I think the second Eidolon is overkill and the Riftsweeper is too cute, you could free up two precious sideboard slots for either value which you are lacking or another unique and more impactful bullet like Magus. Without KCI in the format Eidolon rarely gets boarded in and often a Shalai/Spellskite represents an additional Eidolon once you have the first one out. V Storm for example a Shalai is even better than Eidolon #2 due to Echoing Truth.
This entirely depends on your expected meta though.
It "protects" from boardwipes but has the issue that the druid comes back summoning sick, meaning that a savvy player can kill your druid on upkeep if you have a saffi out. This is also an issue which comes up when we face Eldrazi Displacer for example. Saffi also dies to bolt which Skite dodges so I think it's just inferior in this iteration, if we were to include a mix of Rallier/Finks/Seer Saffis value would go up alot but we don't have that many flex slots.
I have been playing alot of Arena lately and less modern, how has the blue splash and incubation/incongruity been performing?
Many feel the KCI banning will reduce the amount of artifact hate in the meta. As a result, previously suppressed artifact decks may rise again. Hardened Scales will be miserable and traditional Affinity is not much better. Wedging Linvala into the sideboard (also stops the new Vannifar decks) is the obvious solution, but what do we cut for her?
Also, I'm expecting a decrease in graveyard hate, so Postmortem Lunge may be better than ever.
I found that we're favourable against both hardened scales and affinity, the only issue is walking ballista with scales/ravager and the other games should be pretty easy if you can at least present the combo on turn 4/5 since we can even chump with our birds if they have an inkmoth kill. Post side the biggest issue is grafdiggers so it depends on how many deputy of detention/koa you play.
Pre-board I agree that our beatdown plan is very mediocre. Just nitpicking, but 4 of those 0 power creatures are Hierarchs which are actually very decent at contributing to the beatdown plan.
After Sideboarding it gets quite a bit better though, with everything from Scoozes to Trackers and Gideon, and in long games the value Duskwatch provides is also very good.
You can always add some Gavony Township if you feel like you're forced to go the beatdown plan too often, it's a very real wincon with the amount of dorks we play and sinergizes well with Devoted Druid.
So I played this deck on Friday in Prague for 2 byes and went 2-1 losing to UW (Terminus is a retarded card) to then 4-0 the second trial and win the byes. On Sunday after dropping from day 2 I went 2-0-1 drawing v Izzet Phoenix in an extremely grindy match 2 which I ended up winning and then went 4-1 in an mtgo league on monday before departing from Prague again, so my latest results with the deck are 12-2-1 which is pretty sweet ^^.
Funnily enough I got surgical'ed twice in those games and I ended up winning both, once against the Izzet Phoenix I drew against but won the second game, and the second time was against a Mardu player who surgical'ed me twice just to lose to the beatdown plan as well, so I don't believe it's a good card against us since we have a more reliable plan B than most other combo decks.
I do realize that after sideboard, I don't need to be a Combo deck; I just need to be a deck that doesn't lose to Burn.
This is exactly it, against decks like Burn which have such a high density of interaction my plan is just to take as little damage as possible, trade redundant creatures off whenever presented with the opportunity and then land either a Shalai which turns off their Searing Blaze effects or one of the two Ooze and get it out of Bolt range right away. It's fine to "overboard" in these matchups in my opinion, it reminds me of the sideboard plan Storm applies against decks such as Grixis DS where they board out basically all mana dorks and try to win in a completely different fashion without removing their abillity to combo off if presented with the opportunity.
On the play
- 1 E Witness, - 1 Duskwatch Recruiter (the most redundant combo piece), -2 Eldritch Evolution, -4 Postmortem Lunge
On the draw
- 1 E Witness, 1 Duskwatch Recruiter, -2 Chord of Calling, -4 Postmortem Lunge
The switch of Chord/Eldritch Evo otp and on the draw might seem odd but I think the logic I applied is fine.
After sideboarding we have a total of 10 1cc creatures so, especially on the play, our Chords for x=1+ are actually live often, you can also Chord for x=0 if you're stuck with multiples in hand to get a Dryad Arbor.
Crucially, Chords, beside Shalai, are the only cards which get around Eidolon dealing us damage, and since my gameplan is often trading whenever possible/beneficial I don't really like Eldritch Evolution that much since it's card disadvantage, except to get Shalai, to get an Ooze late game or to combo off if the Burn player is stumbling.
On the draw Chords get worse and we are a card up so the drawback of Eldritch Evolution gets slightly mitigated. Also, if the opponent goes turn 1 Guide into turn 2 Eidolon we are likely forced to turn our 1-Drop into Knight of Autumn to present a possible trade for Guide and get Eidolon off the table.
Either way, I think in this matchup we are favored on the play and on the backfoot on the draw due to Eidolon/Chord and just Burn doing what it does.
It seems like AcademyRuins leaves in the Lunges v Burn which is good when the opponent has a hand with little interaction, but my instinct is to board them out due to the obvious life loss. Especially if they see the card game one a savvy Burn player will not expose himself to getting combo'ed if he has the option. I have definitely not tested the matchup enough to know what is exactly correct though, I'm just giving my opinion
Yeah, the attack was to find a path to victory and a single non creature spell next turn makes the Swiftspear a 2/3 anyway. Sometimes I wish I could gain 2 life with the Knight of Autumn and put one +1/+1 counter, but that would make it even more busted.
Yeah, the attack seemed odd to me at first but it is because our gameplans against Burn differ a bit. You want to mantain your creatures on board since you are playing 2 Worships, and I want to gobble up as much damage as possible since I have 2 Ooze. Iirc (I'm at work, can't confirm unfortunately :P) the opponent had a Rift Bolt suspended so I thought to myself, if you don't attack there are two things which might go in your favor. The first one is that he kills your KoA instead of the dork to force through damage, the second one, and this is more relevant to my gameplan, is that the Knight might possibly be preventing 3+ damage from a Swiftspear (due to the additional prowess trigger from the Rift Bolt) instead of future 2 damage. Once I saw your Worship I definitely thought you made the right call though.
Edit: Note that the Sideboarding I did vs Burn is specific for my Sideboard plan, If I have a Kor Firewalker in the SB for example then the 4 Eldritch Evolution would definitely always stay in, but I just don't have such a bomb in my 15 to justify leaving in all 4.
Hello ! Cannot find an updated guide for the side. can someone help me?
You cannot find one because there still is none since the lists vary alot. Once Incubation/Incongruity is released and the ban announcement is made the 75 will likely be more refined so I'd wait until then.
I don't think I would change anything from the deck so far. I've only played this twice, going 2-4 at the Mythic Championship Qualifier in Oakland on Sunday and 4-2 today at a STACKED IQ. I saw a list that had 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, so I wanted to try it. Since I only owned 1, I could only try 1. It possibly doesn't beat GB, as they have Assassin's Trophy anyway. I was unsure of how it would fare vs. Tireless Tracker. But I've tried Tireless Trackers before, so I wanted to give Gideon a fair shot. Maybe Gideon of the Trials is better? The mulligans were pretty obvious ones. I feel that sometimes you have to keep hands that literally need to draw a single land to operate - like 1 land, Druid, Vizier, Recruiter, and some other stuff. It is a combo deck and sometimes you lose to not drawing a land. It doesn't really matter which way you lose; each way hurts equally.
Did you watch my match at 4 hours and 50 minutes? I wanted to get some feedback if I could. I got some feedback from my video of my match with Bogles and it really helped me as a player. I feel that with more feedback from videos like this, I can definitely improve as a player.
Definitely bring in the Paths against burn. Unlike older lists running Finks we don`t have creatures which brickwall Swiftspear and both Eidolon/Lavamancer are a huge beating if left unchecked. The creatures are what beat you in that specific game since you were on a very big life cushion until the Swiftspears started beating you down. I see you aren`t running any Scooze but those can easily win the game for us, maybe not in that specific game but for example my most recent win v Burn was with a 9/9 scooze just gobbling up all the creatures he killed. Your last game was sad, 1 land and you`d have landed Shalai, given your dorks hexproof to then land Worship. I didn`t notice anything you could have done differently to be honest, the only thing you could`ve done was trying to hit the Dryad Arbor off Commune and taking 1 damage off the Canopy the turn you played Devoted Druid and left up the Canopy. You were in such a bad spot I think I would have risked it, but that wouldn`t have paid off since you Commune`d next turn and didn`t see the Arbor, still a line you could have taken. Oh and the attack with KoA was a bit ambitious but I get that you wanted to get in damage to find a path to victory.
*I really hate to blame variance, but the only mistakes that I noticed were possibly not mulliganing more often. I just feel that in this type of deck (I have played tons of Combo), we have to keep hands that are missing only 1 piece of the combo and try to draw Evolution, Chord, the actual combo piece, or Commune into the other piece. I had Communes that literally only hit mana dorks. Yes, it is wonderful to dig deep past such cards, but only if I find the necessary cards in time.
It`s something I avoid as well but if you got wrecked multiple times by a 1 or, at most, a 2 of Grafdigger`s Cage in a 6 Round tournament then it`s definitely bad beats :p. Mulliganing is certainly hard with this deck since you have to either decide to mulligan for the turn 2 Druid if you believe the game will be a race, or stick with a 7 card hand which doesn`t straight up present the combo turn 3 if you believe the game will be a tad grindier. Once you know what you are facing this decision gets easier, but I mostly mull to 6 if I can`t at least Commune/Eldritch Evo for a Druid on turn 2.
So since I`m currently sitting in a bus on my way to Prague I thought I`d do a brief write up of my thoughts about the deck, my current configuration and my exclusions/considerations.
For reference, this is my current list, I decided to cut black completely for the time being and go straight GW. Once Ravnica Allegiance is released I`ll include a singleton Breeding Pool and at least add a Deputy of Detention over one of the PtE in the SB.
I cut the second Shalai for a similar effect in Spellskite. It means one less pay off but with 4 Chord/Eldritch/Duskwatcher + 1 Ballista/Shalai the pay off is always the easiest to find. Although I do like Shalai, four mana is alot in modern and the hexproof it provides often ends up being relevant too late. Spellskite allows us to play it on turn 2, turn 3 Druid and go for the combo on turn 4 with protection. With Bolt being as highly played as it currently is I opted for the Skite over a Scavenging Ooze which would have been my other consideration for the slot. Skite also has the usual applications v Bogles/Infect and does not get bounced by TiTi which is pretty useful.
1/2 Renegade Rallier is another card I considered playing over 1 Commune/Lunge. It adds needed value to the deck, sinergizes well with certain bullets and provides another body for Eldritch Evo. Even though the probabillity of whiffing on Commune is low as shown by AcademyRuins (about 1/20 times you cast it), it has happened to me more than once, and this would add 1/2 additional creatures to the deck. I reckon this inclusion makes sense depending on the meta you are playing against, the grindier the better they get.
Bullets I considered -
Kataki - Even though it has the potential to be an incredibly high impact bullet, in my opinion it just doesn`t do enough against the currently most prevalent artifact based decks in the meta. KCI does not mind saccing one or two artifacts to redraw and hit their land drops while Hardened Scales, a MU where we`re already favored except when he has a Walking B out, runs alot more non-artifact mana sources in comparison to the older Affinity lists. Their namesake card is also not an artifact and both Walking B/Ravager are enough to make Kataki almost obsolete. It can still be a high impact card against HS Affinity but the draws we fear out of them are exactly the ones which fair well against a Kataki. The other artifact based decks to semi consider were both Lantern Control/UR Whir/standard Affinity but ultimately their metagame share is currently too low to take into consideration.
Remorseful Cleric - Gets alot better with Renegade Ralliers, nuking the GY multiple times against Dredge is just what we need to win that MU.
Aven Mindcensor - Has alot of applications but is often not high impact enough. If the metagame share of big mana decks picks up it`ll be worth a slot.
Phyrexian Revoker - Like Mindcensor has alot of applications, from Vial to Walking B to Tron.dec. It`s the typical card which can easily be sideboarded in too often though.
Chameleon Colossus/Mirran Crusader/Devout Lightcaster - My go to against GDS and Rock/Jund decks. I haven`t faced enough of these decks recently to include them.
Mistcaller - Keeping up a Chord for 1 against UR Phoenix can result in an unexpected blowout. Also solid against other toolbox variants and Dredge (except v Bloodghast). Chordable targets for 1 are definitely my favorite.
Kor Firewalker - Burn is running rampant in both my LGS and on MTGO, I sometimes add him over the third Path/Gaddock.
There are definitely some more I considered but I unfortunately don`t have access to my deckbox with all the 1 ofs at the moment.
I`ve had swingy results with the deck, but ultimately have managed a positive winrate and it`s definitely a fun deck to play. The deck consistently finds the combo but can also have some awkward opening hands with multiple Lunges, hence my consideration to cut 1 for a Rallier for example. It feels like this version, more so than the CoCo variant, has alot of free wins and favourable MUs but everything very grindy from Jeskai to Mardu is extremely hard to beat. Funnily enough I think that once Inubation/Incogruity is available this will get better for two reasons. For one we will have a bit more SB space dropping to at least 2 PtE and we can also target our dorks for when an instant speed 3/3 surprise beater/blocker is all we need.
This deck is more competitive than Cragganwick Cremator and just as fun imo, I`d be curious to know which choice you ended up going with
I went 5-3 with 2 Byes at the GP with Cragganwick and 2-4 with no Byes with Druid Evolution. As for the MCQ with Druid Evolution, the only way to explain it was the Combo was often hard to find or Grafdigger's Cage into Meddling Mage *****canned me. There was literally 1 opponent that didn't draw the card(s) that I expected them to each and every single turn. I shouldn't be able to call Grafdigger's Cage into Meddling Mage on Vizier of Remedies out of Humans multiple times in a tournament.
Yeah Grafdiggers can be a huge pain, I try to leave all the Communes in over some Chords/Lunges/Eldritch Evo when I expect it. Thankfully Deputy of Detention will be an additional out to it soon and Incogruinity will be great to force the combo through Humans/Spirits. I also faced a decent amount of Grafdiggers recently and it often happened that I just had the natural or got there with a Knight of Autumn/Commune, it sounds like you faced some bad variance with them drawing what they needed and you drawing exactly what matched up poorly against their hate.
I'd say above all else, Duskwatch is already a Chordable finisher. A mana sink that works as a good beatdown plan B that also beats white Leyline is important, so Rhonas used to be played in this deck to fulfill that slot, but it has been replaced by Shalai.
Rhonas is strictly superior to Shalai in the specific case we're talking about, due to trample. I was under the impression that Shalai was selected for the protection she provides and the alternate wincon was just a bonus.
Thank you for the sideboarding advice!
Shalai is on average just a better card than Rhonas is in this deck. Rhonas`s big upside in the normal Devoted Druid builds for me always was that, once you have infinite mana, you could hit it off of a CoCo while Ballista was a big whiff. That issue doesn`t present itself in this deck since we don`t run any CoCo and once you have infinite mana you can Chord/Eldritch Evo it up as a wincon anyways if the situation arises where Ballista isn`t enough (ex: op has hexproof). That being said, my current list is only playing a single Shalai, I moved the Spellskite to the main freeing up a precious SB slot. Skite is currently pretty solid in the meta with Bolt being as highly represented as it is.
Ive started playing the commune list, and must say, its a difficult deck to play. I find I lose because of misplays more than anything.
The GP Commune list runs one eternal witness, which I understand is better in some situations than rallier, but why no rallier? Anyone playing scooze in the main? Also, thinking about running a 1 of seer/finks in board.
I think I like commune better than coco
I personally am playing 0 E-Wit in the main but the major point in favor of E-Wit is that if your Walking Ballista gets let`s say, discarded, you will have no way of recurring him without an Eternal Witness in the deck and will have to go infinite with Shalai. In around 40 games this has not yet been relevant for me so I haven`t felt the need to include an E-Wit.
I`ve tested Rallier and he`s pretty good especially with creatures with sac abillities like Burrenton/Remorseful Cleric, but ultimately the maindeck is currently very tight for me, the only slot I tried to fit him in was over the 4th Postmortem Lunge since they both do similar things, Rallier abdicating the haste part for a bit of value.
I agree that the deck is not that easy to play, you have some free wins but other matches are hard fought and you need to know your and your opponents list by heart, especially post-SB.
Once I'll get more reps in with the deck I'll definitely post my thoughts about it
Postmortem Lunge is spiking like crazy by the way ^^;
The new Pod creature is probably not good enough but I could see it being run as a 1 of with eldritch evolution. It's unfortunately likely too cute though.
Bought 6 foil copies from my LGS for $2.17 each and now the last 4 are still listed on Ebay as the cheapest.
This deck is starting to steal my heart from Cragganwick Cremator. I'm now starting to lean toward this one for the GP in Oakland...
I got mine around 2 days before the spike, I actually wanted to buy more at once because an uncommon Phyrexian card will get reprinted any time soon so the probabillity of it spiking was very high if this deck ends up being competitive. They were on short supply in all the LGS of my city though..
This deck is more competitive than Cragganwick Cremator and just as fun imo, I`d be curious to know which choice you ended up going with
Once I'll get more reps in with the deck I'll definitely post my thoughts about it
Postmortem Lunge is spiking like crazy by the way ^^;
The new Pod creature is probably not good enough but I could see it being run as a 1 of with eldritch evolution. It's unfortunately likely too cute though.
I agree that value is important, I'd preferably use Tracker and Gideon over Voice though since they either gain value right away or are not as susceptible to boardwipes in the case of Gideon, that was my observation :).
Magus, Gaddock and the like are for decks which can goldfish as fast as us like KCI/Amulet/Storm, I don't consider that we slap those decks but see them rather as close MUs which are often won by small margins/playdraw. I believe these bullets go up alot in value since we play 2 Shalai main to protect them. There are quite a few locks you can achieve, basically turning into a semi prison deck v alot of close MUs while not diluting your combo and mantaining speed. For example, Gaddock+Shalai+Skite/Selfless Spirit/Burrenton is insanely hard for KCI to beat, There are very similar "locks" v Amulet,Storm and the like. This deck is built for metagames lacking interaction so I'd focus on combo'ing and 1 ofs as much as possible, then dedicate around 4/5 slots to Tracker/Gideon.
Speaking of Plan Bs and Value, has anyone tested Gavony in these lists yet? I realize it's harder to include due to the low land count and we have access to such an effect in Shalai, but with such a high number of dorks I reckon it would still be solid v BGx and the like.
Anyways, I believe that with Incubation being printed we will likely be able to drop the paths or reduce them to 1/2, so we'll have more SB slots to dedicate to both value and bullets can't wait.
Edit:
The Deputy looks sweet, If there were 2 triggers then It'd be even sweeter but that's asking for too much ^^.
This entirely depends on your expected meta though.
I have been playing alot of Arena lately and less modern, how has the blue splash and incubation/incongruity been performing?
I found that we're favourable against both hardened scales and affinity, the only issue is walking ballista with scales/ravager and the other games should be pretty easy if you can at least present the combo on turn 4/5 since we can even chump with our birds if they have an inkmoth kill. Post side the biggest issue is grafdiggers so it depends on how many deputy of detention/koa you play.
After Sideboarding it gets quite a bit better though, with everything from Scoozes to Trackers and Gideon, and in long games the value Duskwatch provides is also very good.
You can always add some Gavony Township if you feel like you're forced to go the beatdown plan too often, it's a very real wincon with the amount of dorks we play and sinergizes well with Devoted Druid.
Funnily enough I got surgical'ed twice in those games and I ended up winning both, once against the Izzet Phoenix I drew against but won the second game, and the second time was against a Mardu player who surgical'ed me twice just to lose to the beatdown plan as well, so I don't believe it's a good card against us since we have a more reliable plan B than most other combo decks. This is exactly it, against decks like Burn which have such a high density of interaction my plan is just to take as little damage as possible, trade redundant creatures off whenever presented with the opportunity and then land either a Shalai which turns off their Searing Blaze effects or one of the two Ooze and get it out of Bolt range right away. It's fine to "overboard" in these matchups in my opinion, it reminds me of the sideboard plan Storm applies against decks such as Grixis DS where they board out basically all mana dorks and try to win in a completely different fashion without removing their abillity to combo off if presented with the opportunity.
Iirc my sideboarding v Burn was:
+2 Burrenton, +3 Path, +2 Scavenging Ooze, +1 Knight of Autumn
On the play
- 1 E Witness, - 1 Duskwatch Recruiter (the most redundant combo piece), -2 Eldritch Evolution, -4 Postmortem Lunge
On the draw
- 1 E Witness, 1 Duskwatch Recruiter, -2 Chord of Calling, -4 Postmortem Lunge
The switch of Chord/Eldritch Evo otp and on the draw might seem odd but I think the logic I applied is fine.
After sideboarding we have a total of 10 1cc creatures so, especially on the play, our Chords for x=1+ are actually live often, you can also Chord for x=0 if you're stuck with multiples in hand to get a Dryad Arbor.
Crucially, Chords, beside Shalai, are the only cards which get around Eidolon dealing us damage, and since my gameplan is often trading whenever possible/beneficial I don't really like Eldritch Evolution that much since it's card disadvantage, except to get Shalai, to get an Ooze late game or to combo off if the Burn player is stumbling.
On the draw Chords get worse and we are a card up so the drawback of Eldritch Evolution gets slightly mitigated. Also, if the opponent goes turn 1 Guide into turn 2 Eidolon we are likely forced to turn our 1-Drop into Knight of Autumn to present a possible trade for Guide and get Eidolon off the table.
Either way, I think in this matchup we are favored on the play and on the backfoot on the draw due to Eidolon/Chord and just Burn doing what it does.
It seems like AcademyRuins leaves in the Lunges v Burn which is good when the opponent has a hand with little interaction, but my instinct is to board them out due to the obvious life loss. Especially if they see the card game one a savvy Burn player will not expose himself to getting combo'ed if he has the option. I have definitely not tested the matchup enough to know what is exactly correct though, I'm just giving my opinion Yeah, the attack seemed odd to me at first but it is because our gameplans against Burn differ a bit. You want to mantain your creatures on board since you are playing 2 Worships, and I want to gobble up as much damage as possible since I have 2 Ooze. Iirc (I'm at work, can't confirm unfortunately :P) the opponent had a Rift Bolt suspended so I thought to myself, if you don't attack there are two things which might go in your favor. The first one is that he kills your KoA instead of the dork to force through damage, the second one, and this is more relevant to my gameplan, is that the Knight might possibly be preventing 3+ damage from a Swiftspear (due to the additional prowess trigger from the Rift Bolt) instead of future 2 damage. Once I saw your Worship I definitely thought you made the right call though.
Edit: Note that the Sideboarding I did vs Burn is specific for my Sideboard plan, If I have a Kor Firewalker in the SB for example then the 4 Eldritch Evolution would definitely always stay in, but I just don't have such a bomb in my 15 to justify leaving in all 4.
You cannot find one because there still is none since the lists vary alot. Once Incubation/Incongruity is released and the ban announcement is made the 75 will likely be more refined so I'd wait until then.
Definitely bring in the Paths against burn. Unlike older lists running Finks we don`t have creatures which brickwall Swiftspear and both Eidolon/Lavamancer are a huge beating if left unchecked. The creatures are what beat you in that specific game since you were on a very big life cushion until the Swiftspears started beating you down. I see you aren`t running any Scooze but those can easily win the game for us, maybe not in that specific game but for example my most recent win v Burn was with a 9/9 scooze just gobbling up all the creatures he killed. Your last game was sad, 1 land and you`d have landed Shalai, given your dorks hexproof to then land Worship. I didn`t notice anything you could have done differently to be honest, the only thing you could`ve done was trying to hit the Dryad Arbor off Commune and taking 1 damage off the Canopy the turn you played Devoted Druid and left up the Canopy. You were in such a bad spot I think I would have risked it, but that wouldn`t have paid off since you Commune`d next turn and didn`t see the Arbor, still a line you could have taken. Oh and the attack with KoA was a bit ambitious but I get that you wanted to get in damage to find a path to victory.
It`s something I avoid as well but if you got wrecked multiple times by a 1 or, at most, a 2 of Grafdigger`s Cage in a 6 Round tournament then it`s definitely bad beats :p. Mulliganing is certainly hard with this deck since you have to either decide to mulligan for the turn 2 Druid if you believe the game will be a race, or stick with a 7 card hand which doesn`t straight up present the combo turn 3 if you believe the game will be a tad grindier. Once you know what you are facing this decision gets easier, but I mostly mull to 6 if I can`t at least Commune/Eldritch Evo for a Druid on turn 2.
For reference, this is my current list, I decided to cut black completely for the time being and go straight GW. Once Ravnica Allegiance is released I`ll include a singleton Breeding Pool and at least add a Deputy of Detention over one of the PtE in the SB.
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Devoted Druid
4 Vizier of Remedies
4 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Eternal Witness
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Walking Ballista
1 Spellskite
4 Commune with Nature
4 Chord of Calling
4 Eldritch Evolution
4 Postmortem Lunge
4 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Forest
1 Plains
2 Temple Garden
3 Razorverge Thicket
3 Horizon Canopy
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Burrenton Forge-tender
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Path to Exile
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
3 Tireless Tracker
I cut the second Shalai for a similar effect in Spellskite. It means one less pay off but with 4 Chord/Eldritch/Duskwatcher + 1 Ballista/Shalai the pay off is always the easiest to find. Although I do like Shalai, four mana is alot in modern and the hexproof it provides often ends up being relevant too late. Spellskite allows us to play it on turn 2, turn 3 Druid and go for the combo on turn 4 with protection. With Bolt being as highly played as it currently is I opted for the Skite over a Scavenging Ooze which would have been my other consideration for the slot. Skite also has the usual applications v Bogles/Infect and does not get bounced by TiTi which is pretty useful.
1/2 Renegade Rallier is another card I considered playing over 1 Commune/Lunge. It adds needed value to the deck, sinergizes well with certain bullets and provides another body for Eldritch Evo. Even though the probabillity of whiffing on Commune is low as shown by AcademyRuins (about 1/20 times you cast it), it has happened to me more than once, and this would add 1/2 additional creatures to the deck. I reckon this inclusion makes sense depending on the meta you are playing against, the grindier the better they get.
Bullets I considered -
Kataki - Even though it has the potential to be an incredibly high impact bullet, in my opinion it just doesn`t do enough against the currently most prevalent artifact based decks in the meta. KCI does not mind saccing one or two artifacts to redraw and hit their land drops while Hardened Scales, a MU where we`re already favored except when he has a Walking B out, runs alot more non-artifact mana sources in comparison to the older Affinity lists. Their namesake card is also not an artifact and both Walking B/Ravager are enough to make Kataki almost obsolete. It can still be a high impact card against HS Affinity but the draws we fear out of them are exactly the ones which fair well against a Kataki. The other artifact based decks to semi consider were both Lantern Control/UR Whir/standard Affinity but ultimately their metagame share is currently too low to take into consideration.
Remorseful Cleric - Gets alot better with Renegade Ralliers, nuking the GY multiple times against Dredge is just what we need to win that MU.
Aven Mindcensor - Has alot of applications but is often not high impact enough. If the metagame share of big mana decks picks up it`ll be worth a slot.
Phyrexian Revoker - Like Mindcensor has alot of applications, from Vial to Walking B to Tron.dec. It`s the typical card which can easily be sideboarded in too often though.
Chameleon Colossus/Mirran Crusader/Devout Lightcaster - My go to against GDS and Rock/Jund decks. I haven`t faced enough of these decks recently to include them.
Mistcaller - Keeping up a Chord for 1 against UR Phoenix can result in an unexpected blowout. Also solid against other toolbox variants and Dredge (except v Bloodghast). Chordable targets for 1 are definitely my favorite.
Kor Firewalker - Burn is running rampant in both my LGS and on MTGO, I sometimes add him over the third Path/Gaddock.
There are definitely some more I considered but I unfortunately don`t have access to my deckbox with all the 1 ofs at the moment.
I`ve had swingy results with the deck, but ultimately have managed a positive winrate and it`s definitely a fun deck to play. The deck consistently finds the combo but can also have some awkward opening hands with multiple Lunges, hence my consideration to cut 1 for a Rallier for example. It feels like this version, more so than the CoCo variant, has alot of free wins and favourable MUs but everything very grindy from Jeskai to Mardu is extremely hard to beat. Funnily enough I think that once Inubation/Incogruity is available this will get better for two reasons. For one we will have a bit more SB space dropping to at least 2 PtE and we can also target our dorks for when an instant speed 3/3 surprise beater/blocker is all we need.
Yeah Grafdiggers can be a huge pain, I try to leave all the Communes in over some Chords/Lunges/Eldritch Evo when I expect it. Thankfully Deputy of Detention will be an additional out to it soon and Incogruinity will be great to force the combo through Humans/Spirits. I also faced a decent amount of Grafdiggers recently and it often happened that I just had the natural or got there with a Knight of Autumn/Commune, it sounds like you faced some bad variance with them drawing what they needed and you drawing exactly what matched up poorly against their hate.
Shalai is on average just a better card than Rhonas is in this deck. Rhonas`s big upside in the normal Devoted Druid builds for me always was that, once you have infinite mana, you could hit it off of a CoCo while Ballista was a big whiff. That issue doesn`t present itself in this deck since we don`t run any CoCo and once you have infinite mana you can Chord/Eldritch Evo it up as a wincon anyways if the situation arises where Ballista isn`t enough (ex: op has hexproof). That being said, my current list is only playing a single Shalai, I moved the Spellskite to the main freeing up a precious SB slot. Skite is currently pretty solid in the meta with Bolt being as highly represented as it is.
I`ve tested Rallier and he`s pretty good especially with creatures with sac abillities like Burrenton/Remorseful Cleric, but ultimately the maindeck is currently very tight for me, the only slot I tried to fit him in was over the 4th Postmortem Lunge since they both do similar things, Rallier abdicating the haste part for a bit of value.
I agree that the deck is not that easy to play, you have some free wins but other matches are hard fought and you need to know your and your opponents list by heart, especially post-SB.
I got mine around 2 days before the spike, I actually wanted to buy more at once because an uncommon Phyrexian card will get reprinted any time soon so the probabillity of it spiking was very high if this deck ends up being competitive. They were on short supply in all the LGS of my city though..
This deck is more competitive than Cragganwick Cremator and just as fun imo, I`d be curious to know which choice you ended up going with
Postmortem Lunge is spiking like crazy by the way ^^;
The new Pod creature is probably not good enough but I could see it being run as a 1 of with eldritch evolution. It's unfortunately likely too cute though.
Magus, Gaddock and the like are for decks which can goldfish as fast as us like KCI/Amulet/Storm, I don't consider that we slap those decks but see them rather as close MUs which are often won by small margins/playdraw. I believe these bullets go up alot in value since we play 2 Shalai main to protect them. There are quite a few locks you can achieve, basically turning into a semi prison deck v alot of close MUs while not diluting your combo and mantaining speed. For example, Gaddock+Shalai+Skite/Selfless Spirit/Burrenton is insanely hard for KCI to beat, There are very similar "locks" v Amulet,Storm and the like. This deck is built for metagames lacking interaction so I'd focus on combo'ing and 1 ofs as much as possible, then dedicate around 4/5 slots to Tracker/Gideon.
Speaking of Plan Bs and Value, has anyone tested Gavony in these lists yet? I realize it's harder to include due to the low land count and we have access to such an effect in Shalai, but with such a high number of dorks I reckon it would still be solid v BGx and the like.
Anyways, I believe that with Incubation being printed we will likely be able to drop the paths or reduce them to 1/2, so we'll have more SB slots to dedicate to both value and bullets can't wait.
Edit:
The Deputy looks sweet, If there were 2 triggers then It'd be even sweeter but that's asking for too much ^^.