A new Historic is coming – in fact it’s always changing. Every October, older sets rotate out of Standard format and into Historic, and players scramble to find the new meta deck with the highest win percentage. My powerful Historic deck actually fulfils two very personal criteria – it is Creature-based aggressive, and it has to have a low cost in paper MTG.
What is the most fun and powerful Historic deck? It’s Azorius Flyers, because it’s cheap, fast, and handles a lot of meta and more expensive decks well. Both Blue and White colours contribute lots of flying Creatures that pack lots of late-game abilities, and the simple presence of Blue offers lots of Counterspell protection.
The Deck List and Sideboard
Here’s the visual line-up, including the Sideboard. As the image is a little small and text hard to read, I’m including a text-based deck list below:
Aggressive, Powerful Standard Deck That Ramps Fast
You can see from the list that we have 20 1-Mana and 2-Mana Creatures, and that gives us a high probability to having two Creatures on the Battlefield by turn two. A good scenario would be a turn-one Healer’s Hawk or Faerie Miscreant, followed by either Skycat Sovereign or Watcher of the Spheres on the next turn.
Turn 3 is where magic happens. You could either cast Empyrean Eagle for quick additional damage and possible turn-4 kill, or cast more 1-Mana Creatures so as to ramp to Sephara also on turn 4. If the opponent has no answers to your Sephara on the Battlefield, the game is usually won by then.
Your winning turn often involves Rally of Wings that gives a massive offensive boost to your Creatures. It works especially well when you have multiple small bodies so that more damage goes through to the opponent, killing him/her in the process.
A 5-card opening hand can still thrive and win later on, given some luck and the ability to survive the first few turns. The key would be to “curve” out nicely, drawing enough Creatures and reactive Instants rather than flooding on Lands, or not drawing that third Land to cast Empyrean Eagle.
In this mirror match against a similar deck, I was the starting player and had to mulligan down to five cards. I had a slow start, and the opponent didn’t have an ideal flow as well. Both of us found it hard to find Lands and just kept casting Creatures to lock up the Battlefield.
Eventually, my trump card Sephara, Sky’s Blade arrived, giving my own flying Creatures Indestructible, an insurmountable trait unless the opponent drew his own Sephara. With a final Rally of Wings, I was able to close out victory.
This Aggro Deck Can Also Play a Tempo/Long Game
On Turn 4, the next step is to go for the kill, or play defence, depending on the situation of the game. If the opponent has been playing a slow game with no flying blockers for your Creatures, then a safer bet is to chip away at his/her health, while holding up other Creatures or a Lofty Denial in your hand.
Midrange decks love to cast a complete “board wipe” (such as Extinction Event, Shatter the Sky or Storm’s Wrath) on turn 4, while doing nothing much else other than developing their Mana base in the first few turns. This is where an “aggro” deck like Azorius Flyers can shine because Blue has some of the best Counterspell defences in the game.
Our Sideboard fits very well into the long game as well, with many colour-specific counters such as Devout Decree and Aether Gust. The latter is especially effective because it can work as a Counterspell or a delaying tactic against big Green and Red threats that your small Creatures will have a hard time fighting.
Against other aggro decks, a few Glass Caskets in exchange for Lofty Denials will have a big impact. Lastly Dream Trawlers also offer an alternative long-game strategy as it helps you draw cards and gain life. I’d usually replace our two other cards with the highest casting cost – Sephara, Sky’s Blade.
This flexibility and adaptability to deal with all kinds of decks makes this a powerful Standard deck on its own. Most aggro decks are unable to handle the long game, but Azorius Flyers does it beautifully.
Can This Deck Reach Mythic Rank?
It can, but in my opinion it works best if focused on best-of-one rank matches. As this is primarily an aggressive deck, it will see the most success in a single match where the opponent doesn’t that many answers against multiple Creatures.
And even if it does stall to a long game, you have plenty of options to take the game. Spectral Sailor and Skycat Sovereign both help to draw cards and create flying Cat tokens so that you can swarm the enemy or provide disposable blockers for their big Creatures. Again, you’ll have to rely on Sephara, Sky’s Blade or Rally of Wings to close off the game.
End Step: Other Versions
If you’d like to see what other variations of Azorius Flyers are out there, head here. There you’ll find decks that use more 1-Mana Creatures such as Loyal Pegasus, or other interactive abilities such as Jubilant Skybonder which prevents direct removal on your Creatures.
You’ll also find other interesting cards in other variations. Angelic Ascension can help you get a bigger 4/4 Angel flyer when opponent tries to remove one of your little critters. Even Dungeon Geist gets a run sometimes!
I hope this powerful Historic deck will give you as much fun (and wins) as it has for me. It’s one of the first decks I go to in, and a deck built around Blue-White flyers will also be a solid archetype even in Standard when rotation comes around.
