OK, well I built a deck based on Jon Stern's Grand Prix Atlantic City 1st place deck.
Here's the decklist:
I am tempted to always consider myself unlucky in card draw matters, but whatever, you can't win them all haha.
That looks really good to me!
I agree with Witchstalker over Lawmage because T2 is better than T3, but maybe tweak the manabase to have more W in the lands and replace some pilgrims with elves. Elves aren't as good w/Cavern on human, but I can see draws where you can get to 3 mana T3, but not GG for Witchstalker because Pilgrim gives W.
This seems like perhaps a completely terrible deck. You're running 21 lands in a three-colour deck which curves out at five. You're going to have mana problems for days. Tithe drinker is pretty bad, so is thrull parasite - extort isn't so good of a mechanic that you should be wasting card slots on cards like that. Chop those out, put in a good four or five lands, drop the corpsejack menaces (you don't *need* four drops - we're a voltron deck, we thrive on suiting dudes up), increase the number of good creatures you have (3 archangels, 3 blood barons, 4 fiendslayers, 4 of the dutiful thrull).
That should keep you at 60 but vastly improve your deck's ability to do things.
Oh, wait, no. Remove the Blood Barons. He's a terrible choice here - 75% of your suits don't fit him. If you're looking for trolololol lifegain just replace him with Rhox Faithmender. There, now you have three 4-drops.
That does look good. The Witchstalker might be a bit awkward to cast, but you can tweak the manabase or drop her. With only 4 1-drops and no 2-drops you will be doing nothing for 2 turns over half the time, or mulliganing. I would run the scout, dorks or even Farseek and pull a land, an enchantment and a Faithmender.
If it was me, I would absolutely run the Broken Baron, at least sideboard. Against some decks, I think he just says "I win".
As for the Bant Auras deck itself, I have proxied it and some of the best case scenarios go:
T1 Pilgrim
T2 Geist
T3 Spectral Flight, Ethereal armor, Rancor; swing for 13 flying first strike trample. It's not unblockable, but I wouldn't want to be in the way.
So, if you want to win, use the Geist.
You could make a somewhat worse deck with Gladecover Scout, Invisible Stalker, Witchstalker and enchantments. There is also the role of sacrificial lamb in the deck to deal with forced sacrifices. One of the best cards for that costs double what the Geist does (Voice of Resurgence). It is a question of what you want.
I thought about the unblockable deck you were originally asking for also:
Invisible Stalker, Tormented Soul, Phantom Warrior and Latch Seeker are all low drops like the stalker. How to get them quickly lethal without being blown out by Doom Blade?
The Master Biomancer is interesting, but it only helps things that come after it. What comes after a four drop is Supreme Verdict or Thundermaw Hellkite.
Still, I might try something like:
mana dorks
Cloudfin Raptor
Invisible Stalker
Phantom Warrior
Ways to make them lethal without giving up X for 1s:
Rancor
Silver-Inlaid Dagger
Curse of Stalked Prey
It might be interesting, but I doubt it will be as competitive as the Bant Aura deck.
The equipments cost too much mana and the opponent can kill your creature as you start to equip. If you have invisible stalker, they do you no good. Consider Spectral Flight: good on any of the three creatures we're looking at.
Doing instant speed protection to avoid instant speed kills requires you to have twice as much protection and leave mana unused just in case. But you need those cards and that mana to enhance your stalker, because they otherwise they take 1 damage/turn and kill you in less than 20 turns.
You need other creatures that you will only Rancor, if possible, because of cards that force you to sacrifice like Celestial Flare and tribute to hunger. Strangleroot Geist is ideal.
Your best bet if you want to go the Invisible Stalker route (and if you can afford it, as it is expensive) may be to just go with Bant Hexproof. It can be a glass cannon per se, but can win big out of nowhere and fast. If you want to stick to 2 colors I'd suggest G/W. You'd lose Invisible Stalker but would still have access to Rancor and also Unflinching Courage.
If you want to netdeck and win, bant auras does use invisible stalker and Geist of Saint Traft. My suggestions are making your deck more like that one. But it's your deck and your learning process. Ethereal Armor is another key card for that deck if you run W.
The Aetherling is a fantastic creature, but has entirely different characteristics than Stalker.
Since Aetherling can just win the game by himself, the problem is just to survive long enough. That kinda makes for a control deck.
The Stalker is early, but doesn't do much on his own, so it seems like it works best in a sort of agro setup with cards to enhance him.
I think you should pick one game plan. Since you say you want a Stalker deck, I would recommend pulling the Aetherling and Evolution, any ramp bigger than a mana dork and just try to win the race.
I agree that you need more target creatures than stalker. Nothing else is hexproof and unblockable. Which is more important, hexproof or unblockable? Hint: Doom Blade, Searing Spear, Pillar of Flame, Murder, Putrefy, ... So I would look for low CMC hexproofs and run the colors that allow you the most. If you have 4 each of Stalker and one other target, you will not have one in your opening hand ~25% of the time, so about 10-11 target creatures would be ideal.
Seems like a good set of ideas.
Given targeted spot removal and x for 1s, you may find hexproof better than unblockability. If you agree, then Gladecover Scout and Witchstalker may rate ahead of Tormented Soul and Raptor, though Witchstalker may not be budget enough (actually much less than Ooze). Simic Keyrune is interesting, but probably not good.
If problem number two is wipes, and problem 3 is forced sacrifice, the Geist is really good companion to the hexproofs because something gets left behind. Geralf's would be good, except for mana requirements. The Butcher Ghoul is kinda too small to matter. Xathrid Necromancer? Young Wolf is at least cheaper than the Butcher Ghoul.
Mutavault could help against forced sacrifice.
Varolz and Lotleth Troll can regenerate to survive Supreme Verdict and Murder, but are vulnerable to Putrefy and Pillar of Flames.
Golgari and Simic Charms seem helpful. Duress and Appetite for Brains seem like good sideboard cards. Lifebane Zombie almost seems like a black sideboard auto include, but doesn't really synergize unless you like conditional inblockability.
I guess this is a rough draft of what I'm going for. I probably won't get all the shocklands and will use guildgates instead. Also I need to get rid of a few cards since it's currently got 68 I think.
Suggestions?
I would say that you should look at your game plans and focus on a small number including what you want to do. Also focus on cards that help the most.
Put auras on weenies and beat face: Scout, Captain, Sovereign, Ethereal Armor, Trollhide
With 7 creatures and 6 enchantments, you will have a creature in your first 10 cards about 75% of the time and an aura slightly less frequently. You will have at least one of each about half the time. Think of your friend's boros deck. If on turn 3 you have just a Precinct Captain, can you stop him? Or look at using the Trollhide on the Captain. The Captain can't come out until turn 2. Turn three you put Trollhide on him, but you don't have the mana to regenerate him. Your opponent can cost you 2 cards with a Doom Blade, a Searing Spear or a Pillar of Flame.
Basically, you don't really have a critical mass of these, the Trollhide takes too much for what it gives and they don't defend you very well. You have also used about 1/3rd of your deck on a plan that is not really synergistic with your main plan.
I would say you should give up on the Weenie Aura Aggro plan. I think you would get more out of 4 Pacifism and 4 O-rings.
Ramp to mid to late game token + counter generators: Elvish Mystic, Verdant Haven, Ajani's Chosen, Oath of the Ancient Wood, Primeval Bounty.
Unblockable finisher: Aetherling
Wipe the board: Verdict
Tl;dr: Trollhide and Oath aren't worth it. This is not the deck for Scout, Ethereal Armor, Captain and Sovereign. You will never want two Mana Blooms in hand, so cut one or two. That gets you down to 60 with 11 slots to use on cards to stall and protect your cat. Pacifism, O-ring, more Detention Sphere, Mending Touch and Brave the Elements. Maybe some stalling creatures like Wall of Air.
I like Detention Sphere as you get a token when the Chosen is in play and can't be "2 for 1"ed. I also like Oblivion Ring, Pacifism and Claustrophobia. Claustrophobia is hard to cast. Arrest is better than Pacifism, but more expensive. Enchantments that hose your opponents' creatures seem good. Playing against creatureless decks could be a problem though.
Primeval Bounty and other non-aura enchantments seem good too. Blind Obediance is less expensive than Bounty. I don't know if you have enough tokens for Intangible Virtue. With Captain and Chosen, it seems worth considering, but it goes out of standard in October. Growing Ranks fits the token theme, if you want to go there. The Attended Knight also makes tokens and has a crush on the Deputy of Acquittals. Zephyr Charge seems interesting. Nevermore could fit the sideboard, but will rotate.
Auramancer seems interesting as a possible sideboard card for when your enchantments get attacked. It has a good interaction with the Deputies.
If you want more feedback, you might want to just ask for feedback to the list you plan to run after the cards arrive. That way, commenters won't have to integrate 2 lists of cards in their head.
Mutavault is definitely a good idea, I'll see if I can fit it in. Re: elves vs pilgrims: they both have the G cost, so you've already got G on board if you're casting them - pilgrim fixes colours, whereas elf just gives you more green, and all but two of our lands give green, for 20 green sources. Without the pilgrims, we only have 10 white sources, which makes a lot of our stuff hard to cast.
Vault of the Archangel might be a bit too expensive. I'm a bit more reticent to try that out.
I agree about the two utility lands as you can see from my simultaneous edit to my kinda bad suggestion.
We only really need B for the Charms, so maybe 9 sources is enough.
I just hate to be unable to do Unflinching Courage and Ethereal Armor because they kill the dork, which will happen a lot.
Maybe another Godless or Isolated to get to 11 white sources or a mix of elves and Pilgrims to get to 12 or 13 W sources.
Either way, I really want the Fiendslayer as a pseudo hexproof against red and black decks and we can't get to WW with any reliability T2. For just the auras we may not need W until T3, but Voice might need it T2.
Voice is irreplaceable, but if it is primarily to deal with edicts and wipes, Young Wolf could be a budget replacement. It's not like we are filling the ground with creatures. It is cheaper and doesn't need W either. It doesn't do much damage on it's own, though.
I want to use Ajani's Chosen too, but competitively this deck needs to race. We don't have card advantage and are vulnerable to wipes and x-for-1s. Consider the effect of Far/Away on our board states. Once our enchantments can be countered as they come down, it can get ugly.
I tried to use the Champion. It's great when it works. On turn 3 dropping a 1/1 for 3 mana that can't help until turn 4 seems bad. I don't want to be a downer guy, but I actually think these cards are traps. At a minimum, I would use mana dorks to power them out turn 2.
That looks really good to me!
I agree with Witchstalker over Lawmage because T2 is better than T3, but maybe tweak the manabase to have more W in the lands and replace some pilgrims with elves. Elves aren't as good w/Cavern on human, but I can see draws where you can get to 3 mana T3, but not GG for Witchstalker because Pilgrim gives W.
That does look good. The Witchstalker might be a bit awkward to cast, but you can tweak the manabase or drop her. With only 4 1-drops and no 2-drops you will be doing nothing for 2 turns over half the time, or mulliganing. I would run the scout, dorks or even Farseek and pull a land, an enchantment and a Faithmender.
If it was me, I would absolutely run the Broken Baron, at least sideboard. Against some decks, I think he just says "I win".
As for the Bant Auras deck itself, I have proxied it and some of the best case scenarios go:
T1 Pilgrim
T2 Geist
T3 Spectral Flight, Ethereal armor, Rancor; swing for 13 flying first strike trample. It's not unblockable, but I wouldn't want to be in the way.
So, if you want to win, use the Geist.
You could make a somewhat worse deck with Gladecover Scout, Invisible Stalker, Witchstalker and enchantments. There is also the role of sacrificial lamb in the deck to deal with forced sacrifices. One of the best cards for that costs double what the Geist does (Voice of Resurgence). It is a question of what you want.
I thought about the unblockable deck you were originally asking for also:
Invisible Stalker, Tormented Soul, Phantom Warrior and Latch Seeker are all low drops like the stalker. How to get them quickly lethal without being blown out by Doom Blade?
The Master Biomancer is interesting, but it only helps things that come after it. What comes after a four drop is Supreme Verdict or Thundermaw Hellkite.
Still, I might try something like:
mana dorks
Cloudfin Raptor
Invisible Stalker
Phantom Warrior
Ways to make them lethal without giving up X for 1s:
Rancor
Silver-Inlaid Dagger
Curse of Stalked Prey
It might be interesting, but I doubt it will be as competitive as the Bant Aura deck.
The equipments cost too much mana and the opponent can kill your creature as you start to equip. If you have invisible stalker, they do you no good. Consider Spectral Flight: good on any of the three creatures we're looking at.
Doing instant speed protection to avoid instant speed kills requires you to have twice as much protection and leave mana unused just in case. But you need those cards and that mana to enhance your stalker, because they otherwise they take 1 damage/turn and kill you in less than 20 turns.
You need other creatures that you will only Rancor, if possible, because of cards that force you to sacrifice like Celestial Flare and tribute to hunger. Strangleroot Geist is ideal.
If you want to netdeck and win, bant auras does use invisible stalker and Geist of Saint Traft. My suggestions are making your deck more like that one. But it's your deck and your learning process. Ethereal Armor is another key card for that deck if you run W.
Loyal Cathar?
Since Aetherling can just win the game by himself, the problem is just to survive long enough. That kinda makes for a control deck.
The Stalker is early, but doesn't do much on his own, so it seems like it works best in a sort of agro setup with cards to enhance him.
I think you should pick one game plan. Since you say you want a Stalker deck, I would recommend pulling the Aetherling and Evolution, any ramp bigger than a mana dork and just try to win the race.
I agree that you need more target creatures than stalker. Nothing else is hexproof and unblockable. Which is more important, hexproof or unblockable? Hint: Doom Blade, Searing Spear, Pillar of Flame, Murder, Putrefy, ... So I would look for low CMC hexproofs and run the colors that allow you the most. If you have 4 each of Stalker and one other target, you will not have one in your opening hand ~25% of the time, so about 10-11 target creatures would be ideal.
Hope this helps!
Given targeted spot removal and x for 1s, you may find hexproof better than unblockability. If you agree, then Gladecover Scout and Witchstalker may rate ahead of Tormented Soul and Raptor, though Witchstalker may not be budget enough (actually much less than Ooze). Simic Keyrune is interesting, but probably not good.
If problem number two is wipes, and problem 3 is forced sacrifice, the Geist is really good companion to the hexproofs because something gets left behind. Geralf's would be good, except for mana requirements. The Butcher Ghoul is kinda too small to matter. Xathrid Necromancer? Young Wolf is at least cheaper than the Butcher Ghoul.
Mutavault could help against forced sacrifice.
Varolz and Lotleth Troll can regenerate to survive Supreme Verdict and Murder, but are vulnerable to Putrefy and Pillar of Flames.
Golgari and Simic Charms seem helpful. Duress and Appetite for Brains seem like good sideboard cards. Lifebane Zombie almost seems like a black sideboard auto include, but doesn't really synergize unless you like conditional inblockability.
Hope this helps!
I would say that you should look at your game plans and focus on a small number including what you want to do. Also focus on cards that help the most.
Put auras on weenies and beat face: Scout, Captain, Sovereign, Ethereal Armor, Trollhide
With 7 creatures and 6 enchantments, you will have a creature in your first 10 cards about 75% of the time and an aura slightly less frequently. You will have at least one of each about half the time. Think of your friend's boros deck. If on turn 3 you have just a Precinct Captain, can you stop him? Or look at using the Trollhide on the Captain. The Captain can't come out until turn 2. Turn three you put Trollhide on him, but you don't have the mana to regenerate him. Your opponent can cost you 2 cards with a Doom Blade, a Searing Spear or a Pillar of Flame.
Basically, you don't really have a critical mass of these, the Trollhide takes too much for what it gives and they don't defend you very well. You have also used about 1/3rd of your deck on a plan that is not really synergistic with your main plan.
I would say you should give up on the Weenie Aura Aggro plan. I think you would get more out of 4 Pacifism and 4 O-rings.
Ramp to mid to late game token + counter generators: Elvish Mystic, Verdant Haven, Ajani's Chosen, Oath of the Ancient Wood, Primeval Bounty.
Unblockable finisher: Aetherling
Wipe the board: Verdict
Tl;dr: Trollhide and Oath aren't worth it. This is not the deck for Scout, Ethereal Armor, Captain and Sovereign. You will never want two Mana Blooms in hand, so cut one or two. That gets you down to 60 with 11 slots to use on cards to stall and protect your cat. Pacifism, O-ring, more Detention Sphere, Mending Touch and Brave the Elements. Maybe some stalling creatures like Wall of Air.
Mending Touch seems like a really good idea. Brave the Elements maybe even better.
I like Supreme Verdict with Brave the Elements. You only lose your dorks currently.
I like Detention Sphere as you get a token when the Chosen is in play and can't be "2 for 1"ed. I also like Oblivion Ring, Pacifism and Claustrophobia. Claustrophobia is hard to cast. Arrest is better than Pacifism, but more expensive. Enchantments that hose your opponents' creatures seem good. Playing against creatureless decks could be a problem though.
Primeval Bounty and other non-aura enchantments seem good too. Blind Obediance is less expensive than Bounty. I don't know if you have enough tokens for Intangible Virtue. With Captain and Chosen, it seems worth considering, but it goes out of standard in October. Growing Ranks fits the token theme, if you want to go there. The Attended Knight also makes tokens and has a crush on the Deputy of Acquittals. Zephyr Charge seems interesting. Nevermore could fit the sideboard, but will rotate.
Auramancer seems interesting as a possible sideboard card for when your enchantments get attacked. It has a good interaction with the Deputies.
If you want more feedback, you might want to just ask for feedback to the list you plan to run after the cards arrive. That way, commenters won't have to integrate 2 lists of cards in their head.
Brave the Elements?
Sideboard:
Sin Collector?
Lifebane Zombie?
Fiendslayer Paladin?
I agree about the two utility lands as you can see from my simultaneous edit to my kinda bad suggestion.
We only really need B for the Charms, so maybe 9 sources is enough.
I just hate to be unable to do Unflinching Courage and Ethereal Armor because they kill the dork, which will happen a lot.
Maybe another Godless or Isolated to get to 11 white sources or a mix of elves and Pilgrims to get to 12 or 13 W sources.
Either way, I really want the Fiendslayer as a pseudo hexproof against red and black decks and we can't get to WW with any reliability T2. For just the auras we may not need W until T3, but Voice might need it T2.
Voice is irreplaceable, but if it is primarily to deal with edicts and wipes, Young Wolf could be a budget replacement. It's not like we are filling the ground with creatures. It is cheaper and doesn't need W either. It doesn't do much damage on it's own, though.
I want to use Ajani's Chosen too, but competitively this deck needs to race. We don't have card advantage and are vulnerable to wipes and x-for-1s. Consider the effect of Far/Away on our board states. Once our enchantments can be countered as they come down, it can get ugly.
I want to use Ajani's Chosen with Pacifism and O-ring and the like.
This seems excellent. The Orzhov Charm is amazing.
I might replace the Farseeks with elves rather than Pilgrims and throw in a Mutavault (good for both edicts and getting some damage in after a wipe) and a Vault of the Archangel replacing Forests. That would leave only 11 G sources T1, though. Or maybe side the Vault of the Archangel and maindeck the Mutavault and the 4th Woodland Cemetery for two Forest.
Rancor
keep Courage, less 3+ CMC auras
2 Fiendslayer Paladin sideboard
Sigarda sideboard
Mayor of Avabruck? Gavony Township?
Midnight Haunting and Lingering Souls are competing 3 drops so they can't come until T4 and can't attack until T5.