Agreed; I actually believe that Vannifar will be best as a value town enabler
I think Vannifar is rarely going to sit on the board for a few turns and generare value: If you get to activate her, you'll usually just attempt to combo right away. She is capable to find a combo from almost any spot, so you should probably do that whenever you get the chance. If you expect disruption after an activation (which would have to be something that can't interact with Vannifar herself, so probably a burn spell or a non-revolted Fatal Push), you can still change plans and go for Voice/Finks/Rallier etc, but the plan A with her should be combo. (Additionally, there will be cases where combo isn't an option due to other factors like a lack of combo pieces left in the library, or disruption like Pithing Needle.)
I've done a handful of test games with Vannifar on Cockatrice, and so far I think I've won every time I untapped with her. The opponents might have misunderstood or underestimated the new card (which will quickly change if she turns out to be any good), and I'll need to play a lot more with her, but my early impressions are positive.
As for what I mean by value town, I'm a fan of Saffi Eriksdottir alongside Renegade Rallier, so a line such as Vannifar, sacrifice Saffi on Rallier, sacrifice Rallier (triggering Saffi and then Rallier) to get Felidar Guardian, blink Rallier/Saheeli if its there.
Also out of curiosity is there a creature equivalent of Intruder Alarm?
As for what I mean by value town, I'm a fan of Saffi Eriksdottir alongside Renegade Rallier, so a line such as Vannifar, sacrifice Saffi on Rallier, sacrifice Rallier (triggering Saffi and then Rallier) to get Felidar Guardian, blink Rallier/Saheeli if its there.
Also out of curiosity is there a creature equivalent of Intruder Alarm?
To sum up, what we want to test would be something like at minimum 1x Scrub Ranger, 1x Rallier, 1x Untapper on 3 mana, 2x Vannifar, 1x Kiki (+1 Slayer's Stronghold or something similar for me since I'm running my KoTR) in place of a number of existing slots, right?
Yeah, those are the pieces of the most common Vannifar one-turn combo chain I use. You may want to increase your 1-cmc mana dork count in this case, though.
Then, it's pretty tempting to add more one-turn combo chains:
Phantasmal Image: Enables the 2-drop + 1-drop combo chain, especially on little resources. I highly recommend this in devoted Vannifar builds.
Dryad Arbor & Seedcradle Witch: Enables a clunky Forest fetch combo chain. I've only ever used this chain once, so I'm not quite sure it's worth it.
Ranger of Eos: With a 1-mana untapper, enables both the 2-drop and the 3-drop combo chains. I don't think I've pulled off either chain yet, though--they require so many resources in my build. Also, Seedcradle Witch's pump has contributed to wins, while the cheaper-effect Teardrop Kami seens weaker in comparison (but can effectively block their best attacker once).
I believe a better* use would be to use Intruder Alarm alongside Vannifar. This would enable the following finite loop with Voice of Resurgence and Renegade Rallier, both of which we already run.
Turn N: Vannifar
Turn N+1: Intruder Alarm, Mana Dork, activate Vannifar on dork for Voice, activate Vannifar on Voice for Rallier, return Voice, rinse and repeat until no more Ralliers are available.
From there you have a massive board state with the potential to continue the chain in any number of ways. Only issue I have is that it requires using Intruder Alarm, which is a pretty big liability outside of this combo.
As an aside, it's a shame that Arena Rector is not Modern Legal; would been an easy way to assemble the main CopyCat combo. Still ... maybe Thalia's Lancers may be a decent substitute?
Why bother with Lancers when you can play Kiki instead? There are corner cases where Lancers are better, but on average, Kiki seems like the superior choice. Intruder Alarm is a win-more card - you're usually able to win without it once Vannifar is online, and it does basically nothing without Vannifar. (Okay, Kiki + Intruder Alarm + any creature with at least 1 power is a combo kill. But that is probably it.) And it also enables opposing Izzet Staticasters, Grim Lavamancers, and Elvish Archdruids.
Why bother with Lancers when you can play Kiki instead? There are corner cases where Lancers are better, but on average, Kiki seems like the superior choice. Intruder Alarm is a win-more card - you're usually able to win without it once Vannifar is online, and it does basically nothing without Vannifar. (Okay, Kiki + Intruder Alarm + any creature with at least 1 power is a combo kill. But that is probably it.) And it also enables opposing Izzet Staticasters, Grim Lavamancers, and Elvish Archdruids.
Color weight concerns; usually red is a splash color at best so if KJMB is ever in the hand, it would be stuck there until you'd be able to cast it.
Also Intruder Alarm along with Voice of Resurgence and/or Renegade Rallier would allow Vannifar to assemble a combo from a single dork and would take up about the same amount of slots proposed by the untsp chains
Why bother with Lancers when you can play Kiki instead? There are corner cases where Lancers are better, but on average, Kiki seems like the superior choice. Intruder Alarm is a win-more card - you're usually able to win without it once Vannifar is online, and it does basically nothing without Vannifar. (Okay, Kiki + Intruder Alarm + any creature with at least 1 power is a combo kill. But that is probably it.) And it also enables opposing Izzet Staticasters, Grim Lavamancers, and Elvish Archdruids.
Color weight concerns; usually red is a splash color at best so if KJMB is ever in the hand, it would be stuck there until you'd be able to cast it.
Also Intruder Alarm along with Voice of Resurgence and/or Renegade Rallier would allow Vannifar to assemble a combo from a single dork and would take up about the same amount of slots proposed by the untsp chains
The thing is that Intruder Alarm is an additional card that you need to get into your hand, and you still need a second creature to combo off. The untappers, recursion dudes, blinkers, and copy makers only need to take up maindeck slots, and Vannifar will tutor them out.
Given that several opposing decks will suddenly start acting strangely the moment Vannifar lands given that they know we have the combo critters maindeck (to the point where they should assume we have the combo maindeck), I think Intruder Alarm will be a waste of mana, time, and deck slots. Intruder Alarm isn't so useful without Vannifar.
(By "start acting strangely", I mean that Vannifar will often get killed on sight. If they cannot kill Vannifar, smart opponents may kill any lower-toughness creatures she is with, fearing the combo, combo protection, or a hate bear that doesn't die to Bolt. If they time their burn spell to kill Kiki-Jiki in response to an Exarch untap, I still have an Exarch and tapped Vannifar by the end of it all and can go for the combo again next turn in my devoted Vannifar build.)
Also, as far as I can tell, this is the 1-drop chain with Vannifar and Intruder Alarm:
Turn 1-drop into Voice, untap
Turn Voice into Rallier recurring Voice, untap
Turn Voice into Rallier recurring Voice, untap
Turn Rallier into Felidar Guardian blinking remaining Rallier, untap
Turn Rallier into Felidar Guardian blinking something, untap
Turn Felidar into Thalia's Lancers tutoring for Saheeli Rai(, untap)
Play Saheeli Rai and combo off
...all for a combo that still dies to Bolt and now requires one more card to assemble. I suppose you got a large board presence out of that deal in exchange?
But the speed loss from needing an Intruder Alarm to pull that off will be fatal against a lot of aggro decks (and our perpetual enemy Tron).
And 4 Intruder Alarms and a Lancers are 2 more deck slots than a Scryb Ranger, a Deceiver Exarch, and a Kiki-Jiki (assuming you would have played the Rallier anyway).
After testing for a bit, I believe Van is too slow to wait a turn with, so I'd like to have her only when I can haste her out with KotR + Hanweir Battlements + Evo or with Saheeli as a supplement to guardian.
Therefore, I think I'll start from something like the following (ignore the sideboard - it's outdated):
Perhaps the third guardian is a bit suspicious and some sort of card advantage could be played there (I was thinking of choosing between Tracker or Lark), but it feels uncomfortable playing with two guardians, especially since Van usually needs to sacrifice one during her chain.
P.S. Essentially a new account because I missed my curse emails completely - maniospas.
I'm interested in Rhythm of the Wild, particularly if we start messing around with Vannifar and KotR, which both greatly benefit from haste. Rhythm also has really strong synergy with Persist critters.
I'm not very interested in Rhythm, because we already get Saheeli to provide a haste effect and what we desperately need is CA which is the exact opposite (Van dillutes the deck quite a bit and cutting the buff land for haste hurts quite a bit in that front too).
On another note, I believe that playing KotR+Van can allow me (I say "me" because there are many ways to have fun with this archetype) to cut Cobra for CA (I'm looking some mix of Courser/Tracker/2nd Canopy), since Scryb fills the critical number of 2CMC slots for Evo and we now get a reasonable outlet to combo turn 3 without warning (needs only 2 key pieces).
P.S. Scryb also makes for some good occasional pseudo-accelaration if it gets flashed in EOT.
daviusminimus in the Vannifar thread suggested a combo-riffic Vannifar Saheeli Evolution shell, and I tweaked it to combo off even faster and more often:
My testing results have been quite good. This deck often ends up Hail Mary-ing a win through a removal spell, and it can race Burn, KCI, Humans, BR Hollow One, and more. I've comboed off on Turn 3 fairly often. Importantly, it's fast enough to have a relatively even Game 1 against Gx Tron, and it won most of its Game 1's against Mardu Midrange (they run out of removal faster than we run out of combos because their clock often isn't fast enough).
I don't think Vannifar dilutes the deck--she provides a redundant plan that uses a lot of the same support cards as Saheeli Evolution, and she's a pretty good creature to Eldritch Evolution for.
What I mean by dilution is that she forces Kiki, Exarch (btw, why Exarch of all options?) and Scryb into deck slots, which dilutes the drawing power a lot (Scryb is actually not bad, but it's just more acceleration if we happen to draw it).
The problem I currently have with all-in builds is that a couple of bolts/paths usually spell game over in all combo avenues if the opponent knows how the deck works (i.e. bolt kiki or saheeli and ignore the rest), which I presume does not hold true for the time being. For this reason I think that I'd rather either run card advantage engines (like Courser/Tracker) or Resto as protection mid-combo that doubles-up as decent pressure by shaving a few redundant pieces.
What I mean by dilution is that she forces Kiki, Exarch (btw, why Exarch of all options?) and Scryb into deck slots, which dilutes the drawing power a lot (Scryb is actually not bad, but it's just more acceleration if we happen to draw it).
The problem I currently have with all-in builds is that a couple of bolts/paths usually spell game over in all combo avenues if the opponent knows how the deck works (i.e. bolt kiki or saheeli and ignore the rest), which I presume does not hold true for the time being. For this reason I think that I'd rather either run card advantage engines (like Courser/Tracker) or Resto as protection mid-combo that doubles-up as decent pressure by shaving a few redundant pieces.
Deceiver Exarch isn't hosed by opposing Spellskite and dodges single Bolt, making it the premier 3-cmc untapper choice.
Even when Mardu was exclusively Bolting Kiki and Saheeli (and Pushing Felidar and Vannifar), they still lost most of the time. Their clock's too slow most of the time. Vannifar being able to tutor for Bolt protection makes her draw hard removal pretty well.
I predict this list will have a rough time against UWR Control, though, and its Grixis Death's Shadow match-up seemed worse than my Vannifar no-Saheeli list from my testing.
Deceiver Exarch has more toughness than Pestermite, which is more important than what the 2/1 flying body offers on offense. It survives some removal spells, and is able to block in a relevant way.
Its advantage over Bounding Krasis and Village Bell-Ringer is its ability to (un)tap lands, which can mess with opponents (for example by tapping a Tron land or the one land the have kept open for their removal spell) or generate extra mana for us (can be very helpful to cast Kiki from hand).
All four of those are reasonable choices as 3cmc untappers, but I think Exarch is slightly better than the others in this context.
The static ability helps vs control and also lets you flash in surprise blockers/making Felidar a Restoration Angel for anything that the opponent tries to blow up. It also helps ”draws” you creatures. The +1 is kinda meh but seems sweet in a race situation or just making a creature able to block a Phoenix or Mantis Rider. Plussing on a Voice of Resurgance token is actually very good. Also - it costs 3 so dodges our own Gaddock Teegs.
New Teferi is also a 3cc Planeswalker that lets us combowin safely. Probably not good enough for maindeck though. It’s also pretty nice to be able to Eldritch Evolution as an instant.
I'd think that, given how bad this archetype's matchup is against control of any sorts, we should be interested in maindecking at least one Teferi. (I'm not exactly sure, but I think he also stops miracled Terminus.) Grinding value by bouncing and replaying Guardian repeatedly (or perhaps Oath once) should also not be bad.
On a side note, I want to share my current list, into which I've tried to jam Vannifar with relative success in that it is very action-dense and curves smoothly enough.
Amongst interesting techs:
- It pains me to state this, but I've come to realize that the 2nd Van is better than the 4th Saheeli, because Saheeli is very bad at representing deck density.
- KotR is acceleration that can become a meaningful clock if needed and provides T3 kills with Battlments and Evo into Van. It's also maindeck one-shot GY hate, which proves relevant a lot in buying combo time.
- I'm trying to copy successful Van lists with the removal package.
- Shalai's purpose is to guarantee a Van combo that works around Bolt if there are redundant untap/bounce effects in hand (including Saheeli).
So, as this prototype will have more enchantments, I changed Oath of Nissa for Serum Visions as it will send to the bottom potential cards to combo, so visions can set them properly on top of the library. Also, I added 3 Assassin's Trophy for some protection.
Hope tonight I can write a report of how it went and what cards I played and possible changes to make. Also your point of view would help a lot.
FYI there is a new take on the deck, with 8 manadorks, 4 new Narset and 4 new Teferi - 0 Eldritch Evolution - that is being popularized by Gabriel Nassif. He has been playing it a lot on his stream recently and I've gotta say it is really sweet. Been trying a variation of it myself.
Here is the original deck he took to a 5-0 finish in a MTGO Modern League:
FYI there is a new take on the deck, with 8 manadorks, 4 new Narset and 4 new Teferi - 0 Eldritch Evolution - that is being popularized by Gabriel Nassif. He has been playing it a lot on his stream recently and I've gotta say it is really sweet. Been trying a variation of it myself.
Here is the original deck he took to a 5-0 finish in a MTGO Modern League:
Tried a variant of that deck on Cockatrice against 2 decks so far (-1 Jace TMS, +1 Sarkhan the Masterless to speed up the clock and deal with opposing planeswalkers better). That build's clock is too slow to beat Mono-G Tron, but it actually has decent game against UR Phoenix. Teferi, Time Raveler bounces all their threats (including Pyromancer Ascension) and buys a considerable amount of time, and you can often eventually hit 6 mana and play both combo pieces in a single turn, possibly with Teferi TR protection.
Really bad luck that day, I jsut remember one match up, against Eldrazi Displacer which didn't let me combo in anyway along with Flickerwisp. But I'm going to give it another try.
FYI there is a new take on the deck, with 8 manadorks, 4 new Narset and 4 new Teferi - 0 Eldritch Evolution - that is being popularized by Gabriel Nassif. He has been playing it a lot on his stream recently and I've gotta say it is really sweet. Been trying a variation of it myself.
Here is the original deck he took to a 5-0 finish in a MTGO Modern League:
Reprint for Modern, better than Eldritch Evolution or?
I think Eladamri's Call competes more with Chord of Calling; not needing to sink in all the cost up front is nice, and dodging Grafdigger's Cage has promise, but no Convoke will probably lose a game some day if my earlier testing is any indication.
I'm more excited about some of the new creatures for this deck; Giver of Runes provides quite good protection, and Collector Ouphe shores up some meh and bad match-ups. With our threat density encouraging our opponents to Gut Shot other creatures, Hexdrinker looks like a decent way of breaking midrange and clocking combo with fewer cards.
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I think Vannifar is rarely going to sit on the board for a few turns and generare value: If you get to activate her, you'll usually just attempt to combo right away. She is capable to find a combo from almost any spot, so you should probably do that whenever you get the chance. If you expect disruption after an activation (which would have to be something that can't interact with Vannifar herself, so probably a burn spell or a non-revolted Fatal Push), you can still change plans and go for Voice/Finks/Rallier etc, but the plan A with her should be combo. (Additionally, there will be cases where combo isn't an option due to other factors like a lack of combo pieces left in the library, or disruption like Pithing Needle.)
I've done a handful of test games with Vannifar on Cockatrice, and so far I think I've won every time I untapped with her. The opponents might have misunderstood or underestimated the new card (which will quickly change if she turns out to be any good), and I'll need to play a lot more with her, but my early impressions are positive.
As for what I mean by value town, I'm a fan of Saffi Eriksdottir alongside Renegade Rallier, so a line such as Vannifar, sacrifice Saffi on Rallier, sacrifice Rallier (triggering Saffi and then Rallier) to get Felidar Guardian, blink Rallier/Saheeli if its there.
Also out of curiosity is there a creature equivalent of Intruder Alarm?
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
Village Bell-Ringer
Yeah, those are the pieces of the most common Vannifar one-turn combo chain I use. You may want to increase your 1-cmc mana dork count in this case, though.
Then, it's pretty tempting to add more one-turn combo chains:
Phantasmal Image: Enables the 2-drop + 1-drop combo chain, especially on little resources. I highly recommend this in devoted Vannifar builds.
Dryad Arbor & Seedcradle Witch: Enables a clunky Forest fetch combo chain. I've only ever used this chain once, so I'm not quite sure it's worth it.
Ranger of Eos: With a 1-mana untapper, enables both the 2-drop and the 3-drop combo chains. I don't think I've pulled off either chain yet, though--they require so many resources in my build. Also, Seedcradle Witch's pump has contributed to wins, while the cheaper-effect Teardrop Kami seens weaker in comparison (but can effectively block their best attacker once).
Restoration Gearsmith: Enables the 2-drop combo chain. Definitely the fattest 4-cmc Disentomb on legs.
Turn N: Vannifar
Turn N+1: Intruder Alarm, Mana Dork, activate Vannifar on dork for Voice, activate Vannifar on Voice for Rallier, return Voice, rinse and repeat until no more Ralliers are available.
From there you have a massive board state with the potential to continue the chain in any number of ways. Only issue I have is that it requires using Intruder Alarm, which is a pretty big liability outside of this combo.
As an aside, it's a shame that Arena Rector is not Modern Legal; would been an easy way to assemble the main CopyCat combo. Still ... maybe Thalia's Lancers may be a decent substitute?
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
Color weight concerns; usually red is a splash color at best so if KJMB is ever in the hand, it would be stuck there until you'd be able to cast it.
Also Intruder Alarm along with Voice of Resurgence and/or Renegade Rallier would allow Vannifar to assemble a combo from a single dork and would take up about the same amount of slots proposed by the untsp chains
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
The thing is that Intruder Alarm is an additional card that you need to get into your hand, and you still need a second creature to combo off. The untappers, recursion dudes, blinkers, and copy makers only need to take up maindeck slots, and Vannifar will tutor them out.
Given that several opposing decks will suddenly start acting strangely the moment Vannifar lands given that they know we have the combo critters maindeck (to the point where they should assume we have the combo maindeck), I think Intruder Alarm will be a waste of mana, time, and deck slots. Intruder Alarm isn't so useful without Vannifar.
(By "start acting strangely", I mean that Vannifar will often get killed on sight. If they cannot kill Vannifar, smart opponents may kill any lower-toughness creatures she is with, fearing the combo, combo protection, or a hate bear that doesn't die to Bolt. If they time their burn spell to kill Kiki-Jiki in response to an Exarch untap, I still have an Exarch and tapped Vannifar by the end of it all and can go for the combo again next turn in my devoted Vannifar build.)
Also, as far as I can tell, this is the 1-drop chain with Vannifar and Intruder Alarm:
Turn 1-drop into Voice, untap
Turn Voice into Rallier recurring Voice, untap
Turn Voice into Rallier recurring Voice, untap
Turn Rallier into Felidar Guardian blinking remaining Rallier, untap
Turn Rallier into Felidar Guardian blinking something, untap
Turn Felidar into Thalia's Lancers tutoring for Saheeli Rai(, untap)
Play Saheeli Rai and combo off
...all for a combo that still dies to Bolt and now requires one more card to assemble. I suppose you got a large board presence out of that deal in exchange?
But the speed loss from needing an Intruder Alarm to pull that off will be fatal against a lot of aggro decks (and our perpetual enemy Tron).
And 4 Intruder Alarms and a Lancers are 2 more deck slots than a Scryb Ranger, a Deceiver Exarch, and a Kiki-Jiki (assuming you would have played the Rallier anyway).
Therefore, I think I'll start from something like the following (ignore the sideboard - it's outdated):
3 Felidar Guardian
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Arbor Elf
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Eternal Witness
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Pestermite
1 Prime Speaker Vannifar
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
2 Lotus Cobra
4 Oath of Nissa
4 Saheeli Rai
Lands (23)
2 Plains
5 Forest
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Hanweir Battlements
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Damping Sphere
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Magus of the Tabernacle
1 Reveillark
1 Angel of Sanctions
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2 Stony Silence
2 Path to Exile
Perhaps the third guardian is a bit suspicious and some sort of card advantage could be played there (I was thinking of choosing between Tracker or Lark), but it feels uncomfortable playing with two guardians, especially since Van usually needs to sacrifice one during her chain.
P.S. Essentially a new account because I missed my curse emails completely - maniospas.
GW Copycat
Jund Loam
On another note, I believe that playing KotR+Van can allow me (I say "me" because there are many ways to have fun with this archetype) to cut Cobra for CA (I'm looking some mix of Courser/Tracker/2nd Canopy), since Scryb fills the critical number of 2CMC slots for Evo and we now get a reasonable outlet to combo turn 3 without warning (needs only 2 key pieces).
P.S. Scryb also makes for some good occasional pseudo-accelaration if it gets flashed in EOT.
GW Copycat
Jund Loam
1 Hanweir Battlements
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Gavony Township
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Temple Garden
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Forest
1 Plains
Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Lotus Cobra
4 Prime Speaker Vannifar
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4 Felidar Guardian
1 Deceiver Exarch
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Spellskite
2 Coiling Oracle
1 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Oath of Nissa
4 Saheeli Rai
4 Eldritch Evolution
1 Deputy of Detention
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Stony Silence
2 Spell Pierce
1 Path to Exile
1 Fiery Justice
My testing results have been quite good. This deck often ends up Hail Mary-ing a win through a removal spell, and it can race Burn, KCI, Humans, BR Hollow One, and more. I've comboed off on Turn 3 fairly often. Importantly, it's fast enough to have a relatively even Game 1 against Gx Tron, and it won most of its Game 1's against Mardu Midrange (they run out of removal faster than we run out of combos because their clock often isn't fast enough).
I don't think Vannifar dilutes the deck--she provides a redundant plan that uses a lot of the same support cards as Saheeli Evolution, and she's a pretty good creature to Eldritch Evolution for.
The problem I currently have with all-in builds is that a couple of bolts/paths usually spell game over in all combo avenues if the opponent knows how the deck works (i.e. bolt kiki or saheeli and ignore the rest), which I presume does not hold true for the time being. For this reason I think that I'd rather either run card advantage engines (like Courser/Tracker) or Resto as protection mid-combo that doubles-up as decent pressure by shaving a few redundant pieces.
GW Copycat
Jund Loam
Deceiver Exarch isn't hosed by opposing Spellskite and dodges single Bolt, making it the premier 3-cmc untapper choice.
Even when Mardu was exclusively Bolting Kiki and Saheeli (and Pushing Felidar and Vannifar), they still lost most of the time. Their clock's too slow most of the time. Vannifar being able to tutor for Bolt protection makes her draw hard removal pretty well.
I predict this list will have a rough time against UWR Control, though, and its Grixis Death's Shadow match-up seemed worse than my Vannifar no-Saheeli list from my testing.
Its advantage over Bounding Krasis and Village Bell-Ringer is its ability to (un)tap lands, which can mess with opponents (for example by tapping a Tron land or the one land the have kept open for their removal spell) or generate extra mana for us (can be very helpful to cast Kiki from hand).
All four of those are reasonable choices as 3cmc untappers, but I think Exarch is slightly better than the others in this context.
This new Vivien seems pretty sweet for our deck.
The static ability helps vs control and also lets you flash in surprise blockers/making Felidar a Restoration Angel for anything that the opponent tries to blow up. It also helps ”draws” you creatures. The +1 is kinda meh but seems sweet in a race situation or just making a creature able to block a Phoenix or Mantis Rider. Plussing on a Voice of Resurgance token is actually very good. Also - it costs 3 so dodges our own Gaddock Teegs.
New Teferi is also a 3cc Planeswalker that lets us combowin safely. Probably not good enough for maindeck though. It’s also pretty nice to be able to Eldritch Evolution as an instant.
11-3-1 @ GP Copenhagen: Top Stories of Grand Prix Copenhagen
On a side note, I want to share my current list, into which I've tried to jam Vannifar with relative success in that it is very action-dense and curves smoothly enough.
2 Felidar Guardian
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Voice of Resurgence
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Lotus Cobra
2 Arbor Elf
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
2 Prime Speaker Vannifar
1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
1 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 Deceiver Exarch
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reflector Mage
4 Oath of Nissa
Lands (22)
1 Plains
6 Forest
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Hanweir Battlements
3 Saheeli Rai
Instants and Sorceries (5)
3 Eldritch Evolution
2 Path to Exile
Amongst interesting techs:
- It pains me to state this, but I've come to realize that the 2nd Van is better than the 4th Saheeli, because Saheeli is very bad at representing deck density.
- KotR is acceleration that can become a meaningful clock if needed and provides T3 kills with Battlments and Evo into Van. It's also maindeck one-shot GY hate, which proves relevant a lot in buying combo time.
- I'm trying to copy successful Van lists with the removal package.
- Shalai's purpose is to guarantee a Van combo that works around Bolt if there are redundant untap/bounce effects in hand (including Saheeli).
GW Copycat
Jund Loam
So my deck can combo in four different ways:
1 - Saheeli + Felidar
2 - 2 Saheeli's + Titan
3 - 2 Felidars + Altar of the Brood
4 - Kaya's + Blasting + Renegade
So, as this prototype will have more enchantments, I changed Oath of Nissa for Serum Visions as it will send to the bottom potential cards to combo, so visions can set them properly on top of the library. Also, I added 3 Assassin's Trophy for some protection.
Hope tonight I can write a report of how it went and what cards I played and possible changes to make. Also your point of view would help a lot.
Here is the original deck he took to a 5-0 finish in a MTGO Modern League:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-modern-constructed-league-2019-05-14#bobthedog_-
11-3-1 @ GP Copenhagen: Top Stories of Grand Prix Copenhagen
Tried a variant of that deck on Cockatrice against 2 decks so far (-1 Jace TMS, +1 Sarkhan the Masterless to speed up the clock and deal with opposing planeswalkers better). That build's clock is too slow to beat Mono-G Tron, but it actually has decent game against UR Phoenix. Teferi, Time Raveler bounces all their threats (including Pyromancer Ascension) and buys a considerable amount of time, and you can often eventually hit 6 mana and play both combo pieces in a single turn, possibly with Teferi TR protection.
So, how did it go, ardillacody? I am sure curious about it!
And here is a ChannelFireball video with him playing it: https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/copycat-superfriends-modern-channel-nassif/
11-3-1 @ GP Copenhagen: Top Stories of Grand Prix Copenhagen
Reprint for Modern, better than Eldritch Evolution or?
I think Eladamri's Call competes more with Chord of Calling; not needing to sink in all the cost up front is nice, and dodging Grafdigger's Cage has promise, but no Convoke will probably lose a game some day if my earlier testing is any indication.
I'm more excited about some of the new creatures for this deck; Giver of Runes provides quite good protection, and Collector Ouphe shores up some meh and bad match-ups. With our threat density encouraging our opponents to Gut Shot other creatures, Hexdrinker looks like a decent way of breaking midrange and clocking combo with fewer cards.