Hi all!

First of all, some introductions! I’m EvaRia, who will be the second host on this humble blog. I’ve been a fan of card games for a long time, and deckbuilding is always one of my favourite aspects of any good card game.

I guess that marks me as a firm Johnny player. Each standard season I’m always sitting down to see if I can get some fringe deck or another and make it as playable as possible.

Other than brewing up decks, I also enjoy making custom cards on the side. Shoutout to my buddies at http://www.reddit.com/r/custommagic/!

For my first primer here, I’m here to talk about our spin on the All American Heroes deck, or UWr Heroic.

This deck has gone through several transformations in its life as one of our brews. It actually started last Standard season based on a primer of the Spell Squeezer deck archetype. The idea is to play cards that give you value off of triggering Cipher every turn and casting cheap spells, such as Young Pyromancer, Guttersnipe, and Nivmagus Elemental.

The core philosophy hasn’t changed much – the only difference is that what previously was based on casting Instants and Sorceries has swapped over to the much more efficient Heroic mechanic for free value.

The main deck engine and reason for running blue is Hidden Strings. This was one of the main Cipher cards in the old Squeezer build and is absolutely nuts with Heroic cards. It’s the main reason I was hyped for Theros to come out – all for the Heroic and Hidden Strings interaction.

Hidden Strings accomplishes 2 main things in the deck – it lets us trigger Heroic on up to 2 creatures each turn, and gives us access to up to 4 mana on turn 2 for insanely explosive starts. The flexibility in how you can use it is really key. Being able to mix and match your triggers allows you to get very optimum mana efficiency in your plays. When you’re ramping up to essentially 4 mana for free early in the game, this gives you an immense tempo advantage that’s very difficult to overcome.

That is, if you can pull it off.

The goal of tuning this deck is to try and hit our dream plays as often as possible, even if it means the deck as a whole is quite inconsistent. This means we’re building around our core engine of 4x Hidden Strings and trying to eke out maximum value from it.

So for Hidden Strings, always run 4, or you’re playing a different deck!

With that said, let’s start the rest of our card breakdown:

HEROES:

Recommended:

Battlewise Hoplite: This is the best hero in the deck. It has a really solid body, it works well with our mana, and grows to insane levels quickly. Scrying on each trigger does wonders for the deck’s consistency, and as we get going we can easily reach 2-4 scries each turn to set up our topdecks with precision. Always run 4.

Favored Hoplite: Our one-drop hero. Being able to hit the field turn one makes him much easier to protect and speeds up our clock by basically a whole turn. He gives us turn 3 win potential and is our most aggressive hero. Since this is the deck to be aggressive in, always run 4.

Hero of Iroas: This is mainly another Heroic bear to give the deck some consistency. After the two heroes listed above, this is the only other low-curve, on-curve hero, which is the main reason to run him. His other ability can be quite strong as well, but this is mostly in fringe scenarios and generally scrying is better. I recommend 2-3. After this guy we already have all the heroic cards we really need.

Nivmagus Elemental: The one survivor left over from Spell Squeezer. When you no longer need your mana boost as desperately, he can eat spare copies of Hidden Strings while still getting the value from the Heroic trigger. Holding Strings himself, he can be just as aggressive as your other heroes. Run 0-3.

Fringe Options:

Phalanx Leader: This used to be the go to until Hero of Iroas came out. He seems very powerful but generally we don’t have too many creatures out, and only need one to win. Double white is very mana intensive for this deck so he was too difficult to cast on top of being below the curve as a 1/1. No longer recommended.

Akroan Skyguard: One of our options to replace Phalanx Leader in BNG. Evasiveness is nice, but the deck has many ways to push through damage anyways and he’s sitting on a behind-the-curve body. Not part of my list, but certainly an option if you wish to try it.

Fabled Hero: The issue with Fabled Hero is that he costs three mana, which is higher than the deck wants to operate. At that point we should already have a hero out and we should be focused on making it bigger and protecting it. Doing nothing until turn 4 just to get the most value out of this guy is slower than the deck wants to run at, plus a three drop is much harder to protect leading to blowouts by a removal spell to follow up on him. Not recommended.

Wingsteed Rider: Has essentially the same problems as Fabled Hero. We want to curve out at 2.

Not recommended:

Blue Heroes: None of these actually grow which is the main thing we want them to do in this deck. Out of them, Meletis Astronomer seems most likely to get us card advantage but we run enough Instants and Sorceries still that I can’t recommend any of him.

Red Heroes: Basically the same problem as the Blue Heroes. We are very much a voltron deck, and pure R/W does the swarm strategy with Akroan Crusader better.

PRIMARY ENABLERS:

Recommended:

Hidden Strings – Already explained. This card is amazing. I like to call this Standard Affinity, and this is our Mox Opal, only better. Never run less than 4.

Aqueous Form: Build your own Thassa... for one mana. This card is so good. One of the main drawbacks to Cipher is the necessity to get in every turn, and Aqueous Form takes care of all that for you while at the same time sifting through your topdecks. Run 4.

Ordeal of Thassa: If Hidden Strings is our Mox Opal, this is our Thoughtcast. It usually gives our guy +2/+2 and draws us two cards on the same turn, all for the sweet price of 2 mana. We need gas to keep up pressure in a sustained game, and this gives it to us. Run 4.

Madcap Skills: One of our reasons to splash red. While giving us no other side bonuses, the pseudo-evasion and power ratio makes this an insanely aggressive aura. Run 2-4.

Other Options:

Ordeal of Purphoros: The most aggressive of the Ordeals. I just like Madcap Skills better, since there’s almost no creatures that would want to block us anyways that we can shoot for 3.

Ordeal of Heliod: Great in the sideboard. 10 life is nothing to scoff at, but the fact that we’re the fastest deck around anyways makes it marginally less appealing. I prefer Ordeal of Thassa to draw us more gas and accelerate our clock even further than trying to draw the game out. I recommend maybe 2-3 in the board though.

Ethereal Armor: Again, we run a lot of Instants and Sorceries and Ordeals will pop off, so we can’t make this card as consistently good as other decks.

Stratus Walk: This is actually pretty good since it cantrips and offers a lot of flexibility. We can throw it on our own guy and get in through the air, or throw their blocker into the air and get through that way. It’s marginally less aggressive than I’d like it to be so I don’t run it, but don’t dismiss it as an option.

Murder Investigation: This looks good on paper but it’s a bit of a trap, mainly due to metagame issues. Realistically the only good use it has is Verdict mitigation, but UW decks also run Jace, Architect of Thought and Detention Sphere. There’s also a lot of exile and bounce removal running around. Outside of actually needing your creature to die, this has significantly less immediate impact on the field as other auras so I don’t like it personally. We have better ways to protect our creatures.

Most of the other options are either too expensive or not aggressive enough.

PROTECTION/DISRUPTION/UTILITY:

Recommended:

Judge’s Familiar: One of our best cards. The bubble it puts around your guys is easily enough to go nuts on them unhindered, or at the very least untap to hold up another protection spell. It also makes a great turn 1 play to carry Strings, giving you the turn two 4 mana start. Many matchups become significantly easier with this guy around, so always run 4.

Gods Willing: Really good utility spell. Can push through damage, protect our guys, feed Elemental, and trigger Heroic at instant speed.. The scry 1 is additional gravy that makes it a powerhouse in this deck. Just be careful not to make your enchantments fall off. Always run 4.

Boros Charm: Nuts. The three modes basically say “You win the game, You don’t lose the game, and Target player loses the game.” This is the main reason we splash red as without it we really fold to Supreme Verdict. Run 2-4 main, and I recommend all 4 in your 75 for Verdict matchups.

Mizzium Skin: Basically Gods Willing 5 through 8. Not as all around powerful but still the next best option for protection. I would run 3-4 in your 75.

Bioshift: This can feel sometimes like our Arcbound Ravager. A lot of our invested resources are in the form of +1/+1 counters, so this can save a bunch of them from removal, throw everything on something unblocked to close out the game, or just trigger Heroic to act as a combat trick. I recommend up to 2 somewhere.

Chained to the Rocks: Our best removal available. However, there’s not that much we actually need to remove since our deck stomps hard enough to be hard to interact with in the first place. Run up to 4 in your 75.

Other Options:

Spell Rupture: This is actually very strong in this deck, but in an actual match-game situation it’s quite difficult to leave up the 2 mana for it and not fall behind on value. There’s not much other than removal early on that we actually want to remove so our hexproof spells flow with our gameplan better. If you like a good catchall though, this can basically timewalk your opponents a lot of the time.

Retraction Helix: This looked amazing on paper, but it’s only good with Hidden Strings online which is a very precarious position to be in. It feels win-more and inconsistent. We don’t need too much disruption, but you might want to try couple in your 75 if there are problem permanents you could benefit from dealing with temporarily.

Dispel: This helps against decks which run more instant speed edict style removal, like UW and Mono-Black. Stopping a Revelation for 1 mana feels great too. I recommend 2-3 in the side.

Triton Tactics: I’ve been liking Bioshift better but this is slightly better against burn removal. The scenarios where this card are amazing are harder to come by though.

Brave the Elements: For this deck, Gods Willing is simply better. You generally only need to protect one creature, so the ability to trigger Heroic, the scry 1, and occasionally protect your Elemental make it a better choice overall. If you ever need extras though, this can potentially be run over Mizzium Skin, but I still prefer the latter.

Annul: Main targets are Gods, Detention Sphere, and Unflinching Courage. The deck likes 1 mana counters a lot, but don’t go too deep as to thin out your deck’s core.

Pithing Needle: Elspeth can be annoying, but most walkers aren’t huge problems. Run maybe 1 in the side, as it’s still 1 mana removal.

With all that said, here’s a decklist!

Sideboard (15)

You may notice we only run 17 lands – Since we curve out at two mana we want to pack our deck with as much gas as possible.

The deck is somewhat difficult to pilot, but it’s a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy it!

– EvaRia

Edits:

– Retraction Helix does not skirt around protection from white.

– Added notes about Brave the Elements and Murder Investigation.