Historic 101: Azorius Steel
For those that remember Affinity and decks along those lines, it's really nice to finally have something similar to it in Historic! Although those decks definitely had more ways to be resilient and close games, we did get a huge boost in power from Tempered Steel thanks to Historic Anthology 3. After seeing Tempered Steel spoiled, I made a ton of lists and this is what I came up with...
If you want to see the other lists, click here: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/theorycrafting-historic-anthology-3
Gameplan
We're an aggro deck that has some crazy synergies thanks to how cheap all of our threats are and some of them are evasive like Gingerbrute! Some games we'll just dump our hand and push a ton of damage by turn two or three. We play a very "all-in" style of play so things like a simple Shock can set us back a little bit but at the time of filming this video, the Historic meta only has Gruul that is loaded with ways to interact early so we have a strong chance of untapping and doing some silly things and end the game before a board wipe even happens.
The power of our deck comes from these three all-stars. Steel Overseer in Affinity decks are usually a kill on site and that's for a good reason as our game plan is to load the board up with cheap artifact creatures like Ornithopter, Gingerbrute, and even Sparring Construct. This means untapping with Overseer can spawn a board that will swiftly overrun our opponents. Sometimes even just one activation could be too much. We also get to use All That Glitters as our attempt at a Cranial Plating and though it is not that card, it sure does try! And you know what? That's more than enough as attaching this to something like Gingerbrute can be extremely hard for creature decks to block and efficiently deal with as we generate so many artifacts and enchantments. Lastly, Tempered Steel is self-explanatory as this card will usually just be the way we end the game. After getting on the ground early, all of our "little" robots hit for just a tad bit more.
Another card I've really liked is Depose // Deploy. Maybe four copies can be a bit much but we're not trying to go super late game with opponents so sometimes just tapping down a single blocker is all the difference. Even better, the back half of the card allows us to generate two 1/1 flying threats that also gain us a ton of life to keep us racing as I feel like this deck will rarely block.
Conclusion
** VIDEO SPOILERS **
The deck finished 5-1 and it did it with speed and ease. This deck is insane on the play but it does have it's bad match ups. Gruul Aggro might be one of the more difficult decks to beat when they've got access to cards like Cindervines and potential Thrashing Brontodon. We are also terrified of Phyrexian Obliterator. Without our evasive threats like Ornithopter, Lochtwain Gargoyle, and Gingerbrute, we're not able to swing past it and Glass Casket doesn't deal with it. I think the list I initially came up with is sweet when it comes to the main deck but the sideboard needs a ton of work. Here's my updated list since making the video..
Its been killing it for me on the ladder in Mythic but Gruul and Mono black is still a problematic match. However, the Nexus decks don't interact with us all that much and hope to ramp enough to take all the turns, and often times we can kill them before it gets to that point. Field of the Dead decks are annoying as they can just have a crazy explosive ramp hand and a sweeper but hopefully cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben can help stall for long enough. Also, Dovin, Grand Arbiter has been amazing out of the sideboard as a way to constantly generate artifact 1/1 fliers. You'll usually bring that in for grindy matchups along with your Mystic Forge aka Pizza Oven. I also went ahead and added Conclave Tribunal to help us deal with multiple different types of permanents.
If the meta starts to adapt and play more early interaction with sweepers like Cry of the Carnarium and tons of spot removal, we might need to look towards Negate or Spell Pierce. For right now, I'm okay with this but if you're hitting pockets of heavy non-creature stuff, its totally reasonable to board counters or something like Dive Down, Lazotep Plating, or Unbreakable Formation. Either way, take the deck out for a spin. Its pretty fun and the games are super fast!
As always, thanks for watching. See ya at the next one!
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-Your Friendly Neighborhood AsianAvenger
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