Favorable Winds is the latest in a long line of 2-mana enchantments that pump up your creatures. These enchantments often create opportunities for powerful, aggressive decks if there are enough cheap creatures that meet the requirement. Favorable Winds in particular sets up a deck that can be built almost entirely out of uncommons, making it a great choice for players on a budget. Here's the list I put together:

"Favorable Winds"

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Jace's Phantasm
• 4 Judge's Familiar
• 4 Lyev Skyknight
• 4 Mindshrieker

• Spells (21)
• 4 Midnight Haunting
• 4 Lingering Souls
• 4 Talrand's Invocation
• 2 Intangible Virtue
• 3 Oblivion Ring
• 4 Favorable Winds

• Lands (23)
• 1 Swamp
• 6 Island
• 6 Plains
• 2 Evolving Wilds
• 4 Drowned Catacomb
• 4 Glacial Fortress

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Purify the Grave
• 4 Azorius Charm
• 3 Righteous Blow
• 3 Negate
• 2 Rootborn Defenses

Buy This Deck

The Threats

Jace's Phantasm doesn't quite measure up to the utility of Judge's Familiar, but it's still a flying 1-drop, and it has a chance of being much more against decks such as reanimator. Although ten cards is a lot, Mindshrieker can help you get there if your opponent plays a few spells.

Mindshrieker is a high-variance card, but the pump ability is often fairly reasonable, with most Standard decks having an average mana cost of around 2 including lands. It can help you close out games a turn or two before you would otherwise be able to, and many opponents will be reluctant to block it since you can never be certain how large it might grow.

Lyev Skyknight has proved its value in the various W/U Humans decks, and it's even better here. It gets rid of a blocker for a turn, and it saves you from an attack on your opponent's turn as well. In addition, it comes with a 3-power body for 3 mana, with the potential to be even larger with Favorable Winds.

Lingering Souls and Midnight Haunting can put a lot of power on the board very quickly with an anthem effect or two, and the tokens will often trade with multiple opposing creatures. As an instant, Midnight Haunting will often be able to ambush attackers, allowing you to make trades your opponent would never have offered.

Talrand's Invocation tacks another mana onto the cost in exchange for another power on each of the creatures, which is more than a fair deal. 2/2 flying Drake tokens are fairly reasonable threats even without any pump effects at all, and once you start adding Favorable Winds into the mix, they start representing some serious damage.

The Support

Intangible Virtue only helps out your token creatures, but there are enough of them to make a few copies of this powerful enchantment worth including. Vigilance is an amazing ability to give to flying tokens, allowing you to swing over the top of your opponent's creatures without leaving yourself open to attack.

Oblivion Ring is the catch-all removal spell of the deck, getting rid of creatures, planeswalkers, and anything else that might be causing you trouble. Although 3 mana can be fairly pricy in a deck like this, the versatility makes up for the extra cost.

The Sideboard

Azorius Charm and Righteous Blow help you race other aggro decks such as mono-red, giving you cheap early removal to fight off their assaults. Azorius Charm can also give your army lifelink to swing life totals in your favor when you need it most.

Negate can cause major problems for somewhat popular fringe decks such as those using Epic Experiment. It also deals with some of the main tools used by control decks, such as Jace, Architect of Thought and Terminus.

Whereas Negate is good at fighting Terminus, Rootborn Defenses does an admirable job fighting off Supreme Verdict. Although, unfortunately, there's no one way to deal with both sweepers, having both cards in your sideboard allows you to customize your options.

Playtesting

B/R Zombies – Game 1

I drew Midnight Haunting and played my Drowned Catacomb. I cast Judge's Familiar and passed the turn. My opponent attacked with Gravecrawler, and I took the 2. He played a Dragonskull Summit and passed the turn.

I drew another Favorable Winds, cast one, and attacked with Judge's Familiar. My opponent cast Searing Spear on the Bird, and I sacrificed it to counter the spell out of spite. I ended my turn. My opponent dropped me to 16 with Gravecrawler, then dropped himself to 16 with Sign in Blood. He played a tapped Blood Crypt and passed the turn.

I drew yet another Favorable Winds and attacked for 4 with my Spirits. My opponent dropped to 12, and I ended my turn. My opponent played a Mountain and tapped out for Thundermaw Hellkite. He attacked with everything, and I took the damage, dropping to 2. I cast Midnight Haunting during his end step, then followed it up with a Favorable Winds on my turn for exactly enough damage to kill him.

Sideboarding:

−4 Jace's Phantasm

+4 Azorius Charm

Game 2

My opponent played Dragonskull Summit and cast Knight of Infamy. He attacked for 3 with the Ghoul and passed the turn. I drew Midnight Haunting and attacked for 1 with the Familiar. I played my Swamp, cast Mindshrieker, and passed the turn.

My opponent attacked for 3 with Diregraf Ghoul again, then paid 2 life for an untapped Blood Crypt and cast Searing Spear on Mindshrieker. The Spirit Bird died, and he passed the turn. I drew Glacial Fortress, played it, and cast Favorable Winds. My Familiar attacked for 2, and I ended my turn.

Another Searing Spear took down the Familiar, and my opponent dropped me to 10 with his creatures. He passed the turn. I drew Drowned Catacomb, played it, and cast Talrand's Invocation, making a pair of 3/3 Drake tokens. I ended my turn.

My opponent dropped to 13 with a Sign in Blood, then played a Swamp and cast Diregraf Ghoul. He ended his turn. I drew Oblivion Ring and dropped my opponent to 7 with Drakes. I cast Lyev Skyknight, detaining Diregraf Ghoul, and passed the turn.

My opponent attacked for 3 with Knight of Infamy, dropping me to 7. He then ended his turn. I drew Azorius Charm and attacked with the Skyknight and a Drake token. My opponent killed the Skyknight with Searing Spear and dropped to 4. I ended my turn, and he cast Brimstone Volley to drop me down to 2 life.

He had the Thundermaw Hellkite on his turn to tap my Drake token, and Knight of Infamy's protection from white allowed it to cleanly finish me off.

Game 3

I played Drowned Catacomb and cast Judge's Familiar before passing the turn. My opponent hit me for 2 with Diregraf Ghoul, then cast Gravecrawler and ended his turn.

I drew Lyev Skyknight, played my other Drowned Catacomb, and cast Intangible Virtue. I ended my turn. My opponent dropped me to 14 with his Zombies, then cast another Diregraf Ghoul before ending his turn.

I drew another Intangible Virtue and passed the turn. My opponent attacked with all three creatures, and I cast Midnight Haunting. The Spirits blocked the Diregraf Ghouls, and Judge's Familiar blocked Gravecrawler. The board was cleared, and my opponent passed the turn.

I drew another Lyev Skyknight, cast Intangible Virtue, and ended my turn. My opponent passed the turn, and I drew a Plains.

I attacked with the Drake, which met another Victim of Night. I then cast Lingering Souls and ended my turn. My opponent did nothing, and I drew Talrand's Invocation.

I attacked with my Spirits, and my opponent dropped to 14. I cast Talrand's Invocation and passed the turn, and he hit me with a Searing Spear during my end step. He played Cavern of Souls naming Dragon and passed the turn.

I drew Lingering Souls and attacked with everything for exactly lethal. My opponent saved himself with a Searing Spear on a Spirit, and I passed the turn. He drew his card and conceded.

This deck can win very quickly with its evasive creatures, and the token production gives you some staying power as well. It seems to be fairly well-suited to fight both aggro and control decks, and I think a list similar to this definitely has the potential to do very well in Standard. If you're looking for a powerful aggro deck that's hard to slow down, be sure to give this deck a try.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, you can find me on the forums under Twinblaze, on Twitter under @Twinblaze2, or simply leave a comment below.