An aggressive midrange deck that uses busted cards like
Korovyat Palace and
Sediti, the Killing Steel. This is the deck I used to get to masters this month. Pretty much climbed from Gold 3 with this deck alone. I know that isn't saying much with the meta not being established yet :/
Mainboard
Turns out
Korovyat Palace is still a really powerful card. You just have to make sure you don't play Withstand on a unit that can die to a fast spell.
Rime Conclave Smuggler works well with Palace allowing you to safely buff them without really fearing removal spells because of aegis.
Sediti, the Killing Steel is a really strong card in midrange and with the new insignias he's super easy to play in a two color deck. He is both a good aggressive unit and defensive one, and against control decks he gets you a ton of card advantage. Don't be too afraid to play him without onslaught! I've probably lost a couple of games that I could win otherwise.
The Winter Crown is a card that the more I play with it the more I like it. Gives decks more reach while also giving them more card draw. If a decks built correctly it's pretty nuts. Plus it helps you double up your removal spells against units with aegis, so long as they don't have endurance, which is generally fine anyways since I think this deck beats up the current Hooru decks I've been playing against pretty badly.
Minotaur Platemaker I think has the potential to be a great card. It's essentially a 4/5 that is unvanquishable and it dodges
Pristine Light in the market. He also can buff your early units to make them more relevant in the late game, while also pushes others out of range of damage removal. He also get's bonus synergy with
Hojan, Crownbreaker since his effect is a weapon and
Korovyat Palace makes him a huge threat with double damage.
For removal we are running 3 copies of
Vanquish,
Defiance, and
Ice Bolt. Vanquish and Defiance have already been proven as good cards. Ice Bolt is an important removal spell. The draw back is quite significant in the early game, but in the late game it's pretty negligible. It gives you more removal to hit big units and it's a fast spell, which is really relevant. It allows you to blow out units that your opponent is playing sites into. Withstand and Mirror both blank if the creature dies before the spell goes off. We are relying on our Market to give us more access to removal, without slowing down the deck.
Depending on the meta, swap out
Shelterwing Rider with
Svetya, Orene of Kosul. Shelterwing is really good with palace and can usually attack in order to guarantee onslaught procs with Sediti, but this really depends on how easily decks can pop it's aegis. Stonescar can be really tough to beat, especially with Shelterwings.
Minotaur Platemaker also has some synergy here, being able to make Shelterwing a better blocker with the +2/+2 and allowing it to attack for Sediti and the winter crown. It's also important to note here, that Svetya pops face aegis for Sediti. Choosing your 4 drop might be the most important decision to make for whether or not the deck performs well.
Also swapped out
Crownwatch Paladin with
Icaria, Valkyrie Captain. The ramp is relevant and I haven't needed a better body in the early game as much. Plus, Icaria can attack easier for Sediti and Crown. Could be better to swap Hojan instead of Paladin, but this has been working with me.
Market
Since we consistently have threats in the mainboard, the market is more of a removal toolkit.
Hailstorm is a panic button against aggro.
Removed
Stormhalt Knife for
Vision of Austerity. Been running into a lot of
Svetya's Sanctum decks recently.
Pristine Light is a pretty insane market card. Can be used as a black market option for vanquish, can be used as a mini harsh rule for cheaper. And as an added bonus, if you play pristine light on a different turn as the smuggler, you can attack with smuggler and usually sac it off only to get it back allowing you to double dip the market.
Martyr's Chains is actually pretty feasible to get with this deck. All the extra cards from Crown and Sediti can give you a ton of power and the Paladins and Smugglers can get buffed safely with aegis protecting them. Against control this is usually the nail in the coffin that will secure you the game.
Ice bolt is excellent conditional removal. You're typically not playing it early, and by the time you do play it, the ramp that the enemy would receive from it isn't very beneficial to them. At 7 damage and two mana it's like a super charged torch in blue and far less conditional than other removal in the two colors. Don't underestimate it!
I guess the real question is how long are your hojans allowed to stay on board for platemaker before being deleted by removal. You only have 5 activators outside of platemaker for his ramp ability.