Definitely, I attached my current list. I'll try to explain some of my choices.
Courser over tracker, rallier, queller, or finks. I've tested with all of these, but I think courser is the best fit. Its great against aggressive strategies like burn, which can be a huge problem in non-finks lists. Its also a long-term source of card advantage, is relatively hard to kill, and has fantastic synergy with recruiter and knight. (Our deck is so mana hungry I've actually tested nissa,vastwood seer before. Courser helping hit land drops is also huge).
Two ballista, zero Rhonas. I'm aware of the non-synergy with collected company, but I think walking ballista is more than worth it. I genuinely think its a fantastic card in this shell. Its so incredibly flexible, whether its pinging a nahiri off 8, clearing souls tokens, crushing the mirror or affinity or infect, burning out DSG... we have powerful cards, but for me ballista has often provided that little extra flexibility I needed to put away a game. I'm never unhappy to draw one and have considered playing 3.
No horizon canopy. I usually play with one over the sacred foundry, but sold it before iconic masters dropped the price. I'll pick it back up again soon
I appreciate how your list is so redundant, I start brewing and I'll keep trying to fit in like one of geist, tracker, spirit etc main lol. I do have a couple questions-
1) No voice? I'm hot and cold on this card, but wanted to get your take. Also no ooze? (or pridemage?)
2) I see you have no removal main. I've been thinking I want 2 paths or some disruptive creatures main these days, but maybe it doesn't matter so much with 2 ballista and more combo focus.
3) Have you tried it with less one drop dorks? it seems like you might flood out with lands and dorks but maybe that hasn't been the case in your testing.
4) whats your sideboard plan? I know I've been wanting to splash blue for counters in these "GW" builds so that dumb combo decks and valakut, breach, ad naus etc can't just win without me doing anything. Curious to see what you have.
I know the abzan only guys probably think we're crazy, but i think its worth a try if nothing else.
I am almost certainly oversimplifying here and making some generalizations, but I think we are, to a certain extent, discussing two variants of the CoCo/Chord Deck.
bfitz88 seems to be more reliant or focused on a Plan A mid-range creature beats strategy on the back of Knight of the Reliquary with the Devoted DruidVizier of Remedies combo almost as a second option or Plan B? I haven't played this so I am not as well versed on the ins and outs of it.
The alternative that I run is the Plan A Devoted DruidVizier of Remedies combo with a secondary or Plan B of creature beats with Kitchen Finks with a light combo element that could also happen.
I don't think either has asserted itself as "better" or more reliable yet.
I have a few other "out there" thoughts that I may pose to the group once I can organize them and have a bit more time to theory-craft things.
I am almost certainly oversimplifying here and making some generalizations, but I think we are, to a certain extent, discussing two variants of the CoCo/Chord Deck.
bfitz88 seems to be more reliant or focused on a Plan A mid-range creature beats strategy on the back of Knight of the Reliquary with the Devoted DruidVizier of Remedies combo almost as a second option or Plan B? I haven't played this so I am not as well versed on the ins and outs of it.
The alternative that I run is the Plan A Devoted DruidVizier of Remedies combo with a secondary or Plan B of creature beats with Kitchen Finks with a light combo element that could also happen.
I don't think either has asserted itself as "better" or more reliable yet.
I have a few other "out there" thoughts that I may pose to the group once I can organize them and have a bit more time to theory-craft things.
The deck should 99% of the time try to combo off as fast as possible for Plan A, and if you can't seem to assemble it, then beat down with creatures and Gavony for plan B. Plan A always wins the game and Plan B doesn't. Things like the Todd Stevens GW Company deck has a plan of beating down and blowing up the opponents lands, but it doesn't include the Druid-Vizier combo. Just because bfitz88 is playing some KotR doesn't mean he's trying to slowly attack for the win. KotR gets Kessig which still wins with infinite mana. Courser could be some other slots like a 4th Vizier or 4th EWit, but that's his choice. If anything it helps dig towards better company hits and combo pieces. Comboing as Plan A is better than trying to beat down with a backup combo plan. If you average it out, every iteration of this deck ever has had that gameplan.
Ok, please hear me out on a potential way we might change things up. I am trying to think of ways to more reliably hit my Devoted Druid Vizier of Remedies combo. How many times have we all played our Collected Company EoT and whiffed or found a creature that isn't what we need or sent a land or Chord to the bottom of the library?
I played a guy several months back who was running this sort of build and in talking with him, he said that he liked the Eldritch Evolution to be able to simply pick the creature that he needed. Our dorks are all CMC that allows us to hit the rest of our combo creatures. The down side of course is that it is sorcery speed... Aether Vial is a card that we could still use to drop Devoted Druid EoT. The biggest downside to trying this out is the price tag of Vial - $35 right now on SCG.
I know that we have been identified and named as a "Collected Company" or "Counters Company" deck but I truly feel that the combo version of our deck could be more reliable behind Aether Vial and Eldritch Evolution.
Ok, please hear me out on a potential way we might change things up. I am trying to think of ways to more reliably hit my Devoted Druid Vizier of Remedies combo. How many times have we all played our Collected Company EoT and whiffed or found a creature that isn't what we need or sent a land or Chord to the bottom of the library?
I played a guy several months back who was running this sort of build and in talking with him, he said that he liked the Eldritch Evolution to be able to simply pick the creature that he needed. Our dorks are all CMC that allows us to hit the rest of our combo creatures. The down side of course is that it is sorcery speed... Aether Vial is a card that we could still use to drop Devoted Druid EoT. The biggest downside to trying this out is the price tag of Vial - $35 right now on SCG.
I know that we have been identified and named as a "Collected Company" or "Counters Company" deck but I truly feel that the combo version of our deck could be more reliable behind Aether Vial and Eldritch Evolution.
People have looked into this deck, and although on paper it may look good, in practice it doesn't fix the flaws that you are talking about. Playing Aether Vial you have to have the cards in hand to begin with. This deck doesn't have any problems generating a lot of mana, so the only reason to play Aether Vial is so that you can 'flash' in a Druid EoT then untap with it. If you are trying to "more reliably hit [the] Devoted DruidVizier of Remedies combo" then having to naturally draw the cards is not where you want to be at. Say a Druid is the 5th card from the top of your library, would you rather stall for 5 turns, draw it, then Vial it in; or just cast Collected Company and put it into play? Sure wiffing on Company feels bad, but drawing Aether Vial in the late game and waiting 3 turns for it to do anything feels wayyyyyy worse. Company is the best topdeck we can get so you can't only dwell on its downside.
Eldritch Evolution has similar problems. It does not synergise with Eternal Witness, you can't chain them together and build a board from nothing or dig through your deck and find a Duskwatch Recruiter for the win with infinite G mana. When facing couterspells, Evolution is card disadvantage, where Company can be cast on their turn, causing them to tap out to counter it which allows us to freely resolve stuff on our following turn. Since it's such high threat potential they will counter it pretty much all of the time so you can bait them that way. When looking at Chord of Calling with the other cards, Aether Vial doesn't add to Convoke so that's -1 'mana'. Evolution is net 0 'mana', and Company can range from 0 to +2 'mana'. They simply work better together.
Overall it is not worth replacing Company with something else. It really does completely change the deck. I can see playing Aether Vial if Stoneforge Mystic is ever unbanned, but that's not talk for this thread. You can PM me if you want to talk about that, or go back in this thread a bit and find my Vial side-thought post.
Yeah. I can see your point. The digging deep to hit our pieces aspect is indeed huge for CoCo. I have not run in to baiting out Counter Spells much with the deck though so that is good insight too. Replacing CoCo with Vial does sound like it may be counter productive.
Hey, I am trying to come back to playing this style of deck. I've read the primer, most recent articles and the last 10 or so pages, but I still have some questions, if someone could help: does anyone have a good sideboard plan against Death's Shadow and Jeskai control? Those matchups are supposed to be very difficult, right?
Back before the deck had Vizier of Remedies, and when the black midrange deck of choices were Jund and Abzan, I had found success by sideboarding out Chords and combo pieces to bring some removal, Distended Mindbender, Gideon and Tireless Tracker (like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/5htsi4/modern_rptq_report_abzan_company_top4/?st=javb4m0i&sh=230c5e07). I remeber trying something similar a few months ago, but learning that Mindbender wasn't as effective when it only takes a single card out of my opponent's hand and that my midrange cards got outclassed by the card Death's Shadow.
I've seen the most recent succesful lists (Kazu Negri, Jarvis Yu) and they seem to be back on the removal + Mindbender and Gideon, so I wonder if people find those to be effective specifically against Death's Shadow decks and Jeskai.
Creature-combo decks in the past have employed an interesting post-board strategy when faced with removal.
This strategy is to sidestep into complimentary (but different) cards such as planeswalkers in order to blank sideboarded removal and force an opponent to interact on multiple angles.
An example of this is an infect deck running Nissa, voice of zendikar. I've seen it play out on coverage and it completely throws midrange/removal-based decks through a loop and breaks the parity of their 1-for-1 grind plan.
More recently I've seen versions of this deck start to sideboard 1 or 2 liliana, the last hope and maybe 1x Gideon of some flavour.
Putting my own opinion aside, this seems objectively like a solid move in order to break open matchups which are heavy on spot removal and like to win through attrition (thinking jeskai, abzan, death's shadow, jund) and even just a good option against decks which like to go big with one or two threats.
I've been in the habit of mostly discounting noncreature spells because I perhaps overvalued the idea of a toolbox. I'm thinking in quite a few disruptive matchups, going for really high-ceiling noncreature spells such as liliana tlh would boost the trickier matchups really well.
Another thing is that there's a lot of cantrips in modern right now. Whether it's in jeskai, grixis or storm, there's lots of incidental spells being cast that aim to 'xerox' a player into a winning position. In that regard I propose Kambal as a solid sideboard option. Speeds up the clock in what can be tricky removal-centric matchups and can potentially tially shut entire strategies down just by being on the board. Also helps against burn and death's shadow which aren't necessarily the easiest matchups.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
@Dreadnaught33
I love voice (art is my desktop background) but I haven't liked it in this shell. When I draw 12 cards off the top of my deck and say "this is what I would have to work with during a game", voice too often takes the space where a combo card might be, or a card with more explosive potential.
Regarding removal - most counters company lists play without removal game one. Playing two walking ballista helps deal with cards like bob and steel overseer a little more consistently, but in general I think cards like path suffer from the same issue that voice does (creature combo needs that critical mass).
I play 8 one drops because I want to be explosive. With courser replacing finks and knight tutoring mana sinks, in general I think I'm less prone to flooding than the average build. I've found I lose more games to being slow an anemic than I have to flood, so I hedge towards extra dorks.
Sideboard definitely gets worse without blue, especially titanshift and storm. I'm actually playing both bojuka bog and tectonic edge in my board right now, as a way to more consistently access tools through knight; as well as eidolon of rhetoric for storm and burrenton forge-tender for both. No third color does hurt in matchups like that, but consistent mana is worth it elsewhere.
Also @DSTROOT, I think you got the wrong impression from my list. I am still very much a combo deck will a plan A of going for the druid kill. In fact, with courser providing card advantage and knight finding wolf run I would argue that my list is better suited for druid combo than abzan lists. That being said, I agree that I'm focusing a lot on my plan B.
Have you guys heard the phrase "don't be a worse version of something else"? The reason the super turbo druid lists with evolution or hall of the bandit lord or whatever aren't good is because super focused combo decks already exists - and they don't scoop to a fatal push. If you're itching to combo people consistently decks like grishoalbrand or storm are better choices.
What sets counters company apart from those decks is its plan B. Creatures are the most easily disrupted card type, so when you sideboard against GDS and pull out your combo pieces its important that you're not embarrassed by the rest of the cards in your deck.
For those using the knight of reliquary package, has anyone tried a singleton Hall of the bandit lord? Fetch the hall at end atep of opponent with knight, then on your turn cast a haste druid and combo off?
Definitely not worth it zeus. Hall comes into play tapped, so you'll have a non-sick druid on the same turn no matter what. The only time it would matter is if you already have the vizier in play, and honestly against removal decks having a knight for two turns probably means you're winning anyway.
From playing the deck I can tell you the situations where you'd want it don't come up enough. Hall is a pretty awful land to have to draw sometimes, so I don't think its worth it.
I actually believe Evolution should have a higher priority than Chord in Company lists, if only because Company necessitates an Evolution-friendly build already.
Currently I'm contemplating 8 to 10 Dorks out of 30 creatures, 4 Company, 3 Evolution, and 2 Chord out of a possible 10 Spells (10th is personal tech), and between 20 and 21 lands. Colors ranging between GW, GWb, GWr, and GWbr
Chaining Chords with infinite mana is great and all, but unless we get that convoke for X = 2 secured (effectively five mana for us), Chording without the combo is extremely slow compared to the high-risk high-reward of Evolution.
Also, and I swear I'm trying not to sound like a complete jerk here, but when does a combo deck care about disadvantage if it will win them the game?
I actually believe Evolution should have a higher priority than Chord in Company lists, if only because Company necessitates an Evolution-friendly build already.
Currently I'm contemplating 8 to 10 Dorks out of 30 creatures, 4 Company, 3 Evolution, and 2 Chord out of a possible 10 Spells (10th is personal tech), and between 20 and 21 lands. Colors ranging between GW, GWb, GWr, and GWbr
Chaining Chords with infinite mana is great and all, but unless we get that convoke for X = 2 secured (effectively five mana for us), Chording without the combo is extremely slow compared to the high-risk high-reward of Evolution.
Also, and I swear I'm trying not to sound like a complete jerk here, but when does a combo deck care about disadvantage if it will win them the game?
Playing a ton of dorks + Druids I've found I can go T1 Dork > T2 Druid + Dork, Untap turn 3 with anywhere from 5-8 mana available a huge percentage of the time. Having that 5 mana on turn 3 has never really been a problem for my build, especially with KotR in there acting as manadorks 13-16. Chording for 2 has never been a problem, meaning a T2 Druid that goes unanswered lets me win T2 I'd say ~80% of the time.
What I don't like about Evolution is that it also opens us up to sorcery speed removal. If you are sacing your dork for a Druid through Evolution you are still open to sorcery stuff like Collective Brutality, Liliana Of The Veil, Karn & Ugin, Anger of the Gods, Reflector Mage, or any Instant speed removal on your endstep allowing them to untap and get ahead. I guess since I've never had a problem with Chord (X=2) I like to play on their turn forcing them to have instant speed answers or risk losing. To me the instant speed cuts down so many more random threats that it is worth it.
To expand slightly on what Torph is saying - chord actually finds vizier on turn 3 after playing nothing but devoted druid and lands, meaning its actually easier to chord for x=2 on turn 3 than it is to evolution up a second creature.
Additionally, chord being instant speed gives you a flexibility that can be totally game-breaking. Consider games where your opponent can't verdict or conflag you because you're holding up chord to kill them if they tap out, and they lose to township or recruiter activations. Or games your opponent has to hold up decay every turn out of fear so you just keep chording for witnesses.
Evolution's biggest advantage is that it can find a druid after a turn 1 dork. So its better on turn 2, specifically when you're playing against an unfair deck without interaction (therefore it might make a good sideboard card?). But after that point in the game, or against anyone playing fatal push, chord's instant speed and interaction with witness are way more important.
I've decided that I want to live at Instant speed with this deck. I had considered evolution and Vial but have since decided against it after the help from our group.
What are your guys thoughts on our flex spots. We generally have 2-3 flex spots in total, and everyone seems to do something different for different reasons. Does it come down to play style or meta?
I think it's meta dependent, yeah. And build dependent.
I'm on courser because I'm on knights not finks, so I need the extra lifegain and there's a lot of built-in synergy.
I like voice the most in versions with viscera seer, and tracker if you're shaving on duskwatch recruiters.
Qasali pridemage, selfless spirit, scavenging ooze, and sculler are all meta dependent and reasonable, but I don't think I ever like playing an extra seer, recruiter, or witness (just personal preference against situation cards maybe).
Courser over tracker, rallier, queller, or finks. I've tested with all of these, but I think courser is the best fit. Its great against aggressive strategies like burn, which can be a huge problem in non-finks lists. Its also a long-term source of card advantage, is relatively hard to kill, and has fantastic synergy with recruiter and knight. (Our deck is so mana hungry I've actually tested nissa,vastwood seer before. Courser helping hit land drops is also huge).
Two ballista, zero Rhonas. I'm aware of the non-synergy with collected company, but I think walking ballista is more than worth it. I genuinely think its a fantastic card in this shell. Its so incredibly flexible, whether its pinging a nahiri off 8, clearing souls tokens, crushing the mirror or affinity or infect, burning out DSG... we have powerful cards, but for me ballista has often provided that little extra flexibility I needed to put away a game. I'm never unhappy to draw one and have considered playing 3.
No horizon canopy. I usually play with one over the sacred foundry, but sold it before iconic masters dropped the price. I'll pick it back up again soon
I appreciate how your list is so redundant, I start brewing and I'll keep trying to fit in like one of geist, tracker, spirit etc main lol. I do have a couple questions-
1) No voice? I'm hot and cold on this card, but wanted to get your take. Also no ooze? (or pridemage?)
2) I see you have no removal main. I've been thinking I want 2 paths or some disruptive creatures main these days, but maybe it doesn't matter so much with 2 ballista and more combo focus.
3) Have you tried it with less one drop dorks? it seems like you might flood out with lands and dorks but maybe that hasn't been the case in your testing.
4) whats your sideboard plan? I know I've been wanting to splash blue for counters in these "GW" builds so that dumb combo decks and valakut, breach, ad naus etc can't just win without me doing anything. Curious to see what you have.
I know the abzan only guys probably think we're crazy, but i think its worth a try if nothing else.
bfitz88 seems to be more reliant or focused on a Plan A mid-range creature beats strategy on the back of Knight of the Reliquary with the Devoted Druid Vizier of Remedies combo almost as a second option or Plan B? I haven't played this so I am not as well versed on the ins and outs of it.
The alternative that I run is the Plan A Devoted Druid Vizier of Remedies combo with a secondary or Plan B of creature beats with Kitchen Finks with a light combo element that could also happen.
I don't think either has asserted itself as "better" or more reliable yet.
I have a few other "out there" thoughts that I may pose to the group once I can organize them and have a bit more time to theory-craft things.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
StaffMTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Vizier of Remedies combo. How many times have we all played our Collected Company EoT and whiffed or found a creature that isn't what we need or sent a land or Chord to the bottom of the library?
This may be flat-out crazy talk but rather than 4 Collected Company and 4 Chord of Calling to fuel hitting the combo, what if we played 4 Aether Vial backed up with some number of Eldritch Evolution and Chord of Calling? Maybe 4 Aether Vial 2 Eldritch Evolution and 4 Chord of Calling? Or 4, 4, 2?
I played a guy several months back who was running this sort of build and in talking with him, he said that he liked the Eldritch Evolution to be able to simply pick the creature that he needed. Our dorks are all CMC that allows us to hit the rest of our combo creatures. The down side of course is that it is sorcery speed... Aether Vial is a card that we could still use to drop Devoted Druid EoT. The biggest downside to trying this out is the price tag of Vial - $35 right now on SCG.
I know that we have been identified and named as a "Collected Company" or "Counters Company" deck but I truly feel that the combo version of our deck could be more reliable behind Aether Vial and Eldritch Evolution.
Your thoughts?
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
StaffEldritch Evolution has similar problems. It does not synergise with Eternal Witness, you can't chain them together and build a board from nothing or dig through your deck and find a Duskwatch Recruiter for the win with infinite G mana. When facing couterspells, Evolution is card disadvantage, where Company can be cast on their turn, causing them to tap out to counter it which allows us to freely resolve stuff on our following turn. Since it's such high threat potential they will counter it pretty much all of the time so you can bait them that way. When looking at Chord of Calling with the other cards, Aether Vial doesn't add to Convoke so that's -1 'mana'. Evolution is net 0 'mana', and Company can range from 0 to +2 'mana'. They simply work better together.
Overall it is not worth replacing Company with something else. It really does completely change the deck. I can see playing Aether Vial if Stoneforge Mystic is ever unbanned, but that's not talk for this thread. You can PM me if you want to talk about that, or go back in this thread a bit and find my Vial side-thought post.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Yeah. I can see your point. The digging deep to hit our pieces aspect is indeed huge for CoCo. I have not run in to baiting out Counter Spells much with the deck though so that is good insight too. Replacing CoCo with Vial does sound like it may be counter productive.
Back before the deck had Vizier of Remedies, and when the black midrange deck of choices were Jund and Abzan, I had found success by sideboarding out Chords and combo pieces to bring some removal, Distended Mindbender, Gideon and Tireless Tracker (like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/5htsi4/modern_rptq_report_abzan_company_top4/?st=javb4m0i&sh=230c5e07). I remeber trying something similar a few months ago, but learning that Mindbender wasn't as effective when it only takes a single card out of my opponent's hand and that my midrange cards got outclassed by the card Death's Shadow.
I've seen the most recent succesful lists (Kazu Negri, Jarvis Yu) and they seem to be back on the removal + Mindbender and Gideon, so I wonder if people find those to be effective specifically against Death's Shadow decks and Jeskai.
Tks!
Creature-combo decks in the past have employed an interesting post-board strategy when faced with removal.
This strategy is to sidestep into complimentary (but different) cards such as planeswalkers in order to blank sideboarded removal and force an opponent to interact on multiple angles.
An example of this is an infect deck running Nissa, voice of zendikar. I've seen it play out on coverage and it completely throws midrange/removal-based decks through a loop and breaks the parity of their 1-for-1 grind plan.
More recently I've seen versions of this deck start to sideboard 1 or 2 liliana, the last hope and maybe 1x Gideon of some flavour.
Putting my own opinion aside, this seems objectively like a solid move in order to break open matchups which are heavy on spot removal and like to win through attrition (thinking jeskai, abzan, death's shadow, jund) and even just a good option against decks which like to go big with one or two threats.
I've been in the habit of mostly discounting noncreature spells because I perhaps overvalued the idea of a toolbox. I'm thinking in quite a few disruptive matchups, going for really high-ceiling noncreature spells such as liliana tlh would boost the trickier matchups really well.
Another thing is that there's a lot of cantrips in modern right now. Whether it's in jeskai, grixis or storm, there's lots of incidental spells being cast that aim to 'xerox' a player into a winning position. In that regard I propose Kambal as a solid sideboard option. Speeds up the clock in what can be tricky removal-centric matchups and can potentially tially shut entire strategies down just by being on the board. Also helps against burn and death's shadow which aren't necessarily the easiest matchups.
I love voice (art is my desktop background) but I haven't liked it in this shell. When I draw 12 cards off the top of my deck and say "this is what I would have to work with during a game", voice too often takes the space where a combo card might be, or a card with more explosive potential.
Regarding removal - most counters company lists play without removal game one. Playing two walking ballista helps deal with cards like bob and steel overseer a little more consistently, but in general I think cards like path suffer from the same issue that voice does (creature combo needs that critical mass).
I play 8 one drops because I want to be explosive. With courser replacing finks and knight tutoring mana sinks, in general I think I'm less prone to flooding than the average build. I've found I lose more games to being slow an anemic than I have to flood, so I hedge towards extra dorks.
Sideboard definitely gets worse without blue, especially titanshift and storm. I'm actually playing both bojuka bog and tectonic edge in my board right now, as a way to more consistently access tools through knight; as well as eidolon of rhetoric for storm and burrenton forge-tender for both. No third color does hurt in matchups like that, but consistent mana is worth it elsewhere.
Have you guys heard the phrase "don't be a worse version of something else"? The reason the super turbo druid lists with evolution or hall of the bandit lord or whatever aren't good is because super focused combo decks already exists - and they don't scoop to a fatal push. If you're itching to combo people consistently decks like grishoalbrand or storm are better choices.
What sets counters company apart from those decks is its plan B. Creatures are the most easily disrupted card type, so when you sideboard against GDS and pull out your combo pieces its important that you're not embarrassed by the rest of the cards in your deck.
From playing the deck I can tell you the situations where you'd want it don't come up enough. Hall is a pretty awful land to have to draw sometimes, so I don't think its worth it.
Currently I'm contemplating 8 to 10 Dorks out of 30 creatures, 4 Company, 3 Evolution, and 2 Chord out of a possible 10 Spells (10th is personal tech), and between 20 and 21 lands. Colors ranging between GW, GWb, GWr, and GWbr
Chaining Chords with infinite mana is great and all, but unless we get that convoke for X = 2 secured (effectively five mana for us), Chording without the combo is extremely slow compared to the high-risk high-reward of Evolution.
Also, and I swear I'm trying not to sound like a complete jerk here, but when does a combo deck care about disadvantage if it will win them the game?
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
StaffWhat I don't like about Evolution is that it also opens us up to sorcery speed removal. If you are sacing your dork for a Druid through Evolution you are still open to sorcery stuff like Collective Brutality, Liliana Of The Veil, Karn & Ugin, Anger of the Gods, Reflector Mage, or any Instant speed removal on your endstep allowing them to untap and get ahead. I guess since I've never had a problem with Chord (X=2) I like to play on their turn forcing them to have instant speed answers or risk losing. To me the instant speed cuts down so many more random threats that it is worth it.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Additionally, chord being instant speed gives you a flexibility that can be totally game-breaking. Consider games where your opponent can't verdict or conflag you because you're holding up chord to kill them if they tap out, and they lose to township or recruiter activations. Or games your opponent has to hold up decay every turn out of fear so you just keep chording for witnesses.
Evolution's biggest advantage is that it can find a druid after a turn 1 dork. So its better on turn 2, specifically when you're playing against an unfair deck without interaction (therefore it might make a good sideboard card?). But after that point in the game, or against anyone playing fatal push, chord's instant speed and interaction with witness are way more important.
I've seen everything from Courser of Kruphix, Voice of Resurgence, Tireless tracker, Qasali pridemage, extra Seer/Recruiter/Witness ect...
Thoughts on what is best overall, or in an open meta?
RWG Burn
GW Abzan Company
I'm on courser because I'm on knights not finks, so I need the extra lifegain and there's a lot of built-in synergy.
I like voice the most in versions with viscera seer, and tracker if you're shaving on duskwatch recruiters.
Qasali pridemage, selfless spirit, scavenging ooze, and sculler are all meta dependent and reasonable, but I don't think I ever like playing an extra seer, recruiter, or witness (just personal preference against situation cards maybe).
In the past I have run with Scavenging Ooze, Selfless Spirit and Fiend Hunter.