He played bob early and managed to get a few nice lands off of it. I got him down to 5ish life and he stabilized and removed a lot of my guys. Bob ended up killing him on a few unlucky flips though after he removed my creatures.
His creatures were smaller than mine and he ended up needing to card disadvantage try to trade and I blew him out with Path to Exile.
GAME 2: Jund (2-1)
He keeps a 1 lander and starts with hand hate turn 1 going first. He plays bob turn 2 and proceeds to hit land, land, bolt with it and he just wrecks me as the rest of his hand removes the hell out of me.
He has less removal in his opener and as he stabilizes I chain 2 cocos. He cant keep. He happened to Thoughtsieze me early and I drew CoCo on turn 3 at which point he played an Inquisition and couldn't pull it from my hand.
He cant find sufficient removal to keep up with my threats.
GAME 3: Undying Gruul (2-1)
He is too slow off the bat and I run him down in the opening few turns.
I end up with a slow 6 hand but I keep it and have almost nothing until T4 coco where I find only a single creature and a bunch of lands. I flood lands and he gets set up before me. I cant compete with a random Ulvenwald Tracker that he uses to fight my smaller allies and keep my numbers in check.
Fast hand, I mostly run him down. He gets some 3 drops set up but I go pro green with Kabira Evangel and run him down.
My opponent removes my first two turn plays and on turn three I manage to play 3 creatures into a Day of Judgement. I slow play a few more things and he drops a Sun Titan / Elspeth, Sun's Champion and I scoop.
Getting to go first helps me put some damage on my opponent but given that my opening hand has two clones in it and he has two Detention Sphere he got two spicy 2 for 1s on me. I manage to fight off some of his spot removal with Ally Encampment though luckily and we slog it out. My opponent gets a timely reinforcements and wraths shortly after that given my 3 creatures and giving them pro white with Kabira Evangel. I recover the Evangel with my last Encampment and replay to slog it out. My opponent gets set up with Elspeth making tokens vs my 30 life and a Sun Titan. He does manage to Path to Exile the Evangel at like the exact right time but I reveal another in my hand and that is game.
So, I guess my take this week on the list:
Akoum Battlesinger - they felt at least decent against control. I added them in for some hastey damage aiming for the control and combo matchups and the chain cloning them was hilarious as I had thought it might be. I still found myself siding them all out essentially every time I was up against aggro / midrange decks though but they did feel decent. Given that aggro and midrange decks tended to be where my list was already good I think their inclusion is probably worthwhile but I also think that 4 does feel heavy. I think somewhere in the 2-3 is about right in the mainboard for them but I will see if I can test them more moving forward.
Bojuka Brigand - I still like these guys against control, combo, and some midrange decks. Having added the mainboard Ondu Clerics to the list I like him a little more. I think for now the 2 count does feel about right as this is another guy I really don't like seeing in duplicate all that much given the complication of having multiple guys who cant block vs aggro / midrange decks.
Jwari Shapeshifter - I went down to three of this guy. Honestly I had seen several times where seeing these in duplicate have been awkward especially against decks with removal heavy strategies. I think running three of them does in fact feel a bit better.
Ondu Cleric - running a few of these in the main mostly freed up some of my sideboard slots but its also a reasonable ally but I also don't want to find too many of them when they aren't what I need. Two in the main felt really solid and even when it wasn't a race based matchup it was still an ally for my count.
Path to Exile - I put them all in the list and honestly, I guess for the most part I didn't encounter the decks I added this for as I added this for vs combo and decks that are faster than I am. I was mostly the aggressor tonight so I guess I won't hold it against this card but I did find myself cutting some of them a few times but they were alright in a few matches I suppose. I will try to test more.
Dromoka's Command - I wanted to try out one of these just for the thought of throwing off combat math and possibly doing some fighting but honestly, I find that I play pre combat too often with my allies which too often felt better than keeping up a trick. It was worth testing out but I doubt I will use it moving forward.
The sideboard felt fairly good today. There was a tron deck and a bauble deck that I saw that I didn't play against as well as some RDW and devotion black control that I didn't play against. I am not sure offhand what changes I intend moving forward as the build felt fairly good all around this week. I might leave it at this for a bit and see if I can get more testing in. I would possibly like to try to maybe add one more sideboard slot for vs control matches just given that it did feel like I did get a bit lucky in my vs control matchups.
I had some valid testing that went astray on me this last week at FNM. I got my ass kicked but I also got a little knowledge from it and honestly it was full of a bunch of unlucky circumstances (like losing the roll and going second vs non interactive strategies).
Round 1 Tron - (0-2)
It was a decent game but my opponent got the play and on the final turn he cracked an artifact cantrip into tron assembled on like T4 or T5 and managed to assemble his tron and blew me out with an O Stone on game 1. Game 2 I found 2x Stony Silence twice in a row but I couldn't get my lands to work for me. I kept a 6 but didn't have the ability to tap for W for non allies. I ended up losing this game because I didn't find a white source.
Round 2 Infect (0-2)
He kiled me two games in a row on turn 3. In both cases I had the ability to kill him the next turn but again he won the flip and got the play starting. I died to Inkmoth game 1 with 2x pump spells and game 3 he curved the unblockable one and 3x pumped it next turn.
Round 3 By (and I dropped here as I didn't want to wait an hour for the last match)
I guess it was fairly unlucky in that I lost the dice roll each match to go first. Oddly enough I lost all 4 dice rolls the week before as well on trying to go first. In both cases the match was close but they were fast non interacting decks and I couldn't find my interactions. Moving forward, I am going to try to lean up my curve a little and get just a smidge more options to interact with creatures from my side. My list as it stands right now is:
So the big changes as of this week is that I am bringing up my one drop options by two. Expedition Envoy really does kind of suck but I wan't to be a little more consistant in having a turn one play and having one drops also smooths out my three mana play a little more as well. I brought up my Akoum Battlesinger count as I think they are valuable against the non interactive decks and bringing up the one drops also helps them more as well.
In the side I toned back my options vs control a little to keep my Tron side options strong. I see a lot more tron right now than I do control and I have had some level of success against the control decks I have played so far due to redundancy of threats as well as card advantage in my landbase. Getting a second Dismember in the side to help against non interactive creature based decks.
I did play a game for fun against an 8 rack deck and my matchup against Ensnaring Bridge is absolutely terrible as of right now but as of right now the number of bridge decks I see is still very low so I am kind of ok letting my bridge match be poor as it feels like my ability to fight against it would be kind of bad even if I had some sort of Naturalize effect in the side. Tuktuk Scrapper would probably be one of the better cards to bring in from the side if I do want to shore that up but he also feels slow enough that he seems a little questionable to bring in against most decks other than bridge decks not to mention the question of how many I would need to bring in to reliably find them. Its possible though that pairing Tuktuk Scrapper + a fist full of Ondu Cleric could stall the game long enough for me to win though. I also entertained the idea of a copy of Hagra Diabolist but at his cost to play as well as the consistancy and inability to go get him really it seemed loose as well.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Jeff Hoogland will be playing my list tomorrow it looks like on his stream on twitch. I am currently third in que for his modern decks. I will provide the youtube link after he plays it and has the video of it up but I figured if anyone likes watching live I would mention that it will likely be up tomorrow.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I am still somewhat strongly against Harabaz Druid in part because I don't feel like it is very reliable and if you don't play it on curve there are far too few things to use the mana for. On curve it brings up the question of if it sticks or not and it quickly gets worse off curve. I think for it to really fit in allies what we would need is some sort of ally that has a strong mana dump effect on top of being a reasonable ally for the deck already and being that that doesn't exist, its kind of why I have been constantly feeling that it won't work. In my mind what I am thinking is sort of like what Elvish Clancaller is for elves would be a great concept of kind of what I am talking about. Some sort of ally that is already reasonably good for allies but also has a great way to dump mana to it. We could run something like Lead the Stampede but I think its a card that is kind of bad for us if we don't have literally Harabaz Druid where as elves can get away with it due to the huge abundance of mana dorks they run. I keep getting back to Harabaz Druid and the reason I don't like it is because it seems like we don't have any consistancy on its front and we don't have a GOOD ally who can act as a mana sink. Wolf run is cool and all but I would want something beyond a colorless land in a potentially 5c deck.
The second list is interesting but its almost not an ally deck anymore. Honestly running 12 noncreature spells in a coco list seems like its stretching the capability of what you can still run CoCo for + only 12 allies kind of makes it seem like not an ally deck anymore to me. Its honestly more of a human deck at this point than it is an ally deck which I guess is still an interesting list but it makes me question if a lot of those allies are literally just grisly bears since it seems unlikely to see many other allies enter even if they stick several turns.
Mirror Entity is a winmore card in that its only good if you have Harabaz Druid and a board full of creatures likely. It has essentially no immediate impact unless you have a minimum of 5 mana up and you need to have a wide board + lots of mana for it to be a reasonable card. That is too slow for modern in almost every deck with elves being POSSIBLY the exception but generally speaking its also not good enough there.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Harabaz Druid is always a card to discuss . i think he could only be good if you prefer a midrange ally deck. In my opnion it need too often a good setup that isn't worth it. If you did that, you need more ramp cards to get a satbil use of manasinks. And after you got Manasinks and Ramp cards, you need more creatures --> card draw effects.
To be fair : Turn 3 Collected Company into more Allies is really nice and sometimes a lethal damage, but that happens only in rare cases.
The second list works very well, because all Allies are Humans, too. It look a bit odd, but it works like the good old Allies, too. i would cut Champion of the Parish. 12 1-Drops are enough and just make room for more allies.
I want only show in summary , that allies are still a decent modern deck that can reach top places in tournaments. ...even with unoptimal builds
So, Jeff went 2-3 but honestly I think it was a decent showing. The thing about allies is that its not going to beat T3 win decks unless you get lucky or they stumble. We have sideboard cards and maybe we trip them up but for the most part it is what it is I guess. Doing 5 rounds and facing infect + tron in two of those 5 is not the worst thing I guess but its also going to mean that 2/5 of those games are going to not be very favored for us. Jeff didn't play the infect game at all which if it had been me I would have at least played even knowing I am not favored. If I were playing in that last match I would have probably taken -4 Akoum Battlesinger and I likely would have brought in the dismembers and some Ondu Clerics for it.
I am still kind of processing what I would do from here but honestly there isn't much I can think of. I would maybe add one more sideboard tron hate card and I think Gideon is kind of so so with UW control being one of the few matchups I want him over another Return to the Ranks.
EDIT: Giving it a little more thought, I might even go as far as bringing the Expedition Envoy count to 4x in the main. It seemed like having one drops really helped us a lot more against the fast decks. The tradeoff is obviously that it brings our topdecking to being a little worse but too often it seemed like we were stuck with multiple 2 drops in hand that were slowly working their way to play. Bojuka Brigand showed his ugly head in duplicate in the last game even though we only run two. I also think that it might be possible to shift some of the mainboard Path to Exile to being mainboard Dismember if only in a light split even if that is 3 to 1 given how good of a matchup I feel we have against fair creature decks. That might just be a bad idea but its a random thought.
i guess it's a good choice about Expedition Envoy. In Magic you must be faster as your opponent or/and got good disruption to slow down your opponent (I know that Magic is not that simple ) . Allies lack heavily in disruption , so is the way to go faster alyways a decent choice imho.
Maybe you can do second sight to the Champion of the Parish. He is only 1 Human away to be a 2/2 and in the first round he got the same growing like Hada Freeblade. The only non-Human Ally in your Main is the 2 Drop Ondu Cleric
Like always in this "Instant Deck Tech" format. Vote for the Deck with likes and/or just make a comment, to get a play Video. Ok, thats only 10 Allies in this shell, but all of them are sweet and i want really really see finally Drana, Liberator of Malakir in action
Champion of the Parish has been an absolute all star for me given allies kind of lack good one drop options. I am also contemplating getting some testing in with Reckless Bushwhacker with a heavier 1 drop count plan. I haven't ironed out what that might look like yet but it might help against these exceedingly fast decks and push damage in between sweepers and spot removal.
That mono black list is interesting. The disruption might help against some combo decks but I feel like its tron / control matchups will be really sketch. Even its aggro matchups seem like it might be too slow when thinking of 8 wack, burn, or hardened scales.
Its an interesting though but that looks really slow for modern even with the disruption its packing.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I guess I forgot to give results from the FNM on 11/16. Given its been a while now I will have to somewhat of summary mention how it went. I ended up going 3-1 with one loss to burn where my deck gave me too many lands game one and not enough game two. I beat the rest of the decks 2-0 but I was in the loser bracket after losing the first match so the only other deck of merit to mention was a storm deck where the pilot was new to storm and he brought in dismember against me which helped me out. I don't know for sure where the list was when I played it in the FNM a few weeks ago but I guess I can put the list as it stands right now:
Pushing up the one drop creatures to try to compete more with faster decks. I think this move does make my game against fair midrange decks a little worse but it makes me faster and it makes my turn three plays better. Akoum Battlesinger and the 3 drop evasion allies get better with more one drops as well.
The landbase went down to naya colors for me in the main. I have a few Hagra Diabolist in the side still but I have 9 lands that can produce black still so I think that is fine for a 5 drop from the side. I added Sacred Foundry into my landbase to help me with Akoum Battlesinger and I considered Stomping Ground but I think my need for white mana is still really high as it stands. I might play with the idea of adding Stomping Ground in place of the last Unclaimed Territory but right now it hasn't felt necessary as of yet.
Kabira Evangel count went up by one given the increase in one drops. Savanah Lion just sucks so much against creature decks so I wanted to make sure to offset a little but depending on how many T3 win decks I play against its possible I may revert back to my previous numbers.
As of right now, I am trying to figure out if I can get more Dismembers in my sideboard and even contemplating some sort of split of Dismember to Path to Exile in the main given how giving away that land has been a pain for me at times. I would love to make room for another 1-2 Dismembers for Infect and creature combo decks like Devoted Druid but I am just having issues with what I don't want to have on hand. I have considered a few times possibly cutting my sideboard graveyard hate in part because I think I have more of a chance against a lot of the graveyard decks without sideboard assistance than I do Infect and creature combo decks. Part of this might also be me having gotten lucky a few too many times and playing against graveyard decks probably less frequently than I should. This probably being me saying that as a meta I see less graveyard decks than I have decks that Dismember would have been more useful to me for.
I also haven't gotten to do nearly enough testing since making a bunch of changes. My 2 drop count is down a lot since I got to test much recently and I think my Collected Company are probably a bit worse than they used to be given I now have Savanah Lions.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Went 3:0 twice in a row at local FNM with record of clear 6 wins.
Overall I played against: UR Storm, BridgeVine, UR Wizards, BTL Scapeshift, Skred, Grixis Death's shadow.
Went 3:1 at our local "MTG fightclub" which consists of people that are the most interested in modern from our city.
There I played against: Dredge, UB Control, Taking Turns and Infect (lost this one to the blighted agent).
I was able to test a lot agains Jund Death's shadow and UW and in both cases I won nearly each game I call 9/10 or so. In any case it wasn't even close for them.
I wasn't able to test against humans/tron/bant_spirits yet.
I find this deck utterly weak to any kind of combo (storm/devoted druid/ad nauseam etc.) as it lacks interaction but other than that I was able to race successfully even the storm when I was on play and/or he didn't have T2/T3 kill since with mediocre hand you simply kill them on T3 and T4.
Overall I have no ideas for improvement atm. but I am open to suggestions. Also I find this deck super fun to play and surprisingly competitive so I am going to continue playing it for now albeit they seem like weaker humans, their clock in comparison is much superior to them.
With 10x 5Colour Lands, Aether Vial and Collected Company you can play easily Drana, Liberator of Malakir for your "TopEndCurve" with 3 Mana. Imo the strongest Ally (and in the very wrong colour) and a powerhouse by itself and can pumped even the Supporter. As a 2 drop it doing a fine Job.
With Akoum Battlesinger i got some of my best and worst experiences. Brutal early wins and some looses with some flashy 1/1 2/1 Weenies that kills my pumped 5/1 Allies. Kor Bladewhirl is a good choice alongside with the Battlesingers. Sadly a little Nonbo with Drana.
I like the range from Kalastria Healer and it got much better with mass resurrection effects like Return to the Ranks. In your strict fast aggro build, i believe other choices are stronger.
Overall i like your clean and strong aggro Ally Build. Sometimes it feels like an All-In , but in the same moment it is a good feeling to end the games quickly.
Jwari Shapeshifter - its really good and it can be incredibly strong especially with sideboard allies, Akoum Battlesinger, or Kalastria Healer but keep in mind its most of the time not a playable 2 mana ally in that the only 1 mana ally really worth cloning is Hada Freeblade. It also can have some liabilities if opponents are playing lots of removal so I guess what I am saying is it might be worth it to pay attention to how they are performing. I think they are actually better as a 2-3 count than a 4x because of some of their issues and if you ever get 2+ in hand at the same time it can feel completely terrible.
Noble Hierarch - its a great card but I think it has more payoff for decks where the 3-4 mana count are higher and more important. Allies is kind of odd in that we play a lot heavier in the 2 mana range which makes T1 Hierarch maybe a little more questionable. It gets you to company faster but I feel like outside of that you are playing it to try to get to 4 mana to play a pair of two drops faster is about all it feels like its going to do here.
Some things to mention for you after having played this deck for a while. Tron is rough..... every freaking time its rough. I have 6 sideboard cards almost specifically for Tron and I would say I am still...... probably only 50/50 at best with that more likely being a little unfavored. No mainboard creature removal will mean that you are probably at a disadvantage vs fast combo and infect. I run 4 paths main and a little more sideboard spot removal with a faster overall curve and I am still probably not favored against Infect. I personally think that Aether Vial is a bit of a trap but you are running a heavier 2 mana count. My issue with the card is that it slows us down so if the concern is being killed on turn 3 I think Vial is too slow for this deck given we don't really have much in terms of disruption. Lots of the mainstream decks that run Vial run a heavier 3 mana count than we do and a lot of those 2-3 mana cards have some level of disruption to them (looking at fish and humans). I know that Garfield likes Drana, Liberator of Malakir but my opinion of her is that she is a complete trap in that she is too slow and games are already won or lost by the time she is online. The other problem with her is that her mana cost is not friendly as most of the good allies are not heavily in black. Lantern Scout also assumes that you are in a spot where you can nicely attack and connect which I think its better to not bank on that and just stick with the Ondu Clerics. If for instance you need to kill someone through Ensnaring Bridge for instance you want to stall the game out as long as you can with Ondu Clerics while you wait to hope to kill them with Kalastria Healer.
For me, I went the path of adding 4x Champion of the Parish into my list and the upfront pressure has been fantastic. It has some issues in that its not an ally so the evasion and buffs from something like Akoum Battlesinger don't help it but I have found it to be a lot faster early presence than something like Aether Vial myself. I like to plan and play modern assuming the game will end by turn 3 or 4 and to try to build in a way to either extend that clock or race it. I don't feel like allies have the tools to stall it out as nicely as they do to try to race that clock.
[...] I don't feel like allies have the tools to stall it out as nicely as they do to try to race that clock.
Full agree !
If you decide to play vial, play less Lands, to get more pressure turn 3 and 4 in the end. A human deck these Days running only 19 Lands and a full copy of Vials and 37 creatures. Bant Spirits using vial only to replace Birds of Paradise and fight trough counters , that is the reason they use only 3 of them.
Vial is a hot topic since this thread exist. ISBPathfinder is absolut right if he talked about that vial a bit of a trap.
I had Jeff Hoogland put my list into his que again so in a few weeks we should see another round of MTGO allies. I am also bumping with an updated list with some shifts that I want to test out.
The big change here was overhauling the landbase to hopefully allow me to run Lightning Bolt instead of Path to Exile. There are give and takes in this change and ultimately vs Hollow One, Dredge, and Delve threat decks the change in the removal will be worse for me but those are decks that overall I right now feel a little more confident in. Moving to Lightning Bolt should still give me the same flexibility in killing T3 win decks which their creatures tend to be a little more prone to removal with the exception maybe being like a G Brand list which tends to be far more niche. In my mind that means that a lot of the trade off tends to be decks that win via combat and Hollow One, Dredge, and Delve threat decks tend to be a little slower giving me more time to gain life and or get some big threat of my own. My own lifegain tactics tend to work better against them as well and I have more time to grow my own threats against those decks. I am hoping though that the shift to bolt gives me more flexibility and reach though against control decks, tron, and random decks that I lose to things other than their creatures. Its true that Path can answer a Wurmcoil Engine but I can't remember the last time I actually "lost" to wurmcoil vs tron as usually its spinning up a sweeper against me that ends me and the thing that follows is just how they make sure I die.
Adding bolts to the main also gives me a little different feel to my sideboard as before I was relying on Hagra Diabolist as my sideboard hate for Ensnaring Bridge and Worship, the extra reach of bolts makes me feel like I can possibly test out that slot for Kalastria Healer instead. I also shifted one of my slots I gave to Ondu Cleric previously to an additional copy of the Healer. Healers work with the company plan as well as the Return to the Ranks plan and can be still fairly reasonable cards to bring in vs fast aggro and burn decks.
This feels like a big shift for me considering how much of my landbase changed over for me to try this adjustment out. I was going to try to field this list tonight but my wife wants me to spend time with her so I am bailing on FNM but I think there is another modern event next week potentially so I will see if I can spin it up for that.
I think the main question that needs to be asked about this deck now is "why play this over 5C Humans" ?
You could ask that question about most decks that are not a tiered modern deck. I think there are a lot of things going for allies but in a lot of cases the reasons that humans is so playable is how many types of disruption it has for different strategies. Allies on the other hand is a deck that tends to do very well against fair decks and even some of the unfair but creture oriented decks it does well against. You will probably need to throw most of the sideboard at being cards to get you past combo and unfair decks but being good against aggro, burn, and midrange disruption style of decks is a good starting point in the main.
Some of the strengths of this deck is its ability to gain life, evasion, and growth threats. If you do nothing but play against decks that T3 win then this is not a good deck choice. This deck is incredibly strong against burn, aggro, and midrange decks. Its weaknesses would be more along the lines of T3 win decks, Tron, and UW control as the ones I suspect we would have harder times against in my own experience and testing. Every deck is going to have some weaknesses somewhere though and right now the issue with allies is that most of their utility that is fast enough to be played in modern is gaining life and evasion. There is a mill option as well but given the lack of utility allies that are fast enough to play into that plan allies tends to be shoed into playing as an aggro / company style of deck right now based on what has been printed.
This deck is not humans and it plays nothing like humans I guess is my answer. This deck will generally have more aggression and less disruption being a deck that tries to race while granting size boosts to its creatures, evasion, and lifegain to be a scrappy boxer kind of deck that rolls with the punches rather than trying to stop someone cold. This also is not a tiered deck and while it might be a reasonable deck to play and tweak it is and likely never will be a mainstream deck you will see on a regular basis without some sort of huge breakthrough or new cards being printed for it.
For fun I did a few sample hands. The first I would call a solid reasonable hand you could expect as something that seems fairly normal to see from this deck:
The last Envoy on T3 was just needing another 1 mana ally. Our biggest hangup right now is that Hada Freeblade is above and beyond our best ally that exists but beyond that there are kind of no other one drop ally options. Savanah Lion is a far from modern playable card but I am forced to play with it because of how important it is to try to be faster and I can't not run more one drops. If I were to say how they could improve allies it would be INCREDIBLY simple... make 1-2 more one drop allies that are more playable than Expedition Envoy. I would say the first sample game was something that is just kind of a good curve hand with no answers / coco in hand with 3 lands by turn 3 kind of a game. You can see with that though.... it has no chance vs a T3 win deck so it comes down entirely to sideboard cards and if you can draw them and or if your opponent can reliably go off on turn three without interaction from us.
I played the deck to a 4-0 at FNM this last week. Admittedly, I didn't play against any tier one decks though in that finish as my opponents were BW Taxes, 8 Wack, and Owling Mine as the ones I could name with one other deck being some sort of budget list.
More important though, I got a chance to try to test Lightning Bolt in the list. I don't feel like I got the chance to get some sort of finite answer on if I should have Lightning Bolt in the list and I think the reasons to have it over Path to Exile were legit but I think the changes to my landbase to try to accommodate it were ultimately flawed. I feel like I would possibly have to build the landbase without things like Ally Encampment and Cavern of Souls as the core of the lands. For now, I am going to scrap the idea of bolt in my list but I think its something that can and could work. Some of my problems though were that I wasn't a red enough deck from the get go and I was still splashing some other colors in the side (going to 4c in some situations in the sideboard).
Moving forward, I have another build I want to try out:
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - Given the number of one drops I run in the list this is a bit of a thought experiment. Lots of the turn 3 decks of modern rely on spells and sometimes they rely on chaining a few of them together. Its possible that this might even buy me a turn against tron, storm, infect, KCI, and a few others. Assuming this works out I could adjust numbers and run three of them but for now being a thought experiment on a non ally 2 drop legend I think going with two copies is a bit safer to avoid duplication.
-1 Mainboard Path to Exile - When I need them I guess they are great but there are still a lot of matchups where I don't like that it gives my opponents a land or that I am the aggressor. They are still good but with adding Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to the list it adds some disruption that works for my deck. Being that she also taxes Path it seems fine to cut one of them in the main.
- Firemantle Mage - I have been finding less and less situations where I am happy with the mennace evasion. Most of the matchups where the protection that Kabira Evangel gives doesn't work the mennace option is weak at best.
-1 Mainboard Ondu Cleric - I like having these guys in the main for the aggro, midrange, and burn decks but that said, having them in the main against the T3 win decks of modern is a liability. I am going to keep a copy in the main for now in part because if I cut both of them I won't feel I have sufficient numbers after sideboarding but trimming one for the disruption of Thalia feels like it will fit more against combo and control decks.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
am I wrong in thinking Drana is too good not to be played here? with access to up to 12 5 color lands and possibly Harabaz Druid I don't see why she isnt played. as a two off or something.
Cutting bolts and possibly firemantle mage. Is something I wanna do and I don't think Expedition Envoy is the answer...
I see something going foward for me with only Path and CoCo as non creature spells removing the need for a red source.
am I wrong in thinking Drana is too good not to be played here? with access to up to 12 5 color lands and possibly Harabaz Druid I don't see why she isnt played. as a two off or something.
Cutting bolts and possibly firemantle mage. Is something I wanna do and I don't think Expedition Envoy is the answer...
I see something going foward for me with only Path and CoCo as non creature spells removing the need for a red source.
Drana has two problems that I see
She has a BB casting cost. Black has some cool utility allies but tends to lack sheer power in a lot of the ally options. Kalastria Healer and Bojuka Brigand are sort of the other two maybe playable black allies and they mostly suffer from being weaker than other allies that you could play. Hagra Diabolist is cheaky too but ultimately so expensive that he is at best maybe a sideboard splash. I did test black quite a bit and overall I feel that Kalastria Healer might be the best option as it can get past some things like Ensnaring Bridge locks but ultimately it felt very weak against the faster decks of modern which often pushed me to sideboard them if I was running them at all. My point here is that BB is a rough casting cost when black is otherwise mostly not used so its harder to justify lands other than the ones that tap for any color for allies to play her.
She has almost zero immediate impact. Sure she is an ally and triggers allies to do their thing. That said the allies that most people are playing that would cost three do things like giving evasion to the current creatures in play. Modern is a brutal fast format where you might be dead before you get a turn three and she is a three drop that has no immediate impact. It means that it takes until turn 4 for her to do anything and she dies to like everything and all of her upside relies on her super slowly hitting play, sticking, and being able to swing. In my mind it means that she maybe is ok against fair decks which is already the type of deck allies do extremely well against.
In a nutshell, if she is at all decent, its because you are already up against a favorable matchup. She is winmore and black is a color that is hard to justify being invested in for a BB casting cost given that it tends to be the 4th or 5th color already for allies given that Naya colors tend to have better options.
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am I wrong in thinking Drana is too good not to be played here? with access to up to 12 5 color lands and possibly Harabaz Druid I don't see why she isnt played. as a two off or something.
Cutting bolts and possibly firemantle mage. Is something I wanna do and I don't think Expedition Envoy is the answer...
I see something going foward for me with only Path and CoCo as non creature spells removing the need for a red source.
Drana has two problems that I see
She has a BB casting cost. Black has some cool utility allies but tends to lack sheer power in a lot of the ally options. Kalastria Healer and Bojuka Brigand are sort of the other two maybe playable black allies and they mostly suffer from being weaker than other allies that you could play. Hagra Diabolist is cheaky too but ultimately so expensive that he is at best maybe a sideboard splash. I did test black quite a bit and overall I feel that Kalastria Healer might be the best option as it can get past some things like Ensnaring Bridge locks but ultimately it felt very weak against the faster decks of modern which often pushed me to sideboard them if I was running them at all. My point here is that BB is a rough casting cost when black is otherwise mostly not used so its harder to justify lands other than the ones that tap for any color for allies to play her.
She has almost zero immediate impact. Sure she is an ally and triggers allies to do their thing. That said the allies that most people are playing that would cost three do things like giving evasion to the current creatures in play. Modern is a brutal fast format where you might be dead before you get a turn three and she is a three drop that has no immediate impact. It means that it takes until turn 4 for her to do anything and she dies to like everything and all of her upside relies on her super slowly hitting play, sticking, and being able to swing. In my mind it means that she maybe is ok against fair decks which is already the type of deck allies do extremely well against.
In a nutshell, if she is at all decent, its because you are already up against a favorable matchup. She is winmore and black is a color that is hard to justify being invested in for a BB casting cost given that it tends to be the 4th or 5th color already for allies given that Naya colors tend to have better options.
We have up to 12 5 collor lands. I havent had a problem casting her and she has been awesome in long lasting games. If every game would end on t3 we wouldnt run CoCo. Yeah she sure isnt very good when we are getting comboed, but tbh many things aren't. She won't pump the Champion imediatily but against other creature decks she has been performed well imho. I just can't see myself playing Envoy but I suppose thats the way.
What are we setting up to beat? what MUs should we win?
am I wrong in thinking Drana is too good not to be played here? with access to up to 12 5 color lands and possibly Harabaz Druid I don't see why she isnt played. as a two off or something.
Cutting bolts and possibly firemantle mage. Is something I wanna do and I don't think Expedition Envoy is the answer...
I see something going foward for me with only Path and CoCo as non creature spells removing the need for a red source.
Drana has two problems that I see
She has a BB casting cost. Black has some cool utility allies but tends to lack sheer power in a lot of the ally options. Kalastria Healer and Bojuka Brigand are sort of the other two maybe playable black allies and they mostly suffer from being weaker than other allies that you could play. Hagra Diabolist is cheaky too but ultimately so expensive that he is at best maybe a sideboard splash. I did test black quite a bit and overall I feel that Kalastria Healer might be the best option as it can get past some things like Ensnaring Bridge locks but ultimately it felt very weak against the faster decks of modern which often pushed me to sideboard them if I was running them at all. My point here is that BB is a rough casting cost when black is otherwise mostly not used so its harder to justify lands other than the ones that tap for any color for allies to play her.
She has almost zero immediate impact. Sure she is an ally and triggers allies to do their thing. That said the allies that most people are playing that would cost three do things like giving evasion to the current creatures in play. Modern is a brutal fast format where you might be dead before you get a turn three and she is a three drop that has no immediate impact. It means that it takes until turn 4 for her to do anything and she dies to like everything and all of her upside relies on her super slowly hitting play, sticking, and being able to swing. In my mind it means that she maybe is ok against fair decks which is already the type of deck allies do extremely well against.
In a nutshell, if she is at all decent, its because you are already up against a favorable matchup. She is winmore and black is a color that is hard to justify being invested in for a BB casting cost given that it tends to be the 4th or 5th color already for allies given that Naya colors tend to have better options.
We have up to 12 5 collor lands. I havent had a problem casting her and she has been awesome in long lasting games. If every game would end on t3 we wouldnt run CoCo. Yeah she sure isnt very good when we are getting comboed, but tbh many things aren't. She won't pump the Champion imediatily but against other creature decks she has been performed well imho. I just can't see myself playing Envoy but I suppose thats the way.
What are we setting up to beat? what MUs should we win?
Against fair deck we are at our strongest I think. Our creaturebase has a snowballing effect and if unanswered should prove very strong. Fast combo decks we hve to rely on very fast kills or we are done. Against control we need to kill fast og have cards to help the nutrition game such as CoCo and possibly Lead the Stampede to fill up the tanks again after a board whipe.
Against fair deck we are at our strongest I think. Our creaturebase has a snowballing effect and if unanswered should prove very strong. Fast combo decks we hve to rely on very fast kills or we are done. Against control we need to kill fast og have cards to help the nutrition game such as CoCo and possibly Lead the Stampede to fill up the tanks again after a board whipe.
^ thats the chain of thought I have. In a lot of cases we are just a little too slow vs combo assuming they assemble on curve and our disruption is usually somewhat limited for those decks. Drana is bad vs combo and control decks and vs a more midrange deck our deck is already good but she is still slow there. In a lot of cases the evasion three mana allies will give us more immediate impact vs the midrange decks.
Also not running her gives options to not try to run all 12 ally lands. I think I usually run 8-10 of them depending on where I am at on testing them. Horizon Canopy is great assuming you don't need all of them depending on what colors you end up on. I started off running 5 color and eventually turned it into Naya allies after a lot of testing with a bit of a splash in sideboard.
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4 Champion of the Parish
4 Hada Freeblade
3 Akoum Battlesinger
2 Bojuka Brigand
3 Jwari Shapeshifter
4 Kazandu Blademaster
2 Ondu Cleric
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
1 Firemantle Mage
2 Kabira Evangel
4 Path to Exile
1 Dromoka's Command
4 Collected Company
Land (22)
4 Ally Encampment
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Plains
3 Unclaimed Territory
4 Windswept Heath
2 Ondu Cleric
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
4 Damping Sphere
1 Dismember
2 Fragmentize
2 Return to the Ranks
GAME 1: Eldrazi Death and Taxes (2-0)
GAME 2: Jund (2-1)
GAME 3: Undying Gruul (2-1)
GAME 4: UW Sun Titan Control (2-1)
So, I guess my take this week on the list:
The sideboard felt fairly good today. There was a tron deck and a bauble deck that I saw that I didn't play against as well as some RDW and devotion black control that I didn't play against. I am not sure offhand what changes I intend moving forward as the build felt fairly good all around this week. I might leave it at this for a bit and see if I can get more testing in. I would possibly like to try to maybe add one more sideboard slot for vs control matches just given that it did feel like I did get a bit lucky in my vs control matchups.
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[Modern] Allies
Round 1 Tron - (0-2)
It was a decent game but my opponent got the play and on the final turn he cracked an artifact cantrip into tron assembled on like T4 or T5 and managed to assemble his tron and blew me out with an O Stone on game 1. Game 2 I found 2x Stony Silence twice in a row but I couldn't get my lands to work for me. I kept a 6 but didn't have the ability to tap for W for non allies. I ended up losing this game because I didn't find a white source.
Round 2 Infect (0-2)
He kiled me two games in a row on turn 3. In both cases I had the ability to kill him the next turn but again he won the flip and got the play starting. I died to Inkmoth game 1 with 2x pump spells and game 3 he curved the unblockable one and 3x pumped it next turn.
Round 3 By (and I dropped here as I didn't want to wait an hour for the last match)
I guess it was fairly unlucky in that I lost the dice roll each match to go first. Oddly enough I lost all 4 dice rolls the week before as well on trying to go first. In both cases the match was close but they were fast non interacting decks and I couldn't find my interactions. Moving forward, I am going to try to lean up my curve a little and get just a smidge more options to interact with creatures from my side. My list as it stands right now is:
4 Champion of the Parish
2 Expedition Envoy
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Akoum Battlesinger
1 Bojuka Brigand
2 Jwari Shapeshifter
4 Kazandu Blademaster
2 Ondu Cleric
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
1 Firemantle Mage
2 Kabira Evangel
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
LAND (22)
4 Ally Encampment
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Plains
1 Temple Garden
2 Unclaimed Territory
4 Windswept Heath
2 Ondu Cleric
3 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
4 Damping Sphere
2 Dismember
1 Return to the Ranks
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
So the big changes as of this week is that I am bringing up my one drop options by two. Expedition Envoy really does kind of suck but I wan't to be a little more consistant in having a turn one play and having one drops also smooths out my three mana play a little more as well. I brought up my Akoum Battlesinger count as I think they are valuable against the non interactive decks and bringing up the one drops also helps them more as well.
In the side I toned back my options vs control a little to keep my Tron side options strong. I see a lot more tron right now than I do control and I have had some level of success against the control decks I have played so far due to redundancy of threats as well as card advantage in my landbase. Getting a second Dismember in the side to help against non interactive creature based decks.
I did play a game for fun against an 8 rack deck and my matchup against Ensnaring Bridge is absolutely terrible as of right now but as of right now the number of bridge decks I see is still very low so I am kind of ok letting my bridge match be poor as it feels like my ability to fight against it would be kind of bad even if I had some sort of Naturalize effect in the side. Tuktuk Scrapper would probably be one of the better cards to bring in from the side if I do want to shore that up but he also feels slow enough that he seems a little questionable to bring in against most decks other than bridge decks not to mention the question of how many I would need to bring in to reliably find them. Its possible though that pairing Tuktuk Scrapper + a fist full of Ondu Cleric could stall the game long enough for me to win though. I also entertained the idea of a copy of Hagra Diabolist but at his cost to play as well as the consistancy and inability to go get him really it seemed loose as well.
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[Modern] Allies
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[Modern] Allies
And Thank you for your reports. In the last time i read only new decklists in Asia (here my search link)
https://deck.hareruyamtg.com/en/deck/result?pageSize=&eventName=&formats[2]=2&archetypeIds=&dateFrom=&dateTo=&capacityFrom=&capacityTo=&card=Kazandu Blademaster&player=&eventName=
There are some nice ideas and post two examples:
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
4 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Expedition Envoy
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
4 Harabaz Druid
4 Akoum Battlesinger
1 Kalastria Healer
1 Ondu Cleric
3 Kabira Evangel
2 Firemantle Mage
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Collected Company
2 Ondu Cleric
1 Kalastria Healer
1 Remorseful Cleric
2 Thrashing Brontodon
2 Abrade
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
1 Choke
1 Experimental Frenzy
1 Worship
Score:TOP4 Participants:45 Date:2018/10/27
2 Forest
3 Horizon Canopy
3 Plains
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Champion of the Parish
1 Fiend Hunter
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Thalia's Lieutenant
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
4 Hardened Scales
1 Aven Mindcensor
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
Score:Top8 Participants:84 Date:2018/08/05 (PPTQ2019)
The second list is interesting but its almost not an ally deck anymore. Honestly running 12 noncreature spells in a coco list seems like its stretching the capability of what you can still run CoCo for + only 12 allies kind of makes it seem like not an ally deck anymore to me. Its honestly more of a human deck at this point than it is an ally deck which I guess is still an interesting list but it makes me question if a lot of those allies are literally just grisly bears since it seems unlikely to see many other allies enter even if they stick several turns.
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[Modern] Allies
Mirror Entity is a winmore card in that its only good if you have Harabaz Druid and a board full of creatures likely. It has essentially no immediate impact unless you have a minimum of 5 mana up and you need to have a wide board + lots of mana for it to be a reasonable card. That is too slow for modern in almost every deck with elves being POSSIBLY the exception but generally speaking its also not good enough there.
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[Modern] Allies
To be fair : Turn 3 Collected Company into more Allies is really nice and sometimes a lethal damage, but that happens only in rare cases.
The second list works very well, because all Allies are Humans, too. It look a bit odd, but it works like the good old Allies, too. i would cut Champion of the Parish. 12 1-Drops are enough and just make room for more allies.
I want only show in summary , that allies are still a decent modern deck that can reach top places in tournaments. ...even with unoptimal builds
Spoiled below is the list as of this video:
4 Champion of the Parish
3 Expedition Envoy
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Akoum Battlesinger
2 Bojuka Brigand
4 Kazandu Blademaster
2 Ondu Cleric
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
1 Firemantle Mage
2 Kabira Evangel
4 Ally Encampment
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Plains
1 Temple Garden
2 Unclaimed Territory
4 Windswept Heath
Spells (8)
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
2 Ondu Cleric
2 Hagra Diabolist
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
3 Damping Sphere
2 Dismember
1 Return to the Ranks
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
I am still kind of processing what I would do from here but honestly there isn't much I can think of. I would maybe add one more sideboard tron hate card and I think Gideon is kind of so so with UW control being one of the few matchups I want him over another Return to the Ranks.
EDIT: Giving it a little more thought, I might even go as far as bringing the Expedition Envoy count to 4x in the main. It seemed like having one drops really helped us a lot more against the fast decks. The tradeoff is obviously that it brings our topdecking to being a little worse but too often it seemed like we were stuck with multiple 2 drops in hand that were slowly working their way to play. Bojuka Brigand showed his ugly head in duplicate in the last game even though we only run two. I also think that it might be possible to shift some of the mainboard Path to Exile to being mainboard Dismember if only in a light split even if that is 3 to 1 given how good of a matchup I feel we have against fair creature decks. That might just be a bad idea but its a random thought.
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[Modern] Allies
Maybe you can do second sight to the Champion of the Parish. He is only 1 Human away to be a 2/2 and in the first round he got the same growing like Hada Freeblade. The only non-Human Ally in your Main is the 2 Drop Ondu Cleric
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Ok, an another News for Allies !
The Goldfish did a Instant Decktech. About the Black Allies and my other favorite mechanic: devotion. Mono-Black Ally Devotion (Modern)
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-mono-black-ally-devotion-modern
Like always in this "Instant Deck Tech" format. Vote for the Deck with likes and/or just make a comment, to get a play Video. Ok, thats only 10 Allies in this shell, but all of them are sweet and i want really really see finally Drana, Liberator of Malakir in action
That mono black list is interesting. The disruption might help against some combo decks but I feel like its tron / control matchups will be really sketch. Even its aggro matchups seem like it might be too slow when thinking of 8 wack, burn, or hardened scales.
Its an interesting though but that looks really slow for modern even with the disruption its packing.
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[Modern] Allies
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Expedition Envoy
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Akoum Battlesinger
4 Kazandu Blademaster
2 Ondu Cleric
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
1 Firemantle Mage
3 Kabira Evangel
Spells (8)
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
4 Ally Encampment
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Unclaimed Territory
4 Windswept Heath
2 Ondu Cleric
2 Hagra Diabolist
2 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
3 Damping Sphere
1 Dismember
2 Return to the Ranks
Big changes with this version:
As of right now, I am trying to figure out if I can get more Dismembers in my sideboard and even contemplating some sort of split of Dismember to Path to Exile in the main given how giving away that land has been a pain for me at times. I would love to make room for another 1-2 Dismembers for Infect and creature combo decks like Devoted Druid but I am just having issues with what I don't want to have on hand. I have considered a few times possibly cutting my sideboard graveyard hate in part because I think I have more of a chance against a lot of the graveyard decks without sideboard assistance than I do Infect and creature combo decks. Part of this might also be me having gotten lucky a few too many times and playing against graveyard decks probably less frequently than I should. This probably being me saying that as a meta I see less graveyard decks than I have decks that Dismember would have been more useful to me for.
I also haven't gotten to do nearly enough testing since making a bunch of changes. My 2 drop count is down a lot since I got to test much recently and I think my Collected Company are probably a bit worse than they used to be given I now have Savanah Lions.
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[Modern] Allies
4 Akoum Battlesinger
2 Expedition Envoy
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Jwari Shapeshifter
3 Kabira Evangel
4 Kalastria Healer
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Reckless Bushwhacker
Other (8)
4 Aether Vial
4 Collected Company
4 Cavern of souls
4 Ally encampment
2 Unclaimed Territory
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Windswept Heath
1 Forest
1 Plains
4 Path to exile
3 Rest in peace
2 Stony silence
2 Eidolon of Rhetorics
2 Selfless spirit
2 Ondu Cleric
Cards I toyed with, through out the testing and find out to be somewhat useable
Results
Went 3:0 twice in a row at local FNM with record of clear 6 wins.
Overall I played against: UR Storm, BridgeVine, UR Wizards, BTL Scapeshift, Skred, Grixis Death's shadow.
Went 3:1 at our local "MTG fightclub" which consists of people that are the most interested in modern from our city.
There I played against: Dredge, UB Control, Taking Turns and Infect (lost this one to the blighted agent).
I was able to test a lot agains Jund Death's shadow and UW and in both cases I won nearly each game I call 9/10 or so. In any case it wasn't even close for them.
I wasn't able to test against humans/tron/bant_spirits yet.
I find this deck utterly weak to any kind of combo (storm/devoted druid/ad nauseam etc.) as it lacks interaction but other than that I was able to race successfully even the storm when I was on play and/or he didn't have T2/T3 kill since with mediocre hand you simply kill them on T3 and T4.
Overall I have no ideas for improvement atm. but I am open to suggestions. Also I find this deck super fun to play and surprisingly competitive so I am going to continue playing it for now albeit they seem like weaker humans, their clock in comparison is much superior to them.
With Akoum Battlesinger i got some of my best and worst experiences. Brutal early wins and some looses with some flashy 1/1 2/1 Weenies that kills my pumped 5/1 Allies. Kor Bladewhirl is a good choice alongside with the Battlesingers. Sadly a little Nonbo with Drana.
I like the range from Kalastria Healer and it got much better with mass resurrection effects like Return to the Ranks. In your strict fast aggro build, i believe other choices are stronger.
Lantern Scout is a little bit better in aggro builds as the Ondu Cleric.
Reckless Bushwhacker <<-->> Aether Vial , surge cost only without vial (put into play isn't a cast) can beeing annoying.
Overall i like your clean and strong aggro Ally Build. Sometimes it feels like an All-In , but in the same moment it is a good feeling to end the games quickly.
Noble Hierarch - its a great card but I think it has more payoff for decks where the 3-4 mana count are higher and more important. Allies is kind of odd in that we play a lot heavier in the 2 mana range which makes T1 Hierarch maybe a little more questionable. It gets you to company faster but I feel like outside of that you are playing it to try to get to 4 mana to play a pair of two drops faster is about all it feels like its going to do here.
Some things to mention for you after having played this deck for a while. Tron is rough..... every freaking time its rough. I have 6 sideboard cards almost specifically for Tron and I would say I am still...... probably only 50/50 at best with that more likely being a little unfavored. No mainboard creature removal will mean that you are probably at a disadvantage vs fast combo and infect. I run 4 paths main and a little more sideboard spot removal with a faster overall curve and I am still probably not favored against Infect. I personally think that Aether Vial is a bit of a trap but you are running a heavier 2 mana count. My issue with the card is that it slows us down so if the concern is being killed on turn 3 I think Vial is too slow for this deck given we don't really have much in terms of disruption. Lots of the mainstream decks that run Vial run a heavier 3 mana count than we do and a lot of those 2-3 mana cards have some level of disruption to them (looking at fish and humans). I know that Garfield likes Drana, Liberator of Malakir but my opinion of her is that she is a complete trap in that she is too slow and games are already won or lost by the time she is online. The other problem with her is that her mana cost is not friendly as most of the good allies are not heavily in black. Lantern Scout also assumes that you are in a spot where you can nicely attack and connect which I think its better to not bank on that and just stick with the Ondu Clerics. If for instance you need to kill someone through Ensnaring Bridge for instance you want to stall the game out as long as you can with Ondu Clerics while you wait to hope to kill them with Kalastria Healer.
For me, I went the path of adding 4x Champion of the Parish into my list and the upfront pressure has been fantastic. It has some issues in that its not an ally so the evasion and buffs from something like Akoum Battlesinger don't help it but I have found it to be a lot faster early presence than something like Aether Vial myself. I like to plan and play modern assuming the game will end by turn 3 or 4 and to try to build in a way to either extend that clock or race it. I don't feel like allies have the tools to stall it out as nicely as they do to try to race that clock.
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[Modern] Allies
Full agree !
If you decide to play vial, play less Lands, to get more pressure turn 3 and 4 in the end. A human deck these Days running only 19 Lands and a full copy of Vials and 37 creatures. Bant Spirits using vial only to replace Birds of Paradise and fight trough counters , that is the reason they use only 3 of them.
Vial is a hot topic since this thread exist. ISBPathfinder is absolut right if he talked about that vial a bit of a trap.
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Expedition Envoy
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Akoum Battlesinger
4 Kazandu Blademaster
2 Ondu Cleric
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
1 Firemantle Mage
3 Kabira Evangel
Spells (8)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Collected Company
4 Ally Encampment
2 Arid Mesa
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Kalastria Healer
1 Ondu Cleric
2 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
3 Damping Sphere
1 Path to Exile
2 Return to the Ranks
The big change here was overhauling the landbase to hopefully allow me to run Lightning Bolt instead of Path to Exile. There are give and takes in this change and ultimately vs Hollow One, Dredge, and Delve threat decks the change in the removal will be worse for me but those are decks that overall I right now feel a little more confident in. Moving to Lightning Bolt should still give me the same flexibility in killing T3 win decks which their creatures tend to be a little more prone to removal with the exception maybe being like a G Brand list which tends to be far more niche. In my mind that means that a lot of the trade off tends to be decks that win via combat and Hollow One, Dredge, and Delve threat decks tend to be a little slower giving me more time to gain life and or get some big threat of my own. My own lifegain tactics tend to work better against them as well and I have more time to grow my own threats against those decks. I am hoping though that the shift to bolt gives me more flexibility and reach though against control decks, tron, and random decks that I lose to things other than their creatures. Its true that Path can answer a Wurmcoil Engine but I can't remember the last time I actually "lost" to wurmcoil vs tron as usually its spinning up a sweeper against me that ends me and the thing that follows is just how they make sure I die.
Adding bolts to the main also gives me a little different feel to my sideboard as before I was relying on Hagra Diabolist as my sideboard hate for Ensnaring Bridge and Worship, the extra reach of bolts makes me feel like I can possibly test out that slot for Kalastria Healer instead. I also shifted one of my slots I gave to Ondu Cleric previously to an additional copy of the Healer. Healers work with the company plan as well as the Return to the Ranks plan and can be still fairly reasonable cards to bring in vs fast aggro and burn decks.
This feels like a big shift for me considering how much of my landbase changed over for me to try this adjustment out. I was going to try to field this list tonight but my wife wants me to spend time with her so I am bailing on FNM but I think there is another modern event next week potentially so I will see if I can spin it up for that.
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[Modern] Allies
You could ask that question about most decks that are not a tiered modern deck. I think there are a lot of things going for allies but in a lot of cases the reasons that humans is so playable is how many types of disruption it has for different strategies. Allies on the other hand is a deck that tends to do very well against fair decks and even some of the unfair but creture oriented decks it does well against. You will probably need to throw most of the sideboard at being cards to get you past combo and unfair decks but being good against aggro, burn, and midrange disruption style of decks is a good starting point in the main.
Some of the strengths of this deck is its ability to gain life, evasion, and growth threats. If you do nothing but play against decks that T3 win then this is not a good deck choice. This deck is incredibly strong against burn, aggro, and midrange decks. Its weaknesses would be more along the lines of T3 win decks, Tron, and UW control as the ones I suspect we would have harder times against in my own experience and testing. Every deck is going to have some weaknesses somewhere though and right now the issue with allies is that most of their utility that is fast enough to be played in modern is gaining life and evasion. There is a mill option as well but given the lack of utility allies that are fast enough to play into that plan allies tends to be shoed into playing as an aggro / company style of deck right now based on what has been printed.
This deck is not humans and it plays nothing like humans I guess is my answer. This deck will generally have more aggression and less disruption being a deck that tries to race while granting size boosts to its creatures, evasion, and lifegain to be a scrappy boxer kind of deck that rolls with the punches rather than trying to stop someone cold. This also is not a tiered deck and while it might be a reasonable deck to play and tweak it is and likely never will be a mainstream deck you will see on a regular basis without some sort of huge breakthrough or new cards being printed for it.
For fun I did a few sample hands. The first I would call a solid reasonable hand you could expect as something that seems fairly normal to see from this deck:
T1 Champion of the Parish
T2 Kazandu Blademaster (swing 2)
T3 Oran-Rief Survivalist, Hada Freeblade (swing 8)
T4 any Ally swing for 15ish
This next one I took literally the fastest thing I could think of and slapped it together as a sample:
T1 Hada Freeblade
T2 Hada Freeblade, Hada Freeblade (swing 3)
T3 Akoum Battlesinger, Expedition Envoy (swing 22)
The last Envoy on T3 was just needing another 1 mana ally. Our biggest hangup right now is that Hada Freeblade is above and beyond our best ally that exists but beyond that there are kind of no other one drop ally options. Savanah Lion is a far from modern playable card but I am forced to play with it because of how important it is to try to be faster and I can't not run more one drops. If I were to say how they could improve allies it would be INCREDIBLY simple... make 1-2 more one drop allies that are more playable than Expedition Envoy. I would say the first sample game was something that is just kind of a good curve hand with no answers / coco in hand with 3 lands by turn 3 kind of a game. You can see with that though.... it has no chance vs a T3 win deck so it comes down entirely to sideboard cards and if you can draw them and or if your opponent can reliably go off on turn three without interaction from us.
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[Modern] Allies
More important though, I got a chance to try to test Lightning Bolt in the list. I don't feel like I got the chance to get some sort of finite answer on if I should have Lightning Bolt in the list and I think the reasons to have it over Path to Exile were legit but I think the changes to my landbase to try to accommodate it were ultimately flawed. I feel like I would possibly have to build the landbase without things like Ally Encampment and Cavern of Souls as the core of the lands. For now, I am going to scrap the idea of bolt in my list but I think its something that can and could work. Some of my problems though were that I wasn't a red enough deck from the get go and I was still splashing some other colors in the side (going to 4c in some situations in the sideboard).
Moving forward, I have another build I want to try out:
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Expedition Envoy
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Akoum Battlesinger
4 Kazandu Blademaster
1 Ondu Cleric
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Kabira Evangel
Spells (7)
3 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
4 Ally Encampment
1 Arid Mesa
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
3 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Unclaimed Territory
4 Windswept Heath
2 Kalastria Healer
2 Ondu Cleric
2 Rest in Peace
3 Stony Silence
3 Damping Sphere
1 Path to Exile
2 Return to the Ranks
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - Given the number of one drops I run in the list this is a bit of a thought experiment. Lots of the turn 3 decks of modern rely on spells and sometimes they rely on chaining a few of them together. Its possible that this might even buy me a turn against tron, storm, infect, KCI, and a few others. Assuming this works out I could adjust numbers and run three of them but for now being a thought experiment on a non ally 2 drop legend I think going with two copies is a bit safer to avoid duplication.
-1 Mainboard Path to Exile - When I need them I guess they are great but there are still a lot of matchups where I don't like that it gives my opponents a land or that I am the aggressor. They are still good but with adding Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to the list it adds some disruption that works for my deck. Being that she also taxes Path it seems fine to cut one of them in the main.
- Firemantle Mage - I have been finding less and less situations where I am happy with the mennace evasion. Most of the matchups where the protection that Kabira Evangel gives doesn't work the mennace option is weak at best.
-1 Mainboard Ondu Cleric - I like having these guys in the main for the aggro, midrange, and burn decks but that said, having them in the main against the T3 win decks of modern is a liability. I am going to keep a copy in the main for now in part because if I cut both of them I won't feel I have sufficient numbers after sideboarding but trimming one for the disruption of Thalia feels like it will fit more against combo and control decks.
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[Modern] Allies
Cutting bolts and possibly firemantle mage. Is something I wanna do and I don't think Expedition Envoy is the answer...
I see something going foward for me with only Path and CoCo as non creature spells removing the need for a red source.
Drana has two problems that I see
In a nutshell, if she is at all decent, its because you are already up against a favorable matchup. She is winmore and black is a color that is hard to justify being invested in for a BB casting cost given that it tends to be the 4th or 5th color already for allies given that Naya colors tend to have better options.
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[Modern] Allies
We have up to 12 5 collor lands. I havent had a problem casting her and she has been awesome in long lasting games. If every game would end on t3 we wouldnt run CoCo. Yeah she sure isnt very good when we are getting comboed, but tbh many things aren't. She won't pump the Champion imediatily but against other creature decks she has been performed well imho. I just can't see myself playing Envoy but I suppose thats the way.
What are we setting up to beat? what MUs should we win?
Against fair deck we are at our strongest I think. Our creaturebase has a snowballing effect and if unanswered should prove very strong. Fast combo decks we hve to rely on very fast kills or we are done. Against control we need to kill fast og have cards to help the nutrition game such as CoCo and possibly Lead the Stampede to fill up the tanks again after a board whipe.
^ thats the chain of thought I have. In a lot of cases we are just a little too slow vs combo assuming they assemble on curve and our disruption is usually somewhat limited for those decks. Drana is bad vs combo and control decks and vs a more midrange deck our deck is already good but she is still slow there. In a lot of cases the evasion three mana allies will give us more immediate impact vs the midrange decks.
Also not running her gives options to not try to run all 12 ally lands. I think I usually run 8-10 of them depending on where I am at on testing them. Horizon Canopy is great assuming you don't need all of them depending on what colors you end up on. I started off running 5 color and eventually turned it into Naya allies after a lot of testing with a bit of a splash in sideboard.
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[Modern] Allies