Spellshaper Aggro/Tempo

Sodi's Spellshaper is the perfect tool to enable a number of new decks and to allow tempo to exist as a whole. As soon as I saw its printing I wanted to make a deck like this and clearly a number of people had similar ideas. This is my take on the deck, but I want to credit Alison for suggesting Gnash, Phase Out, Ghar, some powerbase tweaks, and just generally being a helpful person to bounce ideas off, and Bronze for some neat card suggestions I have not yet tested.

At its core, you play creatures, return their blockers to their hand and hit them till they die. You want to end the game with them dead, with a hand full of stuff they could not find time to play. So we basically want cheap and aggressive creatures, and spells that get annoying stuff out of our way long enough to get them dead, or at least get a board wide enough that they can't stop us finishing them off. Grinding people out is basically not an option, so card advantage is less of a concern.

Mulligaining

We ideally want a t1 play, a followup creature, 3 power, and at least one bit of interaction. A good hand with only t2 plays is fine, but I think you can afford to mulligan somewhat aggressively as our good hands are far better than a mediocre hand. Also we cannot afford to have a slow hand if we are going second, going first we can be slightly less picky.

Cards I am not playing

Ice bolt: its a strong card, people playing more midrangey builds seem to be playing it. But we simply can't afford to ever give our opponents power. In most cases phase out or teleport have a very similar effect without that cost, we just don't care so much about them not having the card compared to reducing their rate of card plays.

SST/5+ power threats: We have to win quickly, we are not a midrange deck, we cannot afford to play creatures late and we decimate a lot of our power to just get more creatures down.

Creatures

Borderlands Lookout: 2/3 or 3/4 for 1, basically always amazing, annoys yetis and other aggro decks, good for price is what we want.

Snowcrust Yeti: Carries a shaper safely, is just generally irritating to deal with for some decks, does not die to snowball, another solid 1drop.

Dusk Raider: One of the real MVPs, both players drawing cards favours us since we can play our excess cards faster, its weak body is less important since we can often remove blockers for a clean attack, and giving our topend creatures berserk is amazing, Cykalis with berserk ends games and double spellshaper hits put us far ahead.

Teacher: We are in time aggro, we play the teacher. The weights further constrain their power, and with our cheap spells to clear the path we can land it more reliably than a lot of other teacher decks.

Resolute Monk: Dying to snowball is really unfortunate, but it is a 2drop that swings for 5 overwhelm and ends games very quickly often forcing trades with 3-4 drops so we just take the bad beats when they come.

Gnash: We play it because its a 4/4 for 3 ultimately, but the ability is not the hardest to trigger for us, and can let us make aggressive attacks into tough boards, it triggers off spellshaper alone, or perma + a spell.

Jennev Merchant: We don't play enough relics for the TP merchant, and we can have an extra shaper in the market since we want it so much.

Tocas: I'm not entirely sold on it in this version of the deck, but it does help us play our extra cards, and has a big body.

Cykalis: Another mandatory time aggro card, goes face fast and hard, helps a lot vs control, and occasionally fixes our curve.

Spells/Relics/Attachments

Spellshaper: The core card of the deck, draws us cards to keep the bounces going, buys more turns of hitting. Don't be afraid to play it for 2 to get a draw in if you can do it safely. Try and prioritise putting it on aegis or berserk creatures if you can.

Winter Crown: I'm testing this as a worse 4th spellshaper, I'm not entirely sure it is good, but it does keep us fuelled and going and clear the way.

Permafrost: 1 cost removal, misses SST but otherwise exactly what a tempo deck needs, also helpfully triggers muster too.

Equivocate: The best bounce spell out there, clears a path and also makes their plays worse.

Teleport: It works, not the fanciest card to be playing but its there for density, against control I often use this to save my own creatures.

Phase Out: One power to get something out of the way for 3 turns, which is pretty much dead as far as we are concerned. I think possibly I should be running the full 4. Try and use this last of all your options to clear, so that they get less time with their creature once it comes back.

Market

Spellshaper: See above

Swift Refusal: Counters hailstorm and harsh rule against control, grab it vs them and basically never otherwise

Equiv: See above, great to get things we just don't want to see again gone.

Decree: Cripples combo decks if cast at the correct time, very annoying for a bunch of other decks, just a solid thing to have access to. Not played in main because its negative tempo.

Accelerated Evo: This is a bit of a pet card, I have seen a lot of permafrost lately, and its the best P card against it, and allows us to grab flying and such as needed to get over some annoying cards.

Powerbase

We have a powerbase designed to basically end at 4-5 power, and get our creatures down as fast as possible. We don't really care about our life or face aegis or such, so we don't play waystones. The two sigils are for fetching off opponent's icebolts.

Emblems are really really amazing for us, we want to stop at about 4 power and they convert happily into more playable creatures to go wide to end the game. If we are on 4 power and play an emblem and decimate it will transform our temple tactics which is very helpful.

The temple tactics being slow power is very awkward, but they are basically more bounce in the power slots so we play them anyway, we can afford to be greedy.

The rest of the power should be fairly explanatory, no seats since we have few sigils in fitting our emblem counts, seals are just fantastic for getting our basic requirements.

Cards I'm testing and might fit, or have tested and don't quite make the cut

False Prince: A 5/5 for 3 is exactly what we want, and though the downside is awkward, its not the actual worst. The most irritating part is its a 3drop that dies to snowball, which is miserable against unitless and yetis, both of which are common matchups.

Ghar, Master Sandmage: We have the combo with phase out which is really nice, but is again kinda slow, we don't care as much about opponents creatures having abilities as other decks do, and he dies to snowball. I tried him in the initial build of the deck and he always felt underwhelming even when I got the combo in my first draw. Spending t2 basically removing my own creature just felt really bad.

Albon Roa: His cost increase seems perfect for us, and the killer lets him keep the way clear for other units. Unfortunately more 4drops are not entirely what we want, they are just a little bit slow. Also dying to torch and trading with a lot of 2/3drops is just really awkward for a 4drop. I will be testing probably 2 of him at some point and seeing how well it works.

Sodi, the Metamorph: We can sometimes trigger her reset which is amazing, and the extra cards a turn are really nice, but the influence is hard with our aggressive powerbase, and a 3/3 for 3 is just not fantastic. She might well turn out to be very strong in this deck will have to see.