Heroic might not be the way to go right now, but it probably will be soon enough, if there’s no cheap sweeper in the near future. After [scryfall]Supreme Verdict[/scryfall] is gone, these strategies might be the thing to do.

The option that most intrigues me is monoblue. This won’t probably be the best way to go, but it would probably be more fun than the other options. The key being this card:

The key to fun.

This deck is going to be pretty slow, actually, and therefore probably pretty casual. So, lets exploit that and try out stuff we wouldn’t use otherwise. Like this:

[cardlist]
[creatures]
4 Meletis Astronomer
4 Triton Fortune Hunter
4 Riptide Chimera
2 White Water Naiads
3 Thassa’s Emissary
1 Sage of the Hours
2 Wavecrash Triton
[/creatures]
[spells]
3 Fate Foretold
4 Mizzium Skin
2 Polumorphous Rush
1 Crypsis
2 Triton Tactics
2 Aqueous Form
2 Ordeal of Thassa
[/spells]
[land]
4 Mutavault
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
18 Island
[/land]
[/cardlist]

Then there’s white, which probably has the most potential to become an actual competitive deck. What Journey does do is give us more tools to trigger the heroic, and the [scryfall]Dawnbringer Charioteers[/scryfall]. Its not probably that good a card in constructed, but I’m sure you can have fun with it. We’re not going to be using it, however. What we are going to be using are the Strive-cards.

Cat’s with two lives.

Not knowing that there is a Scourge under the waves

[cardlist]
[creatures]
4 Hero of Iroas
4 Fabled Hero
4 Favored Hoplite
4 Phalanx Leader
4 Hopeful Eidolon
4 Nyxborn Shieldmate
4 Eidolon of Countless Battles
[/creatures]
[spells]
4 Gods’ Willing
3 Ajani’s Presence
3 Launch the Fleet
[/spells]
[lands]
18 Plains
4 Mutavault
[/lands]
[/cardlist]

We are missing [scryfall]Brave the Elements[/scryfall], so this deck might lack what you need to actually finish the game. There’s also a problem with these kinds of decks. If about half your deck is one type of card and another is a different kind of card and you need a mix of these two types to make the deck work, you often just won’t draw what you need.

However, the color with the most potential, is black. We’ve actually already seen versions of monoblack heroic being played in standard, so there’s a precedent. However, that was before Born of the Gods, so there’s more tools to work with right there.

[cardlist]
[creatures]
4 Tormented Hero
4 Agent of the Fates
4 Pain Seer
4 Gnarled Scarhide
4 Spiteful Returned
4 Nighthowler
4 Herald of Torment
[/creatures]
[spells]
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hero’s Downfall
[/spells]
[lands]
4 Mutavault
20 Swamp
[/lands]
[/cardlist]

The actual good lists are, however, going to be either black-white or black-blue. I saw Frank Karsten testing a blue-black list on Channel Fireball recently. That list is pretty streamlined, so its probably going to be hard to do much better than that (and I’m not the person you ask to tune your deck, unlike Karsten, who is really good at that).

However, black-white… Sure, you won’t be able to be as tricksy as the blue-black, but there’s plenty of strength in both colors to abuse. We have both the powerful effects of black and the facilitation from white.

[cardlist]
[creatures]
4 Agent of the Fates
4 Hero of Iroas
4 Eidolon of Countless Battles
4 Herald of Torment
3 Hopeful Eidolon
4 Pain Seer
4 Spiteful Returned
[/creatures]
[spells]
4 Thoughtseize
4 Gods Willing
[/spells]
[lands]
4 Godless Shrine
4 Temple of Silence
4 Mana Confluence
7 Swamp
5 Plains
[/lands]
[/cardlist]

So, yeah… I’m a big fan of [scryfall]Pain Seer[/scryfall]…