So far it's performed pretty incredibly in online testing. With the new combo it reminds me more of when I used to play Twin than of Abzan CoCo. Super resilient and really quick, turn 3 wins are pretty frequent and turn 4 wins are almost guaranteed if it's not interacted with.
I don't care for voice as it doesn't help either of the combo's and this deck is now just a combo deck imo. I have given up on the beat down and love it. I'm on 1 gavony (this has allowed me to drop 1 land completely I feel), no ana main, and no voices, yet all in on combo with the 4 druid/4 vizier/3 dusk and still running 2 seer. I personally switch the bird/noble because I think flying/black mana matters more than the 1 of attacker getting pumped. You state you like the t3 potential yet you aren't that devoted to it is I guess what i'm getting at. Your sb seems a little odd to me too but that's maybe meta choices.
@KTROJAN - can you post your latest list that you've been testing please?
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Voice doesn't prevent counterspells at all. If you're a combo deck you don't need voice main for a beat down strat but that's just my opinion. I can post my list after work yes.
Voice is good in the traditional melira company because it plays more like a midrange list that can combo off if given the opportunity. In that world making the opponent play on their turn and making giant elementals is great. If the deck becomes geared to the combo Voice's value goes down. A better option would be Grand Abolisher or Dosan the Falling Leaf or just Spellskite depending on what type of hate you are expecting to face.
Here is my list, sideboard is set for xmage meta not a local one currently. I have had no issue with balista and I don't think I'll try ezuri but I'm sure it can work however balista can be great removal too. Mill, titan breach, and affinity are my only losses so far however burn isn't too prevalent on xmage that I've seen right now.
I agree on the all in combo G1 as well as birds over nobles.
However, I would cut the spike feeder, archangel, vizier of menagerie, blood artist, rec sage (belongs in SB). They are often just dead cards in your opening hand and with hand disruption and removal on the uptick, you definitely want to minimise this.
I'd replace them with the following concepts:
1) Higher recursion through removal/disruption: Ewit, Rallier
2) Protection: Selfless spirit, Spellskite
3) Universal disruption/decoy: Tidehollow sculler
4) More digging potential/redundancy: Lead the Stampede/Fauna Shaman?
There's a nice little interaction with the new combo that I haven't seen discussed: if you have infinite mana, a viscera seer, and two eternal witnesses, you can scry through your deck to find your duskwatch recruiter. You can also generate infinite bolster with anafenza on the board.
There's a nice little interaction with the new combo that I haven't seen discussed: if you have infinite mana, a viscera seer, and two eternal witnesses, you can scry through your deck to find your duskwatch recruiter. You can also generate infinite bolster with anafenza on the board.
Alternatively, Walking Ballista in play + Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder is infinite damage that doesn't require combat step.
I agree on the all in combo G1 as well as birds over nobles.
However, I would cut the spike feeder, archangel, vizier of menagerie, blood artist, rec sage (belongs in SB). They are often just dead cards in your opening hand and with hand disruption and removal on the uptick, you definitely want to minimise this.
I'd replace them with the following concepts:
1) Higher recursion through removal/disruption: Ewit, Rallier
2) Protection: Selfless spirit, Spellskite
3) Universal disruption/decoy: Tidehollow sculler
4) More digging potential/redundancy: Lead the Stampede/Fauna Shaman?
Vizier is the only one I might cut but it's nice to have if I want w/b mana from Druid. I would possibly swap it for the 21st land. Inf life isn't always enough to win so I like 2 damage win cons so that's why I keep artist. Feed/angel is low opertunity cost imo. 1 maindeck art/enchantment removal has been great for me and I don't think I'd change that either. Def test and let us know your results though. I just lost my 4th match (vs storm they had it t3 both games) currently 18-4.
I agree on the all in combo G1 as well as birds over nobles.
However, I would cut the spike feeder, archangel, vizier of menagerie, blood artist, rec sage (belongs in SB). They are often just dead cards in your opening hand and with hand disruption and removal on the uptick, you definitely want to minimise this.
I'd replace them with the following concepts:
1) Higher recursion through removal/disruption: Ewit, Rallier
2) Protection: Selfless spirit, Spellskite
3) Universal disruption/decoy: Tidehollow sculler
4) More digging potential/redundancy: Lead the Stampede/Fauna Shaman?
Vizier is the only one I might cut but it's nice to have if I want w/b mana from Druid. I would possibly swap it for the 21st land. Inf life isn't always enough to win so I like 2 damage win cons so that's why I keep artist. Feed/angel is low opertunity cost imo. 1 maindeck art/enchantment removal has been great for me and I don't think I'd change that either. Def test and let us know your results though. I just lost my 4th match (vs storm they had it t3 both games) currently 18-4.
21 land is crazy. it's usually 22 land vs 23 land.
Also, replace the Razorverge thicket with horizon canopy, it's just better and flood insurance is better than saving a few lifepoints. It's also another revolt enabler.
I really dislike blood artist. I don't like runnng dead cards that are almost only good with a combo. You won't just combo out and win games turn 3 every time. You often have to play interactive magic against opponents killing your stuff. Having a 0/1 that does nothing in those cases is sooo bad. At least a 2/1 can attack.
If you are running artifact/enchantment hate main, then quasali pridemage is just miles better. He has great synergy with renegade rallier and attacks well.
I do like angel maindeck, but I can see arguments for people dropping it. I like it still.
As for my take on the deck, I have been testing this now:
This list seems to work very well. It is difficult to play against, it grinds well, and has combo wins out of nowhere.
It just attacks on so many angles. I think having cards like voice and rallier is important. All in combo won't work against interactive decks and especially not game 2/3.
The 2 changes I want to test is to see if a 4th druid is worth it, and if I need a win con that only uses green mana.
I was actually thinking about the new green god, as it is hit by coco/chord and can pump the druid to attack turn 3. An indestructible threat is also decent against control, death's shadow etc.
With the deck stacked with duskwatch, you can set a company to the top that has Anafenza + Viscera. If you have 1 tireless tracker or courser, it should be possible to draw the CoCo (from tracker clue or from putting horizon canopy on top with courser and drawing CoCo). Naturally, no creatures in our list full fill the power 4 requirement for rhonas (maybe voice tokens), but I still see it as a dead card outside the combo. Just get a ballista if you want the instant combo kill after infinite mana.
I see plenty of lists with a single duskwatch recruiter and I do think that is a mistake. He has been very good for me, allowing me to dig and slog through removal filled matches. Casting 2 mana finks/witness/rallier is also very good if the opponent allows it to flip.
I don't play courser or tireless tracker, I am not a huge fan, they are fine.
In practice, this is how it plays out. If you combo later, you have 1 black or even 2 white mana usually so it's no problem, you can make all your dudes infinite large, gain infinite life etc.
However, if you go turn 2 druid into either turn 3 coco or chord, you will have only green mana, and no landdrops, so neither of those cards actually help you. Having a way to win the same turn, with just green mana is actually relevant. And I don't want to put mediocre cards in my deck to acomplish this. Yes you draw your whole deck with duskwatch. (it doesnt matter if it dies earlier, you can witness it back), but if you don't have another chord or coco you'll just end up passing turn.
That is why I was looking at the green god, if it's actually good in some matchups, it might be worth it as you can just pump the druid and win. If it's a bad card, i won't bother.
Ballista is fine, but it is just bad with coco and chord when not comboing.. And a mediocre card when not having loads of mana.
Blood Artist is really good. He is my Murderous Redcap, so to say. He is also great make close games going longer and there are a lot of situations where he seriously pressures the opponent (i.e. Control -> Verdict into 5 creatures with Artist in play = 5 damage). I often have the situation that my opponents are low (like 4-5 life). If you then get Blood Artist into game, they need to play around killing your creatures. That's huge. Sometimes it just enough to play him and sac your team with Seer. There is not really anything the opponent can do to prevent this when both creatures are on the battlefield.
Also, he does not target thus it's a "life drain" finish. It goes beyond Leyline, Bridge, Worship. And he is CoCoable.
I really enjoyed playing 2 Voices main the last weeks. Yet, with the new combo this probably is not reasonable anymore. Voice is nice with Artist and Seer. Won me a ton of games. However, I think with the new combo we really have to go all combo. Maybe it proves also "too much combo". I'm really excited how (and if) it will work out.
I dont know, I just feel like we have different experiences. Blood artist often felt like a dud.. Yes he is ok sometimes, but wouldnt just selfless spirit be strickly better in the situation you are describing? and it hits for 2 evasing damage and can actually protect your board, not drain for 2 or whatever.
Blood artist is the type of card that is good when you are ahead on board and already doing well. You also need cards to get you back into a game where you are behind.
I guess it depends on your meta.. if there are lots of bridge decks and people don't play removal or boardwipes. sure...
Blood Artist is really good. He is my Murderous Redcap, so to say. He is also great make close games going longer and there are a lot of situations where he seriously pressures the opponent (i.e. Control -> Verdict into 5 creatures with Artist in play = 5 damage). I often have the situation that my opponents are low (like 4-5 life). If you then get Blood Artist into game, they need to play around killing your creatures. That's huge. Sometimes it just enough to play him and sac your team with Seer. There is not really anything the opponent can do to prevent this when both creatures are on the battlefield.
I don't really see the deck in it's current iteration pressuring control anywhere near enough to get them to 5 life.
I agree on the all in combo G1 as well as birds over nobles.
However, I would cut the spike feeder, archangel, vizier of menagerie, blood artist, rec sage (belongs in SB). They are often just dead cards in your opening hand and with hand disruption and removal on the uptick, you definitely want to minimise this.
I'd replace them with the following concepts:
1) Higher recursion through removal/disruption: Ewit, Rallier
2) Protection: Selfless spirit, Spellskite
3) Universal disruption/decoy: Tidehollow sculler
4) More digging potential/redundancy: Lead the Stampede/Fauna Shaman?
Vizier is the only one I might cut but it's nice to have if I want w/b mana from Druid. I would possibly swap it for the 21st land. Inf life isn't always enough to win so I like 2 damage win cons so that's why I keep artist. Feed/angel is low opertunity cost imo. 1 maindeck art/enchantment removal has been great for me and I don't think I'd change that either. Def test and let us know your results though. I just lost my 4th match (vs storm they had it t3 both games) currently 18-4.
21 land is crazy. it's usually 22 land vs 23 land.
Also, replace the Razorverge thicket with horizon canopy, it's just better and flood insurance is better than saving a few lifepoints. It's also another revolt enabler.
I really dislike blood artist. I don't like runnng dead cards that are almost only good with a combo. You won't just combo out and win games turn 3 every time. You often have to play interactive magic against opponents killing your stuff. Having a 0/1 that does nothing in those cases is sooo bad. At least a 2/1 can attack.
If you are running artifact/enchantment hate main, then quasali pridemage is just miles better. He has great synergy with renegade rallier and attacks well.
I do like angel maindeck, but I can see arguments for people dropping it. I like it still.
As for my take on the deck, I have been testing this now:
This list seems to work very well. It is difficult to play against, it grinds well, and has combo wins out of nowhere.
It just attacks on so many angles. I think having cards like voice and rallier is important. All in combo won't work against interactive decks and especially not game 2/3.
The 2 changes I want to test is to see if a 4th druid is worth it, and if I need a win con that only uses green mana.
I was actually thinking about the new green god, as it is hit by coco/chord and can pump the druid to attack turn 3. An indestructible threat is also decent against control, death's shadow etc.
I'm glad you enjoy your list it's just not what I'd run. There are good/bad with a lot of your suggestions it's all preference. 20 lands have been fine with my build and if I went to 21 it'd be 1 canopy. I think many people over value rallier honestly, a 3/2 that does nothing is just not good enough, and unless it's revolted that's all it is. That means off of coco you better have cracked a fetch even if you didn't need the land. Me running only 1 makes the pridmage argument not matter. A lot of these items are just prefrance based and I prefer to focus as a combo deck g1 so taking time off or hitting cards like voice/scooz/pontif main just aren't my thing. I stated before that's also why I'm off the beatdown plan and dropped Ana for the 4th vizier. Imo combo decks should be streamlined.
But you are making the combo deck worse, but not being able to infinite bolster to attack for the win, with the "old" combo. Infinite life isnt enough alone often. 1 anafenza enables infinite large creatures with just a chord for 2. It also enables you to reset a finks that already persisted if you need to, which is sometimes relevant.
I do respect the all in combo, there are different ways to build the deck, and it's definitely worth testing. Though my 22 lands with 3 canopy have sometimes screwed me, especially when someone angers the board and I cant hit the 4th land. I'd rather have enough land with the possibility of cycling it if needed. 20 land IS too little though, your mana dorks won't always survive.
I have revolt probably 90% of the time with rallier. with all the fetches and canopy, and removal people run, it's almost never an issue. You learn to plan around it.
I don't even mind ramping to 5 next turn as it makes me often able to play 2 spells instead of 1 the following turn for added pressure. Not to mention returning a killed/sacced voice, which can sometimes just be game over without any combo shenanigans, and makeing removal bad.
Yup it allows a later combo with more pices reqired where the 4th vizier allows the t3 with fewer. It's just prefrance and 20 has been fine with 10 dorks but I'm also not cycling a land I'm just getting the card on the front side. Again both are fine just different styles.
But you are making the combo deck worse, but not being able to infinite bolster to attack for the win, with the "old" combo
Anafenza doesn't combo off with Devoted Druid, so it's not worse to play a 4th Vizier instead of the 1st Ana. Vizier works with 4 Druids + 4 Persist creatures (minimum), that's the key card in the list and the one we want 4 copies of if we want the 2 combos in our list.
Now, the question is how much do we commit to the combos. We can cut a Druid, a Finks, or reduce to 1 the number of the third pieces (Seer and Recruiter). But I highly doubt we can cut a Vizier since - even though the body is real bad - it plays a role in non-combo situations, like stopping the opponent from running into an unkillable Finks / Redcap, or cast our mono-green cards for free. And, well, it's the only piece that makes the other underwhelming pieces worth something.
I'm not sure we need more than 1 Seer and 1 Recruiter because if one gets discarded, exiled or whatever, we can switch towards the other combo. With one single combo, we need several pieces of each part, but with 2 combos, we can make room (for beaters, recursion, actual spells, etc...).
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Like Headminerve says, the beauty of Vizier is that it fuels two different combo angles with one slot.
Being able to run 4 finks / 4 vizier / 4 druids / 1 seer / 1 duskwatch gives you a really compact two angle combo (14 slots!) that are all coco-able, all chordable pretty easily, and all fuel the backup Gavony township plan quite well.
With 8 dorks, you still have 7-8 flex slots that can be whatever you want. Additional wincons, whatever.
Running bad cards that don't do both combos just seems really questionable. The old persist-support creatures are vastly worse because they don't enable both wins. If you're playing this dual combo angle those last 7-8 slots should be used really carefully to attack the metagame.
My draft of the deck is looking like this for Abzan:
Note, I haven't done much thinking about the manabase adjustments -- but more than likely we do not need to be playing a swamp or a second black shock anymore. Depends on what the sideboard winds up looking like.
The selfless spirit is there as combo insurance in case we have to pass the turn with the combo up so we can kill next turn. Any sort of combo insurance card would probably work but depends on if you expect to see Ugin or not really.
It's possible that the right card there is walking ballista, and we certainly have room for it.
My concern with Mirror Entity is how can't you win the same turn if you wind up drawing the combo naturally. There's a situation where you go T2 Druid, T3 Vizier + Recruiter and can't win that turn unless you have another white source. I haven't been able to test so I don't know how often this comes up, but it pushes me towards wanting to include Rhonas as the kill card. Mirror Entity also does not beat a blocker.
I also get that Ballista avoid the combat step, but both Rhonas and Mirror Entity beat Ensnaring Bridge because of Druid's 0 power, and any removal (or Cryptic) would be spent disrupting the combo, so what are we playing around? Condemn?
I certainly think that Rhonas is a strictly better mirror entity, and if you're worried about ballista being a nonbo with coco/chord then that's the one to run. They're functionally the same once you have infinite mana.
That said, both get blown out by blessed alliance and path to exile, and in my testing Ballista has performed significantly better. I'll trade a slightly higher chance of blanking on CoCo for a much lower chance of losing once I have the combo.
Don't get the 1 viscera + 1 duskwatch. You need those for combos to do anything. I'm at 4 vizier + 1 anafenza, 2 viscera seer, 4 finks, 3 devoted druid, 3 duskwatch, 6 dorks.
The reason you only want one of each is because chord provides copies 1-4, and they're cards that are exceptionally bad on their own. I could see putting a second duskwatch in your flex slots but viscera seer is just embarrassing as a magic card -- yes, I know all about using it to scry, but concessions must be made to card power.
Vizier is a 4x because you always want one; it's your main combo creature. Druid is a 4x because it sits in mana source slots and is stellar with gavony township. Imagine if wall of roots was a piece of your combo; it does both of the things you want, ramp and combo.
I can see 6 dorks+3 viscera seer if you really want to stick the seer combo, but I say 8 because we *really* want to resolve a turn 3 coco. The surest path to victory is cocoing when your opponent taps out and untapping with the infinite mana combo (your likelihood with 4 of each is disturbingly high; 1/7 or so IIRC).
Edit for a bit more:
We want to re-evaluate how strong a dork is in the deck when coco has a higher likelihood to put the combo on board, which it does in the vizier/druid. Our likelihood of randomly cocoing into infinite mana is quite a bit higher than it was of getting the melira combo -- we were about as likely to get 2 pieces, but here 2 pieces puts is light years ahead.
Untapping with infinite mana has a lot of upsides even if we don't have a third piece, since we get a chance to see it, we can sac any canopies for more chances, and we can sometimes do multiple township activations, or dump our hands and then activate township, etc.
I am pretty confident that our 1drops should be 8 dorks and 1 seer but by all means test what you like. I just don't see the justification for cutting dorks in current modern or in this deck. I think even stock company should be considering the 8th dork with how fast current format is.
Furthermore:
The combo kills with any of
Chord
Duskwatch
Mirror Entity
And has an extremely high kill chance with a collected company. So we've got 10 outs to "combo" with resolved druid+vizier.
If we untap with infinite mana and cast coco into witness we can coco again as well. Pretty gross.
@KTROJAN - can you post your latest list that you've been testing please?
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1 Archangel of Thune
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Blood Artist
4 Devoted Druid
3 Duskwatch Recruiter
2 Eternal Witness
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Noble Hierarch
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Spike Feeder
2 Viscera Seer
4 Vizier of Remedies
1 Vizier of the Menagerie
1 Walking Ballista
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
Lands (20)
2 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
2 Marsh Flats
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Swamp
2 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Orzhov Pontiff
3 Path to Exile
1 Pharika, God of Affliction
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
Here is my list, sideboard is set for xmage meta not a local one currently. I have had no issue with balista and I don't think I'll try ezuri but I'm sure it can work however balista can be great removal too. Mill, titan breach, and affinity are my only losses so far however burn isn't too prevalent on xmage that I've seen right now.
However, I would cut the spike feeder, archangel, vizier of menagerie, blood artist, rec sage (belongs in SB). They are often just dead cards in your opening hand and with hand disruption and removal on the uptick, you definitely want to minimise this.
I'd replace them with the following concepts:
1) Higher recursion through removal/disruption: Ewit, Rallier
2) Protection: Selfless spirit, Spellskite
3) Universal disruption/decoy: Tidehollow sculler
4) More digging potential/redundancy: Lead the Stampede/Fauna Shaman?
Alternatively, Walking Ballista in play + Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder is infinite damage that doesn't require combat step.
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Vizier is the only one I might cut but it's nice to have if I want w/b mana from Druid. I would possibly swap it for the 21st land. Inf life isn't always enough to win so I like 2 damage win cons so that's why I keep artist. Feed/angel is low opertunity cost imo. 1 maindeck art/enchantment removal has been great for me and I don't think I'd change that either. Def test and let us know your results though. I just lost my 4th match (vs storm they had it t3 both games) currently 18-4.
21 land is crazy. it's usually 22 land vs 23 land.
Also, replace the Razorverge thicket with horizon canopy, it's just better and flood insurance is better than saving a few lifepoints. It's also another revolt enabler.
I really dislike blood artist. I don't like runnng dead cards that are almost only good with a combo. You won't just combo out and win games turn 3 every time. You often have to play interactive magic against opponents killing your stuff. Having a 0/1 that does nothing in those cases is sooo bad. At least a 2/1 can attack.
If you are running artifact/enchantment hate main, then quasali pridemage is just miles better. He has great synergy with renegade rallier and attacks well.
I do like angel maindeck, but I can see arguments for people dropping it. I like it still.
As for my take on the deck, I have been testing this now:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/abzan-company-devoted-rallier-20/
This list seems to work very well. It is difficult to play against, it grinds well, and has combo wins out of nowhere.
It just attacks on so many angles. I think having cards like voice and rallier is important. All in combo won't work against interactive decks and especially not game 2/3.
The 2 changes I want to test is to see if a 4th druid is worth it, and if I need a win con that only uses green mana.
I was actually thinking about the new green god, as it is hit by coco/chord and can pump the druid to attack turn 3. An indestructible threat is also decent against control, death's shadow etc.
I don't play courser or tireless tracker, I am not a huge fan, they are fine.
In practice, this is how it plays out. If you combo later, you have 1 black or even 2 white mana usually so it's no problem, you can make all your dudes infinite large, gain infinite life etc.
However, if you go turn 2 druid into either turn 3 coco or chord, you will have only green mana, and no landdrops, so neither of those cards actually help you. Having a way to win the same turn, with just green mana is actually relevant. And I don't want to put mediocre cards in my deck to acomplish this. Yes you draw your whole deck with duskwatch. (it doesnt matter if it dies earlier, you can witness it back), but if you don't have another chord or coco you'll just end up passing turn.
That is why I was looking at the green god, if it's actually good in some matchups, it might be worth it as you can just pump the druid and win. If it's a bad card, i won't bother.
Ballista is fine, but it is just bad with coco and chord when not comboing.. And a mediocre card when not having loads of mana.
I dont know, I just feel like we have different experiences. Blood artist often felt like a dud.. Yes he is ok sometimes, but wouldnt just selfless spirit be strickly better in the situation you are describing? and it hits for 2 evasing damage and can actually protect your board, not drain for 2 or whatever.
Blood artist is the type of card that is good when you are ahead on board and already doing well. You also need cards to get you back into a game where you are behind.
I guess it depends on your meta.. if there are lots of bridge decks and people don't play removal or boardwipes. sure...
I don't really see the deck in it's current iteration pressuring control anywhere near enough to get them to 5 life.
I'm glad you enjoy your list it's just not what I'd run. There are good/bad with a lot of your suggestions it's all preference. 20 lands have been fine with my build and if I went to 21 it'd be 1 canopy. I think many people over value rallier honestly, a 3/2 that does nothing is just not good enough, and unless it's revolted that's all it is. That means off of coco you better have cracked a fetch even if you didn't need the land. Me running only 1 makes the pridmage argument not matter. A lot of these items are just prefrance based and I prefer to focus as a combo deck g1 so taking time off or hitting cards like voice/scooz/pontif main just aren't my thing. I stated before that's also why I'm off the beatdown plan and dropped Ana for the 4th vizier. Imo combo decks should be streamlined.
I do respect the all in combo, there are different ways to build the deck, and it's definitely worth testing. Though my 22 lands with 3 canopy have sometimes screwed me, especially when someone angers the board and I cant hit the 4th land. I'd rather have enough land with the possibility of cycling it if needed. 20 land IS too little though, your mana dorks won't always survive.
I have revolt probably 90% of the time with rallier. with all the fetches and canopy, and removal people run, it's almost never an issue. You learn to plan around it.
I don't even mind ramping to 5 next turn as it makes me often able to play 2 spells instead of 1 the following turn for added pressure. Not to mention returning a killed/sacced voice, which can sometimes just be game over without any combo shenanigans, and makeing removal bad.
Anafenza doesn't combo off with Devoted Druid, so it's not worse to play a 4th Vizier instead of the 1st Ana. Vizier works with 4 Druids + 4 Persist creatures (minimum), that's the key card in the list and the one we want 4 copies of if we want the 2 combos in our list.
Now, the question is how much do we commit to the combos. We can cut a Druid, a Finks, or reduce to 1 the number of the third pieces (Seer and Recruiter). But I highly doubt we can cut a Vizier since - even though the body is real bad - it plays a role in non-combo situations, like stopping the opponent from running into an unkillable Finks / Redcap, or cast our mono-green cards for free. And, well, it's the only piece that makes the other underwhelming pieces worth something.
I'm not sure we need more than 1 Seer and 1 Recruiter because if one gets discarded, exiled or whatever, we can switch towards the other combo. With one single combo, we need several pieces of each part, but with 2 combos, we can make room (for beaters, recursion, actual spells, etc...).
Being able to run 4 finks / 4 vizier / 4 druids / 1 seer / 1 duskwatch gives you a really compact two angle combo (14 slots!) that are all coco-able, all chordable pretty easily, and all fuel the backup Gavony township plan quite well.
With 8 dorks, you still have 7-8 flex slots that can be whatever you want. Additional wincons, whatever.
Running bad cards that don't do both combos just seems really questionable. The old persist-support creatures are vastly worse because they don't enable both wins. If you're playing this dual combo angle those last 7-8 slots should be used really carefully to attack the metagame.
My draft of the deck is looking like this for Abzan:
3 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Swamp
2 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Collected Company
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Viscera Seer
4 Devoted Druid
1 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Selfless Spirit
4 Vizier of Remedies
1 Mirror Entity
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Eternal Witness
2 Renegade Rallier
Note, I haven't done much thinking about the manabase adjustments -- but more than likely we do not need to be playing a swamp or a second black shock anymore. Depends on what the sideboard winds up looking like.
The selfless spirit is there as combo insurance in case we have to pass the turn with the combo up so we can kill next turn. Any sort of combo insurance card would probably work but depends on if you expect to see Ugin or not really.
It's possible that the right card there is walking ballista, and we certainly have room for it.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I also get that Ballista avoid the combat step, but both Rhonas and Mirror Entity beat Ensnaring Bridge because of Druid's 0 power, and any removal (or Cryptic) would be spent disrupting the combo, so what are we playing around? Condemn?
That said, both get blown out by blessed alliance and path to exile, and in my testing Ballista has performed significantly better. I'll trade a slightly higher chance of blanking on CoCo for a much lower chance of losing once I have the combo.
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes
The reason you only want one of each is because chord provides copies 1-4, and they're cards that are exceptionally bad on their own. I could see putting a second duskwatch in your flex slots but viscera seer is just embarrassing as a magic card -- yes, I know all about using it to scry, but concessions must be made to card power.
Vizier is a 4x because you always want one; it's your main combo creature. Druid is a 4x because it sits in mana source slots and is stellar with gavony township. Imagine if wall of roots was a piece of your combo; it does both of the things you want, ramp and combo.
I can see 6 dorks+3 viscera seer if you really want to stick the seer combo, but I say 8 because we *really* want to resolve a turn 3 coco. The surest path to victory is cocoing when your opponent taps out and untapping with the infinite mana combo (your likelihood with 4 of each is disturbingly high; 1/7 or so IIRC).
Edit for a bit more:
We want to re-evaluate how strong a dork is in the deck when coco has a higher likelihood to put the combo on board, which it does in the vizier/druid. Our likelihood of randomly cocoing into infinite mana is quite a bit higher than it was of getting the melira combo -- we were about as likely to get 2 pieces, but here 2 pieces puts is light years ahead.
Untapping with infinite mana has a lot of upsides even if we don't have a third piece, since we get a chance to see it, we can sac any canopies for more chances, and we can sometimes do multiple township activations, or dump our hands and then activate township, etc.
I am pretty confident that our 1drops should be 8 dorks and 1 seer but by all means test what you like. I just don't see the justification for cutting dorks in current modern or in this deck. I think even stock company should be considering the 8th dork with how fast current format is.
Furthermore:
The combo kills with any of
Chord
Duskwatch
Mirror Entity
And has an extremely high kill chance with a collected company. So we've got 10 outs to "combo" with resolved druid+vizier.
If we untap with infinite mana and cast coco into witness we can coco again as well. Pretty gross.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall