Hi, I have been testing the leap deck recently and for me it doesn't have a good enough early game. Once you get going the engine is ridiculous, and it doesn't even need a combo to win. But I dont think it's well positioned in the meta right now.
The unfair fast decks seem almost imposible to beat consistently. Sometimes I would get lucky and draw the specific hate/chord and that would feel great, but most times I wouldn't. Maybe it's my build or maybe I need to mulligan more aggresively for the specific hate, but I personally think that going for the combo with co-co is generaly a better plan, although somewhat unreliable aswell.
What unfair fast decks? Storm, Living End, Twin, Amulet, and Ad Nauseam are the unfair decks that come to mind (I assume you can't mean Infect...I beat that deck twice today in a tournament with mediocre hands, both 2-0) and we have the tools to beat all of them. If your meta is all fast combo, try the rally list I 5-0d the league with on an earlier page.
Hangarback walker seems pretty bad in a world of kolagans command and path to exile
So trading a 2 mana dude for +1 card (to path) is bad now? Last I heard in a creature heavy deck that can utilize excess mana we were pretty happy if they pathed our value dudes, especially if we sac them to leap in response and make thopters if we'd rather.
Kolaghan's command, eh? I guess it's OK, but KC'ing a HBW winds up trading, assuming the discard mode, one card for one (kc makes you discard, and you end up with a thopter for HBW in the worst case).
My experience with HBW vs Koala command has been mainly that if you put it out for 2 they've got to live in fear of you playing township and pumping your thopter army
Note: My context for HBW question was the Leap deck. Also, there are sac outlets other than leap.
I’d consider Elves Affinity and Zoo pretty poor matchups against your list, merfolk gets worse as well since the block+sac doesn’t work against Islandwalk. The CoCo version can at least outspeed those decks with a quick combo, Leap on the draw doesn’t even get started if they have a decent hand, on the play maybe, but even then Elves have trample, Zoo has Knights which essentially gives them 3-5 ways of having their Kessig Wolf Run in play and they run Qasali as well, whilst Affinity is just what it is with their pumped flyers, although Lingering Souls can buy you some time here.
You do have the tools to beat Storm, Living End and Ad Nauseam, which is Eidolon of Rhethoric post-SB and temporarily the Thoughtseizes which are always amazing against combo decks (against LE you have the seer+leap and scooze as well I guess which is a plus), but they also have the tools to answer the Eidolon (except Storm ^^), so having the ability to additionally threaten to combo off early is also imo a better option here.
Both the CoCo and your list have the Decay/Qasali for the Pyromancer Ascension/Goblin Electromancer/Phyrexian Unlife, and both can have an Eidolon/Thoughtseizes post-SB so I’d consider them a worse matchup with the exception of Living End if you get an early Leap down.
It seems to me that the Leap version does worse against the aforementioned decks but has better game in grindfests such as Grixis control, Jund and especially the land decks Tron/Scapeshift/Amulet Bloom which are horrible for the CoCo version. Combo decks like Twin depend on both players’ hands which is the case in both the CoCo and Leap version.
I do have to admit I haven’t tried out the Leap version yet and am interested in doing so, I’ve always wanted to slam in some Lingering Souls in this deck since I love the card . Currently the only thing keeping me from testing it out are the dark confidants I do not own, once I get them I’ll give the it a try .
They do help alot but take 1 of the 5 mana dorks+2 lands+one of the three souls in hand to play turn 2, which then takes up your entire turn whilst they still have steel overseer/arcbound/etched champion with a plating/arcbound counters to bypass them g1, hence why I considered that they buy you some time but are often not game changing. Affinity is just a nuisance in general since they can deploy their entire hand in the first turns, but the maindeck orzhov pontiff helps as well so it often comes down to drawing the right bullets in the right matchups.
Anyways the more I look at the deck the more I want to try it out, I'll test it in trice today
I have extensively tested it against many diferent decks and my conclusions are what I expected. The deck is solid and usually favored against any kind of slow/grindy MU but tempo and fast linear combo/aggro decks are a nightmare unless you draw the specific hate, and you cant reliably have the option to combo em out of nowhere like you have with the coco list. I can list you the matchups from the tier 1 thread and tell you how I felt the deck performs against every one of them:
Burn: Slighly favored pre SB; even better after sb. This is a pretty easy mu for any deck with so many blockers and lifegain maindeck so, simmilar to coco.
UR Twin: Slightly unfavored to unfavored pre sb; even to somewhat favored after sb. Really dependent in the hands/draws.
Merfolk: Slightly unfavoured to even pre sb; post sb is reaaaally dependant, if they side in hibernations you are pretty much done, and choke is not even that good nowdays.
Infect: Unfavored pre sb, unless you draw your 1x melira or your 1x orzhov pontiff, pendelhaven and noble hierarch can make your lingering souls irrelevant; even to slighly favored after sb if you have enough hand disruption and removal.
Grixis Twin: Even before sb; even to favoured after sb. This MU is pretty much like UR twin but easier because they dont usually go so hard on the combo, and the grindiest the best for us.
Affinity: Unfavoured before sb; favoured after SB. Affinity is affinity, not much to say
Amulet: Very unfavoured before sb; even to slightly favoured after sb. It really depends on the number of fulminators hand disruption etc you can pack.
GR Tron: Unfavoured pre sb; even to slightly favoured after sb. Like Amulet, but easier.
Jund: The only actual favourable MU pre sb, but also somewhat hand dependant, unanswered bobs are the key to this mu; still favourable but less after SB.
This are my thoughts. Feel free to point out anything that I might have overlooked, because im writing this on the fly.
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Modern Project AnafenzaBGW
Modern KnightfallGRUW
Recently bought 4x tarmogoyf. Considering what to play next.
-Proud Selesnyan Guildmage and Dromoka's Follower.
I have extensively tested it against many diferent decks and my conclusions are what I expected. The deck is solid and usually favored against any kind of slow/grindy MU but tempo and fast linear combo/aggro decks are a nightmare unless you draw the specific hate, and you cant reliably have the option to combo em out of nowhere like you have with the coco list. I can list you the matchups from the tier 1 thread and tell you how I felt the deck performs against every one of them:
Burn: Slighly favored pre SB; even better after sb. This is a pretty easy mu for any deck with so many blockers and lifegain maindeck so, simmilar to coco.
UR Twin: Slightly unfavored to unfavored pre sb; even to somewhat favored after sb. Really dependent in the hands/draws.
Merfolk: Slightly unfavoured to even pre sb; post sb is reaaaally dependant, if they side in hibernations you are pretty much done, and choke is not even that good nowdays.
Infect: Unfavored pre sb, unless you draw your 1x melira or your 1x orzhov pontiff, pendelhaven and noble hierarch can make your lingering souls irrelevant; even to slighly favored after sb if you have enough hand disruption and removal.
Grixis Twin: Even before sb; even to favoured after sb. This MU is pretty much like UR twin but easier because they dont usually go so hard on the combo, and the grindiest the best for us.
Affinity: Unfavoured before sb; favoured after SB. Affinity is affinity, not much to say
Amulet: Very unfavoured before sb; even to slightly favoured after sb. It really depends on the number of fulminators hand disruption etc you can pack.
GR Tron: Unfavoured pre sb; even to slightly favoured after sb. Like Amulet, but easier.
Jund: The only actual favourable MU pre sb, but also somewhat hand dependant, unanswered bobs are the key to this mu; still favourable but less after SB.
This are my thoughts. Feel free to point out anything that I might have overlooked, because im writing this on the fly.
My experiences in testing the deck over the past few months are wildly different.
Twin of all varieties is slightly favorable. They can't handle pressure well and we have a lot of answers to the combo. They rarely win if they don't have the combo t4, and drawing a single decay or slaughter pact is usually enough to force a win.
Affinity is close to an actual bye. Our maindeck configuration with Lingering Souls is very hard for them to beat even with their best hands. Our splash sideboard hate also lines up well with their threats.
Merfolk is about even pre and post board. We have a fair number of creatures that don't get hit by hibernation. Pontiff is the key card.
Storm is reasonable pre board and favorable post. Living end is basically a bye because we can stock the graveyard better than they can and eidolon of rhetoric is a big issue.
Amulet is slightly bad g1 but better than tron. Post board we are favored.
Tron is bad game 1 and very good post board.
Scapeshift is bad game 1 and very good post board.
Zoo is basically a bye. Our creatures are better than theirs, they can't kill us fast enough and we have an unbeatable late game.
Burn is slightly favored game one and much better post board as you say.
Jund and abzan are basically byes. They have to god draw to even have a chance against our mediocre hands.
Grixis control is probably the best matchup among decks people play, though infect is a close contender.
Re hangarback: it's a worse version of voice unless I'm missing something.
Overall the deck is similar to company in a lot of matchups. It's much better against twin, tron, amulet, scapeshift, and grindy matchups, and somewhat worse against fast combo.
Hangarback scales better than voice, and fliers are much better than voice tokens with gavony township (and multiple leap tokens). But I don't know that it'd replace voice, might just slot in somewhere else as a 1-2 of to act as Lingering Souls 5-6.
On another note, I took my version (Shamelessly copied with small tweaks for my meta, and card availability) and did very well.
List: http://deckbox.org/sets/1267439
Highlights - it's the voice in the sb version with maindeck skites and such. I made some minor changes to the maindeck:
-1 skite maindeck for +1 fulminator maindeck because Tron and Bloom are rampant in my meta. It turned out to be pretty poor except in one game with Jund where I popped his only green source and went to town.
-1 witness for +1 pridemage maindeck (pridemage pressure is very good in my meta, people durdle a lot...and 4 witnesses feels like a lot.
I didn't have an Orzhov pontiff, and subbed something else in that I can't recall.
Matchups:
G1: New guy playing Grixis Control. Game 1 I flub and fail to fetch a second black source for Redcap and lose despite him tapping out and me having the combo on board. Really lame. Game 2 gavony township beats. Game 3 he gets stuck on 2 lands and I combo out turn 4 with end step chord for seer untap company for melira/anafenza.
G2: Jund. Game 1 I crush it, hit a fiendhunter to exile his ooze and then combo out. Game 2 I get there with voice token beats, swinging for 13 lethal including cocoing up a spellskite to eat the abrupt decay he tried to get around it.
I can see how Jund might be hard, but this was not.
G3: New guy playing Rug twin. Game 1 combo out pretty fast, untap and redcap. Game 2 combo out, get angered three times, and pull it out with Linvala / pridemage / spellskite beats. I got kinda lucky topdecking in game 2. Deck topdecks surprisingly well.
Goyf beats are kinda hilarious in the face of Finks and anafenza/melira nonsense.
G4: Old new guy playing Slivers. Game 1 he just roflstomps me with flying slivers on the play. Game 2 I'm on the play and combo out turn 4. Game 3 I combo out at 1 life with the perfect config - coco, untap, play finks, chord up anafenza, gain infinite life to which he has no outs and he scoops.
Some quick notes:
* I need to be less greedy about the combo I think and try to slow roll it sometimes. I did try to get in the face of Twin / Blue players and go nuts every time they tapped out. But there were a few times I went too fast I think.
* Scavenging ooze is not nearly as good against us as I thought. They need a lot of mana to fuel things like killing finks and eating him and still being prepared to deal with our other bs. It's good, but not ridiculous.
* 3+ Eternal witnesses seems maybe wrong. I cast zero and hit zero off coco. Going to try slipping a Liliana in there maybe or something (flip chick).
* I kept a lot of greedy 1-mana hands and got punished sometimes, but I won several games where I didn't get my second landdrop until turn 5 or so. Birds doing work.
* wall of roots is a frigging rockstar.
Really like the deck, pretty sure I am going to keep it together until folks start playing RIP It feels good to be doing less fair things in modern.
In regards to Hangarback Walker vs Voice of Resurgence, both do similar yet different things. Both can make giant Chord of Callings given the right circumstances, and both really don't do much against the more linear decks. HBW makes colorless flying 1/1s by itself provided that it dies, so it wins the attrition war, especially against Tron pre-board (poor Ugin). However, Voice's ability to force the opponent to play proactively to keep an army of Elemental green and white */*s off the field enables both an easier Chord and a beatdown plan should we need it.
Neither card is suitable for the MD imo, at least not in Company+Chord versions. Though I admit I'm tempted to test out both HBW and Voice as 3 to 4 of in the SB (one at a time of course).
Sorry, let me clarify: neither HBW nor Voice contribute to the combo plan in Chord Company versions other than to act as worse spellskites and maybe provide yet another alternative win con. If you are running a more grindy, value oriented build, then Voice and HBW contribute more there as the combo plan takes a back seat to the beatdown plan.
Note that this is coming from someone who runs 1 Pridemage 2 Decay/Path and 2 Skite to proactively protect the combo, either directly by fighting hate and removal or indirectly by buying time, so my list is far from all-in (we are too slow without Company and too reliant on top deck variance with Company to be all-in).
Also just realized that HBW is bad off of Chord and Company ... so Im less tempted to test it now.
Last I saw, the most recent winning lists have either played a full set of voice in the sideboard, or some number scattered maindeck. There haven't been any super well placing lists in the recent tournaments so it's hard to say what the accepted take is as both have had success.
The matchups you want voice in the decks are bringing in anger of the gods. Voice flat out sucks. He is not made for this style of deck. He is made for the more midrange decks that need to win through an attack step.
I firmly hate that card. I have replaced him with a 4th path and reveillark.
Voice is by far the best 2cc creature for us if we have to go for the beatdown plan since we only take that route against disruption heavy decks. It may not fit well in the maindeck but in matches where we are even tempted to take out a number of manadorks fearing boardwipes it is great to put on early pressure. Another thing I enjoy about them is that Scooze doesn't stop the tokens from appearing.
Without them I believe Jund/Grixis would be much harder to handle.
Edit: The only used boardwipe (excluding Tron) which screws voice is anger of the gods for which we can have burrenton.
Reveillark makes our CoCos worse, is hard to cast if our dorks get taken out and is basically useless if graveyard hate is up which is the first thing people board in against us, so I definitely dislike the card.
I do want to up my path count since I love being able to path, get back path with witness and have path up again vs things like jund.
If you're on the beat down plan, there may be an argument for Tarmogoyf. I'm not a huge fan as we run zero sorceries, enchantments, planeswalkers and tribal spells, and only one artifact, so he's a 3/4 most of the time. If you added some discard, he gets better.
The 12th place list in GP Pittsburgh and the 13th Place list in GP Porto Alegre both had 3 Voice main.
Cant find the Porto Alegre list, but the Pittsburgh list is much more attrition heavy pre and post board, focusing on disruption and beatdown as opposed to assembling and protecting the combo. Not that it is incorrect to do so. In fact, League's list may be better suited against a heavy Twin meta (which may or may not be the case for this GP).
There is really no comparison between this deck and Breach/Bloom or any other fast combo.
The times we manage to combo off by turn 3-4 are because our opponent happened to have little-to-no early interaction and we had an easy game. Those decks almost always combo off by turn 4, often through interaction.
This deck is almost as grindy as pod, though much less powerful in that plan. I personally am of the mind that this deck functions best as a bad beatdown deck first that happens to wins a good percentage through combos, either accidental or forced. The power of the deck comes through the beatdown though and forcing your opponent to pick between two bad choices: use removal to protect face, or use removal to protect against combo.
This is why Voice is so good. In my ideal world, you play an early Voice and start swinging away only to have them feel the need to blow a path on the poor guy. You follow up with a Finks into Melira over the next 2 turns. Finks starts going to town and they feel the need to path him too, you respond with Chord X=1, combo off for the win. If Voice never pulled that first path, you have a MUCH harder time hitting the combo.
I've tried the combo focused versions with 2 Spellskites, 4 Chords, and 4 EWits MD, but that just feels like you're trying to compete with those all-in combo decks and you are significantly slower. Why bother?
What unfair fast decks? Storm, Living End, Twin, Amulet, and Ad Nauseam are the unfair decks that come to mind (I assume you can't mean Infect...I beat that deck twice today in a tournament with mediocre hands, both 2-0) and we have the tools to beat all of them. If your meta is all fast combo, try the rally list I 5-0d the league with on an earlier page.
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
So trading a 2 mana dude for +1 card (to path) is bad now? Last I heard in a creature heavy deck that can utilize excess mana we were pretty happy if they pathed our value dudes, especially if we sac them to leap in response and make thopters if we'd rather.
Kolaghan's command, eh? I guess it's OK, but KC'ing a HBW winds up trading, assuming the discard mode, one card for one (kc makes you discard, and you end up with a thopter for HBW in the worst case).
My experience with HBW vs Koala command has been mainly that if you put it out for 2 they've got to live in fear of you playing township and pumping your thopter army
Note: My context for HBW question was the Leap deck. Also, there are sac outlets other than leap.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I’d consider Elves Affinity and Zoo pretty poor matchups against your list, merfolk gets worse as well since the block+sac doesn’t work against Islandwalk. The CoCo version can at least outspeed those decks with a quick combo, Leap on the draw doesn’t even get started if they have a decent hand, on the play maybe, but even then Elves have trample, Zoo has Knights which essentially gives them 3-5 ways of having their Kessig Wolf Run in play and they run Qasali as well, whilst Affinity is just what it is with their pumped flyers, although Lingering Souls can buy you some time here.
You do have the tools to beat Storm, Living End and Ad Nauseam, which is Eidolon of Rhethoric post-SB and temporarily the Thoughtseizes which are always amazing against combo decks (against LE you have the seer+leap and scooze as well I guess which is a plus), but they also have the tools to answer the Eidolon (except Storm ^^), so having the ability to additionally threaten to combo off early is also imo a better option here.
Both the CoCo and your list have the Decay/Qasali for the Pyromancer Ascension/Goblin Electromancer/Phyrexian Unlife, and both can have an Eidolon/Thoughtseizes post-SB so I’d consider them a worse matchup with the exception of Living End if you get an early Leap down.
It seems to me that the Leap version does worse against the aforementioned decks but has better game in grindfests such as Grixis control, Jund and especially the land decks Tron/Scapeshift/Amulet Bloom which are horrible for the CoCo version. Combo decks like Twin depend on both players’ hands which is the case in both the CoCo and Leap version.
I do have to admit I haven’t tried out the Leap version yet and am interested in doing so, I’ve always wanted to slam in some Lingering Souls in this deck since I love the card . Currently the only thing keeping me from testing it out are the dark confidants I do not own, once I get them I’ll give the it a try
Anyways the more I look at the deck the more I want to try it out, I'll test it in trice today
Burn: Slighly favored pre SB; even better after sb. This is a pretty easy mu for any deck with so many blockers and lifegain maindeck so, simmilar to coco.
UR Twin: Slightly unfavored to unfavored pre sb; even to somewhat favored after sb. Really dependent in the hands/draws.
Merfolk: Slightly unfavoured to even pre sb; post sb is reaaaally dependant, if they side in hibernations you are pretty much done, and choke is not even that good nowdays.
Infect: Unfavored pre sb, unless you draw your 1x melira or your 1x orzhov pontiff, pendelhaven and noble hierarch can make your lingering souls irrelevant; even to slighly favored after sb if you have enough hand disruption and removal.
Grixis Twin: Even before sb; even to favoured after sb. This MU is pretty much like UR twin but easier because they dont usually go so hard on the combo, and the grindiest the best for us.
Affinity: Unfavoured before sb; favoured after SB. Affinity is affinity, not much to say
Amulet: Very unfavoured before sb; even to slightly favoured after sb. It really depends on the number of fulminators hand disruption etc you can pack.
GR Tron: Unfavoured pre sb; even to slightly favoured after sb. Like Amulet, but easier.
Jund: The only actual favourable MU pre sb, but also somewhat hand dependant, unanswered bobs are the key to this mu; still favourable but less after SB.
This are my thoughts. Feel free to point out anything that I might have overlooked, because im writing this on the fly.
Modern Project AnafenzaBGW
Modern KnightfallGRUW
Recently bought 4x tarmogoyf. Considering what to play next.
-Proud Selesnyan Guildmage and Dromoka's Follower.
-Level 1 Judge
My experiences in testing the deck over the past few months are wildly different.
Twin of all varieties is slightly favorable. They can't handle pressure well and we have a lot of answers to the combo. They rarely win if they don't have the combo t4, and drawing a single decay or slaughter pact is usually enough to force a win.
Affinity is close to an actual bye. Our maindeck configuration with Lingering Souls is very hard for them to beat even with their best hands. Our splash sideboard hate also lines up well with their threats.
Merfolk is about even pre and post board. We have a fair number of creatures that don't get hit by hibernation. Pontiff is the key card.
Storm is reasonable pre board and favorable post. Living end is basically a bye because we can stock the graveyard better than they can and eidolon of rhetoric is a big issue.
Amulet is slightly bad g1 but better than tron. Post board we are favored.
Tron is bad game 1 and very good post board.
Scapeshift is bad game 1 and very good post board.
Zoo is basically a bye. Our creatures are better than theirs, they can't kill us fast enough and we have an unbeatable late game.
Burn is slightly favored game one and much better post board as you say.
Jund and abzan are basically byes. They have to god draw to even have a chance against our mediocre hands.
Grixis control is probably the best matchup among decks people play, though infect is a close contender.
Re hangarback: it's a worse version of voice unless I'm missing something.
Overall the deck is similar to company in a lot of matchups. It's much better against twin, tron, amulet, scapeshift, and grindy matchups, and somewhat worse against fast combo.
I don't want to hijack this thread, and I do also play a combo company deck (mostly online where there is less twin) so I recommend the Melira Leap thread if you want to discuss this idea further.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/624202-melira-leap-pod-style
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
On another note, I took my version (Shamelessly copied with small tweaks for my meta, and card availability) and did very well.
List:
http://deckbox.org/sets/1267439
Highlights - it's the voice in the sb version with maindeck skites and such. I made some minor changes to the maindeck:
-1 skite maindeck for +1 fulminator maindeck because Tron and Bloom are rampant in my meta. It turned out to be pretty poor except in one game with Jund where I popped his only green source and went to town.
-1 witness for +1 pridemage maindeck (pridemage pressure is very good in my meta, people durdle a lot...and 4 witnesses feels like a lot.
I didn't have an Orzhov pontiff, and subbed something else in that I can't recall.
Matchups:
G1: New guy playing Grixis Control. Game 1 I flub and fail to fetch a second black source for Redcap and lose despite him tapping out and me having the combo on board. Really lame. Game 2 gavony township beats. Game 3 he gets stuck on 2 lands and I combo out turn 4 with end step chord for seer untap company for melira/anafenza.
G2: Jund. Game 1 I crush it, hit a fiendhunter to exile his ooze and then combo out. Game 2 I get there with voice token beats, swinging for 13 lethal including cocoing up a spellskite to eat the abrupt decay he tried to get around it.
I can see how Jund might be hard, but this was not.
G3: New guy playing Rug twin. Game 1 combo out pretty fast, untap and redcap. Game 2 combo out, get angered three times, and pull it out with Linvala / pridemage / spellskite beats. I got kinda lucky topdecking in game 2. Deck topdecks surprisingly well.
Goyf beats are kinda hilarious in the face of Finks and anafenza/melira nonsense.
G4: Old new guy playing Slivers. Game 1 he just roflstomps me with flying slivers on the play. Game 2 I'm on the play and combo out turn 4. Game 3 I combo out at 1 life with the perfect config - coco, untap, play finks, chord up anafenza, gain infinite life to which he has no outs and he scoops.
Some quick notes:
* I need to be less greedy about the combo I think and try to slow roll it sometimes. I did try to get in the face of Twin / Blue players and go nuts every time they tapped out. But there were a few times I went too fast I think.
* Scavenging ooze is not nearly as good against us as I thought. They need a lot of mana to fuel things like killing finks and eating him and still being prepared to deal with our other bs. It's good, but not ridiculous.
* 3+ Eternal witnesses seems maybe wrong. I cast zero and hit zero off coco. Going to try slipping a Liliana in there maybe or something (flip chick).
* I kept a lot of greedy 1-mana hands and got punished sometimes, but I won several games where I didn't get my second landdrop until turn 5 or so. Birds doing work.
* wall of roots is a frigging rockstar.
Really like the deck, pretty sure I am going to keep it together until folks start playing RIP
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Neither card is suitable for the MD imo, at least not in Company+Chord versions. Though I admit I'm tempted to test out both HBW and Voice as 3 to 4 of in the SB (one at a time of course).
Also, yay! Rally tech is gaining more traction!
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Sorry, let me clarify: neither HBW nor Voice contribute to the combo plan in Chord Company versions other than to act as worse spellskites and maybe provide yet another alternative win con. If you are running a more grindy, value oriented build, then Voice and HBW contribute more there as the combo plan takes a back seat to the beatdown plan.
Note that this is coming from someone who runs 1 Pridemage 2 Decay/Path and 2 Skite to proactively protect the combo, either directly by fighting hate and removal or indirectly by buying time, so my list is far from all-in (we are too slow without Company and too reliant on top deck variance with Company to be all-in).
Also just realized that HBW is bad off of Chord and Company ... so Im less tempted to test it now.
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StaffMTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
I firmly hate that card. I have replaced him with a 4th path and reveillark.
Without them I believe Jund/Grixis would be much harder to handle.
Edit: The only used boardwipe (excluding Tron) which screws voice is anger of the gods for which we can have burrenton.
Reveillark makes our CoCos worse, is hard to cast if our dorks get taken out and is basically useless if graveyard hate is up which is the first thing people board in against us, so I definitely dislike the card.
I do want to up my path count since I love being able to path, get back path with witness and have path up again vs things like jund.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I stream Modern events semi-regularly at http://www.twitch.tv/nezeru
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Cant find the Porto Alegre list, but the Pittsburgh list is much more attrition heavy pre and post board, focusing on disruption and beatdown as opposed to assembling and protecting the combo. Not that it is incorrect to do so. In fact, League's list may be better suited against a heavy Twin meta (which may or may not be the case for this GP).
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
The times we manage to combo off by turn 3-4 are because our opponent happened to have little-to-no early interaction and we had an easy game. Those decks almost always combo off by turn 4, often through interaction.
This deck is almost as grindy as pod, though much less powerful in that plan. I personally am of the mind that this deck functions best as a bad beatdown deck first that happens to wins a good percentage through combos, either accidental or forced. The power of the deck comes through the beatdown though and forcing your opponent to pick between two bad choices: use removal to protect face, or use removal to protect against combo.
This is why Voice is so good. In my ideal world, you play an early Voice and start swinging away only to have them feel the need to blow a path on the poor guy. You follow up with a Finks into Melira over the next 2 turns. Finks starts going to town and they feel the need to path him too, you respond with Chord X=1, combo off for the win. If Voice never pulled that first path, you have a MUCH harder time hitting the combo.
I've tried the combo focused versions with 2 Spellskites, 4 Chords, and 4 EWits MD, but that just feels like you're trying to compete with those all-in combo decks and you are significantly slower. Why bother?
Most all-in combo decks can't really win with beatdown.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall