Hooru Aegis

Aegis is really good right now in the Peaks versus Winchest Removal metagame. I'm reasonably sure this build has a lot of room for improvement, but I've played it to pretty good success thus far so wanted to share a list to get some deckbuilding juices flowing. I'll give a quick rationale for a few cards, but the deck's plan is pretty straightforward- attack with your Aegis units, try to hold Stand Together up when possible into their attempts to stabilize, and use either Inquisitor's Blade or something from the market to punch through any stalls. You're very favored against durdly Peaks decks, reasonably favored against the Vara-and-removal version of Winchest, and pretty good against most other kind of nonsense-y removal strategies. It is nothing short of terrible against Praxis tokens, but you can at least try to Crystallize them out or try to win in the air. I'll discuss the interesting inflection points below but basically, your games play out mostly the same- you try to stick some resilient units and smash.

Card Choices:
4 Snowcrust Yeti, 4 Crownwatch Paladin,4 Kosul Battlemage, 4Shelterwing Rider, 3 Sheriff Marley: These are the core of the deck. Yeti and Paladin get in for good chip damage against the pillars of the metagame, which focus on using spells to interact with early drops. Battlemage and Marley follow up with some threats who can hit for a ton, and Rider soaks up removal and wears Stand Together exceptionally well. The Rider is the weakest of this set, and if it weren't for the Stand Together synergy I'd switch one for a Marley. The Yeti/Paladin/3-drop curve is more or less unbeatable for Howling Peak decks, which was the initial reason for the whole deck.

4 Dusk Raider, 3 Hojan, Crownbreaker: filler 2-drops. There aren't enough good Aegis units for threat density, and a 2-drop is the ideal place to fill in the curve. Raider is particularly good because she's very dangerous to leave alone- you can often script a Dusk Raider drop to force your opponent to use their power inefficiently next turn by playing her into a board with no power, forcing a (likely cheap) removal spell on your opponent's turn that frequently prevents them from doing anything else. Hojan is not great here- I've tried other things in this spot as well, from Kothon, the Far-Watcher to Rilgon's Disciple. It remains to be seen what will do best, but I'm liking him okay so far.

3 Stand Together: I really wish I didn't have to play this, because the influence is tough, but it suits the playstyle of the deck phenomenally well. Blanking a sweeper or re-upping a few Aegises will often be all you need to win. It comes at the cost of playing two Seek Power, but that cost seems acceptable given the blowouts you can achieve. Definitely a necessary card in the current build. I'm playing three because the second is almost always bad, but I've tested out four from time to time.

3 Aniyah, Arctic Sheriff: Eh. This gets a solid ranking of blah. It is really powerful when it sticks, and often comes down after your opponent is pretty empty on removal, but can be a little exposed the turn you play it if you don't have 6 power to represent or hold Finest Hour. It's a pretty good curve-topper but I'm actively looking for something better. Feast-Caller doesn't really seem to fit the deck very well, but he's an option.

3 Vanquisher's Blade, 2 Inquisitor's Blade: Playing Aegis is a good incentive to play weapons, and these are the two most impactful. Flying, in particular, is really powerful on Aegis units. I'd like to fit more of these in if possible, but the threat density won't really allow it.

Savagery, Crystallize: Savagery is actually an excellent finisher in conjunction with Kosul Battlemage but I don't think it's good enough overall- I'm considering Equivocate for this spot but it seems somewhat redundant with Changeestik. If Savagery stays, Crystallize should go, as it's a similar stall-breaker, but I think for now I'm liking Crystallize more. The market could definitely use some work though.

That's basically all the card choices that I think are interesting- feel free to ask on anything else, or suggest replacements, as I'm definitely still in the process of making this thing work. For what it's worth, I'm top 10 in Masters with it right now (probably not worth that much!), so it at least has the potential to be a good deck in the right metagame. Hit me up with questions or suggestions, and thanks for reading.