Intro 🌟

Hi everyone, I'm Kevin. This is the list that I created over the course of the 4th Discord league, eventually taking the win with in the top cut. Potato Knight also ran the list, coming 3rd/4th, so effectively it went 7-0, losing only to itself.

The list is basically aggro fliers with artifact support. You slap down as many bodies as you can, split them up to avoid Poison Novas and Earthquakes, then use your aerial advantage to strategically pick your opponent apart while presenting a solid defence with free cities and bottomless pits.

Lots of the cards here are already covered by other AoA lists, so I'll stick to explaining my modifications.

Card Explanations 📄

[[Plumed Pegasus]] / [[Haast Eagle]]

The namesake of the deck, our birds (Eagles are just Pegasus with worse threshold). It took me the longest time to figure these out (thanks Duo!) but really glad I tested them. Flying [[Bosk Trolls]] might not sound impressive at first, but I believe airborne is a massively underrated ability. In Sorcery, minions are removal. Airborne removes the ability for our opponent to attack back, creating a unilateral beatdown - we can still use our minions as removal, while theirs are stuck defending. Combine this with Trinkets and you end up with an extremely annoying suite of minions (can't be easily imp'd, kolbods'd, or attacked) that usually at best is 1-for-1'd by our opponent. The best part is, we don't really care! Their low cost and our minion density means we're usually deploying a new one every turn - embracing this 'throw minions at your opponents face until they door' is the core philosophy of this deck.

Devil's Eggs

These bad boys let you win games that I otherwise consider unwinnable, or extremely grindy at best. You have many ways to get this to an annoying place (bats, cloud spirits, AoA herself), and once it sticks, it creates an immense amount of pressure for your opponent - the clock is ticking. Also cancels out Angel's Eggs, which more decks are running now to our chagrin (if you ever find a way to steal them, make sure you do!).

Maddening Bells

Bells are often seen in control/tax decks, but I think it's one of the most powerful aggro cards. Combined with your mobility and towers, you can fairly frequently land a bells on your opponent by turn 3. On the play, I've had opponents concede immediately. While one of the worst cards you can draw late game, it has led to so many blow outs I still keep it, if for nothing else but the mind games.

Cloud Spirit

A really solid 2 power minion. Sadly rarely get to play it on curve due the threshold, but a card that's as good late game as it is early - a universal blocker/attacker is a massive headache for your opponents to play around.

Headless Haunt

I was on the fence for the longest time with these (what if they fall into the Bottomless Pits!?) but now I'm a believer. Lots of people think that the randomness is a downside - it really isn't, it's more of a weird form of evasion - and that 3 cost 4 body is amazing. Play this deep in the void and watch your opponent sweat figuring out how to block it.

Sinkhole

After I tried bells, I had the realization that this is exactly what the deck needed - a way to keep the game in 'early game' for as long as possible. Sinkholes not only acts as an amazing utility card (blow up the roots combo, get rid of their threshold etc.), but is most importantly free mana denial. While you vomit fliers onto the board, your opponents are stuck with an earthquake and 3 mana. One of the best cards in the game, never remove this.

Cut Cards ✂️

Skirmishers of Mu

One of the more controversial cuts, but after testing a bunch I've decided it's for the best. While the synergy with AoA is undeniable, for a 4 cost investment (your whole turn in this deck), Skirmishers are too easy to play around and remove for opponents that know what's coming. It's one of those cards that feel great when you get to trinket it, swing for 8, but then you forget all the times it dies to a lightning bolt, or a firebolts, or swings for 3 then dies to a unicorn, etc.

Phantasmal Shades

Just barely cut, could be in sideboard. 3 cost 4 power is amazing, but it's ability requires too much baby-sitting for our liking. One theme you will notice with our minions is that they're all very 'independent'. We spread them out like little missiles and then forget about them. This causes all sorts of headaches for our opponent and allows our Avatar to boulder, swing herself, defend the sites, etc.

Daperyll Vampires

Extremely powerful against mirror match, and aggro in general. Sadly too expensive, slow, and vulnerable for our deck (read above). A great sideboard card though, I'll have a minimum of 2 of these there.

Hounds of Ondaros

I really like these guys - they're a massive PITA to remove, so don't fall under the same umbrella as Mu/Vamps/Shades - they're about as resilient/independent as it gets. Unfortunately, they also do nothing for the first 5 turns of the game, and their upside is an evasive bird with +1 power for +2 cost...so they're a cut.

Spectral Stalker

Cute turn 1 tower play aside, these don't do much but die to imps/kobolds.

Browse

Another controversial cut - this is probably the best late game top-deck in the game. Unfortunately, there will be many games where this sits dead in your hand for the first 5 turns - we often have trouble hitting 3 x Air due to the neutral sites, and 1 mana is also non-trivial due to our super low curve.

Chain Lightning

Arguably the best finisher in the game - with AoA it's basically an guaranteed kill. Unfortunately outside of that one specific use-case, I found the card to be quite underwhelming - while it can be used for 4 mana to kill 2 small minions, you usually have much better uses of 4 mana. The 2 mana mode is terrible (bolts is much better), and you'll basically never do it with 6+.

Thunderstorm

Very matchup dependant card; I just found it too clunky to use. Haven't tested with this enough though, PK insists it's the best card since Poison Nova. 4 mana is just a lot, and our list is already very tight.

Credits 🎉

Potato Knight for all the help with playtesting, repping the deck, and being awesome in general!

Wulfinite, DarthNunu, MattdogNZ, and CJ for being top blokes and encouraging me through the league!

Duo for our chat that inspired my initial testing of Plumed Pegasus!

Jacksun and Drew from OnThePlay for the initial inspiration behind playing the deck!

All the cool peeps I met playing the game on discord - you know who you are!

My amazing gf for playtesting and moral support, and pulling my foil AoA 😁

Finally, shout out to all the people that helped run the league, it was my first foray into competitive Sorcery and you guys made it super fun. Cheers!

BIRDS BIRDS BIRDS (1st Place League S4)

@Nvekm