory. Immortal Servitude could still bring it back from the graveyard.

I built a very similar deck the other day that I've been playing with co-workers at lunch. It's doing well. I included 2x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, and 1x Liliana of the Dark Realms. I also run 2x Stab Wounds in addition to the Lashes. I use the new Smite instead of Arrows. I included one Vault of the Archangel. And I don't have Doomed Traveler or Midnight Haunting, and no Rootbound Defenses. Otherwise very similar. I'd be curious to know how your deck is working for you so far.

Any suggestions for more card filtering in addition to Faithless Looting? I don't really want to splash blue for Flooding, or green for Mulch/Instincts/Salvage but something like those would be perfect. Just can't think of any...

Thanks for the suggestions! Both are good. I definitely agree with less Strongholds. One is probably sufficient. I love Gisela, I might try a copy or two of her, but she's not human. Cartel Aristocrat isn't a bad idea as another human, unfortunately I won't be able to play test with her for another month online. But she could replace Aristocrat, as the infinite loop can still be accomplished with it, giving her protection from all colors, and if I have a Cathars out, infinitely pumping my battlefield. I played about 10 games online last night and discovered two additional things. One was that I needed more humans in my graveyard, maybe accomplished with Chronic Flooding or something similar. The second was that I probably need to include at least two Unburial Rites. 10 games isn't a lot to work with, but Fervor was never a factor, Cathars' Crusade did win me one game that I probably wouldn't have won without it (aggro race), and never once did I not have an AoGR to use when I needed it.

I actually like Odric in this deck, I think he makes Battalion that much better, If not main, keep him in side for aggro match-ups.

I like what you're trying to do, generating tokens to enable more battalion effects. The Firefist striker is going to be a strong component of this deck as well. I am not a fan of Shielded Passage or Knight Watch, but it might still be too soon to have a solid evaluation of those cards. I do think that 5-mana for 2 tokens is a little slow for what you want to do with this deck, however. Run Gather the Townsfolk for quicker token generation. I would definitely run the Boros Charm in this deck, also, as it's a triple threat, and all three abilities can be game-winners for you. I would also replace Doomed Traveler with Legion Loyalist in your 1-drop slot. With as many tokens as you could be producing here, an Intangible Virtue or two might not hurt either. Last, it looks like this is a budget deck, so this may not be what you want here, but Hellrider fits perfectly in the deck design as well. Good luck brewing!

Unfortunately, overloading Mizzium Skin wouldn't trigger Wild Defiance on all your creatures, since you're no longer targeting them (the 'all' keyword removes the targeting element). Wild Defiance is great in decks that are built with lots of target spells (prey upon, pit fight, growth effects, etc), but doesn't really fit your theme here. Playing a deck like this in the current standard requires find the right balance between overextending and leveraging the tribal benefits. Hard to do, but can still be done; and it's very rewarding when you can!

Best bet for protecting against board wipes is to splash red for Boros Charms, but that might be kind of a stretch.

To put it in perspective, at lunch today, I played this against a Relentless Rats + Thrumming Stone deck, that, not surprisingly, kept bringing in loads of rats. Between Fog, Verdicts, Sphinx and Ramp, I was able to win easily. I don't think you can get much more aggro than dropping 16 stacking rats on the table in one turn! Even the fast humans that start stacking from turn one aren't quite fast enough to kill you by turn four unless everything works perfectly for them AND you don't draw Fog or something else to keep you alive. In those cases though, you just side in a little help -- Centaur Healers, Terminus, Ultimate Price, etc -- and it's usually enough to keep you alive until your board presence is stabilized.

That hand you just listed would be a solid starting hand. This deck actually does very well. Google some of their videos, or just search TWoo's or LSV's channel for Omnidoor Thragfire. Expect to get chewed up in the early rounds. Fog helps buy time and maximize your Verdicts. Once you're at 6-8 lands (which happens fast with 4x Farseek, 4x Ranger's Path, plans Lanterns and Lotus), you can start Sphinx'ing, which if you don't have already should net you a Supreme Verdict, or a tutor so you can go get whatever you need for the situation. Shortly thereafter, you'll be near your target of 12 mana (or 10 with Omniscience), and that's when you shock people by winning... often times with 2-5 life remaining! It's hilarious.

The biggest weakness I've found with this deck? Pack Rat discard decks. Crazy, huh? But yeah, you can tempo this deck out by killing my hand, and then I'm just hoping to topdeck a Verdict, and I probably don't have enough mana to cast the bigger game changers. Heavy control decks can be challenging if the opponent plays them well, but that's easier to work around then forced discards.

Tragic Slip is not a problem for Beastmaster. The Beastmaster's effect is triggered onto the stack. If tragic slip killed her WHILE her effect is on the stack, the effect would be applied at +0/+0 since she no longer exists. You would only have to worry about non-lethal effects, such as Downsize. But like mentioned, it's never played. I run a Humans tribal with 4x Beastmasters, and it's the most important card in my deck, especially when combined with Lambholt, or more than one Beastmaster. I also used to run Mikaeus, but this is a super fast deck, and he's just too slow for what you're trying to accomplish. I'd take a Mayor or a Hamlet Captain over Mikeaus in a heartbeat with this deck. You also want four Rancors (well, more than four really, but...). It's brilliant in this deck, for two reasons: 1) it's cheap and your curve is low. 2) your opponent will kill your creatures, and you want to be able to reload the enchantment. Selesnya's Charm is also fantastic here, the flexibility gives you three things that are very effective with what your decks needs to do (survive, get through, multiple attackers). Here's my build -- it's not perfect, but it rarely loses.

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=411847

Bonds are primarily just another way to pump the Beastmaster, while also providing flexibility as a detain method if needed. I thought about O-Rings, but ended up fully committing to every card being part of speed aggro. The Fiend Hunters help with creature removal, which means artifacts and curses/enchants are still a weakness where O-Rings would help. Planeswalkers maybe too, but ideally I can get enough aggro going to attack them directly. If I'm up against something like a Safety Sphere or Curse of Death's Hold (those being the worst two for this deck that come to mind), then I have to rely on my sideboard, I guess.

Tomb and Chapel are for Vault, nothing else. Rancor + Deathtouch beats the chump blocking. With a low mana curve, that's pretty easy to get away with.

And yeah, Craterhoof is fun, but doesn't fit this build at all. :)

Thanks for the comments! This is mostly a fun, 'how big can they get' deck, that I'll play at FNMs and with friends, but I don't expect to win a lot of tournaments with it.

Play another human. :)

Burn decks can give me problems, but as long as they don't have a Guttersnipe I can usually attrition them out. The bigger issue is board wipers -- those generally spell defeat. Thinking of adding a couple Angel of Glory's Rise to side in against heavy board wipe opponents.

I agree this is some great creativity, I'm interested in trying it out online myself. It's definitely susceptible to disruption, however, the Hymn having flashback gives you a little recover-ability to control strategies. Also, that chain mentioned above is just to make it all happen in one turn. You can do those steps across multiple turns just as easily to accomplish the same result.

This would be a good deck to add Guttersnipe into, and/or Devil's Play, and/or (the grossly overpriced) Bonfire of the Damned for alternative win conditions as well.

Love it though, looking forward to testing it out!

Play tested this a bit last night, and learned that I need a way to protect my big creatures while keeping their aggro at bay. Just need my creatures to survive two or three turns at the most and I should win, but with all the removal out there, I was having a tough time with that. I added Ranger's Guile and Sheltering Word, along with a bit of removal of my own -- there's a lot of fast aggro out there right now, and the Mutilate and Severs should help my survivability. Also added Bramblecrush for all the enchantments and planeswalkers everyone is playing. I lost 4-5 games to Oblivion Rings alone!

Chalice is fun, there's no doubt! Two of my favorite decks run it, which you're welcome to check out. Here are my comments on your deck.

- Heroes' Reunion: Admittedly, I've never run this particular card, but I'm not usually a fan of cards that ONLY gain life and nothing else. I much prefer dual purpose cards, like Centaur Healer (life and creature), or Elixir of Immortality (life and card recycling). I recommend 3-4 Cathedral Sanctifiers in place of your Heroes.
- Mana Dorks: You don't really need 'em. Especially if you decide to put in Elixirs and Sanctifiers, as they will often fit your 1-drop slot. Around turn 4, they start becoming dead draws. If you really want the mana ramp, go with Farseek instead, as it doubles as a way to thin the deck.
- Goldnight Redeemer definitely fits the theme, but by the time you're able to play her, there are better options. Splash black for Vault. Add a couple Seraph Sanctuaries and Entreat the Angels. Maybe an Armada Wurm or two.
- Selesnya Charm gives you some versatility in the form of surprise removal in the early game with a 2/2 token, removal of mid/late game creatures, and defense for burn.
- Grove Guardian is a great compliment to Trostani, but don't include it unless you keep your mana dorks or include Farseek for mana fixing purposes.

I think your deck should work ok, but feel free to check out these two examples of fun (and effective) Chalice decks for more ideas:
- http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=406260
- http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=405091

Ok, I ran about 50 games last night and made quite a few tweaks in the process, the most noticeable is that I'm running a 67 card deck now. Going to try to reduce that back down to 60, but right now it works really well how it is -- unlike how it worked with my original list, which was too permission heavy and lacked the necessary removal to survive the early game. This deck is very strong if you can survive to turn six or seven with at least 10 life or so. I played against a lot of fast aggro last night, which was eating my lunch, so I replaced some permission with a playset of Searing Pain to help out and it made a surprisingly big difference. I also added Underworld Connections which won me a number of games simply by keeping my hand ready with answers, something I was running out of in earlier games. I got to a point where I was doing really well against Rakdos, Jund, and pretty much all control decks (except safety sphere, oddly enough), and the tribal humans decks weren't bad either once I got the removal in. The only decks I had a tough time with were enchantment decks, as this deck has no removal for that stuff. I played against a couple of them and did poorly. I added Nicol Bolas late, but didn't really get a chance to use him yet. 50 games isn't a lot but it was enough to smooth it out and determine whether the flow is consistent. I'll tweak it some more over the next few days.

A few specifics though:
- Bonfire sucked in this deck.
- I liked Niv-Mizzet MUCH better than Thundermaw, but I left one in the deck for spirits opponents. Niv's card draw is so powerful in this deck, and I found that Thundermaw was just a 5/5 flyer most of the time.
- Izzet Charm was good almost every time I drew it in the early game. Late game, it was sometimes a dead card, but the early game is a weakness for this deck so it's definitely a valuable card to play. And card filtering is usually still a good option late game.
- Tamiyo is incredible in this deck. I was able to Ultimate (and win) with her about 75% of the time I got her out.
- However, Olivia is what won more games than anything else. It's rare that running 4 legendary's is good, but in this case, I never minded if I had one in my hand and one on the table. As long as one was on the table, I could control the board. Also, she's vulnerable to removal and a significant target, so she's killed a lot - I wish I could run more than four!

It's playing very well currently, so I'm going to have a hard time removing 4-5 cards (and 2-3 land), but I'm going to try.

Some good ideas from your deck, thanks! Thinking about Nicol Bolas now, and leaning towards Niv-Mizzet and Thundermaws as my "bombs" to add. Will also probably put Slaughter Games into the SB, and possibly Tamiyo as well.