I have been a long time Bant Company player (well as long as Collected Company has been a card at least), and I am planning to give this combo thing another shot. I tried it when it was first revealed, but found that in my Jund heavy meta, it ended up just being a worse version of my standard Bant Company deck because I was never really able to combo without putting more effort into it than I would have needed to win with my standard beatdown plan anyways.
Now that the meta in my area has started shifting, I think that this combo is positioned to perform well for me.
Is there a consensus on what version of the deck is best? Or are people still playing various versions?
This is the list I plan to start with and slowly tune until I find it acceptable. Let me know what you guys think. Not sure if CoCo is correct with the number of creatures I run, but I mainly want it for a way to dig for Knight, even if I don't hit a second creature, the selection still feels worth it to me for now. I might move to a midrange version with a couple chords and no CoCo though. Was unsure of goyf here as well, I found that Voice of Resurgence was often a better defualt 2-drop in my Company deck due to the limited card types I played, but it might be more relevant here, so I might try to fit them in as well.
25 creatures is pretty much the minimum amount needed for coco to be great, and even then in my list I'm only running 3 cocos, though it's mostly because I need to cram a lot of other cards in the deck while still maintaining my creature count.
Hi fellas, I am trying to build this deck in a way that works and I have encountered a couple problems with it worth discussing:
The deck never feels like it is doing anything powerfull, by this a mean that most lines of play that we can take with it (even the combo) is not impressive in this format. I shall explain:
-Our main beaters: Geist and Knight have very clear weakneses, one to almost any creature, and the other to GY disruption. So both basically fold to SCooze. That in itself souldn't be the greatest of concerns but specifically in my meta SCooze is real big. Also, lingering souls buys an insane amount of time against us (unless we have the 1x kessig in play or the combo). Let's do some calculations: with a mana dork, a T2 Knight is possible, but we need another turn to be able to fetch the kessig, and yet another turn to be able to atack with it, assuming we were luky enough to play it T2. Geist just can't attack into souls unless we have an exalted creature on the board. So being reasonably luky, we can't start pressuring the oponent untill t4. In a "T4 format" that seems underpowered.
Souls is just an example by the way, any kind of resilient creature works (finks, voice, Young pyro, even snappy can be anoying to atack into)
-The combo is not that impressive either: I haven't calculated this for every single version of the deck but we can do aproximately from 22 to 28 damage per knight when comboing off, wich means that if the oponent manages somehow to get over 25ish life we already have to think about getting another knight online before we can even start the combo. Of course we could kill them in two swings but lets be realistic, when we go off we deal a lot of damage to ourselves (at least 9 out of fetchlands), so is unlikely to be at a high enogh life to survive the following turn. And that is if our oponent is not playing any kind of unfair deck and doesn't just twins us.
-We pack very litle to almost no interaction (in the company versions): In theory we can use the tap ability on retreat to manage the oposing board but this is just not realistic. I haven tried the more controlling versions so I can't say anything about those. And with this litle interaction the deck is a real underdog against any unfair deck, yes we have a t3 combo kill, but that hand is just not reliable enough.
Example: If let's say Abzan company, goes to a million life wich you could say is a powerfull play, there are a lot of decks that can still win against them no problem (tron, twin, lantern, infect and affinity, among others) we can't deal with that neither though interaction nor with the combo.
Maybe this matchup is just bad, and there are other matchups better for the deck, but if so, wich are those matchups? Not the unfair/combo decks like infect, twin, Abzan company, tron. Not the midrange controlish decks like jund/junk, tokens or grixis, though maybe grixis may not be so bad due to their lack of enchant removal and reliable blockers. Burn and affinity are mostly a sideboard matchup anyways, So what is left? Other low interaction aggro decks, and that is pretty much it. I might be wrong though. If so please tell me and explain to me why if you are so kind ^^.
This all takes me to my second concern: Is there a viable way to play the bant or zoo version of this deck without tarmogoyf? I'm talking about those two specifically because those are the ones making the best results apparently.
-Big old goyf seems to be the only card that would help us pressure the oponent but we dont even have that much ways to grow it, so I'm not completely sure it would fix the problem.
Other 2cmc creatures are just weak:
-Qasali is not bad but a 2/2 for 2 mana that most times doesnt have a relevent abbility is not really that impressive. Many times is just a bad Watchwolf.
-Voice is fine, but on itself can't pressure lifetotals, makes oponents interaction weak, but that is it.
-And SCooze has a similar problem to goyf but magnified by our litle interaction.
I don't want to be that guy who only criticises a deck without saying something constructive, but I haven't had good results since I built the deck and I wanted to ask for your help. Maybe I'm just a bad pilot or I'm having bad luck. But I haven't played a single game where I felt I was favoured to win. I did win some games, but those were just because of bad hands or bad draws from the oponent. And the (very few) times when I assembled the combo, it allways felt like I was going to win the game anyways.
So I would love to hear your opinions to see what am I doing wrong. Maybe it's just that this is not the best deck for me. Thank you, and sorry for the long post.
Lets handle the matchups first. At least for my own zoo brew I can confidently say that Infect, Twin, Jund/Junk, grixis, pretty much all manner of control are awesome matchups. Then Abzan Company, Tron, and amulet bloom are our 50/50 matchups where my sideboard at least often wins games 2 and 3. In my experience our only truly terrible matchups are bogles, and scapeshift. I regularly take down fnm going 4-0 or 3-1 losing almost exclusively to those two decks. With that said, I think the version of zoo with the combo is the most viable version of the combo because it slots directly into an already competitive deck with some excellent matchups, 4 color zoo, and suddenly adds a way to win underneath the decks zoo traditionally struggles with. And with that said, the enchantment isn't a dead card outside the combo, I regularly win by tapping down blockers to finish them off. I've not been shy about saying that I believe my version of the deck is the most competitive version, though there are adjustments I would make in the main depending on the meta I'm entering. That brings me to the tarmogoyf question.
Tarmogoyf is an excellent card, but you're correct in realizing that it simply isn't broken in our deck like it is in jund/junk decks. The turn one discard spell into turn 2 massive goyf is simply not something we can do here. About two thirds of the time in my experience when he comes down on turn 2 he's less impactful on the board than a voice of resurgence, scooze, or a pridemage, especially in my meta. With that said, he's excellent late game when graveyards are bound to be full of card types so I've determined that 2 is the correct amount for me. I'm currently looking to get another tarmogoyf, as I only have 1 at the moment. With that said I ran the deck for the past few months with no tarmogoyfs and just voices and still won just as much. I can understand why you might underestimate voice, but in the very worst situation possible, him getting pathed on the mainphase of your opponents turn, you're still accelerating to 4 mana out of the deal which in my deck with elspeth and collect company is very strong. Even him getting removed by normal removal is usually still pretty ok, he replaces himself immediately with a creature that will generally have better stats than him all the while getting a piece of removal out of the way.
Qasali Pridemage is an excellent card in a deck with Geist, having him with any sort of exalted totally breaks that card, and I would argue that he's always far better than a watchwolf, as he sometimes packs a relevant ability and can help beef up your dudes. Do not underestimate exalted, on of the best mechanics in the last 10 years in my opinion.
Our interaction is a little on the low side, but 7 pieces of removal seems to be the minimum sweet spot with this deck, I always have an answer when I need it, and all the thinning from fetches and knight of the reliquaries makes up for the creature count being on the lower side when it comes to collect company.
I'd say play with the deck more, get to know all the little interactions. I rarely feel unfavored with this deck, it has a lot of inherently strong plays, bordering on broken. I love turn 1 nacatl into turn 2 exalted creature, swing for 4 on turn 2. Another gem is turn 1 hierarch into turn 2 geist with exalted. Then of course there's the turn 1 dork into turn 2 knight into turn 3 kill. Even when the kill is out of reach due to the limited amount of damage it can inherently do I've often comboed off to get rid of the lands in my deck, float enough mana to company for absurd value, or play other creatures from my hand, and set up a board that's definitely winning the next turn. One of the problems with this deck that I encountered and learned from was figuring out when to mulligan. If I draw into a decent 7 with lands and spells but nothing really powerful going on, I feel pretty confident in going to 6 to try to set something like the above situations up and I'm regularly rewarded for it.
I think this version of of the deck is just able to do more inherently powerful things then the bant versions of the deck, the control shells, or the combo shells. It's zoo enough that it's beating all the fair decks, but combo enough to give us game against the unfair decks. That's been my experience anyway.
Match 1 - Jeskai Control VS Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - I keep a 7 card hand with 4 lands, a nacatl, a pridemage, and a path. my creatures are dealt with the turn I play them and I exclusively draw lands and paths for 8 plus turns before I scoop after he sphinx's revs for the 3rd time to 30 life. Oh well.
Game 2 - I side in unified will, spellskite, and thalia. I go first, curve out nacatl into voice into knight of the reliquary into collected company and run him over, apparently he just never had the counters he needed.
Game 3 - we both mulligan to 5, I keep three land, 2 knight and draw a dork. I enough gas to get through the counters and land a geist. He misses his 4th land drop for cryptic command and has to remand a coco on his end step, which I then replay on my main face dropping a knight and a voice. he doesn't draw his supreme verdict and though I have to fit through a lot of removal the geist gets me there.
Match 2 - Boogles vs Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - My worst matchup begins with him mulling to 5 and shrugging. I scoops after 3 turns of no land drops
Game 2 - I keep an iffy hand with an engineered explosives, He drops 2 suppression fields and I can't even crack my fetches. I scoop.
Game 3 - He has a slow start, I take some hits from a weak boogle while playing a hierarch turn 1 and a tarmogoyf turn 2, before getting a knight out big enough to block it, I'm holding up an Engineered explosives in my hand. turn 4 he drops another boogle and I though he has a boogle protected with totem armor I go for it and EE figuring it won't get any better and start swinging in. He doesn't draw anything relevant luckily and I win.
Match 3 - Gruul Stompy vs Knightfall Zoo 2-0
Game 1 - I path and bolt his experiment 1 and his strangleroot geist, go over his head with huge flying knights powered by Elspeth. Not much to say, I had the answers.
Game 2 - I combo him out on turn 3
Match 4 - Boogles vs Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - I combo off on turn 4 facing a massive 15/15 boogle and he draws a 4th Ethereal Armor and runs me over. Sigh, I ******* hate this deck.
Game 2 - He stumbles and doesn't get a 2nd land drop till turn 3, goes all in on a boogle turn 5, I fracturing gust and kill his boogle in combat then win with beats.
Game 3 - I turn 1 heirarch, turn 2 spellskite plus birds of paradise, he nature's claims my spellskite, I eternal witness it back and play it on the same turn turn 3, he natures claims it again, I draw my other one and finally lock him out and beat him down.
Summary - Death to boogles. I got lucky round 2 and 4. I'm considering sideboarding worship to give me time to draw my answers, or more fracturing gusts. The more combo-oriented lists definitely have an advantage in the match up as it seems the combo is the only way you win game one certainly. Also I love the one of Elspeth. Very strong. Glad I went down to 2 Retreat to Coralhelm, I never need multiples out. Also Sejiri Steppe is gone and I don't miss it. It's probably completely necessary in the shells that are comboing to win almost every game as the combo is fragile. That's one of the reasons I don't like those control/combo interpretations of the deck, as it relies on something that is inherently a worse two card combo than splinter twin. If you're casting serum visions, remands, and commands you're probably better off just being on twin.
So thoughts on this deck, it is different than some of the decks floating around on here but we have some lists that are close. Going with no paths in the 75 seems... bold but it is a very pure take on the deck.
Now THIS is the deck I would be playing if I wasn't on the zoo build. Very closely follows the philosophy of the bant company deck I was brewing before coralhelm was spoiled, though I think it lives and dies on using dorks to get ahead on mana a little bit which is bad in a format that's bolting the birds every time. I'm going to test it out and see what it's like.
And also yeah, no paths is almost assuredly a mistake but I wonder where to put them.
I should clarify, as I came off as harshly dismissive. You all can play whatever deck you would like, and the combo has potential and interesting pros in the lists presented here, but simply because you would rather play those lists does not mean that the strategies and cards that led to the zoo/bant builds are ineffective. That ESPECIALLY holds true if you make assumptions based on those cards and their surface level interactions without any testing. All that amounts to is an educated guess at best.
I think that collected company is slow, clunky and ultimately just not worth the slot.
Sure it can be insane, there are times when it hits a knight at instant speed or a pair of smiters and steals a game.
The problem is, unlike other coco decks, hitting a 1-cmc dork for us does almost nothing, we have no sac outlet, no way to capitalize on the mana and aside from township no way to convert them to any real pressure. We only have like ~20 actual 'hits' with company which only gives us a ~65% chance of getting two 'hits' and a ~90% chance of hitting one (sure 90% is a lot but 10% of the time your 4-cmc spell literally does nothing), I think I'd just rather an actual dude at that point.
Coco is fine, it wins games but I dont think it belongs in our best 75, it's too inconsistent and its payoff isnt even really that great.
"Coco is fine, it wins games...Its payoff isn't even really that great"
I think we have different opinions on the value of winning the game.
Actually play the deck. It feels incredible, and the high level of fetch land thinning helps with the 25 creature count interaction with collected company a lot. keep in mind the math isn't absolute, it's a formula that accepts variables that change as the game goes on. The more you use your land base, the more that company gets better. The point being, it is consistent enough and game wining, absolutely needs to be in the deck.
I understand that some people will never be satisfied with a card that has a statistical chance of ******* you over once in a blue moon, but the fact of the matter is that an overwhelming majority of the time it's going to range from good to insane. Hell, the deck doesn't even need this card to win, but when it does come down it's putting the game well out of reach of your opponent. You aren't hinging your fate on probability every time you cast it because you can easily just win on beats alone.
Long story short, play the damn deck before you start talking about it like you understand it's intricacies. There's nothing else that can go in it's slot that is as impactful, it's as simple as that.
To the people saying flash creatures/manlands are giving them problems:
Flash creatures and manlands are just like any other creature-u just tap them down before they block. If you combo correctly then they do nothing special at all. They key is to complete your combo AFTER blockers have been declared, not during your mainphase.
Rogues passage is merely cute and it competes with ghost quarter and township, and you can only run so many colorless lands. Passage only matters in the affinity mu and boggles. Against affinity, the combo isnt that good anyways since we are life-sensitive and they may have spellskite, plus we have a lot of powerful sb options. And boggles i like 2% of the meta, and we cant combo them anyways if they have a lifelink enchantment.
Ghost quarter is the best colorless land imo because it is good-to-strong in about 70% of matchups in modern (as well as adding 2 more lands to the gy to help combo). Township is fine against jund and grixis sometimes, but can be a little superfluous. The games you lose u tend to get outclassed by a powerful creature (bob, jace, olivia, tasagur) and tapping 5 mana every turn doesnt always solve this problem. The tempo loss from townshipping 3 times can be just as bad (like Pokken said).
Other ideas:
1) commune with the gods. Way to slow for modern. You can't get by in modern my spending 2 mana for a filtering effect without a huge upside (sylvan scrying).
2) 4x voice is absolutely a must for this deck. Yeah a grizzly bear sucks against about half the field, but against the other half, voice is the 2nd best card in our deck besides Path. It makes your opponent make weird plays, and you can punish them for it with chord. Its also the best 2 drop we can play (sorry goyf), and we need a good 2 drop for when we dont have the dork draw.
3) As a lot of people have said, I think company sucks in our deck.
4) A big one: I think sejeri steppe is godawful. Its a very 'magical christmasland' card, and is just too punishing for modern when drawn, and hurts our dmg output when we combo. Cut it, its real bad. If it ever has saved an attacking knight when you combo by holding a fetch, then it is only because your opponent misplayed. It will NOT work once people become savvy. Plus, bonus, our opponent may think we are (incorrectly) on sejeri steppe, so they will usually (correctly) play like we have one in our deck.
I've been passionately working on this deck for a few weeks now, and have had great results (though small sample size is hard to predict. Ive only played probably 20 irl tournament rounds total, though I am like 17-3). Lets keep up the tuning guys!
I agree with most points, though collected company has been so consistently incredible and gaming winning for me with a zoo syle build I have trouble believing anyone deriding it has actually tested it. The groans that emit from jund/junk, control, and splinter twin players when you play that card after they spent a whole turn removing your threats only to spit 10 more power onto the board is incredible.
I'm starting to contemplate taking out Sejeri Steppe for the reasons you've listed above, I've only twice in probably 200+ games online and in paper used it to protect the combo, though I have once or twice in addition to that used it to get a geist through or something. Every other time I've drawn it it's been terrible to deal with.
I think that there's definitely a deck somewhere down the path everyone here is going down but it's probably a few cards shy of being as competitive as a zoo build.
I think the key to modern as a format is that unless the cards that comprise a combo are incredibly resilient to disruption they need to stand on their own as good cards. Coralhelm just barely makes the cut as it taps down blockers to get in for damage. Adding anything past that like ruin ghost and hedron crab is asking for trouble I think.
I'm very interested in this deck as I'd like to find a new shell for Geist and having a combo plan B is potentially amazing as it will give you wins in matchups where the beatdown wont work. MY MAIN CONCERN is that the Zoo version with Goyf's is the best version of this deck and anything else is just a worse version thereof. Is this the consensus amongst those that have been testing since the spoiling of Coralhelm? (I refuse to buy goyfs and likely will abandon this deck if it in all honesty needs them).
My understanding is that Zoo can benefit from the combo as it's already a good deck and can now attack from a different angle with the coralhelm combo - if the combo breaks down, you've distracted your opponent, weakened there defences somewhat to your Zoo plan and can continue on and win with the beatdown. Does a non-goyf bant version offer something equally as strong or is it really just a budget option once you boil it down?
If there is SPIKE legitimacy in a non-goyf bant version - can someone on here tell me what it is and why Bant is just as good as Zoo?
Goyf isn't nearly as powerful in this deck as it is in GBx, And I've had no problems running Voice in it's place with a slightly more value oriented Zoo build. Tarmogoyf only seems to be great in the deck when you're facing other decks that are better prepared to set up their own goyfs because with exalted we win the goyf wars. With that said, making those decks 2 for 1 a bear like voice is also incredibly effective at eating through their removal. I'm the scourge of my fnm crowd right now with this build. The bant version of this deck is distinctly worse than the zoo build as it goes down to dangerously low amounts of removal as well as adopting a curve that basically screams skip to the three drops, and can operate far too slowly without a mana dork on turn one in my testing. I played a bant company build for months before the combo existed and the games that I couldn't skip right to my three drops on turn 2 were very easily lost.
That aside they absolutely wreck control decks and let you grind well with GBx. Tarmogoyf is trying to beat down as fast as possible and that's fine but against those decks it's just getting 1 for 1ed every time.
Also I've been testing with tarmogoyfs. As far as voice versus tarmogoyf goes, neither are really incorrect in this deck. You're mostly playing a sorcery speed game and being able to punish your opponent for interacting with you on your turn is damn good against a lot of the meta game right now. That said, tarmogoyf while certainly not being at it's best in this deck is still often times a 3/4 - 4/5, helps pyroclasm/anger of the gods-proof your deck, and stonewalls your opponents tarmogoyfs while often being able to swing through them with exalted triggers. I personally built my deck to be more value oriented, sacrificing some amount of a aggression for being able to grind with tier 1 GBx decks, tarmo/grixistwin decks, etc as my meta is full of both. Tarmogoyf is probably the safer choice when going into an unknown meta but I since their price indicates that the must be printed on solid gold slabs I think I'll stick to voice for now.
The problem with dromoka's command is that it's really only good when you're ahead. Path and bolt are easier to cast and help you when you're losing as much as when you're winning. I've tested the crap out of that card in a bant company shell earlier in the year and 1/10 of the time it's a really, really sweet two for in combat, 4/10 it's an ok removal spell, 4/10ths of the time it's a dead draw and the remaining 1/10th of the time it has some neat matchup based interaction that your opponent did not see coming involving the prevent red source clause or the sac enchantment clause. You know how bolt plays out? 8/10ths of the time it's killing something early that you would not want to path due to giving a mana advantage to your opponent and 2/10ths of the time it's going right to someone's face for the kill. And for 1 mana less. In a 4 color deck like this you want cards that aren't mana intensive, and consistently fulfill their role in the deck. At the absolute most I like one dromoka's command in the main in builds that have the room, but adding the combo just doesn't leave room, especially with coco in the deck. Hell, that's pretty much the only valid argument against collected company, that is restricts your deck building and doesn't leave room for other cards you may consider necessary. But against that I'd make the same argument for coco as I did for bolt. Company is good when you're ahead, good when you're behind, good whenever you can resolve it, and it's only downside is the restriction on deck building it requires to be consistent. Elspeth is just like dromoka's command here, far more awkward to cast, and only really excellent when you're ahead (though far less dead when you're behind than dromoka's command).
In a build like FZA I might replace elspeth with something really tricky like a restoration angel. Flying, instant speed, makes combat a nightmare. Seems good.
to the people not running any removal past 4 paths, how is that working out for you? I used to run a bant company deck with only 4 paths and moved away from it because I too often lost to unanswered threats, I'm curious to see if my experience is shared.
25 creatures is pretty much the minimum amount needed for coco to be great, and even then in my list I'm only running 3 cocos, though it's mostly because I need to cram a lot of other cards in the deck while still maintaining my creature count.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
Lets handle the matchups first. At least for my own zoo brew I can confidently say that Infect, Twin, Jund/Junk, grixis, pretty much all manner of control are awesome matchups. Then Abzan Company, Tron, and amulet bloom are our 50/50 matchups where my sideboard at least often wins games 2 and 3. In my experience our only truly terrible matchups are bogles, and scapeshift. I regularly take down fnm going 4-0 or 3-1 losing almost exclusively to those two decks. With that said, I think the version of zoo with the combo is the most viable version of the combo because it slots directly into an already competitive deck with some excellent matchups, 4 color zoo, and suddenly adds a way to win underneath the decks zoo traditionally struggles with. And with that said, the enchantment isn't a dead card outside the combo, I regularly win by tapping down blockers to finish them off. I've not been shy about saying that I believe my version of the deck is the most competitive version, though there are adjustments I would make in the main depending on the meta I'm entering. That brings me to the tarmogoyf question.
Tarmogoyf is an excellent card, but you're correct in realizing that it simply isn't broken in our deck like it is in jund/junk decks. The turn one discard spell into turn 2 massive goyf is simply not something we can do here. About two thirds of the time in my experience when he comes down on turn 2 he's less impactful on the board than a voice of resurgence, scooze, or a pridemage, especially in my meta. With that said, he's excellent late game when graveyards are bound to be full of card types so I've determined that 2 is the correct amount for me. I'm currently looking to get another tarmogoyf, as I only have 1 at the moment. With that said I ran the deck for the past few months with no tarmogoyfs and just voices and still won just as much. I can understand why you might underestimate voice, but in the very worst situation possible, him getting pathed on the mainphase of your opponents turn, you're still accelerating to 4 mana out of the deal which in my deck with elspeth and collect company is very strong. Even him getting removed by normal removal is usually still pretty ok, he replaces himself immediately with a creature that will generally have better stats than him all the while getting a piece of removal out of the way.
Qasali Pridemage is an excellent card in a deck with Geist, having him with any sort of exalted totally breaks that card, and I would argue that he's always far better than a watchwolf, as he sometimes packs a relevant ability and can help beef up your dudes. Do not underestimate exalted, on of the best mechanics in the last 10 years in my opinion.
Our interaction is a little on the low side, but 7 pieces of removal seems to be the minimum sweet spot with this deck, I always have an answer when I need it, and all the thinning from fetches and knight of the reliquaries makes up for the creature count being on the lower side when it comes to collect company.
I'd say play with the deck more, get to know all the little interactions. I rarely feel unfavored with this deck, it has a lot of inherently strong plays, bordering on broken. I love turn 1 nacatl into turn 2 exalted creature, swing for 4 on turn 2. Another gem is turn 1 hierarch into turn 2 geist with exalted. Then of course there's the turn 1 dork into turn 2 knight into turn 3 kill. Even when the kill is out of reach due to the limited amount of damage it can inherently do I've often comboed off to get rid of the lands in my deck, float enough mana to company for absurd value, or play other creatures from my hand, and set up a board that's definitely winning the next turn. One of the problems with this deck that I encountered and learned from was figuring out when to mulligan. If I draw into a decent 7 with lands and spells but nothing really powerful going on, I feel pretty confident in going to 6 to try to set something like the above situations up and I'm regularly rewarded for it.
I think this version of of the deck is just able to do more inherently powerful things then the bant versions of the deck, the control shells, or the combo shells. It's zoo enough that it's beating all the fair decks, but combo enough to give us game against the unfair decks. That's been my experience anyway.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Voice of Resurgence
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tarmogoyf
Noncreature Spells
3 Collected Company
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Forest
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Arid Mesa
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Fracturing Gust
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Spellskite
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Unified Will
Match 1 - Jeskai Control VS Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - I keep a 7 card hand with 4 lands, a nacatl, a pridemage, and a path. my creatures are dealt with the turn I play them and I exclusively draw lands and paths for 8 plus turns before I scoop after he sphinx's revs for the 3rd time to 30 life. Oh well.
Game 2 - I side in unified will, spellskite, and thalia. I go first, curve out nacatl into voice into knight of the reliquary into collected company and run him over, apparently he just never had the counters he needed.
Game 3 - we both mulligan to 5, I keep three land, 2 knight and draw a dork. I enough gas to get through the counters and land a geist. He misses his 4th land drop for cryptic command and has to remand a coco on his end step, which I then replay on my main face dropping a knight and a voice. he doesn't draw his supreme verdict and though I have to fit through a lot of removal the geist gets me there.
Match 2 - Boogles vs Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - My worst matchup begins with him mulling to 5 and shrugging. I scoops after 3 turns of no land drops
Game 2 - I keep an iffy hand with an engineered explosives, He drops 2 suppression fields and I can't even crack my fetches. I scoop.
Game 3 - He has a slow start, I take some hits from a weak boogle while playing a hierarch turn 1 and a tarmogoyf turn 2, before getting a knight out big enough to block it, I'm holding up an Engineered explosives in my hand. turn 4 he drops another boogle and I though he has a boogle protected with totem armor I go for it and EE figuring it won't get any better and start swinging in. He doesn't draw anything relevant luckily and I win.
Match 3 - Gruul Stompy vs Knightfall Zoo 2-0
Game 1 - I path and bolt his experiment 1 and his strangleroot geist, go over his head with huge flying knights powered by Elspeth. Not much to say, I had the answers.
Game 2 - I combo him out on turn 3
Match 4 - Boogles vs Knightfall Zoo 2-1
Game 1 - I combo off on turn 4 facing a massive 15/15 boogle and he draws a 4th Ethereal Armor and runs me over. Sigh, I ******* hate this deck.
Game 2 - He stumbles and doesn't get a 2nd land drop till turn 3, goes all in on a boogle turn 5, I fracturing gust and kill his boogle in combat then win with beats.
Game 3 - I turn 1 heirarch, turn 2 spellskite plus birds of paradise, he nature's claims my spellskite, I eternal witness it back and play it on the same turn turn 3, he natures claims it again, I draw my other one and finally lock him out and beat him down.
Summary - Death to boogles. I got lucky round 2 and 4. I'm considering sideboarding worship to give me time to draw my answers, or more fracturing gusts. The more combo-oriented lists definitely have an advantage in the match up as it seems the combo is the only way you win game one certainly. Also I love the one of Elspeth. Very strong. Glad I went down to 2 Retreat to Coralhelm, I never need multiples out. Also Sejiri Steppe is gone and I don't miss it. It's probably completely necessary in the shells that are comboing to win almost every game as the combo is fragile. That's one of the reasons I don't like those control/combo interpretations of the deck, as it relies on something that is inherently a worse two card combo than splinter twin. If you're casting serum visions, remands, and commands you're probably better off just being on twin.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
Now THIS is the deck I would be playing if I wasn't on the zoo build. Very closely follows the philosophy of the bant company deck I was brewing before coralhelm was spoiled, though I think it lives and dies on using dorks to get ahead on mana a little bit which is bad in a format that's bolting the birds every time. I'm going to test it out and see what it's like.
And also yeah, no paths is almost assuredly a mistake but I wonder where to put them.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
Neither does mine, or anyone else actually playing the deck who posts here.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
"Coco is fine, it wins games...Its payoff isn't even really that great"
I think we have different opinions on the value of winning the game.
Actually play the deck. It feels incredible, and the high level of fetch land thinning helps with the 25 creature count interaction with collected company a lot. keep in mind the math isn't absolute, it's a formula that accepts variables that change as the game goes on. The more you use your land base, the more that company gets better. The point being, it is consistent enough and game wining, absolutely needs to be in the deck.
I understand that some people will never be satisfied with a card that has a statistical chance of ******* you over once in a blue moon, but the fact of the matter is that an overwhelming majority of the time it's going to range from good to insane. Hell, the deck doesn't even need this card to win, but when it does come down it's putting the game well out of reach of your opponent. You aren't hinging your fate on probability every time you cast it because you can easily just win on beats alone.
Long story short, play the damn deck before you start talking about it like you understand it's intricacies. There's nothing else that can go in it's slot that is as impactful, it's as simple as that.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
I agree with most points, though collected company has been so consistently incredible and gaming winning for me with a zoo syle build I have trouble believing anyone deriding it has actually tested it. The groans that emit from jund/junk, control, and splinter twin players when you play that card after they spent a whole turn removing your threats only to spit 10 more power onto the board is incredible.
I'm starting to contemplate taking out Sejeri Steppe for the reasons you've listed above, I've only twice in probably 200+ games online and in paper used it to protect the combo, though I have once or twice in addition to that used it to get a geist through or something. Every other time I've drawn it it's been terrible to deal with.
I think that there's definitely a deck somewhere down the path everyone here is going down but it's probably a few cards shy of being as competitive as a zoo build.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
Goyf isn't nearly as powerful in this deck as it is in GBx, And I've had no problems running Voice in it's place with a slightly more value oriented Zoo build. Tarmogoyf only seems to be great in the deck when you're facing other decks that are better prepared to set up their own goyfs because with exalted we win the goyf wars. With that said, making those decks 2 for 1 a bear like voice is also incredibly effective at eating through their removal. I'm the scourge of my fnm crowd right now with this build. The bant version of this deck is distinctly worse than the zoo build as it goes down to dangerously low amounts of removal as well as adopting a curve that basically screams skip to the three drops, and can operate far too slowly without a mana dork on turn one in my testing. I played a bant company build for months before the combo existed and the games that I couldn't skip right to my three drops on turn 2 were very easily lost.
That aside they absolutely wreck control decks and let you grind well with GBx. Tarmogoyf is trying to beat down as fast as possible and that's fine but against those decks it's just getting 1 for 1ed every time.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
In a build like FZA I might replace elspeth with something really tricky like a restoration angel. Flying, instant speed, makes combat a nightmare. Seems good.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon