I skipped over burning-trees and the like in order to have a turn 2 combo for 5 mana, allowing me to cast Thragtusk, Frenzied Tilling, or Acidic Slime. It doesn't always happen, of course, but there's enough mana generation to start killing lands and pumping out large creatures way earlier. Hence Super-Aggro.
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Typed a whole bunch of crap, and lost it. Changed the deck for the better after playtesting against a boros speed/aggro, and took some of your advice, Mac.
Thinking I'll sub out the Wild Beastmasters and a Farseek for 3 Arbor Elves... see how that speeds up the mana.
get rid of tidal surge, coordinated barrage, armored ascension, wingbeat warrior, welkin tern, swans of bryn argoll, osai vultures, glint hawk, aven liberator, apex hawks, coat of arms, veil of birds, (12 so far!)
This is actually a pretty cool idea for a deck! Fast goblins for early/mid game, and a fun combo for a win as soon as you can Battle Hymn into Worldfire.
Suggestions on how to improve or speed up this deck are much appreciated.
I would main deck Disciple of Bolas to kickstart your combo. Take out ...something (freaking everything in here is geared towards death for your opponents!). Take a hard look at Malignus. He's very useful as your first undying/grave pull if you have flayer out, but as your opponent loses life, he becomes increasingly useless.
I think you're underestimating Skullcrack by a large margin. It's the same cost as searing spear, AND prevents lifegain and damage prevention. I did, however, trade out the gates for strongholds and the truefires for maulers. Marked for Death gets traded for mizzium mortars for additional removal, blasphemous act gets sideboarded, conscripts get main decked. Also dropped plains to 4 and upped mountains to 8.
Goblin Guide breaks this deck out of Standard play and into Modern. Also, you should think about trading out your 4 searing spears for 4 Skullcracks; they're the same thing, but Skullcrack stops players from gaining life or preventing damage.
The deck is actually a couple cards from being standard; Vault Skirge, like you said, and Sanguine Bond, the other half of the infinite combo. I have thought repeatedly about removal, so I'll probably add Go for the Throat and Doom Blade, though Mutilate was in the original deck design, back when it was more concentrated on removal and less on lifelink/life loss. I think Mutilate in the sideboard and removal instead of 4 Blood Reckonings would be a better fit for the deck.2 Doom Blade and 2 Go for the Throat added, reduced Blood Reckoning to 2, reduced Daggerdrome Imp and Vault Skirge to 3.
Thanks guys. I first tried a Sanguine Bond deck back when M11 was legal, but it never panned out very well. Now that Exquisite Blood is out, this is definitely a fun Vintage deck. The only problem with it is you're really depending on 8 cards out of 60. Another version I had included 4 diabolic tutors, but I felt that the sheer amount of lifelink provided by black creatures sets you up for a mid-game win.
Soulcatcher's Aerie... very nice card for a bird deck. Thanks, Fox!
That's freakin beautiful. Thanks for the awesome suggestion, Bluemage! Deck changed.
I usually run 20 lands, but with all the soldiers so cheap (nearly 50% of the deck is 2 mana!) I figured I could keep pumping out soldiers until I had enough mana to cast nomads assembly or conquerer's pledge for an overwhelming kill in late game. Thanks for the encouragement!
ProTip: You can only have 4 of each non-basic land. Meaning only 4x Halimar Depths.