Keep in mind Coiling Oracle's mana requirement does damage to you and your manabase. Even if you don't have it in hand, you should fetch accordingly, because you can draw it as 4of. Wall and Branchwalker are both on-color, easy to cast and don't require stretching mana. Oracle isn't worth the setup cost, Wall is not good anymore. We'll see about Branchwalker.
Goblin Rabblemaster is not for us, we have enough 3 mana playables fightning for spots that are on theme.
Champion of Wits is also a mana too expensive. At 3cmc we don't want to loot, we're trying to push for card advantage. Eternalize cost is unrealistic for us.
Nissa, Steward of Elements was discussed (and tested) earlier, wasn't impressive. It feels good on T2-3, later it doesn't do enough.
Why Loaming Shaman? I've seen it in lists, but does it actually work? It seems to me the sorcery speed would kill it's effectivness hard. It does nothing to Storm, they would have to fizzle in a very specific way. It can slow down Dredge a bit, but they overcome timed Relics.
Scooze is better for soft hate (lingering souls, snap etc).
I would rather attack storm on the Eidolon/Leyline path. Helixes incidentally help with Storm, too.
Dredge is not always that fast, we can race. The Relic-type hate is ok, but burns at least 2 slots. Getting to board it in Storm is nice, beyond that it's questionable.
Do Humans play Path now? the original list didn't because of Thalia and mana sources.
I started to test a few things including the Helixes in board. They are useful in a lot of matchups and I like them for Humans, too. Coupled with Gearhulk those should be our best tools. Fiery Justice would be the same slot as Helixes? Probably an either-or situation, but those should be also fine. Helix is faster though, Thalia slows down the Justice a lot.
Explosives could be ok, Dusk maybe after the anthem effects, could be a problem to time correctly. Also both suffer against Thalia, not too exciting on paper.
It seems like a good matchup for Angel of Sanctions, removes relevant hatebears and blocks well.
They have no answer to Worship if we play around Reflector? Ghostly Prison effects came to mind, but don't protect Saheeli. Archangel of Tithes exists, not sure if it's good enough and has enough splash for other matchups (dredge, affinity, mirror, not much).
@hagenz
Yeah, we all started with some number of Wall of Omens and went to 0. When we can have G creatures with power to pressure or trade, Wall is not as good. Like you said, decks go either higher or wide and Wall just soaks a few damage points. I didn't miss the cantrip, it's weak etb for Felidar and not great copy for Saheeli. We preffer to be proactive (aggresive) with the plan B, as opposed to sit behind a wall and wait for combo, otherwise the opponent can just sit on their removal and answer it easier.
Coiling Oracle was mentioned a few times, it's just not good. Hard (painful) to cast and 1/1 is irrelevant. The effect is not enough to compensate.
More like 2 mana Farhaven Elf, idk if we want grisly bear that draws a land. Viridian Emissary doesn't trigger with Felidar/Saheeli, that's a problem, plus we want the land up front, not when we start to Evo for things. I mentioned Merfolk Branchwalker, it's the closest Coiling Oracle-type card to be playable. I don't have high hopes, but still want to try it to see how it actually plays. (I know I have a list of things to try, I was playing highlander for a few weeks, will get back to modern testing soon.)
Mentioned Qasali Pridemage for Torpor Orb on last page. I never dropped it from sideboard, just like the card, it can lower the curve or get aggresive even without disenchanting. Although sideboard is getting packed throughout the last few pages and IDK if I would play Pridemage over RecSage if it was the last slot.
if anyone else has any advice on Jeskai I'm all ears. I realize there may not be a silver bullet type card for the matchup but I'm still trying to decide on at least one decently solid SB card to bring in, starting with the following:
From the list the Explosives are closest to playabe, it's opposite of narrow. Too slow maybe, especially if you want to get those 3 drops. Plus we don't synergize with artifacts so it would have to be a 2of or something. I like Lightning Helix and Leyline of Sanctity to shut down the burn plan. Leyline would protect Thrun from Cryptic-tap, too.
Is Geist a problem? We should have enough blockers. Sure, they can remove a lot, but it's spending burn on our value creatures, that shouldn't be that bad for us.
If it really is a miserable matchup, keep in mind we can just give up on it and hope not to face it, that's modern. If worse comes to worst, so that we don't ruin sideboards trying.
I have 1 Tireless Tracker, 1 Renegade Rallier, 1 Linvala, 1 Thragtusk, 1 Sun Titan, 4 Saheeli Rai, 4 Voices that can generate large tokens, and creatures with 1 or 2 power that can team up to crew. Gavony Township also helps to crew occasionally. If they aren't needed to block, my summoning sick Tusk or Titan will absolutely jump into the Heart to deal 4 damage or block a flyer. It might still be too greedy in the end, but so far the Heart exceeded my own expectations. I thought I'd just quickly test this crazy idea to get it out of my system and verify that it's terrible, but it actually somehow works. If Heart is good, it's really really good, since it's a very fast clock, one-hits most planeswalkers and trumps everything in the air except Celestial Colonnade and Cranial Plating. It's also just a scary card for some opponents to play against, warping their decisions even if you can't currently crew it.
Just for the record, when you resolve Thragtusk or Sun Titan, them crewing a vehicle is not relevant. I would take the Beast token from Tusk crewing, that one can just sit there, sometimes. I didn't count Linvala similarly, when you resolve Linvala giving her Bone Saw isn't what won you the game. The Voice tokens require work.
Saheeli crewing is fine, the interaction of Heart with walkers should be strong, I would have to play with it to see how it impacts loyality, it's a pretty unique situation. I imagine the threat of activation is often enough for her not to get attacked.
Pretty bad scenario is failed combo attempt, where Saheeli is always on 1 loyality and can't crew to protect herself. That's the first clue towards win more status, when you stumble it does literaly nothing? Or eats/trades the attacker for the price of Saheeli. Smuggler's Copter suffers even more with 0 power dorks. What makes Heart interesting is the loyality crewing, otherwise it's just equipment.
This list/variations of it have 5-0 modern leagues 3 times in the past week. It was mentioned on page 18 as well. Anyone have additional thoughts as to how it compares to the lists more commonly run in the thread? And perhaps how it could do so well as to 5-0 3 times in 4 days?
What happened is the original pilot/deck made it 5-0, like many random decks do. Not to take away anything from the pilot or the deck, but it doesn't necessarily mean something. The list was published and more importantly played by the biggest personality on the biggest mtg site. Now, we don't have the statistics, but no one can doubt a lot of people picked the deck up for a league. Just look up mtgo prices of Saheeli to see the spike on 18-19th when the LSV video was published.
So from a big surge of pilots, some went 5-0 and two of them got published again. It's not like 4 people played the deck and it's so good that inevitably 3 of them 5-0, of course and the fourth one got screwed on mana The deck got traction on CFB and reddits, so wotc published more of it's results.
The version from this thread is not played on mtgo in that quantity. Earlier version of "our" deck was played by Gerry Thompson 5 months ago (with Evo and Kiki), it has 6k views. the LSV video has 49k in 1 week. So 50 thousand people got 2 more results published.
Other than that I agree with the above, all you need is Birds, Saheeli and Guardian and you steal games. The Vial acts similarly to Lotus Cobra, in that you can combo in one turn (T5) out of nowhere, while acting as a blink/value deck up to that point. I kind of miss Flickerwisp (from Emeria days), it's a sweet card and the interaction with Saheeli is very cool (but not modern worthy anymore, if ever). Resto can also end games after a few chip shots early.
It just plays too fair of a game plan. Our version is more consistent, which is important in unfair matchups, racing storm/tron and such. Against fair decks flickering Reflector Mages buys all the time in the world, but modern is not that fair. Even it's use of Vial is more fair than something like DnT or merfolk.
Has anyone considered or tested Glorybringer yet? It's very powerful against creatures and planeswalkers, hits reasonably hard when you're just racing (deals damage faster than Thragtusk, Reveillark or Angel of Sanctions) and has really nice synergy with Saheeli and Guardian. It does nothing when it runs right into a Path to Exile or Dismember, though, which makes it a more risky option.
that's actually interesting, I never thought about Exert. Glorybringer may work, the cost should be manageable. The removal is nice, I can see Evoing into it to kill something relevant. Haste allows blinking it after untapping or just topdecked Guardian.
What about Glory-bound Initiate? 3 power 2 drop trades up, brought back with Rallier, hits for 4 lifelink, better copy target than Finks. Could be quite efficient. I'll try 2-3 Initiate + 1 Glorybringer.
As for the earlier discussion: Fiery Justice shouldn't be maindeck-able card. I wanted to point out you are giving them a turn, but you did it for me. What do you think are the % of games where you give them a turn with Justice compared to the % of games where a land from Path is relevant? On top of that consider the 3 cmc, sorcery speed and the fact that Time Walk has greater upside than Rampant Growth.
I think you should just play Path, but if you really don't want to, there's still Bolt/Helix or Detention Sphere on 3cmc sorcery speed.
Heart of Kiran is interesting, certainly powerful, but you don't really have "various 3 power creatures", you have 2, unless you want Tusk or Titan to drive. Biggest problem I see are the 0 power dorks, if it could utilize those it would be much more appealing. Seems like Ralliers would really get along with Heart of Kiran, they can return it and crew, wouldn't you want 2 or 3? Abundant Growth actually resembles Oath of Nissa, like a really bad Oath #5. I can see the utility, but we can probably slot in a more powerful card.
So, what's our current discussion status? I guess we are not sure whether to play the 4th guardian, how grindy we should be, what is a good mana sink (e.g. Scooze) to play as a singleton main and Reflector Mage vs. 4th path?
Concerning moon, I think we established that it's bad to bring it in unless it hoses the wincon (e.g. Valakut) and bring only magus against tricolor midrange things. I think we also agree that Harmonic Sliver is better than Reclamation Sage?
I have to admit the 3 Felidars are intriguing, just because we have the 3 Evo. Freeing the 4+ spot is valuable. With that said, I'm still on 4, I like my free wins. I think we are a combo deck at the core and want to maximalize those chances.
Harmonic Sliver: I actually value the 2 power of Rec Sage. Sliver is absolutely better in Affinity, but anything else? For other decks there shouldn't be a difference in 2 vs 3 naturalize. If you can board Sage for UW control (D.sphere/seas) and clock them after verdict for 2 instead of 1 I'd say it's relevant. Same with Ad Naus, if you want to bring it in for Pentad Prism / early Unlife, the pressure is relevant. IDK, they are both good, I wouldn't say strictly better.
To have that double-naturalize effect, you need exactly Saheeli, not just blink. We probably don't side her out in affinity, but it can depend on the level of hate we're on. Affinity is the best aggro/combo deck in terms of killing Saheeli, they have explosive power and mostly fly over our blockers. They can reliably kill T2 Saheeli. We are probably on the hate+value plan, it may depend on sideboard. If we're not racing, shaving copies or boarding out Saheeli would be reasonable and you start loosing the advantage of the Sliver.
I guess Lantern has the targets, but we really care about Bridge and maybe Needle, not much else. The pressure can be relevant as they sometimes take a while to find Bridge. It's a weird matchup.
I'm not down on the Sliver, I'll keep it in mind and try to notice which is relevant in games.
heh, sorry about the storm anecdote, but Steam Vents maybe an overkill? Switch Misty to Arid Mesa to fetch all colors without it. With Reflector Mage the mana would be adjusted, I play 2 Temple Garden when I don't have to fetch for non-GW cards besides Saheeli. Switching the 2nd Temple Garden is a freebie and while I'd rather not, going to 5 shocks is ok if you want the insurance, especially when running additional U/R cards.
Storm being back on Remands is worring, I liked it more when they didn't have interaction for Evo > Eidolon, or just 1of bounce spell
The Shocks being Forests is for T1 G, the deck has keepable 1 landers especially with Oaths. I don't like mulling Birds + Plains hands.
The 5 basics are there so you don't take 10 damage when you're returning fetches with ralliers multiple times in a game. If you're keeping the 3 ralliers keep an eye on the damage you take from lands with fewer basics and 6 shocks.
You can do the Forest > Voice > Saheeli with any of the 10 one drops before, or 2 Cobras after. Or have alternative plays, it would be a hyper specific situation that you have exactly Forest, Voice, Saheeli, Guardian and nothing else. Regardless, the switch is easy, so sure.
Depends on a lot of factors, but generally I want to hold Cobra with fetch for T3 if I have other play on T2, to get some value before they react.
The Evo Voice into P&K depends on utility, Evo Voice into Rallier gives you the same power and keeps Voice around for opponent to deal with. Evoing Voice is ok, but it still sets us back.
Thragtusk is the last flex slot I cut when tinkering. Just the prevalence of Path, plus it's just about the best Saheeli and Guardian target. No need to worry about yard contents (Sun Titan and Lark). The shift from Bolt to Push is nice as well.
Worship and Leyline are interesting. I mentioned Leyline, it's useful against a good portion of the meta and fixes the things we need. Would 2x Leyline be fine, or is 3-4 preferable just to have it T0?
Thoughts:
Man! Spell Queller does a lot of work against this deck, disrupting the combo both on the stack and flying over blockers to snipe Saheeli, ensuring that you can pretty much only cast her the turn you're looking to combo out. The only answer I can think of (beyond running more spot removal ala NateG's Lightning Helix SB) might be to run an Angel of Sanctions to evolve into in order to exile Queller -- even if they kill Angel the Queller won't get to counter another spell. Otherwise we just have to hope we can get Linvala / Lark in the skies or get a Gearhulk wipe.
I don't know about a plan against Queller that includes Evo. Especially when they have Company to 1, find Queller and 2, get card advantage while you sac your creatures. If they Queller the Evo, you have to sac 2nd creature to cast it from under the Queller. I would think about at least shaving copies of Evo, if not cutting it. But yeah, Voice, Teeg, Angel, Lark are good.
Better get that Eidolon back in there if the 8whack person comes back! I like ralliers vs 8whack, returning 2 drops that trade is what you want. You can cut Saheeli completely, don't need combo, you win with 4-5 drops they can't attack into. Witness maybe slow, but it also trades and returns path/blocker, Saheeli does less I think. My plan is to clog the board with everything and playing Saheeli is taking a turn off.
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If you don't keep up with Hoogland, we should now expect Orbs of Warding from Gx Tron. Also with all the Saheeli buzz people may include cards to counter it. I like to have Qasali Pridemage in board for Torpor Orb, otherwise Rec Sage and Path handle most of the hate. I got old school Rakdos Charmed on mtgo a while ago, I guess it's relevant for Dredge and Hollow/Vine things?
As I see it, we can do this two ways. We can ask questions about the differences between what this thread arrived at and what you play, or if you are willing, you could sleeve up the core we like and just tell us
The curve: Are you happy running the 8 4+ drops? I didn't like it in testing, prefer to keep it closer to 6 otherwise I noticed some hand-clumping. On top of that you play less ramp, generally we use 6 1cmc dorks, 0-2 cobra and 1-3 rallier. Again, when I played the deck with just 6 dorks it was slower than I'd like.
The 1ofs: How do the 1ofs perform for you in an Evolution deck? Seems like most of us came to 4c Saheeli from Chord, but it doesn't take long to realize Evo is not Chord. I was happier switching from the "toolbox" approach to having more universal 1ofs on top of the curve. From that point of view the 1of Reflector Mage, Cobra, P&K, Wall seem a little unfocused. How do you draw Reflector mage in Eldrazi and Pia and Kiran in Affinity?
I didn't mind Reflector Mage when I tried it but it's not an effect I'd Evo for, even blink with Guardian isn't that exciting when we're backing up the tempo with 2/3 and 1/4 on the ground. I chose to focus on furthering our plan instead of trying to hit these favorable 1ofs in the exact matchup.
Pia and Kiran is fine, I don't play it mostly because of the RR cost, but it is a little narrower than some other options. At least it's worth Evoing into in the right matchup.
IMO you can play 2 Resto Angel in Chord because of the Chord. It plays the silver bullet, stall-out game much better. Saheeli wants to combo asap, we can't hang out in a game that long. That's why the 4 Saheeli 4 Felidar is preffered. How much do you T3 combo? Isn't it worth it to maximalize that?
What does Saheeli Evo in this config. give you over Kiki Chord? If you prefer that playstyle aren't you playing worse combo cards? The advantage of Saheeli Guardian is the mana cost - it's faster and easier on the manabase.
VenocStorm, you've articulated the Blood Moon scenarios quite well, thank you. I see people side it in against any tricolor deck they see, and it can be worse than time walking themselves.
As it seems that most agree with this, I'd like to dig a little into it so you can enlighten me if I'm wrong.
I haven't played with kiki-chord, but I'm a fan of the archetype and know the lists. They have a mess of a manabase playing hard to cast things in 4 colors. It would make sense that under Blood Moon they have to rely on dorks, not only for all the colors, but also having green creatures for the XGGG spell that they build around.
This would be true for the versions that we were experimenting with in the last few pages with heavier U or B splashes and whatnot, but the Blood Moon idea came in the "perfecting" version 1.0. We are just a GW deck splashing Saheeli with Oaths. That's the reason Moon didn't hurt us when opponents brought it in. It's not just dorks, we have 3 Forest, 2 Plains, 10-11 Fetches and spells to match.
Now that most people are going back to the GW core splashing Saheeli, it's back to WW being the craziest mana requirement we have. We can play most of the deck with a forest and a plains, we need 2nd G for 4-6 cards, 2nd W for 1 card and a U for Saheeli if no Oaths.
I thought this is why we are a very good moon deck. With dorks we can just play a normal game, without, we slow down to 1 spell a turn but majority of our cards are live, while the same is very likely not true for the opponent.
Board is mainly GW, too. We can have a bit more U after boarding which the players acknowledged, so it's a question of figuring out what you board alongside Moon and have a plan for that.
Are you going to 0 dorks vs Jund/Abzan and control? I cut Hierarchs when I want "every card to do something", but I considered birds somewhat a must for the T3 combo potential and just getting ahead. 0 dorks seems crazy to me, you are just slowing down to control's speed. I'd go down a felidar or two before cutting first bird. Am I doing it wrong?
Against almost every single deck with Push/Path/Thoughtseize/Terminate/Decay/Cryptic/etc, the first cards I'm cutting from my deck are Birds and Hierarch, because I want every card to actually do something.
If going 0 dorks is correct I would like someone to name matchups, because a lot was thrown in there that can't be true.
Worst thing for dorks is Verdict that isn't even there. Still not sure I would sacrifice the speed vs Control, curious what you all do.
Push/Sieze/Terminate is Death's Shadow where you probably don't side out dorks?
With the classic midrange decks I could see it, but our value is stretching them pretty well and getting the mana adv. isn't worthless as they always trade up in mana.
He ticks lili up to target my Felidar (without Saheeli on the board) and states that this should prevent the combo kill since Saheeli would create 0/2 copies. I'm pretty sure this is wrong (right?)
Just for the record, of course that's nonsense, copies always care about the base card.
I like Runed Halo in control decks, not sure about this one. Wouldn't Leyline of Sanctity work better in the protection part? We don't have that much of a problem with big creatures except Reality Smasher. I would regard Leyline on the level of Stony Silence or Blood Moon for sideboard, play 2of and don't care it's not tutorable. Runed Halo doesn't hose as much.
Which unfair decks Gideon Trials protects against? I think Leyline does better job there, too. Storm and Valakut just shoot Gideon, other decks just attack him. Ad Nauseam switches to Lab Maniac with both Gideon and Leyline. Lantern possibly, but they have Decay and Pulse, not sure how that plays out.
What I'm curious about with the upcoming burn templating change is Saheeli redirecting the 1 dmg to walkers. I'm afraid this will no longer be possible which would be a shame, Saheeli killed a lot of Lilianas for me, it's surprisingly useful to keep walkers in check. They talk about changing "target player" to "target player or walker", I don't see them changing "each opponent" to "each opponent and/or walker". Just a speculation for now.
Anyone considered Siren Stormtamer? Protects both Saheeli and Felidar. Maybe too low impact to play multiples, just something about the flying men interested me.
Hostage Taker doesn't exile when blinked at instant speed, they don't do the seperate triggers anymore, it's not fiend hunter, it's banisher priest. If Taker leaves play with his trigger on the stack, nothing happens, target stays in play.
@adri_kalo
Thing about adding combos is, you want the pieces to interact with each other. You don't want two dead cards when you draw the wrong two pieces. A number of decks here play Sun Titan as the top end, that can also combo with Saheeli. Spike Feeder is not that good for burn, it's a 3 mana gain 4 life, maybe chump one attack before sacing it. Kitchen Finks gains the same amount of life while trading with at least 1 creature. If you want to Evo or flicker Spike Feeder, it's just gain 2. Saheeli copy is gain 4, not exactly what you want to minus for. Archangel of Thune is nice with Saheeli, but again, you can do better. The copy just wins more as the Archangel can take over a game by itself. On the other hand, you can't blink it, when you Evo for it you sac one creature that it wants to counter up...
@jupiterninja
hi!
why the 3/3 split of Birds/Noble in full-on 5 color? Seems like an easy 4of birds.
Like the addition of Anafenza, the Foremost, seen the first version and was gonna suggest it as a possibility.
Also was going to suggest the Murmuring Bosk as @Reckless mentioned.
Any plan for Blood Moon? You had Qasali Pridemage main, not a bad idea. Reclamation Sage in the board would work, too. You can BTL for 3 under moon, so any targets at 3 cmc are fine.
Following is just brainstorming, not strict upgrades:
I'm not sold on The Scarab God, it won't be bad as the floor is 5/5 for 5, but there may be more impactful or synergistic cards.
You have varied 3 drops, I pressume as a toolbox for Bring to Light. IMO this works with Chord more than BTL. Casting BTL for Courser, Blade Splicer, Finks or Reflector Mage is just overpaying. Anafenza has the right powerlevel when you want her.
Now, I don't mean to throw out everything, but you could look at which of those helps the deck the most and commit to one direction, making it consistent part not silver bullets. For example if Finks help you survive early, or Courser helps you with lands, play one as 3-4of and add a few 1of powerful cards.
If you'd play Kiki-Jiki you can combo with a single Bring to Light like the Chord decks (BTL Witness > return BTL, BTL Felidar > blink Witness > return BTL, BTL Kiki). Not clear you should, the 5c mana is rough and Chord sets up at instant speed.
Blood Baron of Vizkopa main or board, dodges everything but wraths. This is the type of effect I would look for to make BTL better than Chord.
@Shelldell
only got to play a few games online in the meantime, nothing significant to report. Since the ramp/mana wasn't enough in my first Anafenza version I went with +2 Rallier, -1 Resto, -1 Lancers. I believe either Cobra or Rallier are needed, so picked Rallier for now.
RG Ponza is likely just race situation. I think I bring in Staticaster, on the play it can kill T1 dork, but it may not be worth it. Dusk//Dawn as out for Stormbreath. They have variety in ramp and threats so it's not easily targetable.
Hostage Taker is splashing 5th color, not 4th
Yeah, not a fan of 8 fetch + 6 shocks. You do have the "recommended" 14+ untapped G sources on T1 (the Karsten math), but I have enough mulling with 4 non-G. Hard enough to mull for birds sometimes.
I would cut at least 1 Thicket with so many 4+ cmc cards. I aim at 4 shocks, 5 for the messier requirements, I would go -Foundry and switch to Arid Mesa.
Talking about B splash I'll just throw out there Siege Rhino and board options: Big Game Hunter (Death's Shadow and Eldrazi), Sin Collector (spell-based combo and control), Agent of Erebos (not so much after Storm took over).
Don't think B is worth it, but there you go.
Anafenza is also good in that it works around Jace AOT stopping infinite cats. But WW is a huge problem in my opinion and her effect is another slow grinding thing. If we included her I'd also like to add a single creature sac outlet to occasionally combo that way, but maybe it's not worth it since there's nothing on-color I think. Also she's fragile and thus I don't think I'd ever evo for her.
The WW is a problem but Finks compensate for the shocking and casting Saheeli T3 after Anafenza doesn't do anything synergistic I would rather cast Finks or voice+oath/bird. Biggest problem is the T2 if we want to have an option of casting Anafenza OR Saheeli. This may shake out with more games, knowing which line to take based on opening hand spells and specific lands.
Yes, Evo for Anafenza is corner-case, we don't evo for any 2drop generally.
I don't see Anafenza as slow grinding, the effect I want is the threat. It provides more power with less cards commited, increases pressure so that the opponent can't ignore a simple situation of Anafenza + Finks and wait on the Path for Felidar. They want to Path Finks because of persist, leaving Anafenza to add power to any creature played and possible combo. Or Path/Push Anafenza, leaving persisting Finks that we can evo/blink. At least that's the role I'm going for, for now it worked a few times, more games will tell.
While Courser is not card advantage in spells, with same fetch + saheeli help it means you draw spells instead of lands, I imagine that's a big selling point for Courser.
Best source of card advantage are walkers. One that wasn't mentioned yet is Nissa, Vital Force. Probably not fitting in this deck too well, but she's powerful. +1 is 5/5 haster or ramp, -3 recovers combo pieces and after single +1 the ult keeps cards comming in the fechland heavy deck.
The infinite life with Anafenza + Finks: there already is the infinite bolster combo with cards we want to play. I don't think it's beneficial to add cards we don't want to play and don't interact with anything else for 2of Anafenza. While not a combo, the interaction with Finks still does a good job gaining life and blocking. The point is we don't have to "go for it", it's just there. We can "go for" one of the combos that wins the game instead.
Gaddock Teeg and Nahiri: I actually dont't think non-bos with gaddock matter on this scale. With Nahiri specifically, you would probably want to side her out vs Gx Tron or Scapeshift (don't have enough time for it to matter). Against control you want both but the 2ofs don't encounter that often. You can play Nahiri before getting to Teeg, or just hold the one Nahiri while they deal with teeg and have a relevant follow-up for them to deal with. After SB we just want the best we can get, the synergy takes a back seat. Inferno Titan is a good target for Ult, but difficult to cast after. Just Sun Titan still doesn't do it for me. Maybe if you set it up while plusing Nahiri, seeing more cards and discarding a Saheeli as the best target, otherwise bringing back a Voice and Wall is not worth the trouble. There are games where I can cast Sun Titan and only have fetchlands, the ability doesn't guarantee game breaking value.
Saheeli's ultimate: I got to 7 once I think. 6 a few times, after which I just started minusing. I was looking for Ult targets when playing Saheeli in Emeria for the sideboard against cotrol, but the consensus there was that it's not worth it. I would still agree. The scrying should give us something to target. Verdurous Gearhulk is just ok to flicker, but we would rather Thragtusk all day. Wurmcoil Engine can be copied, but not blinked. It's out of place. There's the Cataclysmic Gearhulk in sideboards so you can bring it in vs something grindy. There's Precursor Golem to flicker/copy and get first strike from Blade Splicer (Fatal Push only kills all of the tokens for one mana, you would keep the 3/3 for 5). Ethersworn Canonist is boltable Eidolon. Yeah, can't think of anything that useful.
My humble opinion on Nahiri is we don't want it. When used as a removal it goes in the opposite direction. Then, using her ult to fetch easily answered creature is bad as you likely invested resources to get her to ultimate and you lose her when ulting (ideally?). Without Emrakul she loses a lot of strength. Card selection is nice when discarding lands or dorks, but discarding anything for Sun Titan or Lark is ambicious when you draw a random card after. Also not too high on cutting Path, although it would be the correct card to cut, we don't want multiples plus additional cards with that utility.
The more I try these random cards, the more evident it becomes how... fragile the curve is. It seems to me that 7x 4+ cmc spells are max and even that is noticeable. We have 4x Felidar fixed, so 2 more are ideal, 3 possible. Especially so without Rallier ramping into it. It's far too easy for them to clug up hands and how soon can we start double-spelling these 4 drops? Rallier would speed it up by a turn at least. On that point:
@everyone trying Rallier-less
Have you noticed a difference in mana development compared to Rallier version? I imagine Courser helps a bit, but it's still not ramp. Can we assume guaranteed land-drop per turn? obv. not expecting 100%, but how often is the 2of on curve and then hitting? We did cut 2+3 ramp cards for the 2of. I was playing Rallier-less version without Coursers and found it hard to go for the combo second time / in one turn, just for the lack of mana. Not surprising in retrospect.
Mana is tough trying for T1 G, T2 WW, T3 1UR even birds don't fix that. Luckily it's not important to hit exactly that curve, just the WW is a little disruptive, changes a lot from the Rallier version.
Anafenza works quite well. First counter goes mostly on birds, which is fine. After that it's a sublty powerful effect, just sitting on board adding pressure.
The Anafenza + Finks locks are pretty real. If they want to attack they just can't on the ground and if not, we attack. Either way they have to deal with it (Voice + Rallier were somewhat equal on defense, less threatning on offense).
Evoing Finks with Anafenza on battlefield is a treat, too. Even without, Finks are the only creature I actually don't mind Evoing because blinking. Voice has a payoff but it's still bad to sac it.
The 3 card combo is there, adds outs, adds value to multiple guardians and the inclusion of Resto, but it's not the point of any card that is involved, there are just so many positive interacions of all the cards.
The new legendary rule is online so threw Thalia's Lancers in, too. Made sense with Anafenza as second target and Finks Evoing into Lancers naturally. It works well in the deck, the only problem is modern. We are already getting away with a lot of lower impact cards for synergy, the 5cmc spots have to really do a lot and this is more of a set-up card, still. Having to set-up on 5 mana is asking a lot.
It didn't occur to me that Oath of Nissa is also a legend = target until mtgo showed me the options. Not a big deal, it can now also fix mana if Saheeli would be stranded in hand. With the 3 targets it can choose the closest route to combo win, something like; if I have finks/resto: anafenza, if saheeli: oath to dig, if nothing/evo/felidar: saheeli.
For now I'm not high on Lancers, still interested in testing it in a version with more mana available.
Gavony Township fits nicely, it's always good in birds+hierarch decks and it makes sad Felidars in late game a threat.
As I said at the beginning, the mana is the biggest problem.
1) Hitting WW taxes the manabase, T1 is now generally fetch + shock Temple Garden just for the possibility of drawing Anafenza. Before I went mostly for Forest. With that I tried to make sense of the manabase, probably not there, yet.
2) Nothing ramps or gives lands, so "going for combo" means taking two turns playing underwhelming cards at sorcery speed. This is fine in early turns, but it now extendes to mid-late game, while with Cobra+Rallier the second attempt could be generally done T4 both spells. Now if they have answer we are two turns behind.
Courser can give us the lands, so if it (close to) guarantees T5 5 lands, it could be good enough. Will try later.
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New interesting 2 drop: Merfolk Branchwalker. I know it's not good enough, but 3/2 scry 1 or 2/1 draw a land for 2 mana is close.
thanks.
1) In the event I never had a Guarian in hand with nothing to blink or even having to settle for Rallier, it was just Oaths, Saheelis, Tusks and Finks. I'm aware that's fortunate. There were some topdecks into combo and quite a few T3-5 wins that probably wouldn't happen with fewer Guariands, that's why they are there. 4 is the best for stealing games and that's kind of the point of the deck.
Overall with the deck in testing I did experience some embarrassing Guardians. Multiples in hand early or having nothing to blink are problems, but it doesn't happen that often. We tried to address it by adding ETBs, didn't find anything worthwhile for now.
2) Again, in this event I was happy with one Finks, but it's not that large of a sample. Never run this deck with 2 copies, online I play 0. I like the combination of 1of Finks and 1of Tusk for lifegain. There are decks that don't care about lifetotal and I wouldn't know what to cut. The 3rd Rallier has better value in synergies than 2nd Finks.
3) Tried Angel of Sanctions main deck at first, then moved it to board, then cut it. It never impressed me. The tempo swing is not there, the answer is temporary and it doesn't back it up with enough pressure. In board we have more powerful tools so it didn't made much sense there. MB I can see it's utility solving random things, I just don't know if the deck needs to cover it's basis like that when we can just combo them. I can think of only Lantern as a matchup that we want that out G1.
I can't say Tusk is strictly better, but it has bigger impact on games generally and it's a target for Guardians. If you want the ability to finish games in the air, I liked Reveillark more, again, target for Guardian and both "Leaves the battlefield" abilities are fun with Saheeli.
I know a lot of you like Angel, does the Embalm come up fairly often? Asking just because the front is underpowered because of it and it never did come up when I played it. Exile is rampant and if it dies blocking in combat we are in a very bad spot. Decks with terminate don't care if we spend 6 mana getting back into the same position we were before their 2 mana removal. IDK, I'm not on a crusade or anything
4) Not sure. I still like Cobra and I also see the point of @maniospas and @Siefer for more impactful cards instead of the Cobra + Rallier engine. I only tested online and played in events so I can't say if the deck is real or wins because of the surprise factor / unfamiliarity. I hope to sit down with some friends and really test it to see what's happening.
Wins: Elves, RG valakut, 8 rack, BG midrange. in Top8: BG midrange, UW tron.
Affinity was my only match loss; G1 he went for Raveger on Inkmoth for 10 poison. G2 mull to 5, keep Stony Silence on top with scry. T2 Stony; Path one or two Signal Pests; when he finds Aether Grid I Evolution for Rec Sage, but my only pressure is Voice, so with all the time in the world he manages to get some points in with blinkmoth and finishes off with Galvanic Blast (I had to shock a few times).
Of the 12 game wins it was 6 combo kills, 6 beatdown.
Midrange and 8rack I favored beatdown/value and sideboarded accordingly. With BG midrange, the games I lost was just lack of an answer to Dark Confidant, it's essential to kill on sight.
Elves was about winning the dice roll and comboing first.
Valakut can interrupt combo, but it's still needed to win, they have chump blockers (+Anger), our value plan is not enough pressure and they just don't care about our hate. I board in Eidolon of Rhetoric witch slows them down a bit, but it still doesn't buy enough time for a kill with bears. (w/o blood moon)
UW tron is more about the hate cards: Voices and Teegs with Rallier getting them back. Oozes come in for Gifts + Unburial, Academy Ruins, possibly Mindslaver. Combo is not that important, maybe even worth siding out most parts as they have some needles and counterspells.
Maindeck choices:
Thought about how to slot in an Oath of Jace we talked about, but in the end I couldn't, the 3 mana may just be too much. It was between cutting Rallier or Evo, but Rallier is better with Titan and 3rd Evo would have to go to the board, plus with 8 accelerants I wanted it for combo consistency.
I was happy with the 1of Kitchen Finks, gained a lot of life when needed. Same with Thragtusk, blinking/copying it is insane value.
The deck and numbers feel really solid. Didn't have problems with flooding out, didn't even use horizon canopy as much as I expected. It really mulligans well, went to 6 often, few 5s.
Sideboard choices:
Wasn't too happy registering Avalanche Riders and Crumble to Dust, just wanted something for Tron/Valakut. They didn't came up in games, saw Riders once. I like the Blood Moon idea, I played against Moon several times, but only deck that can pull it off is mono red. Otherwise they slow themselves the same or more than us. I always start with basics, birds + oath fix everything and Rallier + fetch is painful enough without shocks. Didn't have any on-hand for this event, but that fixes the tron/valakut problem I had with sb.
Devout Lightcaster stole a game from a bad mull to 5 in BG midrange. Not sold completly on it, but it's strong enough to Evo for in that matchup. Jund would have answers, but I played a few of these pure BG decks, maybe a local thing.
Stony Silence did great in affinity and tron, I'm on board.
Dusk // Dawn is just ok. Best against BG decks for Goyfs, Rhinos, Flayers. It's fine to 1 for 1 on Dusk and get back Voice + a card on Dawn, anything more and it's backbreaking for them. Vs Eldrazi I board it in, but it's not that good, Smasher already hit us and TKS just takes away both sides, not that I would cast Dawn in that matchup anyway. Probably comes in for Death's Shadow as a kill spell. Any other matchups? This may be a cut.
Been keeping an eye on Linvala, Keeper of Silence for a while now, the effect is strong and relevant, it just doesn't come up in games. Maybe if I haven't had the combo vs Elves, and I had Evo I would get Linvala, I just can't remember doing it, ever. It's in my sideboard from the start and I remeber one game where it was good. It's true that I didn't play against many Devoted Druid combos, yet. Won't cut it for now, just keeping in mind if I really need a slot in the future.
Everything else is just solid.
As for the 2.0 version, I see your reasoning. Lotus Cobra is there just for the explosivnes, so cutting it makes sense. When you adjust towards late game staying power, don't you lose the speed you liked in those other matchups? Courser, Tracker and Shaman are all defensive creatures that do nothing for a turn and want the game to go as long as possible. What I liked about 1.0 is that the creatures were disposable, they advanced the combo plan and then traded off/chumped or applied pressure. The 2.0 package does nothing for combo, just card filtering for the parts (no ramp and less protection in combat).
I'll try Courser, I was looking at it few times. I'm doubtful about Tracker, especially in this deck, it just wants too much mana to do something, it takes a while for him to start brawling, no?
We had the same problem finding good 2 drop in Emeria, so I don't think we are missing something good, most were mentioned already. I tried Coiling Oracle, it's not worth it. Scavenging Ooze and Qasali Pridemage are as good as it gets. I would try Anafenza, didn't play the first versions running her, was it bad? What about something like:
Keep in mind Coiling Oracle's mana requirement does damage to you and your manabase. Even if you don't have it in hand, you should fetch accordingly, because you can draw it as 4of. Wall and Branchwalker are both on-color, easy to cast and don't require stretching mana. Oracle isn't worth the setup cost, Wall is not good anymore. We'll see about Branchwalker.
Goblin Rabblemaster is not for us, we have enough 3 mana playables fightning for spots that are on theme.
Champion of Wits is also a mana too expensive. At 3cmc we don't want to loot, we're trying to push for card advantage. Eternalize cost is unrealistic for us.
Nissa, Steward of Elements was discussed (and tested) earlier, wasn't impressive. It feels good on T2-3, later it doesn't do enough.
Why Loaming Shaman? I've seen it in lists, but does it actually work? It seems to me the sorcery speed would kill it's effectivness hard. It does nothing to Storm, they would have to fizzle in a very specific way. It can slow down Dredge a bit, but they overcome timed Relics.
Scooze is better for soft hate (lingering souls, snap etc).
I would rather attack storm on the Eidolon/Leyline path. Helixes incidentally help with Storm, too.
Dredge is not always that fast, we can race. The Relic-type hate is ok, but burns at least 2 slots. Getting to board it in Storm is nice, beyond that it's questionable.
I started to test a few things including the Helixes in board. They are useful in a lot of matchups and I like them for Humans, too. Coupled with Gearhulk those should be our best tools. Fiery Justice would be the same slot as Helixes? Probably an either-or situation, but those should be also fine. Helix is faster though, Thalia slows down the Justice a lot.
Explosives could be ok, Dusk maybe after the anthem effects, could be a problem to time correctly. Also both suffer against Thalia, not too exciting on paper.
It seems like a good matchup for Angel of Sanctions, removes relevant hatebears and blocks well.
They have no answer to Worship if we play around Reflector?
Ghostly Prison effects came to mind, but don't protect Saheeli. Archangel of Tithes exists, not sure if it's good enough and has enough splash for other matchups (dredge, affinity, mirror, not much).
Yeah, we all started with some number of Wall of Omens and went to 0. When we can have G creatures with power to pressure or trade, Wall is not as good. Like you said, decks go either higher or wide and Wall just soaks a few damage points. I didn't miss the cantrip, it's weak etb for Felidar and not great copy for Saheeli. We preffer to be proactive (aggresive) with the plan B, as opposed to sit behind a wall and wait for combo, otherwise the opponent can just sit on their removal and answer it easier.
Coiling Oracle was mentioned a few times, it's just not good. Hard (painful) to cast and 1/1 is irrelevant. The effect is not enough to compensate.
More like 2 mana Farhaven Elf, idk if we want grisly bear that draws a land. Viridian Emissary doesn't trigger with Felidar/Saheeli, that's a problem, plus we want the land up front, not when we start to Evo for things. I mentioned Merfolk Branchwalker, it's the closest Coiling Oracle-type card to be playable. I don't have high hopes, but still want to try it to see how it actually plays. (I know I have a list of things to try, I was playing highlander for a few weeks, will get back to modern testing soon.)
Mentioned Qasali Pridemage for Torpor Orb on last page. I never dropped it from sideboard, just like the card, it can lower the curve or get aggresive even without disenchanting. Although sideboard is getting packed throughout the last few pages and IDK if I would play Pridemage over RecSage if it was the last slot.
From the list the Explosives are closest to playabe, it's opposite of narrow. Too slow maybe, especially if you want to get those 3 drops. Plus we don't synergize with artifacts so it would have to be a 2of or something. I like Lightning Helix and Leyline of Sanctity to shut down the burn plan. Leyline would protect Thrun from Cryptic-tap, too.
Is Geist a problem? We should have enough blockers. Sure, they can remove a lot, but it's spending burn on our value creatures, that shouldn't be that bad for us.
If it really is a miserable matchup, keep in mind we can just give up on it and hope not to face it, that's modern. If worse comes to worst, so that we don't ruin sideboards trying.
Just for the record, when you resolve Thragtusk or Sun Titan, them crewing a vehicle is not relevant. I would take the Beast token from Tusk crewing, that one can just sit there, sometimes. I didn't count Linvala similarly, when you resolve Linvala giving her Bone Saw isn't what won you the game. The Voice tokens require work.
Saheeli crewing is fine, the interaction of Heart with walkers should be strong, I would have to play with it to see how it impacts loyality, it's a pretty unique situation. I imagine the threat of activation is often enough for her not to get attacked.
Pretty bad scenario is failed combo attempt, where Saheeli is always on 1 loyality and can't crew to protect herself. That's the first clue towards win more status, when you stumble it does literaly nothing? Or eats/trades the attacker for the price of Saheeli.
Smuggler's Copter suffers even more with 0 power dorks. What makes Heart interesting is the loyality crewing, otherwise it's just equipment.
What happened is the original pilot/deck made it 5-0, like many random decks do. Not to take away anything from the pilot or the deck, but it doesn't necessarily mean something. The list was published and more importantly played by the biggest personality on the biggest mtg site. Now, we don't have the statistics, but no one can doubt a lot of people picked the deck up for a league. Just look up mtgo prices of Saheeli to see the spike on 18-19th when the LSV video was published.
So from a big surge of pilots, some went 5-0 and two of them got published again. It's not like 4 people played the deck and it's so good that inevitably 3 of them 5-0, of course and the fourth one got screwed on mana
The version from this thread is not played on mtgo in that quantity. Earlier version of "our" deck was played by Gerry Thompson 5 months ago (with Evo and Kiki), it has 6k views. the LSV video has 49k in 1 week. So 50 thousand people got 2 more results published.
Other than that I agree with the above, all you need is Birds, Saheeli and Guardian and you steal games. The Vial acts similarly to Lotus Cobra, in that you can combo in one turn (T5) out of nowhere, while acting as a blink/value deck up to that point. I kind of miss Flickerwisp (from Emeria days), it's a sweet card and the interaction with Saheeli is very cool (but not modern worthy anymore, if ever). Resto can also end games after a few chip shots early.
It just plays too fair of a game plan. Our version is more consistent, which is important in unfair matchups, racing storm/tron and such. Against fair decks flickering Reflector Mages buys all the time in the world, but modern is not that fair. Even it's use of Vial is more fair than something like DnT or merfolk.
that's actually interesting, I never thought about Exert. Glorybringer may work, the cost should be manageable. The removal is nice, I can see Evoing into it to kill something relevant. Haste allows blinking it after untapping or just topdecked Guardian.
What about Glory-bound Initiate? 3 power 2 drop trades up, brought back with Rallier, hits for 4 lifelink, better copy target than Finks. Could be quite efficient. I'll try 2-3 Initiate + 1 Glorybringer.
As for the earlier discussion:
Fiery Justice shouldn't be maindeck-able card. I wanted to point out you are giving them a turn, but you did it for me. What do you think are the % of games where you give them a turn with Justice compared to the % of games where a land from Path is relevant? On top of that consider the 3 cmc, sorcery speed and the fact that Time Walk has greater upside than Rampant Growth.
I think you should just play Path, but if you really don't want to, there's still Bolt/Helix or Detention Sphere on 3cmc sorcery speed.
Heart of Kiran is interesting, certainly powerful, but you don't really have "various 3 power creatures", you have 2, unless you want Tusk or Titan to drive. Biggest problem I see are the 0 power dorks, if it could utilize those it would be much more appealing. Seems like Ralliers would really get along with Heart of Kiran, they can return it and crew, wouldn't you want 2 or 3?
Abundant Growth actually resembles Oath of Nissa, like a really bad Oath #5. I can see the utility, but we can probably slot in a more powerful card.
I have to admit the 3 Felidars are intriguing, just because we have the 3 Evo. Freeing the 4+ spot is valuable. With that said, I'm still on 4, I like my free wins. I think we are a combo deck at the core and want to maximalize those chances.
Harmonic Sliver: I actually value the 2 power of Rec Sage. Sliver is absolutely better in Affinity, but anything else? For other decks there shouldn't be a difference in 2 vs 3 naturalize. If you can board Sage for UW control (D.sphere/seas) and clock them after verdict for 2 instead of 1 I'd say it's relevant. Same with Ad Naus, if you want to bring it in for Pentad Prism / early Unlife, the pressure is relevant. IDK, they are both good, I wouldn't say strictly better.
To have that double-naturalize effect, you need exactly Saheeli, not just blink. We probably don't side her out in affinity, but it can depend on the level of hate we're on. Affinity is the best aggro/combo deck in terms of killing Saheeli, they have explosive power and mostly fly over our blockers. They can reliably kill T2 Saheeli. We are probably on the hate+value plan, it may depend on sideboard. If we're not racing, shaving copies or boarding out Saheeli would be reasonable and you start loosing the advantage of the Sliver.
I guess Lantern has the targets, but we really care about Bridge and maybe Needle, not much else. The pressure can be relevant as they sometimes take a while to find Bridge. It's a weird matchup.
I'm not down on the Sliver, I'll keep it in mind and try to notice which is relevant in games.
Thank You for trying it.
heh, sorry about the storm anecdote, but Steam Vents maybe an overkill? Switch Misty to Arid Mesa to fetch all colors without it. With Reflector Mage the mana would be adjusted, I play 2 Temple Garden when I don't have to fetch for non-GW cards besides Saheeli. Switching the 2nd Temple Garden is a freebie and while I'd rather not, going to 5 shocks is ok if you want the insurance, especially when running additional U/R cards.
Storm being back on Remands is worring, I liked it more when they didn't have interaction for Evo > Eidolon, or just 1of bounce spell
The Shocks being Forests is for T1 G, the deck has keepable 1 landers especially with Oaths. I don't like mulling Birds + Plains hands.
The 5 basics are there so you don't take 10 damage when you're returning fetches with ralliers multiple times in a game. If you're keeping the 3 ralliers keep an eye on the damage you take from lands with fewer basics and 6 shocks.
You can do the Forest > Voice > Saheeli with any of the 10 one drops before, or 2 Cobras after. Or have alternative plays, it would be a hyper specific situation that you have exactly Forest, Voice, Saheeli, Guardian and nothing else. Regardless, the switch is easy, so sure.
Depends on a lot of factors, but generally I want to hold Cobra with fetch for T3 if I have other play on T2, to get some value before they react.
The Evo Voice into P&K depends on utility, Evo Voice into Rallier gives you the same power and keeps Voice around for opponent to deal with. Evoing Voice is ok, but it still sets us back.
Thragtusk is the last flex slot I cut when tinkering. Just the prevalence of Path, plus it's just about the best Saheeli and Guardian target. No need to worry about yard contents (Sun Titan and Lark). The shift from Bolt to Push is nice as well.
Worship and Leyline are interesting. I mentioned Leyline, it's useful against a good portion of the meta and fixes the things we need. Would 2x Leyline be fine, or is 3-4 preferable just to have it T0?
I don't know about a plan against Queller that includes Evo. Especially when they have Company to 1, find Queller and 2, get card advantage while you sac your creatures. If they Queller the Evo, you have to sac 2nd creature to cast it from under the Queller. I would think about at least shaving copies of Evo, if not cutting it. But yeah, Voice, Teeg, Angel, Lark are good.
Better get that Eidolon back in there if the 8whack person comes back!
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If you don't keep up with Hoogland, we should now expect Orbs of Warding from Gx Tron. Also with all the Saheeli buzz people may include cards to counter it. I like to have Qasali Pridemage in board for Torpor Orb, otherwise Rec Sage and Path handle most of the hate. I got old school Rakdos Charmed on mtgo a while ago, I guess it's relevant for Dredge and Hollow/Vine things?
As I see it, we can do this two ways. We can ask questions about the differences between what this thread arrived at and what you play, or if you are willing, you could sleeve up the core we like and just tell us
Here is a shell we are currently building on:
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
2 Lotus Cobra
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Eternal Witness
2 Renegade Rallier
4 Felidar Guardian
1 Thragtusk
1 Sun Titan
2 flex (2 Courser/Rallier+Finks)
Spells 15
4 Path to Exile
3 Eldritch Evolution
4 Saheeli Rai
4 Oath of Nissa
10 Fetch lands
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
1 Razorverge Thicket
2 Horizon Canopy
3 Forest
2 Plains
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Stony Silence
What I'm curious about:
The curve: Are you happy running the 8 4+ drops? I didn't like it in testing, prefer to keep it closer to 6 otherwise I noticed some hand-clumping. On top of that you play less ramp, generally we use 6 1cmc dorks, 0-2 cobra and 1-3 rallier. Again, when I played the deck with just 6 dorks it was slower than I'd like.
The 1ofs: How do the 1ofs perform for you in an Evolution deck? Seems like most of us came to 4c Saheeli from Chord, but it doesn't take long to realize Evo is not Chord. I was happier switching from the "toolbox" approach to having more universal 1ofs on top of the curve. From that point of view the 1of Reflector Mage, Cobra, P&K, Wall seem a little unfocused. How do you draw Reflector mage in Eldrazi and Pia and Kiran in Affinity?
I didn't mind Reflector Mage when I tried it but it's not an effect I'd Evo for, even blink with Guardian isn't that exciting when we're backing up the tempo with 2/3 and 1/4 on the ground. I chose to focus on furthering our plan instead of trying to hit these favorable 1ofs in the exact matchup.
Pia and Kiran is fine, I don't play it mostly because of the RR cost, but it is a little narrower than some other options. At least it's worth Evoing into in the right matchup.
IMO you can play 2 Resto Angel in Chord because of the Chord. It plays the silver bullet, stall-out game much better. Saheeli wants to combo asap, we can't hang out in a game that long. That's why the 4 Saheeli 4 Felidar is preffered. How much do you T3 combo? Isn't it worth it to maximalize that?
What does Saheeli Evo in this config. give you over Kiki Chord? If you prefer that playstyle aren't you playing worse combo cards? The advantage of Saheeli Guardian is the mana cost - it's faster and easier on the manabase.
As it seems that most agree with this, I'd like to dig a little into it so you can enlighten me if I'm wrong.
I haven't played with kiki-chord, but I'm a fan of the archetype and know the lists. They have a mess of a manabase playing hard to cast things in 4 colors. It would make sense that under Blood Moon they have to rely on dorks, not only for all the colors, but also having green creatures for the XGGG spell that they build around.
This would be true for the versions that we were experimenting with in the last few pages with heavier U or B splashes and whatnot, but the Blood Moon idea came in the "perfecting" version 1.0. We are just a GW deck splashing Saheeli with Oaths. That's the reason Moon didn't hurt us when opponents brought it in. It's not just dorks, we have 3 Forest, 2 Plains, 10-11 Fetches and spells to match.
Now that most people are going back to the GW core splashing Saheeli, it's back to WW being the craziest mana requirement we have. We can play most of the deck with a forest and a plains, we need 2nd G for 4-6 cards, 2nd W for 1 card and a U for Saheeli if no Oaths.
I thought this is why we are a very good moon deck. With dorks we can just play a normal game, without, we slow down to 1 spell a turn but majority of our cards are live, while the same is very likely not true for the opponent.
Board is mainly GW, too. We can have a bit more U after boarding which the players acknowledged, so it's a question of figuring out what you board alongside Moon and have a plan for that.
Are you going to 0 dorks vs Jund/Abzan and control? I cut Hierarchs when I want "every card to do something", but I considered birds somewhat a must for the T3 combo potential and just getting ahead. 0 dorks seems crazy to me, you are just slowing down to control's speed. I'd go down a felidar or two before cutting first bird. Am I doing it wrong?
If going 0 dorks is correct I would like someone to name matchups, because a lot was thrown in there that can't be true.
Worst thing for dorks is Verdict that isn't even there. Still not sure I would sacrifice the speed vs Control, curious what you all do.
Push/Sieze/Terminate is Death's Shadow where you probably don't side out dorks?
With the classic midrange decks I could see it, but our value is stretching them pretty well and getting the mana adv. isn't worthless as they always trade up in mana.
Nathan Grossfeld
8th Place at StarCityGames.com Classic on 10/15/2017
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=116690
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Wall of Omens
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Reflector Mage
2 Renegade Rallier
3 Felidar Guardian
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Reveillark
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Sun Titan
Spells (13)
3 Path to Exile
1 Chord of Calling
3 Eldritch Evolution
3 Saheeli Rai
3 Oath of Nissa
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Breeding Pool
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Raging Ravine
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Thragtusk
2 Stony Silence
1 Worship
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Unified Will
Interesting list. Why choose when you can have it all.
Just for the record, of course that's nonsense, copies always care about the base card.
I like Runed Halo in control decks, not sure about this one. Wouldn't Leyline of Sanctity work better in the protection part? We don't have that much of a problem with big creatures except Reality Smasher. I would regard Leyline on the level of Stony Silence or Blood Moon for sideboard, play 2of and don't care it's not tutorable. Runed Halo doesn't hose as much.
Which unfair decks Gideon Trials protects against? I think Leyline does better job there, too. Storm and Valakut just shoot Gideon, other decks just attack him. Ad Nauseam switches to Lab Maniac with both Gideon and Leyline. Lantern possibly, but they have Decay and Pulse, not sure how that plays out.
What I'm curious about with the upcoming burn templating change is Saheeli redirecting the 1 dmg to walkers. I'm afraid this will no longer be possible which would be a shame, Saheeli killed a lot of Lilianas for me, it's surprisingly useful to keep walkers in check. They talk about changing "target player" to "target player or walker", I don't see them changing "each opponent" to "each opponent and/or walker". Just a speculation for now.
Anyone considered Siren Stormtamer? Protects both Saheeli and Felidar. Maybe too low impact to play multiples, just something about the flying men interested me.
@adri_kalo
Thing about adding combos is, you want the pieces to interact with each other. You don't want two dead cards when you draw the wrong two pieces. A number of decks here play Sun Titan as the top end, that can also combo with Saheeli.
Spike Feeder is not that good for burn, it's a 3 mana gain 4 life, maybe chump one attack before sacing it. Kitchen Finks gains the same amount of life while trading with at least 1 creature. If you want to Evo or flicker Spike Feeder, it's just gain 2. Saheeli copy is gain 4, not exactly what you want to minus for.
Archangel of Thune is nice with Saheeli, but again, you can do better. The copy just wins more as the Archangel can take over a game by itself. On the other hand, you can't blink it, when you Evo for it you sac one creature that it wants to counter up...
@jupiterninja
hi!
why the 3/3 split of Birds/Noble in full-on 5 color? Seems like an easy 4of birds.
Like the addition of Anafenza, the Foremost, seen the first version and was gonna suggest it as a possibility.
Also was going to suggest the Murmuring Bosk as @Reckless mentioned.
Any plan for Blood Moon? You had Qasali Pridemage main, not a bad idea. Reclamation Sage in the board would work, too. You can BTL for 3 under moon, so any targets at 3 cmc are fine.
Following is just brainstorming, not strict upgrades:
I'm not sold on The Scarab God, it won't be bad as the floor is 5/5 for 5, but there may be more impactful or synergistic cards.
You have varied 3 drops, I pressume as a toolbox for Bring to Light. IMO this works with Chord more than BTL. Casting BTL for Courser, Blade Splicer, Finks or Reflector Mage is just overpaying. Anafenza has the right powerlevel when you want her.
Now, I don't mean to throw out everything, but you could look at which of those helps the deck the most and commit to one direction, making it consistent part not silver bullets. For example if Finks help you survive early, or Courser helps you with lands, play one as 3-4of and add a few 1of powerful cards.
If you'd play Kiki-Jiki you can combo with a single Bring to Light like the Chord decks (BTL Witness > return BTL, BTL Felidar > blink Witness > return BTL, BTL Kiki). Not clear you should, the 5c mana is rough and Chord sets up at instant speed.
Blood Baron of Vizkopa main or board, dodges everything but wraths. This is the type of effect I would look for to make BTL better than Chord.
Sideboard:
Rest in Peace could be Nihil Spellbomb, Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus if you want to keep Witness, Finks, Voice, Rallier online.
If control is a problem don't forget Gaddock Teeg.
Crumble to Dust is a BTL bullet.
only got to play a few games online in the meantime, nothing significant to report. Since the ramp/mana wasn't enough in my first Anafenza version I went with +2 Rallier, -1 Resto, -1 Lancers. I believe either Cobra or Rallier are needed, so picked Rallier for now.
RG Ponza is likely just race situation. I think I bring in Staticaster, on the play it can kill T1 dork, but it may not be worth it. Dusk//Dawn as out for Stormbreath. They have variety in ramp and threats so it's not easily targetable.
Hostage Taker is splashing 5th color, not 4th
Yeah, not a fan of 8 fetch + 6 shocks. You do have the "recommended" 14+ untapped G sources on T1 (the Karsten math), but I have enough mulling with 4 non-G. Hard enough to mull for birds sometimes.
I would cut at least 1 Thicket with so many 4+ cmc cards. I aim at 4 shocks, 5 for the messier requirements, I would go -Foundry and switch to Arid Mesa.
Talking about B splash I'll just throw out there Siege Rhino and board options: Big Game Hunter (Death's Shadow and Eldrazi), Sin Collector (spell-based combo and control), Agent of Erebos (not so much after Storm took over).
Don't think B is worth it, but there you go.
The WW is a problem but Finks compensate for the shocking and casting Saheeli T3 after Anafenza doesn't do anything synergistic I would rather cast Finks or voice+oath/bird. Biggest problem is the T2 if we want to have an option of casting Anafenza OR Saheeli. This may shake out with more games, knowing which line to take based on opening hand spells and specific lands.
Yes, Evo for Anafenza is corner-case, we don't evo for any 2drop generally.
I don't see Anafenza as slow grinding, the effect I want is the threat. It provides more power with less cards commited, increases pressure so that the opponent can't ignore a simple situation of Anafenza + Finks and wait on the Path for Felidar. They want to Path Finks because of persist, leaving Anafenza to add power to any creature played and possible combo. Or Path/Push Anafenza, leaving persisting Finks that we can evo/blink. At least that's the role I'm going for, for now it worked a few times, more games will tell.
While Courser is not card advantage in spells, with same fetch + saheeli help it means you draw spells instead of lands, I imagine that's a big selling point for Courser.
Best source of card advantage are walkers. One that wasn't mentioned yet is Nissa, Vital Force. Probably not fitting in this deck too well, but she's powerful. +1 is 5/5 haster or ramp, -3 recovers combo pieces and after single +1 the ult keeps cards comming in the fechland heavy deck.
The infinite life with Anafenza + Finks: there already is the infinite bolster combo with cards we want to play. I don't think it's beneficial to add cards we don't want to play and don't interact with anything else for 2of Anafenza. While not a combo, the interaction with Finks still does a good job gaining life and blocking. The point is we don't have to "go for it", it's just there. We can "go for" one of the combos that wins the game instead.
Gaddock Teeg and Nahiri: I actually dont't think non-bos with gaddock matter on this scale. With Nahiri specifically, you would probably want to side her out vs Gx Tron or Scapeshift (don't have enough time for it to matter). Against control you want both but the 2ofs don't encounter that often. You can play Nahiri before getting to Teeg, or just hold the one Nahiri while they deal with teeg and have a relevant follow-up for them to deal with. After SB we just want the best we can get, the synergy takes a back seat.
Inferno Titan is a good target for Ult, but difficult to cast after. Just Sun Titan still doesn't do it for me. Maybe if you set it up while plusing Nahiri, seeing more cards and discarding a Saheeli as the best target, otherwise bringing back a Voice and Wall is not worth the trouble. There are games where I can cast Sun Titan and only have fetchlands, the ability doesn't guarantee game breaking value.
Saheeli's ultimate: I got to 7 once I think. 6 a few times, after which I just started minusing. I was looking for Ult targets when playing Saheeli in Emeria for the sideboard against cotrol, but the consensus there was that it's not worth it. I would still agree. The scrying should give us something to target. Verdurous Gearhulk is just ok to flicker, but we would rather Thragtusk all day. Wurmcoil Engine can be copied, but not blinked. It's out of place. There's the Cataclysmic Gearhulk in sideboards so you can bring it in vs something grindy. There's Precursor Golem to flicker/copy and get first strike from Blade Splicer (Fatal Push only kills all of the tokens for one mana, you would keep the 3/3 for 5). Ethersworn Canonist is boltable Eidolon. Yeah, can't think of anything that useful.
My humble opinion on Nahiri is we don't want it. When used as a removal it goes in the opposite direction. Then, using her ult to fetch easily answered creature is bad as you likely invested resources to get her to ultimate and you lose her when ulting (ideally?). Without Emrakul she loses a lot of strength. Card selection is nice when discarding lands or dorks, but discarding anything for Sun Titan or Lark is ambicious when you draw a random card after. Also not too high on cutting Path, although it would be the correct card to cut, we don't want multiples plus additional cards with that utility.
The more I try these random cards, the more evident it becomes how... fragile the curve is. It seems to me that 7x 4+ cmc spells are max and even that is noticeable. We have 4x Felidar fixed, so 2 more are ideal, 3 possible. Especially so without Rallier ramping into it. It's far too easy for them to clug up hands and how soon can we start double-spelling these 4 drops? Rallier would speed it up by a turn at least. On that point:
@everyone trying Rallier-less
Have you noticed a difference in mana development compared to Rallier version? I imagine Courser helps a bit, but it's still not ramp. Can we assume guaranteed land-drop per turn? obv. not expecting 100%, but how often is the 2of on curve and then hitting? We did cut 2+3 ramp cards for the 2of. I was playing Rallier-less version without Coursers and found it hard to go for the combo second time / in one turn, just for the lack of mana. Not surprising in retrospect.
Put my earlier thought into a list to try out the Anafenza, Kin-tree Spirit for myself.
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Eternal Witness
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Felidar Guardian
1 Restoration Angel
1 Thalia's Lancers
1 Sun Titan
4 Oath of Nissa
4 Path to Exile
3 Eldritch Evolution
4 Saheeli Rai
Land 22
4 Windswept Heath
4 Arid Mesa
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Gavony Township
Mana is tough trying for T1 G, T2 WW, T3 1UR even birds don't fix that. Luckily it's not important to hit exactly that curve, just the WW is a little disruptive, changes a lot from the Rallier version.
Anafenza works quite well. First counter goes mostly on birds, which is fine. After that it's a sublty powerful effect, just sitting on board adding pressure.
The Anafenza + Finks locks are pretty real. If they want to attack they just can't on the ground and if not, we attack. Either way they have to deal with it (Voice + Rallier were somewhat equal on defense, less threatning on offense).
Evoing Finks with Anafenza on battlefield is a treat, too. Even without, Finks are the only creature I actually don't mind Evoing because blinking. Voice has a payoff but it's still bad to sac it.
The 3 card combo is there, adds outs, adds value to multiple guardians and the inclusion of Resto, but it's not the point of any card that is involved, there are just so many positive interacions of all the cards.
The new legendary rule is online so threw Thalia's Lancers in, too. Made sense with Anafenza as second target and Finks Evoing into Lancers naturally. It works well in the deck, the only problem is modern. We are already getting away with a lot of lower impact cards for synergy, the 5cmc spots have to really do a lot and this is more of a set-up card, still. Having to set-up on 5 mana is asking a lot.
It didn't occur to me that Oath of Nissa is also a legend = target until mtgo showed me the options. Not a big deal, it can now also fix mana if Saheeli would be stranded in hand. With the 3 targets it can choose the closest route to combo win, something like; if I have finks/resto: anafenza, if saheeli: oath to dig, if nothing/evo/felidar: saheeli.
For now I'm not high on Lancers, still interested in testing it in a version with more mana available.
Gavony Township fits nicely, it's always good in birds+hierarch decks and it makes sad Felidars in late game a threat.
As I said at the beginning, the mana is the biggest problem.
1) Hitting WW taxes the manabase, T1 is now generally fetch + shock Temple Garden just for the possibility of drawing Anafenza. Before I went mostly for Forest. With that I tried to make sense of the manabase, probably not there, yet.
2) Nothing ramps or gives lands, so "going for combo" means taking two turns playing underwhelming cards at sorcery speed. This is fine in early turns, but it now extendes to mid-late game, while with Cobra+Rallier the second attempt could be generally done T4 both spells. Now if they have answer we are two turns behind.
Courser can give us the lands, so if it (close to) guarantees T5 5 lands, it could be good enough. Will try later.
---
New interesting 2 drop: Merfolk Branchwalker. I know it's not good enough, but 3/2 scry 1 or 2/1 draw a land for 2 mana is close.
1) In the event I never had a Guarian in hand with nothing to blink or even having to settle for Rallier, it was just Oaths, Saheelis, Tusks and Finks. I'm aware that's fortunate. There were some topdecks into combo and quite a few T3-5 wins that probably wouldn't happen with fewer Guariands, that's why they are there. 4 is the best for stealing games and that's kind of the point of the deck.
Overall with the deck in testing I did experience some embarrassing Guardians. Multiples in hand early or having nothing to blink are problems, but it doesn't happen that often. We tried to address it by adding ETBs, didn't find anything worthwhile for now.
2) Again, in this event I was happy with one Finks, but it's not that large of a sample. Never run this deck with 2 copies, online I play 0. I like the combination of 1of Finks and 1of Tusk for lifegain. There are decks that don't care about lifetotal and I wouldn't know what to cut. The 3rd Rallier has better value in synergies than 2nd Finks.
3) Tried Angel of Sanctions main deck at first, then moved it to board, then cut it. It never impressed me. The tempo swing is not there, the answer is temporary and it doesn't back it up with enough pressure. In board we have more powerful tools so it didn't made much sense there. MB I can see it's utility solving random things, I just don't know if the deck needs to cover it's basis like that when we can just combo them. I can think of only Lantern as a matchup that we want that out G1.
I can't say Tusk is strictly better, but it has bigger impact on games generally and it's a target for Guardians. If you want the ability to finish games in the air, I liked Reveillark more, again, target for Guardian and both "Leaves the battlefield" abilities are fun with Saheeli.
I know a lot of you like Angel, does the Embalm come up fairly often? Asking just because the front is underpowered because of it and it never did come up when I played it. Exile is rampant and if it dies blocking in combat we are in a very bad spot. Decks with terminate don't care if we spend 6 mana getting back into the same position we were before their 2 mana removal. IDK, I'm not on a crusade or anything
4) Not sure. I still like Cobra and I also see the point of @maniospas and @Siefer for more impactful cards instead of the Cobra + Rallier engine. I only tested online and played in events so I can't say if the deck is real or wins because of the surprise factor / unfamiliarity. I hope to sit down with some friends and really test it to see what's happening.
1 Arid Mesa
1 Breeding Pool
1 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
Creatures 22
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
2 Lotus Cobra
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Eternal Witness
4 Felidar Guardian
1 Kitchen Finks
3 Renegade Rallier
1 Thragtusk
1 Sun Titan
4 Oath of Nissa
4 Path to Exile
3 Eldritch Evolution
4 Saheeli Rai
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Crumble to Dust
1 Devout Lightcaster
1 Dusk // Dawn
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Stony Silence
Wins: Elves, RG valakut, 8 rack, BG midrange. in Top8: BG midrange, UW tron.
Affinity was my only match loss; G1 he went for Raveger on Inkmoth for 10 poison. G2 mull to 5, keep Stony Silence on top with scry. T2 Stony; Path one or two Signal Pests; when he finds Aether Grid I Evolution for Rec Sage, but my only pressure is Voice, so with all the time in the world he manages to get some points in with blinkmoth and finishes off with Galvanic Blast (I had to shock a few times).
Of the 12 game wins it was 6 combo kills, 6 beatdown.
Midrange and 8rack I favored beatdown/value and sideboarded accordingly. With BG midrange, the games I lost was just lack of an answer to Dark Confidant, it's essential to kill on sight.
Elves was about winning the dice roll and comboing first.
Valakut can interrupt combo, but it's still needed to win, they have chump blockers (+Anger), our value plan is not enough pressure and they just don't care about our hate. I board in Eidolon of Rhetoric witch slows them down a bit, but it still doesn't buy enough time for a kill with bears. (w/o blood moon)
UW tron is more about the hate cards: Voices and Teegs with Rallier getting them back. Oozes come in for Gifts + Unburial, Academy Ruins, possibly Mindslaver. Combo is not that important, maybe even worth siding out most parts as they have some needles and counterspells.
Maindeck choices:
Thought about how to slot in an Oath of Jace we talked about, but in the end I couldn't, the 3 mana may just be too much. It was between cutting Rallier or Evo, but Rallier is better with Titan and 3rd Evo would have to go to the board, plus with 8 accelerants I wanted it for combo consistency.
I was happy with the 1of Kitchen Finks, gained a lot of life when needed. Same with Thragtusk, blinking/copying it is insane value.
The deck and numbers feel really solid. Didn't have problems with flooding out, didn't even use horizon canopy as much as I expected. It really mulligans well, went to 6 often, few 5s.
Sideboard choices:
Wasn't too happy registering Avalanche Riders and Crumble to Dust, just wanted something for Tron/Valakut. They didn't came up in games, saw Riders once. I like the Blood Moon idea, I played against Moon several times, but only deck that can pull it off is mono red. Otherwise they slow themselves the same or more than us. I always start with basics, birds + oath fix everything and Rallier + fetch is painful enough without shocks. Didn't have any on-hand for this event, but that fixes the tron/valakut problem I had with sb.
Devout Lightcaster stole a game from a bad mull to 5 in BG midrange. Not sold completly on it, but it's strong enough to Evo for in that matchup. Jund would have answers, but I played a few of these pure BG decks, maybe a local thing.
Stony Silence did great in affinity and tron, I'm on board.
Dusk // Dawn is just ok. Best against BG decks for Goyfs, Rhinos, Flayers. It's fine to 1 for 1 on Dusk and get back Voice + a card on Dawn, anything more and it's backbreaking for them. Vs Eldrazi I board it in, but it's not that good, Smasher already hit us and TKS just takes away both sides, not that I would cast Dawn in that matchup anyway. Probably comes in for Death's Shadow as a kill spell. Any other matchups? This may be a cut.
Been keeping an eye on Linvala, Keeper of Silence for a while now, the effect is strong and relevant, it just doesn't come up in games. Maybe if I haven't had the combo vs Elves, and I had Evo I would get Linvala, I just can't remember doing it, ever. It's in my sideboard from the start and I remeber one game where it was good. It's true that I didn't play against many Devoted Druid combos, yet. Won't cut it for now, just keeping in mind if I really need a slot in the future.
Everything else is just solid.
As for the 2.0 version, I see your reasoning. Lotus Cobra is there just for the explosivnes, so cutting it makes sense. When you adjust towards late game staying power, don't you lose the speed you liked in those other matchups? Courser, Tracker and Shaman are all defensive creatures that do nothing for a turn and want the game to go as long as possible. What I liked about 1.0 is that the creatures were disposable, they advanced the combo plan and then traded off/chumped or applied pressure. The 2.0 package does nothing for combo, just card filtering for the parts (no ramp and less protection in combat).
I'll try Courser, I was looking at it few times. I'm doubtful about Tracker, especially in this deck, it just wants too much mana to do something, it takes a while for him to start brawling, no?
We had the same problem finding good 2 drop in Emeria, so I don't think we are missing something good, most were mentioned already. I tried Coiling Oracle, it's not worth it. Scavenging Ooze and Qasali Pridemage are as good as it gets. I would try Anafenza, didn't play the first versions running her, was it bad? What about something like:
2 Noble Hierarch
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Restoration Angel
for a start? Even combos with Glen Elendra.