MTG Salvation

Foodchain it seems we always play the same decks. Haha. Great minds =)

This deck is the one I've sunk the most time into competitively over the last year or so but I haven't picked it up in a while.

Last time I played, I smashed bogles, burn, storm and lost against abzan in the finals of an fnm.

I like the new angel that gives everything hexproof, and is also a mana sink. Card seems gas. Is also just a sweet flier and decent clock in a vacuum. Interesting enough to make me consider picking this deck right back up. I never felt outclassed when playing this deck even if the metagame meandered away from it and it became less popular.

Good Times.

Yep, I would be playing Turns tonight, but I gave it as collateral to borrow a Standard deck for the Store Championship. I have to get it back tomorrow.

I've heard about the new Angel. Yeah, it sounds really good!

Personally, I switch decks a lot at casual REL. I would love to play Abzan Counters more often, but I really HATE playing against Jeskai and even Grixis. That alone makes me wary when I see those players are present. I actually don't mind playing against UR Breach, Jund, or Junk too much - those matchups feel nearly 50% even if they're really not. I don't know if they are or not. Most other decks, I don't mind playing Counters vs. I've just had some experiences vs. Jeskai, like when I knew my opponent's hand from Tidehollow Sculler, then he drew Path to Exile, Path to Exile, Supreme Verdict on 3 consecutive turns. But their deck does that. It's full of things like that.

*Sometimes, admittedly, I'm torn between trying to master a deck or trying to challenge myself to try a new archetype each time. I've made a LOT of play mistakes recently, including when I played Tireless Tribe in Pauper recently AND when I tried UB Scarab God in Standard. It's unacceptable to me and I've taken it hard, especially the last 7 cards that I kept vs. Mono Red in the top 8 of the Store Championship with UB Scarab God in Game 1.

16 person MNM. Lost 4 die rolls tonight.

Round 1 vs. Hollow One. I have mana dork into Devoted Druid. I don't fetch my 3rd fetchland because he puts me to 1 life. I draw Chord of Calling, do it for Vizier of Remedies, and play the Duskwatch Recruiter from hand to activate and win. In the next game, he mulls to 5 and has a turn 4 Hollow One. It's not enough as I swarm him with Finks and Gavony Township. 2-0.

Round 2 vs. Infect. He is on the play. Plays a turn 1 Glistener Elf. I play Birds of Paradise. He swings and Blossoming Defenses, double Mutagenic Growth, and Become Immense. GG. IN the next game, he does turn 1 Twisted Image on my Birds of Paradise into Blighted Agent into Groundswell, double Mutagenic Growth into Become Immense. GGs. 0-2.

Round 3 vs. 4 Color Pyromancer. These are long games. I get many Kitchen Finks and Gavony Township. I had the combo for a bit, but it went away and I had nothing to go with it. I get over the hump when I Chord for Rhonas, the Indomitable I have Trample now to get past many tokens. He scoops. In the next game, I get stuck on 3 lands too much. He puts the pressure and I try to stabilize with double Collected Company, but it gets hardly anything but chumps. I get him in teh next game, as we go to turns, when he forgets that my Walking Ballista can just pump the next turn for 3 +1/+1 counters when he's at 3. 2-1.

Round 4 vs. White Eldrazi. He geets pressure, but I have the combo in time to win at 2 life. In the next game, some early creatures and double Reality Smasher gets me. In the final game, I stabilize with a Tireless Tracker to get many clues and overwhelm a Thalia and a Thought-Knot Seer. I end up getting the infinite life combo and he scoops. 2-1.

I finish 3-1, which is solid enough for me to stay on this deck for a while.

My deck guide and primer in online on https://www.cardknocklife.com/

Quote from Momsie »

My deck guide and primer in online on https://www.cardknocklife.com/

It's under construction.

Played a 16 person MNM for 4 rounds. Lost 4 die rolls today.

Round 1 vs. Lantern. He wins game 1 when I get my Devoted Druid killed by Pyrite Spellbomb after he blind mills Collected Company and Vizier of Remedies. He gets 3 Codex Shredder and I draw nothing after or BEFORE that. In the next game, I combo kill him on turn 3 with Vizier of Remedies/Devoted Druid, Chord for the win. In the final game, he mulls to 4 and I get Kataki, War's Wage soon thereafter, leading to an easy win. 2-1

Round 2 vs. Mardu Pyromancer. He does some discard, but I draw and play Devoted Druid. He taps out for Young Pyromancer, so I go for Collected Company, getting Tidehollow Sculler and E Witness for Company. I see Blood Moon and Bedlam Reveler, which I take. I end up combo killing the next turn or so. In the next game, I mulligan and lose to a bunch of creatures late in the game after a weak Collected Company. In the final game, I do all I can to try to win, but he does a Bedlam Reveler while putting me to 2 life. He plays land and an Engineered Explosives for 2, but he is tapped out with a card in hand. He has already done Surgical Extraction on a Collected Company. I can E Witness for a Vizier of Remedies that needed to chump block, then get infinite mana to put through a Rhonas. He does Surgical Extraction on the Vizier and I lose to a bunch of 1/1 Elementals. I went for a CoCo earlier, hoping to get Orzhov Pontiff to wipe his board and 2 Young Pyromancer. I didn't get it and he nabbed the other CoCo with Surgical Extraction. He told me it was the 2nd card from the top. 1-2.

Round 3 vs. Lantern. I put pressure with an early Gavony Township, but he is at 5 life and lethal next turn. He mills himself twice and uses Bauble to draw. His last draw for the turn is Ensnaring Bridge and I can't draw anything of value this game since he has double Codex Shredder. In the next game, I get there with a Kataki, War's Wage. He has to either let Bridge die or keep 2 cards in hand, to which I swing twice to kill him. I get Kataki, War's Wage again, although I had to NOT get him with Duskwatch Recruiter because he had Inquisition of Kozilek on top and I was scared he would Surgical Extraction in response to E Witness. I get there on turn 1 of turns when I get Rhonas to swing with Birds of Paradise and pump it twice for nearly lethal. He scoops. 2-1.

Round 4 vs. Esper Goryo's Vengeance. I play turn 1 Viscera Seer. I play turn 2 Vizier of Remedies. He does Liliana of the Veil PLUS, WTF? He discards obzedat. I do Kitchen Finks and win from there. In the next game, I do Devoted Druid, then Chord of Calling for 2. He lets it resolve then goes for Fatal Push on Vizier. I do infinite mana, play Rhonas, the Indomitable, and swing with lethal Birds AND Devoted Druid. I felt a little badly that he didn't know about this Modern deck and how to play against it. 2-0.

I finish 3-1, which is okay. I've had a lot of 3-1s with this deck and am waiting for that 4-0.

GW Vizier with Knights, Trackers, and Land Destruction looks ideally positioned against midrange and Tron, as you say.

However, it looks to me like it would lose some significant points to unfair linear decks since it lacks Black's secondary combo + hand disruption and Blue's counterspells + disruptive flash flyers. I think I'd prefer to have a Black or Blue splash if I were facing the GP Hartford meta, for instance, but if the meta swings back to stabilize on Jund + Tron then GW makes sense. What do you think?

Quote from Moneymakermich »

Quote from Atem18 »

What do you guys are thinking about the best version from Momsie's article ?

I am torn between gw value and our deck and I was wondering myself if gw is not a good compromise between those two decks and plus it gives us a good matchup against tron and a combo to kill.

I prefer the GW version, because I don't like the seer/black version anymore. And the land destruction is great, I play it already for some weeks now and I like it. I'm even thinking about adding just 1 ramunap excavator as a potential target for chord, seeing how it could lock down Tron, but that's maybe too greedy

I played both last few months. I was torn before I played the GP and I chose the GW Version. Most of the feeling I had afterwards was regret. The version feld not so smooth as the Abzan version. Right now in the current meta I dislike the midrange plan. It loses to Humans. The combo plan seems the right way to go in my testing. But what my article says, with this deck it is all personal preference.

Hope you guys enjoyed reading it.

Sigarda, Host of Herons is a win condition against grindy removal heavy matchups. It is not intended to be a combo piece. The key part of Sigarda, Host of Herons that is being over looked is that the prevention of sacrificing makes it good against: Liliana of the veil, All Is Dust, and several other odd cards that are in the meta. Sigarda, Host of Herons plus Rhonas the indomitable provide a beat down block that is difficult for any deck not running white to deal with.

So, trying a 4 Color No Red version with a slight Elf slant for Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Phantasmal Image for shenanigans.



Why Ezuri and not one of the other three options I was considering*? Because with two active druids, Ezuri, and 2GGG, you can activate Ezuri's Overrun ability, generate three additional G from each Druid, rinse and repeat for an arbitrarily large amount of G, which can be used to activate Ezuri's Overrun ability for two infinitely large Druids.

In short, Ezuri provides protection for the combo as well as an easier method of assembling a combo without sacrificing much except for versatility with winning.

*Other considerations were Rhonas the Indomitable, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, and Nylea, God of the Hunt. Rhonas is typically the go-to, but I believe Ezuri is a sleeper as is Nylea (though Nylea requires an additional active creature to deal infinite combat damage, and does not generate infinite mana as well) because of the Double Druid combo possibility. Shalia, as good as it seems, I feel won't pull its theoretical weight thanks to costing 3W and not protecting itself.

Shalai seems pretty strong given that it is a respectable flying body, acts as protection from targeted removal if chorded, and has a persistent effect that can win the game on its own without needing infinite mana (in a more convincing way than Rhonas).

I'd definitely give that a try myself.

Quote from Pokken »

Shalai seems pretty strong given that it is a respectable flying body, acts as protection from targeted removal if chorded, and has a persistent effect that can win the game on its own without needing infinite mana (in a more convincing way than Rhonas).

I'd definitely give that a try myself.

Indeed, but not in the main, or rather not alongside Ballista due to their 'difficult' casting costs; our troublesome Big Mana matchups require Ballista's speed to win most of the time, and I honestly see Shalai being used more in the grindy midrange and control matchups. Thus, as I tend to eke a better game 1 against Tron now in terms of plausible goldfish speed, I am considering Shalai as a 1-of in the side.

19 person wnm.

Round 1 vs. burn. He got stuck on 1 land twice. I did Path to Exile in game 2, but I managed to win by having a Scavenging Ooze and creatures to eat. He got close, but the ability to untap Devoted Devoted Druid, block, and then eat him kept me alive when he eventually went all in. By that time I had a backup Chord of Calling that I just drew. 2-0.

Round 2 vs. gr eldrazi. Kept a 3 land hand in game 1. Drew 6 lands and lost to a Smasher and TRIPLE Eldrazi Obligator. I put some pressure on him, but he stabilized and crushed me. Literally 1 Collected Company or Chord was probably game, but it was not meant to be. I had kept a hand with Kitchen Finks, double Vizier of Remedies, and Duskwatch Recruiter. In the 2nd game, I made some mistakes. It was a long game, as he kept drawing lands and I drew 3 Collected Company and 2 Chord after a turn 1 Grafdigger's Cage. 0-2.

Round 3 vs. death and taxes. In the first game, he draws nothing but land, 2 extra Aether Vial, and 2 Thraben Inspector after I Tidehollow Sculler his Blade Splicer. I pummel him with Kitchen Finks and Bears. In the next game, I do Tidehollow Sculler for his Leonin Arbiter since he missed his 2nd land drop, but has Aether Vial. He has 2 Restoration Angel and I hold him off for a while, but don't get the right Companies to win. I am set to win on the final turn, but he does 3 Ghost Quarter/Field of Ruin and I miss each time (with Aven Mindcensor in play for him). I end up 1 mana short of Chording for the lethal Vizier with Duskwatch Recruiter in my hand. I am at 1 life and draw a fetchland. In the last game, he does turn 2 Leonin Arbiter after I do Devoted Druid (stopping Chord), but I draw Vizier of Remedies and combo off with Chord. I had double Eternal Witness, so without Leonin Arbiter, it would have been game anyway. But the Arbiter stopped me from Chording, so it WAS a lucky draw. 2-1.

Round 4 vs. bogles. He drew nothing but lands and an extra Bogle while my Tidehollow Sculler left him with just Spider Umbra for his Bogle. I didn't draw anything to combo with Finks or Vizier, so I just smashed with them. I left the Sculler back so he didn't block and get the Ethereal Armor back. He mulled to 4 in the next game and it got ugly. 2-0.

I finish 3-1. Can't do better than that. Can't beat rg eldrazi; 0-4 last 4 times I played with various decks.

i've had more reps with this deck than any other in competitive magic over the last year, but i've always had the same issue with it:

1) not drawing a turn 1 dork
2) drawing too many 'meh' hands with an e-wit, finks, bunch of lands and nothing really besides.

also i find that this deck doesn't mulligan too well.

i'm half tempted to go up to 8 dorks, running the full set of birds and hierarchs. certainly it would make my openers better, and with this deck that seems to be a generally important metric in terms of whether or not you can 'get there' in your average modern game.

anyone else trying to solve this? I feel like the whole deck needs a bit of a reboot or a shift somehow.

Quote from purklefluff »

i've had more reps with this deck than any other in competitive magic over the last year, but i've always had the same issue with it:

1) not drawing a turn 1 dork
2) drawing too many 'meh' hands with an e-wit, finks, bunch of lands and nothing really besides.

also i find that this deck doesn't mulligan too well.

i'm half tempted to go up to 8 dorks, running the full set of birds and hierarchs. certainly it would make my openers better, and with this deck that seems to be a generally important metric in terms of whether or not you can 'get there' in your average modern game.

anyone else trying to solve this? I feel like the whole deck needs a bit of a reboot or a shift somehow.

Yeah, not having a dork can be rough, especially if you don't have Devoted Druid on turn 2 or they are going to have removal for said Devoted Druid on turn 2. But I think increasing the dorks gives us more chances to draw "air" on Companies. You really don't want to be getting 2 mana dorks off Companies usually.

Yeah, there are those meh hands. Often, I keep them if I am 1 card from a Combo, like having Kitchen Finks and Vizier of Remedies along with some other playables. This may be wrong because sometimes I don't draw another piece or Company doesn't find me one. Sometimes I do find another piece, but once of my pieces has been killed since then.

I don't mulligan enough with the deck. I found that the mulligans can be fairly bad, but we always have live draws on our library, unless we're facing removal.dec, in which case we're pretty screwed, outside of resolving a bunch of Companies.

I think you really only want to have 8 dorks when you RELY on 3 drops, like when I ran Knightfall. Some people played 7 in that deck and I strongly disagree with that. You want to be casting Knight of the Reliquary on turn 3 in that deck. But...we have a lot of Bears (2 mana 2/Xs), so we don't need to have 3 mana on turn 2. We do want 3 mana on turn 4 however, so I realize that.

*Just a side question, do you call the deck "Abzan Counters Company?" Because I shorten it to Abzan Counters, but I think some people may not understand it. This is mostly because the deck is not Tier 1. I think I may use your nomenclature from now on because if I say Abzan Counters, someone may think I'm playing Hardened Scales or something. Lol.

I personally don't think it's a good name, but the general consensus settled early in the deck's lifetime as "counters company". I play the abzan variant =)

I'm going to experiment a bit. I really like the new gives-hexproof creature from dominaria so I'd like to jam one of those in somewhere. Maybe even maindeck who knows. I'm going to look at fixing those bad opening hands though because that's the main thing which is dissuading me from running this deck at big tournaments.

Went 2-2 at FNM. Got owned.

Round 1 vs. ur Kiki. Slow hands for both. I get him low. I make a mistake of not activating my Duskwatch Recruiter in response to the flip. Since I had already drawn a card, it was too late. I feel like this cost me the game. When I get him low on life, he chains 2 Cryptic Command in a row. By this time, 3 of 4 Lightning Bolt were used, all exiled because of Snapcaster Mages. He found Jace, the Mind Sculptor and brainstormed into a 3rd Cryptic Command. He uses some Pestermite and Vendilion Clique action to slow my attackers. There is a turn where I attack Jace with 2 2/1 creatures and him with a Kitchen Finks to put him to 1, but he kills one 2/1 to keep the Jace alive. This may have been a mistake by me. I previously killed another Jace with a similar play, but did a 2nd main phase Walking Ballista to finish off the Jace. It goes down to a turn when I go all out attacking, but Harvest Pyre and a 4th Snapcaster Mage stop lethal. I use my first Chord of Calling to get E Witness to go for Walking Ballista for 1 to kill him. He has 1 card left from Brainstorming, 1 Steam Vents up, and the card in hand is SPELL SNARE! He got me. I didn't expect a 2nd Spell Snare and much less for him to have it in hand. This was a punt, as I could have waited until the next turn to cast after he presumably uses a 3rd Cryptic to tap my creatures. He had no Snapcaster Mage left and Bolts were exiled, along with 2 Electrolyze gone, so I'm assuming there wasn't much he could do with an extra draw step if I play around Spell Snare. I just didn't expect it. He draws Exarch into Kiki and it's over. He scoops game 2 after playing Desolate Lighthouse and a mull to 6. I only had 3 land to start with and hadn't drawn a 4th one, so it definitely wasn't over. But I'm sure he didn't want to go to time in Game 3. I exile an Anger of the Gods with a Sin Collector, but this game just doesn't see me draw any kind of combo. He plays Keranos, God of Storms on turn 5 after burning just enough creatures to survive. I put as much out as I can to get him. Every single activation of Keranos does 3 damage to a creature of mine, most being a Bolt, Abrade, or Harvest Pyre to kill 2 things. I make a huge mistake late game after 3 Lightning Bolt and 2 Snapcaster Mage are gone by doing E Witness for a fetchland because I just drew Tireless Tracker. I should have just got Collected Company, especially since there literally is probably no coutermagic other than Cryptic in his 60 after board. I was just scared to get blown out by a random Dispel, so I got the fetchland to get 2 clues. I was so scared of the last card in his hand because of how many turns the last card in his hand wrecked me in game 1. I crack the clues the following turn and crack a Horizon Canopy and he has Snapcaster Mage, a Keranos Bolt for the Bird, and lethal on board after Snapcaster Mage/Bolt EoT. My last 4 draws were 3 land and a BoP. If I E Witness Company, I get past those 4 and hopefully find 2 creatures in the last 2 cards of the Company. I'm pretty upset and what I tried to do, but feel that Keranos, God of Storms on turn 5 of the play hitting a non land every single turn for 7 turns, mostly hitting more burn, so "double burn" makes it tough to win. I wish I had gone for the Company, but honestly he probably wins the next turn after I fail to find something solid. Rough round. I felt if there was a clock, which usually there is here, I wouldn't have felt so rushed. I couldn't finish him off in Game 1 and felt like it was going to time. 1-2.

Round 2 vs. Ponza. He wins the die roll. Arbor Elf into Utopia Sprawls into Blood Moon into Stone Rain my Forest into Inferno Titan. No chance for a weak hand by me, although I probably should have mulled. Game 2 is ugly. He does BoP into Tireless Tracker into Pia and Kiran Nalaar after I have to exile a Blood Moon with Tidehollow Sculler, despite the fact that Pia will eventually kill it. He draws Chandra, Torch of Defiance next and I can't find anything solid. I draw a Scavenging Ooze to gain some life, but it can't outgrow the Tireless Tracker and Thopters and Chandra finish me off. 0-2.

Round 3 vs. Bye. Of course I get the Bye. This was probably the 2nd time I've ever been 0-2 to start a tournament (in the past year or so) and the other was with mana screwed Martyr Proc. My friend also dropped at 0-2 with GR Eldrazi, so that's probably why I had a Bye. 2-0.

Round 4 vs. Bant Eldrazi. Odd seeing this deck again, but the same guy. I combo out after some Reality Smashers. Right on time. In the next game, it is drawn out, but 3 Path to Exile means not much business for him. He just has some small dudes and I find the combo in a Collected Company after doing E Witness to get it back and combo for infinite life. 2-0.

I finish 2-2. I nearly didn't want to run this today, as the guy in the first round usually runs Jeskai and I HAAATE that matchup. I nearly audibled to Amulet Titan. But I felt that I could 3-0 the next 3 rounds easily after he beats me. I kind of wish I could have taken my time more in the first round because I know I could have won that game, but I guess it can happen when there's no clock. The next time, I'll watch the clock before the round starts, although when I did Tidehollow Sculler and got a Deceiver Exarch, I expected to lose game 1 on turn 5. His hand showed a fetch, an Island, a Deceiver Exarch, and 2 Snapcaster Mage, so I knew the next draw was Lightning Bolt. Yep, it was! Got the Red with the fetch and Bolted. Then Snap/Bolt, etc.

Quote from purklefluff »

i've had more reps with this deck than any other in competitive magic over the last year, but i've always had the same issue with it:

1) not drawing a turn 1 dork
2) drawing too many 'meh' hands with an e-wit, finks, bunch of lands and nothing really besides.

also i find that this deck doesn't mulligan too well.

i'm half tempted to go up to 8 dorks, running the full set of birds and hierarchs. certainly it would make my openers better, and with this deck that seems to be a generally important metric in terms of whether or not you can 'get there' in your average modern game.

anyone else trying to solve this? I feel like the whole deck needs a bit of a reboot or a shift somehow.

After playing this deck A LOT in the last few months, I tend to agree.

Abzan Coco just seems weak, and honestly unplayable in this meta. The deck falls apart to anything that has interaction, and against other combo decks / Tron, it just gets raced and comes down to luck over skill.

I'm going to sell this deck to play something more consistent. Maybe Humans?

I just don't see how this deck can keep up in this meta. Feels like Infect all over again....

Well there were 4 "Counters Company" decks in the top 16 at the SCG Modern Classic this weekend. You have to take Classics with a grain of salt but at the very least it's still reasonable.

http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/results/format/28/event_ID/36/start_date/29-04-2018/end_date/29-04-2018/city/Atlanta/state/GA/start/1/finish/16/w_perc/0/g_perc/0/r_perc/0/b_perc/0/u_perc/0/a_perc/0/order_1/finish/limit/25/start_num/0/#content_decks_modern-tab

Team Open is also grain-of-salt-y but there was one in top 32 and one Knightfall in Top 16. I only point that out because some of the Company lists are running KotR in place of Finks, which could point to that card being stronger.

I think Modern is just wide open right now and there's a lot of variance in the meta.

Quote from LinkChmofsky »

I think Modern is just wide open right now and there's a lot of variance in the meta.

This. So much this.

I feel that Abzan Counters Company has game vs. Humans, Hollow One, Affinity, and Lantern, which are the 4 decks that I personally identify as being the "top decks." But I also use that term loosely, as the BEST DECK is the deck that draws the best that day and has a good pilot. I really only feel horrible playing against Jeskai or Grixis. Anything else has been fine in my experience. Yes, Jund and Mardu are somewhat 50/50 matchups, but with some good plays and good draws, you can push over the 50% win rate hump. (I mean, you have to draw well too.) I have won over 50% vs. both of those decks, although it has been very few matches for each.

Counters Company (GW with KNight of the Reliquary) is really a very all-in deck. I tried it before, but the rise of Shadow at the time kept me from doing too well. I slaughtered most other decks, but Shadow was rough...very rough. But nowadays, the quickest most not interactive decks can do well. Cheerios is a good option, although that one has a rough time with a single removal spell. It's what I like about Abzan Counters Company. We don't fold to a few removal spells. It takes a lot to keep us down, with E Witness, Collected Company, Gavony Township, and Chord of Calling.

This has been my experience and you can chime in with yours too. (the first number is our win percentage)
Humans - 60/40
Hollow One - 60/40
Affinity - 60/40
Lantern - 55/45
Storm - 45/55
Bogles - 65/35
Elves - 40/60
Burn - 50/50
UR Breach - 50/50
Tron - 55/45
Eldrazi - 60/40
Mardu Reveler - 50/50
Jund - 50/50
Jeskai - 30/70
Grixis - 40/60

Some of these are estimated and rounded off. I'm pretty sure about some of these percentages for matchups that I've played extensively. Others are mostly fewer than 10 matches and theoretically, so I'm sure to be wrong. But those percentages are not bad.