So I've seen some posts about this in the "Hatebears with Mayor of Avabruck" thread and I thought I'd make a prettier thread solely devoted to discussing a new 5-Color Aggro Hatebear Monstrosity that I am dubbing "Human Stompy." This deck operates on a totally different axis than previous hatebear decks. It still sports some familiar faces in Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (she's just way too powerful to NOT run in a Cavern of Souls based human deck. I kind of look at here as the Lodestone Golem of the deck. She, like Golem, is a turn 1 play off a land and a mox that taxes opponents without really taxing you in almost any way), Dark Confidant, Mayor of Avabruck, and Noble Hierarch. However, instead of running a prison approach that seeks to stop broken decks from their broken lines of play (I'm thinking of cards like Leonin Arbiter, Gaddock Teeg, Aven Mindcensor and friends), it attempts to bash face and put as much tempo/damage on the board as quickly as possible. This is possible due to three key 3-drops that have seen relatively recent print.

First, I'd like to talk about the card that has wowed me to no end that is currently being run as a 4-of and who's effect is so utterly hateful and aggressive at the same time that I'm stunned I didn't think of him sooner. Props to wappla for point him out to me as much better alternative to Eidolon of Rhetoric for stopping spell chaining from broken decks. I am referring to a little known card called Scab-Clan Berserker. You are probably raising an eyebrow or four right now. Let me enlighten you:

So let's unpack this guy for a sec. He's a 1-sided Eidolon of the Great Revel or Pyrostatic Pillar that still deals damage on non-creature spells outside of 3 cmc. That means cards like Jace, Force of Will, Dark Petition, Gush, Delve Spells, Gifts, Fact, and more are all dealing your opponent 2 damage to cast as well as the usual suspects of preordain, git probe, and any cheap removal. Now will this guy eat removal right away? You can bet your sweet patoot that he's eating removal right away. That is, if your opponent has it handy. Otherwise they are taking between 4 and 10 damage just to FIND it and that doesn't include the 3-5 damage he is likely dealing to the dome from cracking in. Did I mention he has haste so he's one of the best tools for a well-timed sneak attack. Speaking of haste, another card that has proven its stripes over and over again and is now a 4-of for that reason is Mantis Rider. Again, eyebrows raised? Don't think too hard. . .

So Mantis Rider is pretty straightforward. His aggro potential is clear. Slap down a noble or two or a noble and a mayor and you have a 5 damage-a-turn evasive hastey beatstick that can also block while attacking. This guy is also my go-to solution to the annoying planeswalkers that exist in the format cough cough Jace, TMS, Jace, VPN, Dack cough cough. I really find it excruciating to lose to a turn 1 or 2 jace, and this guy gives you a chance to burn that Jace to the ground in a hastey and rude fashion. Well, you know what? I find it rude that you Jaced on turn 1 or 2 so deal with it blue mage! Speaking of mages that I like, get a load of Reflector Mage:

Now I only run 3 of this little number because I can't afford the slot for Mage #4 but I have definitely gone back and forth on this. 12 3-drops also seems like one too many, but my main reason for only running 3 mages is that getting "mage flooded" is much more of a problem than getting "berserker flooded" or "mantis flooded." The reason being that the latter two both do amazing things in multiples while Reflector is better to see about once a game (sometimes twice). Let's unpack the insane things Reflector provides the deck.

1. An out to Tinker-Bot. This is key. Any fair creature deck needs an out to Tinker-Bot. Build responsibly my friends!

2. It is a surprising insidious answer to Monastery Mentor. The fact that you can bounce a Mentor and then keep them off a recast of ANY Mentors in their hand for a turn is a huge positive tempo swing and can/has lead to blowouts on numerous occasions.

3. The body is respectable. The 2/3 body on this guys makes him a way more potent option than previously used cards like Fiend Hunter.

4. He is very good at bouncing cards like Wurmcoil Engine or Lodestone Golem in the Mid-Late game.

So I will talk more about the Synergies of the deck and sb in a future edit to this initial post, but for now I really wanted to just get this down in a forum so that I could get feedback and suggestions on my most updated list. Thanks for reading and here is the list:

Human Stompy

Land (18):
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mana Confluence
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Artifact Mana (6):
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire

Creatures (29):
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Dark Confidant
3 Mayor of Avabruck
3 Containment Priest
2 Grand Abolisher
3 Qasali Pride-Mage
4 Scab-Clan Berserker
2 Reflector Mage
3 Mantis Rider

Instants (4):
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Abrupt Decay

Sorceries (1):
1 Time Walk

Sideboard
3 Stony Silence
3 Izzet Staticaster
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Containment Priest
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Reflector Mage
2 Wasteland

@Stormanimagus I think this deck looks really fun and I'm intrigued. My question is why no Ancestral or Time Walk? I recognize the dissynergy with Thalia and Cavern but there are still quite a few ways to cast these and even taxed they are obviously good enough.

I suspect he wants to make counterspells as dead as possible. The only non mana non creature spells are decays, which are uncounterable. He would play 16 caverns if possible and drop decays.

Eleven 3cc drops are a good bunch, specially when playing wastes. I bet you sometimes open with T1 land, noble, T2 waste your land and then getting the noble bolted/plowed and getting mana screwed.

I find hard to assume 4 mantis rider. Of course I can see the advantages and if I know all my opponents are playing jace, I could play 4 too, but it is "only" a beater, and not the thoughest. I suffered against wappla with a slighly different version and reflector mage was far better than expected. Berserker suffers a lot with bouncers and has to connect, so while I was impressed, it was not as troublesome as thalia or named reflector. Mayor looks always solid with lots of humans and confidant... is confidant. Decay answers too many things so I am happy with 4.

I'll go for some suggestions. Not saying they are better, in fact they would be probably worse than your choices, since some are not humans (which is a nice thing to have in a deck with 4 caverns)

-Spirit of the labyrinth. Cheap, deals 3 damage, punishes most blue decks.
-Mindsparker. Similar to berserker, loses haste but does not have to be reknowned, has 3 strength and has first strike, I always have thought this should be in every painter deck sb, probably narrow here.
-Walk seems mandatory, as ancestral. Walk specially.
-While I never have played Seize the Day, it feels a decent finisher with mantis rider and another creature. 4 mana is a lot, much more with thalia, but it's a kind of time walk in a deck with creatures with vigilance.
-If you want pure aggro, the new Thalia seems solid.
-Orzhov Pontiff answers token problems or increases damage for 1 turn.
-meddling mage can answer some thing, specially mass removal.

Other than walk and ancestral, maybe only pontiff is good enough, but maybe you want to try some Thanks for sharing the list!

I love the idea of staying solely in humans since its makes our Caverns as powerful as possible, and helps to stabilize the manabase.

One of the biggest barriers I've run into with brewing with this is how to best answer mentor? It seems that you've decided on Reflector Mage + Abrupt Decays. However, I am unsure if either of these cards is sufficient. Reflect Mage can clear the tokens once, or bounce the monk, but can't do both. Abrupt decay does nothing about the tokens, and costs 2 non cavern mana / non strip mana, which seems to have compromised your mana base. Izzet Staticaster is the other card that popped up for me, that I see is in your board, but it is mostly useless other than for removing tokens. Do we have any other options for dealing with Mentor?

Some cards you aren't playing that I found pretty great:
Mother of Runes - This is a 1 drop, which the deck lacks, and it stops all of your hatebears from being destroyed by random removal spells as well as making them unblockable in most scenarios. She is staple in legacy, and has become a must play card in the RW hatebears decks.

Prophetic Flamespeaker - He gets a lot more powerful with 4-ofs on both Mayor+Noble, the 5c mana base makes it easier to cast him, and "Drawing" 2 extra cards a turn can quickly put away most games.

Are planeswalkers that big an issue that we need 4 Mantis Rider?

@xouman said:

I suspect he wants to make counterspells as dead as possible. The only non mana non creature spells are decays, which are uncounterable. He would play 16 caverns if possible and drop decays.

Eleven 3cc drops are a good bunch, specially when playing wastes. I bet you sometimes open with T1 land, noble, T2 waste your land and then getting the noble bolted/plowed and getting mana screwed.

I find hard to assume 4 mantis rider. Of course I can see the advantages and if I know all my opponents are playing jace, I could play 4 too, but it is "only" a beater, and not the thoughest. I suffered against wappla with a slighly different version and reflector mage was far better than expected. Berserker suffers a lot with bouncers and has to connect, so while I was impressed, it was not as troublesome as thalia or named reflector. Mayor looks always solid with lots of humans and confidant... is confidant. Decay answers too many things so I am happy with 4.

I'll go for some suggestions. Not saying they are better, in fact they would be probably worse than your choices, since some are not humans (which is a nice thing to have in a deck with 4 caverns)

-Spirit of the labyrinth. Cheap, deals 3 damage, punishes most blue decks.
-Mindsparker. Similar to berserker, loses haste but does not have to be reknowned, has 3 strength and has first strike, I always have thought this should be in every painter deck sb, probably narrow here.
-Walk seems mandatory, as ancestral. Walk specially.
-While I never have played Seize the Day, it feels a decent finisher with mantis rider and another creature. 4 mana is a lot, much more with thalia, but it's a kind of time walk in a deck with creatures with vigilance.
-If you want pure aggro, the new Thalia seems solid.
-Orzhov Pontiff answers token problems or increases damage for 1 turn.
-meddling mage can answer some thing, specially mass removal.

Other than walk and ancestral, maybe only pontiff is good enough, but maybe you want to try some Thanks for sharing the list!

4 Mantis Riders have been insane and not simply vs. planeswalker heavy decks. It is the aggro side of this deck and I think 4 is warranted for now and would never go below 3 maindeck. Do 1-2 get sided out in some matchups? Sure. But the applications of Mantis Rider are many and the card is really good. People need to understand that I'm building a legit aggro deck here with some mandatory taxing elements to hopefully not lose to decks like Storm and Mentor (4 Thalia, 3 Stony, 2 Cannonist, 4 Berserker). We are basically the closest thing to Vintage Zoo and testing has shown me that we can assume that role pretty darn effectively.

Spirit of the Labyrinth is a card I used to run in my controlling GWB Knight deck, but that deck also ran 3 Grand Abolisher to help me resolve my non-human spells and that deck was base white so finding non-cavern white mana was pretty easy. I also don't love randomly losing to Sulfur Elemental & Dread of Night. I think that Scab-Clan Berserker is my Spirit of the Lab in this deck.

Ancestral isn't in the deck cause it basically WILL get countered vs. basically every blue deck in the format and Time Walk is similar (though a tad harder to counter). If I were to add one of the two it'd be time walk, but the issue is this: my opponent will not be countering ANY other cards in my deck because they are mainly all uncounterable with a cavern in play. This means that they will be holding on to a bunch of dead Force of Wills and I don't want to turn them on at a critical juncture and waste 2-3 mana on a spell that won't resolve.

About Berserker: I've found that running 4 copies ensures that I find one early so I've found two amazing windows to drop and connect with him. One window is turn 1 (off lotus or mox ruby/petal and another mox and land) before your opponent has any blocker/answer for him up and ready and two is after a long, hard-fought attrition war where many creatures have been fought over and you need to push through extra damage to win the game. Berserker also plays nicely with Izzet Statiscaster post SB because it is easier to clear away tokens so he can't be blocked. Obviously he comes out vs. shops and other fish decks. Another thing I love about Berserker is that he damages opponents for a larger variety of spells than any other similar effect on a creature or enchantment. I heard you mention Mindsparker. Well, berserker damages opponents for moxen, forces, gushes, petitions, necros, bargains, and a whole swath of other cards. Mindsparker is not a human and will thus be eating a Force of Will a lot of the time. Also, the haste on Berserker can be huge if you just need to push through a couple more damage to seal the deal.

Izzet Statiscaster. This guy is almost strictly superior to Orzhov Pontiff. They both do 1 damage at a time but Statiscaster can just continue to throw that 1 damage at the tokens over and over. I've found that this, combined with the fact that he has flash, makes Statiscaster a particularly good sb call vs. Mentor/Pyromancer and actually vs. Shops as well (as a way to ping Revokers and Hangarback Tokens). Statiscaster is also obviously brilliant in the mirror and can be relevant vs. a locked out dredge player who's lost his/her bridges (at that point you can use Statiscaster to sweep away narcos hardcast and bloodghasts replayed from yard).

Also, as far as being afraid of mass removal, I'm generally not with this deck. I just push through so much damage early and having 8 hastey dudes for later in the game. One simply needs to be practical about the early plays with the deck and not simply walk into a supreme verdict, balance, deluge or w/e. That just takes and experience and playing the odds carefully.

Your first comment about a shakey manabase is definitely valid and it is something that continues to worry me with the deck. This deck is strong when it gets to curve out on its drops, but it falls completely on its face when it gets locked out on colored mana. I've attempted to fix this with the 2 Gemstone Mines (that's right, my first list only ran 17 land and 4 waste maindeck so only 12 rainbow lands and not the 14 we now have) and it is mostly working to this point, but I have even considered 2-3 Birds Of Paradise to help keep the consistent rainbow mana available at all times. I've also considered lands like Ancient Ziggurat but don't love that they can't cast Abrupt Decay, or Stony Silence, or Ancient Grudge. I've considered Thran Quarry, but I think that card is just loose and begs for 2-for-1s at the hands of creature removal or mass creature removal. Some folks have suggested Forbidden Orchard but that card is just a huge non-bo with Scab-Clan Berserker for obvious reasons. There is Tarnished Citadel, but I think that card is just too much damage to be repeatedly taking just for a couple colored mana. The reason I arrived at Gemstone Mine as the best option is that it is a rainbow land whose only drawback is that it only gets three uses, but I find that I almost never NEED more than three uses from it before I'm winning or draw enough new lands to make it irrelevant.

@vaughnbros said:

I love the idea of staying solely in humans since its makes our Caverns as powerful as possible, and helps to stabilize the manabase.

One of the biggest barriers I've run into with brewing with this is how to best answer mentor? It seems that you've decided on Reflector Mage + Abrupt Decays. However, I am unsure if either of these cards is sufficient. Reflect Mage can clear the tokens once, or bounce the monk, but can't do both. Abrupt decay does nothing about the tokens, and costs 2 non cavern mana / non strip mana, which seems to have compromised your mana base. Izzet Staticaster is the other card that popped up for me, that I see is in your board, but it is mostly useless other than for removing tokens. Do we have any other options for dealing with Mentor?

Some cards you aren't playing that I found pretty great:
Mother of Runes - This is a 1 drop, which the deck lacks, and it stops all of your hatebears from being destroyed by random removal spells as well as making them unblockable in most scenarios. She is staple in legacy, and has become a must play card in the RW hatebears decks.

Prophetic Flamespeaker - He gets a lot more powerful with 4-ofs on both Mayor+Noble, the 5c mana base makes it easier to cast him, and "Drawing" 2 extra cards a turn can quickly put away most games.

Are planeswalkers that big an issue that we need 4 Mantis Rider?

I think you misunderstand what Reflector can do. He can't bounce ALL the tokens at once, only one at a time. Also, I run 3 Statiscaster in the SB and find that card to be extremely good at dealing with tokens (yes, even Mentor tokens as I can just nuke them over an over until my opponent finally has no spells to play in response in order to pump). So, you ask about options for dealing with Mentor and my response is that we have Statiscaster as well as some other subtle ones that may not be as obvious at first glance.

Ok, so the Mentor problem is a real one and I'd like to make a little aside here about it. The matchup is definitely still not better than 50/50 and, depending on the number of removal spells they run, could be much worse than that. It takes very tight play to beat Mentor but I think I have a plan that I'm satisfied with. Here are the Mentor-Centered Cards and what they do in the matchup.

Izzet Statiscaster - Clears away tokens and can be an emergency flash blocker of a token that has only pumped once.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - Slows down the blisteringly fast Gush engine.

Scab-Clan Berserker - If you can get it to connect (not as hard as one might think vs. Mentor especially because they will often swing with their whole team and give you a window to crack in with a surprise attack from this guy) then Mentor decks really can't go nuts on prowessing and, if their life total is low enough, they may have just lost because they can't even really dig for an answer.

Reflector Mage - This guy is more general utility and a nod to Tinker-->Sphinx just being game over for us otherwise, but his applications vs. Mentor should not be overlooked. Versus a Mentor opponent who may be sitting on a Mentor in hand this guy can take a board state of Mentor and 1-2 tokens and turn it into an extremely unproductive turn for an opponent. Not only does he bounce the Mentor but he makes both those Mentors in hand totally dead for a critical turn while you start dropping more threats like Mantis Rider and/or Thalia. Mage is deceptively good and the only reason I'm not running 4 copies is that I've found him to be less-than-fantastic in multiples in the opening hand.

Extirpate - Yes this is a card that I consider to be anti-Mentor tech. It also fulfills the requirement of 6-7 dedicated Dredge hate in the 75 (since we have 4 priest md already). Extirpate is sorta my alternative to Mother of Runes that basically doubles as Dredge hate and thusly requires less slots to fit in the 75. Extirpate can strip an opponent of his/her Mentors after a decay nabs one or it can keep them off mentors by stripping an opponent of Tundra after its been wasted. However, this isn't the main use for Extirpate. Extirpates main use is in keeping you from getting plowed 5-6 times in the game. In my meta most Mentor pilots have switched to Esper variants and rely heavily on plow as their only spot removal. They also run between 2-4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and so their plan is to basically create an endless stream of plows to answer my threats while slowly assembling a token army to make my life miserable. Extirpate is fantastic at shooting this plan in the foot. . . hard. Some have disagreed with me on this card vs. Mentor, and I get the arguments against it, but all I can say is that I've found it to be a potent weapon against many streamlined blue tempo decks (mentor, pyromancer) as well as against hard MUC, Answer and Landstill decks. Extirpate basically IS the Mother of Runes Slot.

-Note that I am NOT siding in Stony Silence vs. Mentor. In my old GWB Knight hatebear deck it made more sense to have Stonies in vs. Mentor as my goal was to tutor up a Tabernacle in order to nuke tokens and Stony helped in the goal of not allowing them to pay for their tokens. This 5-C list doesn't have that goal. I am going hard on aggro and attempting to ping their tokens with Statiscasters. Now, that being said, I would still bring in Stonies vs. crazy Seat of Synod/Thoughtcast Mentor variants with Time Vault-

Finally, I'd like to address the Mother question. Mother is a card that I've gone back and forth with in this deck countless times. I still may add her back in my next version. My issue with Mother is that she is actually dead to a fair number of tactics used to kill my men including:

1. Engineered Explosives
2. Toxic Deluge
3. Supreme Verdict
4. Sudden Shock
5. Volcanic Fallout
6. Balance

Also, she isn't very good at contributing to aggro as she is s 1/1 and only allows one creature to swing in. In my Knight deck this was particularly amazing as getting in there with an 8/8 Knight is pretty amazing for winning damage races.

She definitely does win bolt/plow/jace, tms battles like a boss, and, for that reason, she deserves a second look, but I've just been finding that my local meta sports jeskai and esper lists that diversify their answers and make Mother less good. I am electing to run 3 Extirpate in the SB at this point in order to have a double duty card (Dredge & Mentor) that catches more players by surprise than Mother does. It may be that Mother is necessary as I continue to test fringe situations and vs. fringe decks, but that will need to be determined from more testing. I haven't ruled out Mother yet, but I need to look at my meta carefully before I decide she is the best choice.

-Storm

@Stormanimagus

This is the crutch of the issue though no? You are playing 6 cards whose primary function is answering Mentor on top of other cards that can kill it and you still have a sub 50% MU. Either we need to find a better answer, or we need to attack from a different angle.

@vaughnbros

Well, I should qualify my statement by saying it MAY be only 50% at best. I haven't done enough testing to know for sure. It would be nice if Wizards printed a silver bullet for that matchup that slots very easily into our deck. So far, I haven't seen it because Mentor is just generally a hard card to find silver bullets against and that goes for ANY deck trying to fight it. Evasive hastey damage is one of our best lines of attack on a Mentor strategy because they can deal themselves a fair amount of damage with cards like git probe, fetches, forces, and, in the black versions, thoughtseize. I'm finding that the "deal you 20 as fast as possible while still running some dedicated hate ala Thalia" approach has yielded the most consistent results vs. Mentor while not sacrificing too much vs. the rest of the field. Basically this list forces the issue and puts in on the opponent to have an answer or lose. I like being in that position far more than being constantly on the defensive trying to hold down a shaky soft-lock. While that might have worked for GWB Knight Humans back in the days of 4 Chalice (mainly because of the sheer power of Chalice) I don't think true prison hatebears is a viable strategy anymore and so I've moved on.

edit: Thalia's primary function is not JUST answering Mentor but also answering greedy decks in general. Same goes for Scab-Clan Berserker.

Storm is a great magic player. Prophetic flamespeaker is a good card.

@Treblocaz

I agree that Flamespeaker is worth testing. The main problem I see with it is that it is yet another 3-drop in a deck that is already swarmed by them so it will compete with cards that I'd rather be laying down on turn 2 or 3. I do really like the card, but I think bob gets the job done more consistently for one less mana so, for now at least, I'm liking bobs more.

-Storm

Having that many three drops seems very clunky. Mantis Rider and Man-o'-War don't seem very good, but how could I know?

@DeaTh-ShiNoBi

I realize it seems clunky, but the deck runs about as much accel as one can run (all moxen + petal + lotus + Nobles) and the rewards of said 3-drops are many. It hasn't come up as an issue too much that turn 2 or 3 is too late for those cards to be effective as long as there is also a turn 1 or 2 play that does something to lock down our opponent's board state or develop our own (Thalia, Bob, Stony, Cannonist).

@Stormanimagus I think his point is why are we playing Man-o-War? Not why are we not playing more 3 drops. Man-o-war seems like a rather weak option considering all the other choices at 3 mana.

Trimming a couple of 3's and making room for Thalia's Lieutenant makes sense. He's an enduring lord, he puts other things out of range of -1 effects, and can grow to be a large man himself. Ideally you want to land him when you have at least 2 other men to pump so 4 doesn't make a ton of sense, though the design is genius in that even if you play him first he can gro. E.g. Mox, Cavern, TL, Noble, Priest, Mantis. Land. You'd probably go, mox, cavern, TL. Untap, Noble, trigger, combat, trigger, cast priest, trigger. 4/4 isn't the worst. Or mox, cavern, noble. Mainphase priest, TL gets you a wider army with a 4/4 priest with exalted next combat. It's a really flexible creature, you can go wide or tall.

@vaughnbros said:

@Stormanimagus I think his point is why are we playing Man-o-War? Not why are we not playing more 3 drops. Man-o-war seems like a rather weak option considering all the other choices at 3 mana.

Because he isn't just Man-o-war. He has the ability to keep mentors off the table for an extra turn AND he is the nod that any fair deck must make to Tinker-->Bot and/or Show & Oath. Do you want to just have 0 outs to Tinker-->Sphinx? I sure as heckfire don't.

@nedleeds said:

Trimming a couple of 3's and making room for Thalia's Lieutenant makes sense. He's an enduring lord, he puts other things out of range of -1 effects, and can grow to be a large man himself. Ideally you want to land him when you have at least 2 other men to pump so 4 doesn't make a ton of sense, though the design is genius in that even if you play him first he can gro. E.g. Mox, Cavern, TL, Noble, Priest, Mantis. Land. You'd probably go, mox, cavern, TL. Untap, Noble, trigger, combat, trigger, cast priest, trigger. 4/4 isn't the worst. Or mox, cavern, noble. Mainphase priest, TL gets you a wider army with a 4/4 priest with exalted next combat. It's a really flexible creature, you can go wide or tall.

I acknowledge that he has the potential to do the wide/tall thing. I'm just concerned because other decks/other cards do it way better and that isn't how we are winning. You can't fight fire with fire if the other person's fire is way better than yours. You can, however, extinguish fire with water. That is sort of what I'm suggesting with Scab-Clan and Mantis. We just choose not to fight the mentor battle and slow it down enough to fly over them or ping them til they can't cast spells without dying. Does that make sense?

-Storm

Man-o'-War still isn't good against Mentor. Monk tokens wreck you. It seems like StP does everything that you want the 3 drop to do, without costing 3. I get that you don't want to be vulnerable to Misstep and Man-o'-War is uncounterable, but it's such a bad answer to those things because it costs 3, and that's all it does. I think you're running into the problem of why people don't play decks like this.

@DeaTh-ShiNoBi When you are playing an aggro deck, a bear is thousands better than plow. Not only is 2 (or more with mayor) damage every turn, you are not giving life to your opponent. That works for control decks, not aggro. Would MUD play a card that gives extra lands to opponent? Would dredge be fine removing it's own graveyard? Can you imagine storm playing canonist, or blue playing choke? Maybe plow does not hurt that much, but it could be perfectly 1 or 2 turns more for the killing, and that could be game losing.

How easy is it for you to cast abrupt decay in this deck? Cavern and Wasteland can't cast it, nor can Noble Hierarch? Thalia makes it cost 3, it just doesn't seem that strong. I also wonder about a card that doesn't deal with a majority of good shops creatures?

I think this idea is somewhat interesting, but I don't know that there isn't a better creature type to focus on. I also am just not convinced on a couple of the choices, most notably the ones that cost 3. To me reflector mage and especially Mantis rider just don't do enough.

@garbageaggro That's exactly what I was thinking, but I'm glad you said it because you're the expert and I've never fiddled with lists like this.