Fish Five-0: Jeskai Hero (Standard, Magic Arena)
This past week there was a deck that caught my eye thanks to all of you who brought it up in my stream!
Gameplan
The list was originally piloted by Adam Martin to a solid second-place finish at SCG Colombus. From what I've gathered playing the deck a wee bit, we're just on the game plan of jamming a bunch of evasive threats that attack in the air but thanks to Hero of Precinct One, we're able to gum up the ground as most of our cards are multicolored.
Hero has already proven its worth by helping countless people find success as the card gives you value for casting spells you were already going to cast. The only thing is we've seen it typically in an Esper shell but here it still gets the value you're looking for and I like the fact that it gives us two different ways of attacking as we already have the skies covered. This card gums up the board and allows us to get aggressive or block forever with our little 1/1 tokens.
Lightning Stormkin is definitely a card I didn't expect to be played but if you think about it, it's a 2/2 flying haste creature which is a very solid stat line but it's also multicolored which really pushes this card up in value for our hero. Normally you see this in aggressive elemental builds but it definitely has a home here much like the next card....
I don't know if it's just me but all the sweet decks right now have Empyrean Eagle. It's such a solid card from the way it's costed to the stats it has. As most of our deck hits in the air, naturally we would play this as our Angel "lord" effect which pumps all our angels and fliers. I can't help but feel like post rotation, there might be more of this and Dovin, Grand Arbiter which is like my favorite duo right now in standard.
Conclusion
On paper this deck seems a bit weird with a random copy or two of cards but if you have the cards laying around, I think you should give it a try. It's nice to try a different take on the Hero deck while also fusing in the super sweet tempo flier style of deck. The changes I'd make for this deck would mostly be adding the fourth copy of Tocatli Honor Guard as the deck desperately needs it on turn two. Other than that? Cavalier of Thorns has proven to be a huge roadblock for us unless we have a ton of anthem effects out so we need to find more efficient ways to deal with that. Justice Strike is great as it is multicolored but it might not be enough so maybe we can look to something a bit sturdier for removal?
Thanks for watching as always!
-Your Neighborhood AsianAvenger
Twitter: @TheAsianAvenger || Twitch: twitch.tv/TheAsianAvenger || Email: theasianavenger@mtggoldfish.com
