Challenger Deck Upgrades: Hazoret Aggro

Normally, you'd be checking out the latest Instant Deck Tech right about now, but we are doing something a bit different this week. Don't worry, Instant Deck Techs will be back next week, but today we're kicking off a series on upgrading the Challenger Decks, which were released on Friday. If you're not familiar with the Challenger Decks, they're a four-deck series with an MSRP of $30, designed to give players a Standard deck that's playable right out of the box! Most have pretty good value for their price, but each can be improved with some upgrades.

So, our plan today is simple. First, we'll have a brief overview of the deck. Then, we'll have a $20 upgrade deck, with the goal being to make the most competitive deck possible by adding just $20 extra dollars to the $30 Challenger Deck. Finally, since each Challenger Deck is modeled after a tier deck in Standard, we'll talk about what you need to do to turn your Challenger Deck into a top-tier, competitive Standard deck! First up, Hazoret Aggro, modeled after Ramunap Red / Mono-Red Aggro!

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The Deck

• Hazoret Aggro is the aggro deck in the Challenger Deck series. If you like turning creatures sideways and finishing the opponent off with burn spells to the face, this is the Challenger Deck for you!
• Strengths: Hazoret Aggro has two major strengths. First, it's fast and, since it is mono-color, fairly consistent. Second, when fully upgraded, Hazoret Aggro is likely the most competitive of any of the Challenger Decks.
• Weaknesses: The big weakness of Hazoret Aggro is that all of your best cards—Hazoret the Fervent, Chandra, Torch of Defiance, and Glorybringer—are just one-ofs, so you won't see them all that often, which can be frustrating. 

$20 Upgrade Deck

• Unfortunately, the best upgrades for Hazoret Aggro—more copies of Hazoret the Fervent and Chandra, Torch of Defiance, along with Rekindling Phoenix—are just too expensive for our $20 upgrade budget. As such, we make do by maxing out the number of Glorybringers, which takes the place of Hazoret the Fervent as our finisher of choice, while trading out some of the lesser creatures for Earthshaker Khenra, which is a great two-drop for the deck, not only getting in hasty damage but helping push damage through blockers. Otherwise, we just tweak the removal a bit by adding another Abrade. 

Non-Budget Deck

• The big upgrades for the non-budget build of Hazoret Aggro are more copies of Hazoret the Fervent and Chandra, Torch of Defiance and three Rekindling Phoenix. 
• One possibility for building the full tier version of Hazoret Aggro is to buy multiple copies of the Challenger Deck itself. With Chandra, Torch of Defiance being about $25 and Hazoret the Fervent being about $16, picking up a copy of each (along with a bunch of other cards) for $30 in the Challenger Deck is the most efficient way to upgrade. Then, you can slowly add Rekindling Phoenixes as you add them to your collection, along with some of the cheaper upgrades like Scavenger Grounds, Earthshaker Khenra, and Dire Fleet Daredevil in the sideboard. 

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today! Have you tried the Hazoret Aggro Challenger Deck? How did it go? What other upgrade options are out there? Let me know in the comments! As always, leave you thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.