The plan is A) Build Board presence with a bunch of humans, getting Value along the way.
Inspector, Defector and Knight gives some kind of value and digs for Combo pieces. Kiki Jiki can value-copy those dudes.
B) Once Kiki-Jiki is in our hand try to establish the Combo.
It's a bit vague, but there are certainly a whole bunch of synergies here. Humble Defector + Village Bell-Ringer nets 4 Cards at all.
Ringer + Avacyn's Pilgrim is going online Turn 2 and leaves us with 1 open mana!!!
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben could easily disrupts Counterspells and removal until we can establish the combo.
It is slow if you play a bunch of 2-drops and 3-4 drops, but with aggressive 1-drops it is perfectly fine.
You don't even have to do it on turn 2, you can drop a creature (or Gather the Townsfolk) and do it a turn later.
So I have worked on a naya list and was able to run it with some success. I figured I'd share here, I've put it on the back burner for now, as I feel like I'm still 1 good 1 drop away from something fast/consistent enough.
The goal was to load up on redundant pieces. Granted there are 14 non-human cards in the deck but it gets through for 20 well enough by turn 3/4. Chaining priests and emissaries into a bushwacker makes the deck incredibly swingy but pretty innocent after something like a turn one kytheon or champion of the parish.
I wanted to go low to the ground to give the deck a chance against things like quick combo decks. Humans don't have much in the way of interaction unfortunately. It's pretty much Thalia, who was in my sideboard for a bit.
I've been exploring a four-color (WGUr) CoCo build. Yes, it can be painful, but not so much more painful than a typical three-color deck thanks to Cavern & the fact that there's a large majority of white-colored spells.
Den Protector is somewhat of a flex spot right now. In theory the combination of evasion and potential for late-game gy recursion should be great but I haven't had any amazing games with her yet. Silverblade Paladin has been ok as well. Sometimes the doublestrike works well, sometimes the field is so clogged that evasion is more important than additional damage. Not sure what will end up in these slots.
Phantasmal Image has been extremely helpful as lords 9-11, or as a way to get a copy of an existing 3-drop for cheap. If you're already running blue I recommend running him, too.
Mantis Rider, despite being chock full of value, is usually a risky play in Modern as it fails the Bolt Test. However, I've found it to work well in this shell as the abundance of lords can push it out of Bolt range, and we also have Meddling Mage & Thalia in the SB to prevent or tax bolt attempts. Finally, this deck runs enough high-priority targets with sufficient card advantage through CoCo that we can survive an occasional tempo-hit from Mantis Rider's loss.
The upside is that pulling 2x Mantis rider (or 1x Mantis Rider, 1x Phantasmal copy) off a CoCo gives you a lot of evasive beatdown power out of nowhere, even when you're behind on the board. This is especially useful in a deck that otherwise leans heavily on the synergistic stacking of lord effects on grounded creatures over several turns to build power – now we have a strong play that can get our foot back in the game and its hard to overstate the value of this in practice. Lastly, the vigilance helps shut down opposing aggro threats without slowing our clock by holding back blockers.
Again, Meddling Mage & Thalia come in against Control & Combo. Eternal Witnesses come in for grindier midrange games. Lavinia of the Tenth can be useful against aggro or tokens. Still tuning the SB.
I'm currently undecided on whether it's worth running CoCo with humans or not. For one, I wanted to do something that looked like more than "offbrand Merfolk". The combination of strong 3-drops and Phantasmal Image make for a lot of powerful CoCo plays, and the extra card advantage gives the deck teeth against opposing grindy midrange strategies. The card selection afforded by CoCo also lets you sidestep bad late plays like Champion of the Parish and Noble Hierarch. However, I need to do more testing to see if the added value and selection do enough to offset the loss of speed compared to a low-curve aggro build.
I have mixed feelings on BTE builds. I do think BTE ratchets up the power of the deck's nut draws, which are within reach of the fastest decks in the format... but outside of those nut draws the deck felt a little underwhelming and inconsistent. Maybe I just got bad draws? I also think that the core of the deck (Champ/Lieutenant) is white, a lot of great humans are white (SB if not MB), and as such you lose out a bit by building around BTE's GR mana generation too much.
If anyone has fun with this build I'd love to work together on tuning.
Student of warfare would be a town gossipmonger in standard. You try to avoid playing it on turn 1, ideally playing him on turn 2 to attempt on flipping kytheon on turn 3 with open mana to make kytheon indestructible or level student. Ideal turn 1 is champion, kytheon, or any of our savannah lions.
I will share my build later, a build that I'm going to take to the next wmcq.
The manabase hurts way less than you might think, between 2-6 dmg in one game. For this i get full access to all Humans and so the overall power-level of cards is really high for Modern standards.
These are all time favourites and don't need mor words.
Champion of the Parish grows faster and bigger than Experiment One Mayor of Avabruck Thalia's Lieutenant
These Lords are boath great. While Mayor can win the Game on it's own, he also brings some not so nice variance. Vial helps to flip him, but still you dont have total control over him. Lieutenant on the other side is not great on an empty board, but the counters rest on the other creatures even when it dies which is a great thing for a Lord. Mantis Rider is my fav. topdeck and often brings the game to an end.
So is Reflector Mage, but a bit more depending on the board state.
I choose Aether Vial over Collected Company because it fits better with the Curve (many cc2's not so heavy cc3 drops). Also Collected Company doesn't like my Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.
_tol I like the look of that rainbow. With 17 5c lands I think you could support a third Reflecting Pool to limit the pain a bit more. You might even replace 1-2 confluences with Ancient Ziggurat.
I go back and forth on Reflector Mage in the MB, and I think you could SB the 4th Thalia. Potential replacements include Duskwatch Receuiter, Eternal Witness, Phantasmal Image.
I've found that my Champions and Lieutenants getting blocked can be pretty problematic, so in my own version I'll probably run 1x Rancor over 1x Path in the MB.
Have you played with Meddling Mage yet? I strongly recommend her as a tool against combo and a catch-all response to sweepers etc. Like Thalia she's usually the first creature killed but the tempo she gains for you is worth it.
Taken together, I'll be testing something like this:
thx for your reply.
For the Manabase, i decided to rather take the pain than Mulligan a Reflecting Pool + Mutavault / 2nd Pool. An one off Ziggurat might be nice thou, i'll try this.
I won't cut Thalia. Also with Reflector Mage i have my doubts, he really helps vs. Jund (a difficult MU) and other creature heavy machups like Merfolk.
But i never tried Phantasmal Image which is a set card in Merfolk and maybe i underestimated it.
I like to see other SB choices because i'm not so close to the current metagame and happy with new imputs:)
Phantasmal Image entering as a copy of Thalia's Lieutenant, Mantis Rider, or Reflector Mage is great. There are some cases where being forced to copy a 1-drop is underwhelming, you rarely want to copy Dark Confidant or Thalia, and since the card itself isn't a human when cast it doesn't work with Cavern of Souls.. but overall its net performance justifies trying it as a one-of IMO.
Regarding the rest of my SB additions:
Anafenza - hoses Abzan Company's combo and other creature-based GY strategies
Auriok Champion - a couple 5c ping lands + unlucky Dark Confidant draws can be painful -- Auriok helps shore up burn matchup, chump blocks delve fatties well, also survives red sweepers
Izzet Staticaster - good vs Lingering Souls or other token strategies, also useful vs Affinity & Infect
EDIT: On further testing I've been less impressed with Phantasmal Image in this build. It seems better suited to a CoCo-centric bant build with more 3-drops to copy. Still working out what to run in the last slots. Duskwatch Recruiter seems ok at the moment, but I really wish we had an Elvish Visionary equivalent. /watches EMN spoilers intently
So, I didn't know this topic existed in the forum. My little brother just started playing G/W humans in standard and I made a deck based on the idea of letting some of his cards transfer to Modern. I developed an Abzan shell; here it is:
This deck has been great when I've tried a proxied version out, but I just realized after scouring this forum that I could perhaps even be a little greedier with the mana, what with how many sweet humans there are and Ancient Ziggurat being legal. Thoughts and comments are appreciated!
It seems rather meh at 4-cmc and open's you up to blowouts, at this mana cost I would probably prefer Elspeth/Gideon or Hero of Bladehold.
I also like Xathrid Necromancer here.
Well, let's start with the mana base. 20 lands? Maybe just 19 or 18? I got 20 because of Ghost Quarter, Quarter makes colorless mana so I need more white sources AND is particulary useful with Flagstones of Trokair. If you happen not to have Flagstones, maybe cutting 2 quarters and fill with all plains should do a great mana base, letting you add 2 more 1 drops.
I don't have Cavern of Souls or Horizon Canopy, but if you have, add 2 and 1 respectively, yous shouldn't need more. The budget way? Forget about all that fancy lands and just splash 18 Plains for good.
Let's continue with spells. Will we be using Path to Exile and Honor of the Pure? Of course we do! It's mono white and we do want to use our best cards for this aggro strategy. Path is just the best removal white has to pffer and we want that. Honor is the best cheap pump spell for many creatures and we want that. With that said, let's continue.
Creatures. Here it stars with 4 Champion of the Parish and 4 Thalia's Lieutenant, else we won't be making this deck, AND 4 Knight of the White Orchid, because we want to abuse of white goodies. Now the first very important choice: Kytheon, hero of Akros. If you will be using him, make sure you have at least 16 1-drops, or he will be irrelevant. Why I am using him? As a lightning rod. Everyone will kill him, expending 1 removal, or kill another creature and block him so he can't flip. This, isn't good you say, but actually, we are getting our opponent off balance, he is not using his spells when he want to, we are making he do it, or he will surely die in the next 2 turns. This is really good if you are using Brave the elements too. Student of Warfare: This is modern, so there will be (even when you are using affinity) long games. Drawing a 2/1 on turn 10 is not good, drawing student on the other hand... Don't get me wrong, student is a great early turn drop too, droping him on turn 1 because the mulligan hated you is not that bad, following him with another 1 drop and lvling him once on turn 2, you have a turn 3 Honor of the Pure-lvl 2 Student, or path-1drop-lvl2 student. Because, the deck IS super aggro, but there won't be eternals perfect hands, and student is a maravelous solution to these situations.
So we jump to the maybe world. My choose are 4 Doomed Traveler and 1 Soldier of the Pantheon (the 4th Kytheon). Because I want to flip Kytheon, so traveler get this done in the next turn, he is an excelent blocker too. Maybe is good to replace him with Thraben Inspector test againts your friends.
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Sometimes she will win you games just by entering the battlefield on turn 3-4. Don't use her on turn 2 if you are on the draw.
3 Mirran Crusader: another free win card if left unchecked.
Why these 2? lightning rods too, if they are being removed, so your kytheon will not. If your kytheon is being removed, so they will not. If the 3 of them are being removed, so your Champion and Lieutenant will be so fat that the table is going to collapse. We need to create snowballs effects to make this strategy work.
2 Always Watching: against other aggro, they will hate it, and let's you never stops pressuring your opponent.
As for sideboard, Sunlance was just OP against Infect. That 1 pump spell or protection that they use to keep their creature alive makes you winth with 9 counters. I can't make a sideboard without it. Stony Silence is a must too, there's always an affinity around, also makes latern harder to play, Engineered Explosives, Oblivion Stone, etc. Nevermore against combo mainly. Tormod's Crypt against the every-six-month dredge/reanimator user mainly, Grixis delver. Disenchant because affinity/bogles.
There's another path for this deck that took my attention but is less interactive, and is adding allies, 4Expedition Envoy, 4 Hada Freeblade and 4 Kazandu Blademaster, removing student, traveler, pantheon and mirran.
So, that's it. Please, please, send some sugestions, if you know any interaction with white cards in modern metagame, comment it, sent some aditions to sideboard (Kitchen Finks or maindeck (Elspeth, Knight-Errant)
If you happen to be already using these kind of deck, share your most difficult situations or how you resolve them.
I am new to modern so reading and some practice is the only way to know more.
I would cut Knight of the White Orchid as it's too slow and only a 2/2 for 2 mana which is not aggressive enough.
#I would go with Gather the Townsfolk which helps go wide and triggers Champion/Lieutenant multiple times.
Always Watching is too slow and unnecessary with 4x Honor of the Pure.
#I would replace it with Brave the Elements which helps against targeted removal or red sweepers and can also punch through blockers.
Doomed Traveler is not aggressive enough and this deck shouldn't think about blocking too much.
#I would rather go with Thraben Inspector which can help draw more cards.
I would move Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Mirran Crusader to the SB as they are a bit slow and narrow in use sometimes, Thalia can be good in the MD if the deck plays very few spells.
With a low curve and token producers Hanweir Militia Captain becomes a reasonable option as it can flip on a more consistent basis.
What about falkenrath aristocrat to gobble up humans and swing for lethal
I started my original rainbow human list with 4x Falkenrath Aristocrat. Once Thalia's Lieutenant came out I found that my humans were usually getting beefy enough that sac'ing them to the Aristocrat felt like a waste of good resources.
I've been testing Hanweir Garrison, and it's a stud in here. The big thing is that it gives a ton of board presence, while also pumping your champions and lieutenants x2 each time it attacks. I'm playing it along with Knight of the Reliquary, which allows you to search up a singleton Hanweir to meld together if that's what you want to do.
Another card people need to consider is Kessig Malcontents. Especially if you're playing CoCo, your Malcontents will often deal upwards of 6+ damage upon resolving as early as turn 4. Here is the extremely consistent and aggressive list I've been testing since seeing the spoilers. I'm completely cutting removal and other stuff for now, focusing on how aggressive and fat this can be.
Final note - this deck is simply 10x better when you play mana dorks + coco. More consistent, more resilient, more explosive, etc etc. I had tried making vial humans work for a while along with more standard white weenie, but the Coco version is just so much stronger.
Kessig Malcontents is only good (meaning decent) with a big board (a 3/1 for 3 without haste is really bad otherwise), it's a strictly win-more creature in my opinion.
I'd rather play Lightning Bolt or Lightning Helix instead.
Hanweir Garrison is interesting but does nothing before it attacks and can be killed by blockers or bolted rather easily, maybe a 1x-of can be ok but definitely not 4x.
Even something like Thatcher Revolt for multiple triggers and going wide seems better in my opinion. Gather the Townsfolk is always solid in a Humans deck.
I'm not really sold on Hanweir Garrison, either. As you pointed out the ceiling is relatively high, double-buffing any Champs/Lieutenants you may have on the board with each swing, but the floor ("Bolt!") is a bit too low for Modern. I would really prefer that all of my 3-drops have an ETB ability, X/4 booty, haste, or at least have some kind of self-sufficient, must-answer, game-winning threat potential if it's going to be slow. IMO Garrison has none of those things. The Meld ability is powerful but also effectively requires 6 mana. Also because the tokens are generated on attacking Lieutenant doesn't have any way to buff them compared to something like Gather the Townsfolk or Tatcher revolt. I will say that using Knight of the Reliquary to tutor up Battlements is a nice touch, though.
Regarding CoCo: many of the deck's most powerful humans are 2-drops IMO. Thalia's Lieutenant, Mayor of Avabruck, Dark Confidant, and of course Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. From the sideboard there's Auriok Champion, Meddling Mage, Melira, and more. Thalia is one of the deck's best tools against tempo / control / combo, but she doesn't work with CoCo as well as I'd like. Sometimes she just delays CoCo by one turn, other times it takes 2-3 more turns to find your fifth mana source. There are some 3-drops that are good if you build your deck around them, such as Knight of the Reliquary, Reflector Mage, Eternal Witness, possibly Mantis Rider.. but in my testing so far I'm not convinced that the power of these cards is enough to adopt a 3-drop-centric CoCo build over a 2-drop centric Vial build. Eternal Witness can grind well but is a little slow for beatdown while KotR can be a huge beater that sadly lacks any kind of evasion to get all that damage through, and Reflector Mage's value ranges from MVP tempo-master to Bolt-Fodder depending upon the match. For that matter I'm even exploring a CoCo-less, Vial-less build and finding it to work pretty well, as surprising as that first seemed to me.
Kessig Malcontents is only good (meaning decent) with a big board (a 3/1 for 3 without haste is really bad otherwise), it's a strictly win-more creature in my opinion.
I'd rather play Lightning Bolt or Lightning Helix instead.
The thing is, you almost always have a big board in this deck, especially with coco. It essentially does the same thing that Shaman of the Pack does for Elves. I would argue it's even better than Shaman of the pack since this deck is more of a beatdown aggro deck than combo, which often puts the opponent in range of lethal damage from a resolved malcontents pretty early. Furthermore, It's nice to do direct damage sometimes since unlike the creature in here, it can't be blocked, and especially considering how often it will deal 5+ damage upon resolving, It's more of a "end the game fast" creature than a "win more" creature.
Also, this is a tribal deck. It's all about synergy and bolt / helix don't do a ton in the synergy department. They also provide fewer coco targets.
Hanweir Garrison is interesting but does nothing before it attacks and can be killed by blockers or bolted rather easily, maybe a 1x-of can be ok but definitely not 4x.
Even something like Thatcher Revolt for multiple triggers and going wide seems better in my opinion. Gather the Townsfolk is always solid in a Humans deck.
Thatcher Revolt is only good as a single burst of triggers, and does not trigger on Collected Company. If we're talking about win-more, this is WAY more win more than Malcontents is, without the same upside. Gather the townsfolk is a bit low impact and doesn't trigger on Coco. Garrison also can single-handedly take over the game if not dealt with. Yes it can obviously be bolted, but so can any creature in this deck ( at least when they resolve). In Elves, you don't avoid playing Archdruid because it can be bolted. You don't avoid playing Marrow Reejery in Merfolk because it dies to bolt.
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Merfolk and Elves are much faster than humans in building a board (Aether Vial and Heritage Druid+dorks) and Merfolk also have disruption.
You can't compare Hanweir Garrison to either Elvish Archdruid or Merrow Reejerey which not only impact the board right away with the +1/1 anthem but also have very powerful and synergistic abilities in their respective tribes.
These two tribes also pack enough lords to help dodge bolt.
Overall I don't think that CoCo is the way to go with this deck
Garrison looks very promising. It's one of the few 3-drops that has 3 toughness, which makes it bolt-proof with a lord/noble effect and naturally Clasm-proof.
The synergy with Lieutenant and Champion is real. Also it gives Gavony Township a reason to be in the deck.
By playing Gather the Townsfolk, you witnessed the power already, so the same repeatable effect on a human creature is nothing to spit at.
No matter what build you choose, that Garrison is great news for the tribe, and should rather be compared to the other 3-drops we play in Human decks atm.
It really makes me put back Hamlet Captain and go all-in in terms of lord effects. The tokens want some sort of pump when they attack.
Also the new Thalia is the real deal on the play from what I'm testing. The opponent puts tapped lands into play, so you can attack through removal they can't cast, or they tap mana to put tapped creatures into play, which gives the humans a freeway to attack next turn. The only remaining scenario they got is to play removal spells when they have open mana. It's a huge constraint on the opponents' sequencing.
On the draw she's less impactful though, but still punishes clunky starts.
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has someone tried to create a Human Combo deck?
It could pack something like
1 Village Bell-Ringer
1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
1 Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Thraben Inspector
1 Knight of the White Orchid
1 Zealous Conscripts
The plan is A) Build Board presence with a bunch of humans, getting Value along the way.
Inspector, Defector and Knight gives some kind of value and digs for Combo pieces. Kiki Jiki can value-copy those dudes.
B) Once Kiki-Jiki is in our hand try to establish the Combo.
It's a bit vague, but there are certainly a whole bunch of synergies here.
Humble Defector + Village Bell-Ringer nets 4 Cards at all.
Ringer + Avacyn's Pilgrim is going online Turn 2 and leaves us with 1 open mana!!!
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben could easily disrupts Counterspells and removal until we can establish the combo.
Green @ it's best
Mutavault is better than Westvale Abbey in this deck.
There is actually a thread around the mono-white humans aggro decks here - http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/577993-mono-white-1-drop-goyfs
Student of Warfare is better than your 2-drops (except for Thalia's Lieutenant).
He can attack for 3 on turn 2 which they can't.
You don't even have to do it on turn 2, you can drop a creature (or Gather the Townsfolk) and do it a turn later.
Mana base is fetches shocks.
2 kytheon, hero of akros
4 monastery swiftspear
4 thalia's lieutenant
4 hamlet captain
4 burning-tree emissary
2 goblin bushwacker
4 reckless bushwacker
4 priest of urabrask
4 atarka's command
The goal was to load up on redundant pieces. Granted there are 14 non-human cards in the deck but it gets through for 20 well enough by turn 3/4. Chaining priests and emissaries into a bushwacker makes the deck incredibly swingy but pretty innocent after something like a turn one kytheon or champion of the parish.
I wanted to go low to the ground to give the deck a chance against things like quick combo decks. Humans don't have much in the way of interaction unfortunately. It's pretty much Thalia, who was in my sideboard for a bit.
Happy brewing!
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Flooded Strand
1x Forest
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Island
2x Plains
1x Razorverge Thicket
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Seachrome Coast
1x Stomping Ground
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Champion of the Parish
1x Den Protector
2x Kytheon, Hero of Akros
1x Lyev Skyknight
4x Mantis Rider
4x Mayor of Avabruck
4x Noble Hierarch
3x Phantasmal Image
3x Reflector Mage
1x Silverblade Paladin
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
Instant (4)
4x Collected Company
Enchantment (2)
2x Rancor
2x Eternal Witness
2x Fiend Hunter
1x Izzet Staticaster
2x Lavinia of the Tenth
3x Meddling Mage
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Vithian Renegades
1x War Priest of Thune
Den Protector is somewhat of a flex spot right now. In theory the combination of evasion and potential for late-game gy recursion should be great but I haven't had any amazing games with her yet. Silverblade Paladin has been ok as well. Sometimes the doublestrike works well, sometimes the field is so clogged that evasion is more important than additional damage. Not sure what will end up in these slots.
Phantasmal Image has been extremely helpful as lords 9-11, or as a way to get a copy of an existing 3-drop for cheap. If you're already running blue I recommend running him, too.
Mantis Rider, despite being chock full of value, is usually a risky play in Modern as it fails the Bolt Test. However, I've found it to work well in this shell as the abundance of lords can push it out of Bolt range, and we also have Meddling Mage & Thalia in the SB to prevent or tax bolt attempts. Finally, this deck runs enough high-priority targets with sufficient card advantage through CoCo that we can survive an occasional tempo-hit from Mantis Rider's loss.
The upside is that pulling 2x Mantis rider (or 1x Mantis Rider, 1x Phantasmal copy) off a CoCo gives you a lot of evasive beatdown power out of nowhere, even when you're behind on the board. This is especially useful in a deck that otherwise leans heavily on the synergistic stacking of lord effects on grounded creatures over several turns to build power – now we have a strong play that can get our foot back in the game and its hard to overstate the value of this in practice. Lastly, the vigilance helps shut down opposing aggro threats without slowing our clock by holding back blockers.
Again, Meddling Mage & Thalia come in against Control & Combo. Eternal Witnesses come in for grindier midrange games. Lavinia of the Tenth can be useful against aggro or tokens. Still tuning the SB.
I'm currently undecided on whether it's worth running CoCo with humans or not. For one, I wanted to do something that looked like more than "offbrand Merfolk". The combination of strong 3-drops and Phantasmal Image make for a lot of powerful CoCo plays, and the extra card advantage gives the deck teeth against opposing grindy midrange strategies. The card selection afforded by CoCo also lets you sidestep bad late plays like Champion of the Parish and Noble Hierarch. However, I need to do more testing to see if the added value and selection do enough to offset the loss of speed compared to a low-curve aggro build.
I have mixed feelings on BTE builds. I do think BTE ratchets up the power of the deck's nut draws, which are within reach of the fastest decks in the format... but outside of those nut draws the deck felt a little underwhelming and inconsistent. Maybe I just got bad draws? I also think that the core of the deck (Champ/Lieutenant) is white, a lot of great humans are white (SB if not MB), and as such you lose out a bit by building around BTE's GR mana generation too much.
If anyone has fun with this build I'd love to work together on tuning.
I will share my build later, a build that I'm going to take to the next wmcq.
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Dark Confidant
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Mayor of Avabruck
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
4 Mantis Rider
3 Reflector Mage
Noncreature
4 Aether Vial
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Path to Exile
1 Plains
2 Mutavault
4 Mana Confluence
1 Tendo Ice Bridge
2 Gemstone Mine
2 Reflecting Pool
4 Cavern of Souls
4 City of Brass
2 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Helix
4 Spell Pierce
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Reflector Mage
2 Ancient Grudge
The manabase hurts way less than you might think, between 2-6 dmg in one game. For this i get full access to all Humans and so the overall power-level of cards is really high for Modern standards.
SCD:
These are all time favourites and don't need mor words.
Champion of the Parish grows faster and bigger than Experiment One
Mayor of Avabruck
Thalia's Lieutenant
These Lords are boath great. While Mayor can win the Game on it's own, he also brings some not so nice variance. Vial helps to flip him, but still you dont have total control over him. Lieutenant on the other side is not great on an empty board, but the counters rest on the other creatures even when it dies which is a great thing for a Lord.
Mantis Rider is my fav. topdeck and often brings the game to an end.
So is Reflector Mage, but a bit more depending on the board state.
I choose Aether Vial over Collected Company because it fits better with the Curve (many cc2's not so heavy cc3 drops). Also Collected Company doesn't like my Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.
I go back and forth on Reflector Mage in the MB, and I think you could SB the 4th Thalia. Potential replacements include Duskwatch Receuiter, Eternal Witness, Phantasmal Image.
I've found that my Champions and Lieutenants getting blocked can be pretty problematic, so in my own version I'll probably run 1x Rancor over 1x Path in the MB.
Have you played with Meddling Mage yet? I strongly recommend her as a tool against combo and a catch-all response to sweepers etc. Like Thalia she's usually the first creature killed but the tempo she gains for you is worth it.
Taken together, I'll be testing something like this:
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Dark Confidant
2x Duskwatch Recruiter
4x Mantis Rider
4x Mayor of Avabruck
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Reflector Mage
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
Artifact (4)
4x AEther Vial
Land (20)
1x Ancient Ziggurat
4x Cavern of Souls
2x City of Brass
2x Gemstone Mine
4x Mana Confluence
2x Mutavault
1x Plains
2x Reflecting Pool
1x Tendo Ice Bridge
1x Razorverge Thicket
4x Lightning Bolt
Enchantment (1)
1x Rancor
2x Anafenza, the Foremost
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Auriok Champion
1x Izzet Staticaster
3x Meddling Mage
3x Path to Exile
2x Spell Pierce
For the Manabase, i decided to rather take the pain than Mulligan a Reflecting Pool + Mutavault / 2nd Pool. An one off Ziggurat might be nice thou, i'll try this.
I won't cut Thalia. Also with Reflector Mage i have my doubts, he really helps vs. Jund (a difficult MU) and other creature heavy machups like Merfolk.
But i never tried Phantasmal Image which is a set card in Merfolk and maybe i underestimated it.
I like to see other SB choices because i'm not so close to the current metagame and happy with new imputs:)
Regarding the rest of my SB additions:
Anafenza - hoses Abzan Company's combo and other creature-based GY strategies
Auriok Champion - a couple 5c ping lands + unlucky Dark Confidant draws can be painful -- Auriok helps shore up burn matchup, chump blocks delve fatties well, also survives red sweepers
Izzet Staticaster - good vs Lingering Souls or other token strategies, also useful vs Affinity & Infect
EDIT: On further testing I've been less impressed with Phantasmal Image in this build. It seems better suited to a CoCo-centric bant build with more 3-drops to copy. Still working out what to run in the last slots. Duskwatch Recruiter seems ok at the moment, but I really wish we had an Elvish Visionary equivalent. /watches EMN spoilers intently
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Student of Warfare
2 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
2 Warden of the First Tree
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
4 Mayor of Avabruck
4 Dark Confidant
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Anafenza, the Foremost
4 Path to Exile
4 Gather the Townsfolk
1 Dismember
Lands (19):
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Temple Garden
2 Godless Shrine
3 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
4 Marsh Flats
This deck has been great when I've tried a proxied version out, but I just realized after scouring this forum that I could perhaps even be a little greedier with the mana, what with how many sweet humans there are and Ancient Ziggurat being legal. Thoughts and comments are appreciated!
Thraben Inspector is pretty close.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpcha16/mardu-humans-with-craig-wescoe-2016-05-21
I also like Xathrid Necromancer here.
11 Plains
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Eiganjo Castle
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Student of Warfate
3 Kytheon, hero of Akros
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Path to Exile
4 Doomed Traveler
1 Soldier of the Pantheon
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Mirran Crusader
2 Always Watching
3 Sunlance
2 Stony Silence
2 Disenchant
1 Nevermore
1 Tormod's Crypt
Well, let's start with the mana base. 20 lands? Maybe just 19 or 18? I got 20 because of Ghost Quarter, Quarter makes colorless mana so I need more white sources AND is particulary useful with Flagstones of Trokair. If you happen not to have Flagstones, maybe cutting 2 quarters and fill with all plains should do a great mana base, letting you add 2 more 1 drops.
I don't have Cavern of Souls or Horizon Canopy, but if you have, add 2 and 1 respectively, yous shouldn't need more. The budget way? Forget about all that fancy lands and just splash 18 Plains for good.
Let's continue with spells. Will we be using Path to Exile and Honor of the Pure? Of course we do! It's mono white and we do want to use our best cards for this aggro strategy. Path is just the best removal white has to pffer and we want that. Honor is the best cheap pump spell for many creatures and we want that. With that said, let's continue.
Creatures. Here it stars with 4 Champion of the Parish and 4 Thalia's Lieutenant, else we won't be making this deck, AND 4 Knight of the White Orchid, because we want to abuse of white goodies. Now the first very important choice: Kytheon, hero of Akros. If you will be using him, make sure you have at least 16 1-drops, or he will be irrelevant. Why I am using him? As a lightning rod. Everyone will kill him, expending 1 removal, or kill another creature and block him so he can't flip. This, isn't good you say, but actually, we are getting our opponent off balance, he is not using his spells when he want to, we are making he do it, or he will surely die in the next 2 turns. This is really good if you are using Brave the elements too.
Student of Warfare: This is modern, so there will be (even when you are using affinity) long games. Drawing a 2/1 on turn 10 is not good, drawing student on the other hand... Don't get me wrong, student is a great early turn drop too, droping him on turn 1 because the mulligan hated you is not that bad, following him with another 1 drop and lvling him once on turn 2, you have a turn 3 Honor of the Pure-lvl 2 Student, or path-1drop-lvl2 student. Because, the deck IS super aggro, but there won't be eternals perfect hands, and student is a maravelous solution to these situations.
So we jump to the maybe world. My choose are 4 Doomed Traveler and 1 Soldier of the Pantheon (the 4th Kytheon). Because I want to flip Kytheon, so traveler get this done in the next turn, he is an excelent blocker too. Maybe is good to replace him with Thraben Inspector test againts your friends.
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Sometimes she will win you games just by entering the battlefield on turn 3-4. Don't use her on turn 2 if you are on the draw.
3 Mirran Crusader: another free win card if left unchecked.
Why these 2? lightning rods too, if they are being removed, so your kytheon will not. If your kytheon is being removed, so they will not. If the 3 of them are being removed, so your Champion and Lieutenant will be so fat that the table is going to collapse. We need to create snowballs effects to make this strategy work.
2 Always Watching: against other aggro, they will hate it, and let's you never stops pressuring your opponent.
As for sideboard, Sunlance was just OP against Infect. That 1 pump spell or protection that they use to keep their creature alive makes you winth with 9 counters. I can't make a sideboard without it.
Stony Silence is a must too, there's always an affinity around, also makes latern harder to play, Engineered Explosives, Oblivion Stone, etc.
Nevermore against combo mainly.
Tormod's Crypt against the every-six-month dredge/reanimator user mainly, Grixis delver.
Disenchant because affinity/bogles.
There's another path for this deck that took my attention but is less interactive, and is adding allies, 4Expedition Envoy, 4 Hada Freeblade and 4 Kazandu Blademaster, removing student, traveler, pantheon and mirran.
So, that's it. Please, please, send some sugestions, if you know any interaction with white cards in modern metagame, comment it, sent some aditions to sideboard (Kitchen Finks or maindeck (Elspeth, Knight-Errant)
If you happen to be already using these kind of deck, share your most difficult situations or how you resolve them.
I am new to modern so reading and some practice is the only way to know more.
Tnx in advance.
About your list:
I would cut Knight of the White Orchid as it's too slow and only a 2/2 for 2 mana which is not aggressive enough.
#I would go with Gather the Townsfolk which helps go wide and triggers Champion/Lieutenant multiple times.
Always Watching is too slow and unnecessary with 4x Honor of the Pure.
#I would replace it with Brave the Elements which helps against targeted removal or red sweepers and can also punch through blockers.
Doomed Traveler is not aggressive enough and this deck shouldn't think about blocking too much.
#I would rather go with Thraben Inspector which can help draw more cards.
I would move Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Mirran Crusader to the SB as they are a bit slow and narrow in use sometimes, Thalia can be good in the MD if the deck plays very few spells.
With a low curve and token producers Hanweir Militia Captain becomes a reasonable option as it can flip on a more consistent basis.
As a filler human I like Soldier of the Pantheon.
I started my original rainbow human list with 4x Falkenrath Aristocrat. Once Thalia's Lieutenant came out I found that my humans were usually getting beefy enough that sac'ing them to the Aristocrat felt like a waste of good resources.
Another card people need to consider is Kessig Malcontents. Especially if you're playing CoCo, your Malcontents will often deal upwards of 6+ damage upon resolving as early as turn 4. Here is the extremely consistent and aggressive list I've been testing since seeing the spoilers. I'm completely cutting removal and other stuff for now, focusing on how aggressive and fat this can be.
Final note - this deck is simply 10x better when you play mana dorks + coco. More consistent, more resilient, more explosive, etc etc. I had tried making vial humans work for a while along with more standard white weenie, but the Coco version is just so much stronger.
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Champion of the Parish
2x Kytheon, Hero of Akros
Two cmc creatures
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
4x Mayor of Avabruck
Three cmc creatures
1x Eternal Witness
4x Hanweir Garrison
3x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Kessig Malcontents
4x Collected Company
Lands
1x Hanweir Battlements
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Gavony Township
1x Ghost Quarter
19x Other lands
3x Vithian Renegades
3x Fiend Hunter
4x Fulminator Mage
2x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2x Rest In Peace
1x Avalanche Riders
I'd rather play Lightning Bolt or Lightning Helix instead.
Hanweir Garrison is interesting but does nothing before it attacks and can be killed by blockers or bolted rather easily, maybe a 1x-of can be ok but definitely not 4x.
Even something like Thatcher Revolt for multiple triggers and going wide seems better in my opinion.
Gather the Townsfolk is always solid in a Humans deck.
Regarding CoCo: many of the deck's most powerful humans are 2-drops IMO. Thalia's Lieutenant, Mayor of Avabruck, Dark Confidant, and of course Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. From the sideboard there's Auriok Champion, Meddling Mage, Melira, and more. Thalia is one of the deck's best tools against tempo / control / combo, but she doesn't work with CoCo as well as I'd like. Sometimes she just delays CoCo by one turn, other times it takes 2-3 more turns to find your fifth mana source. There are some 3-drops that are good if you build your deck around them, such as Knight of the Reliquary, Reflector Mage, Eternal Witness, possibly Mantis Rider.. but in my testing so far I'm not convinced that the power of these cards is enough to adopt a 3-drop-centric CoCo build over a 2-drop centric Vial build. Eternal Witness can grind well but is a little slow for beatdown while KotR can be a huge beater that sadly lacks any kind of evasion to get all that damage through, and Reflector Mage's value ranges from MVP tempo-master to Bolt-Fodder depending upon the match. For that matter I'm even exploring a CoCo-less, Vial-less build and finding it to work pretty well, as surprising as that first seemed to me.
The thing is, you almost always have a big board in this deck, especially with coco. It essentially does the same thing that Shaman of the Pack does for Elves. I would argue it's even better than Shaman of the pack since this deck is more of a beatdown aggro deck than combo, which often puts the opponent in range of lethal damage from a resolved malcontents pretty early. Furthermore, It's nice to do direct damage sometimes since unlike the creature in here, it can't be blocked, and especially considering how often it will deal 5+ damage upon resolving, It's more of a "end the game fast" creature than a "win more" creature.
Also, this is a tribal deck. It's all about synergy and bolt / helix don't do a ton in the synergy department. They also provide fewer coco targets.
Thatcher Revolt is only good as a single burst of triggers, and does not trigger on Collected Company. If we're talking about win-more, this is WAY more win more than Malcontents is, without the same upside. Gather the townsfolk is a bit low impact and doesn't trigger on Coco. Garrison also can single-handedly take over the game if not dealt with. Yes it can obviously be bolted, but so can any creature in this deck ( at least when they resolve). In Elves, you don't avoid playing Archdruid because it can be bolted. You don't avoid playing Marrow Reejery in Merfolk because it dies to bolt.
You can't compare Hanweir Garrison to either Elvish Archdruid or Merrow Reejerey which not only impact the board right away with the +1/1 anthem but also have very powerful and synergistic abilities in their respective tribes.
These two tribes also pack enough lords to help dodge bolt.
Overall I don't think that CoCo is the way to go with this deck
The synergy with Lieutenant and Champion is real. Also it gives Gavony Township a reason to be in the deck.
By playing Gather the Townsfolk, you witnessed the power already, so the same repeatable effect on a human creature is nothing to spit at.
No matter what build you choose, that Garrison is great news for the tribe, and should rather be compared to the other 3-drops we play in Human decks atm.
It really makes me put back Hamlet Captain and go all-in in terms of lord effects. The tokens want some sort of pump when they attack.
Also the new Thalia is the real deal on the play from what I'm testing. The opponent puts tapped lands into play, so you can attack through removal they can't cast, or they tap mana to put tapped creatures into play, which gives the humans a freeway to attack next turn. The only remaining scenario they got is to play removal spells when they have open mana. It's a huge constraint on the opponents' sequencing.
On the draw she's less impactful though, but still punishes clunky starts.