Modern Stonescar Midrange, ft Auric Interrogator

Once upon a time there was a thing called Stonescar Midrange. There were a couple of different Stonescar Midrange decks: the more aggro ones, running 1-drops and 8 big burn spells, the ones running the Charchain Flail+Stonescar Maul+Smuggler's Stash package and even bigger ones that could curve up to Infernal Tyrant and Vara, Fate-Touched. The archetype unfortunately was brutalized by DWD, with nerfs to Charchain Flail, Champion of Chaos, Smuggler's Stash, Flame Blast, Umbren Reaper and Rapid Shot. After that Stonescar beame a faction consisting exclusevely of aggro Bandit Queen decks (Either Rally or Burn).

Stonescar Midrange has always had a special place in my heart: I played the Maulers deck a lot on ladder and even got top 8 in a couple of ETS weekly I attended. If you were not playing Eternal at that time, go watch some ETS season 2 videos on YouTube and you will see how strong the deck was.

Unofrtunately after the release of Set 2 and more recently the Horus Traver campaign nobody really tried to revive the old Stonescar Midrange, so here is my attempt!

The goal of the deck is to apply pressure with strong units from turn 2, try to control the board and eventually finish the game with burn and fliers. Our units on curve look like this:

* T2: 4 Argenport Instigator
* T3: 4 Auric Interrogator and 4 Champion of Chaos
* T4: 4 Statuary Maiden and 3 Crimson Firemaw
* T5: 2 Soulfire Drake and 2 Umbren Reaper
* T7: 1 Voprex, the Great Ruin

We run 5 cards that provide some value in the mid to late game:
* Statuary Maiden makes cudgels for us.
* Crimson Firemaw lowers the cost of our cards.
* Auric Interrogator, when equipped with a weapon or buffed by Dark Return draws us cards.
* Steelfang Chakram keeps coming back after the unit who equipped it dies.
* Voprex, the Great Ruin kills units or make the opponent discard cards, enough said.

Our removal package is Torch, Suffocate, Annihilate Deahstrike and Obliterate. Some of these cards are fast spells, so they can provide some additional value when used to blow up an attempt of our opponent to block with multiple creatures.

We run 25 Power + 3 Seek Power + 3 Vara's Favor, which is 31 sources of Power. 4 copies of Quarry can also help us when we are mana screwed.

Cards that didn't make the cut:
* Pyroknight, Oni Ronin and Rakano Outlaw: Those are strong early units, but we prefer to beat down with bigger stuff.
* Impending Doom: It could replace Crimson Firemaw to put our fliers out of Auric Runehammer range. The weapon is not extremely popular at the moment, so we like the red drake more.
* Steward of the Past: It could replace Statuary Maiden, which is another card vulnerable to Auric Runehammer. We decided to go all-in on Statuary Maiden due to the sinergy with Auric Interrogator.
* Lethrai Falchion: It could replace Steelfang Chakram. We lose the value from getting it back, but we are able to stabilize or even race against aggro.
* Kaleb, Uncrowned Prince: It could be a funky 1-of. It could help close the game and it even triggers Auric Interrogator. Unfortunately it's a 8-drop and we would hate to have it dead in hand for most of the game.
* Sabotage: It helps protecting our beatdown units from removal. Unfortunately I can't find room for it, and when it sucks when it misses.
* Cabal Countess: Historically Stonescar Midrange has always lacked good 3 drops other than Champion of Chaos, so this card was very popular back then. We decided to replace it with Auric Interrogator instead.
* Subvert: A value card that does not find space in the deck at the moment.
* Rampage and Rapid Shot: The first one works very well with units equipped with weapons and the second one is great on deadly units. Unfortunately Banish and Torch are very popular at the moment, so we prefer not to run combat tricks.
* Plague: I'm not a huge fan of this card, but it helps a lot vs Queen Rally decks and unbuffed Dawnwalker. It's also worth mentioning that it can stop a Auric Interrogator card draw when it's buffed by a pre 8 mana obelisk or a dark return. It could be worth including 2 copies of this card if the meta requires it. I really hope one day DWD will make it 2 cost.
* Ornate Katana: This is not a terrible card, as it help us trigger Auric Interrogator without losing card advantage. I included a few copies in the first iteration of the deck but then decided to bring in a full set of Quarry instead.

As always any feedback is welcome!