I see no additional value of adding Saffi and Rallier to deck. Yes, there are additional combos, but they dilute or remove existing combos. The result is more or less the same (and it means no worse of course). But additonal combos use graveyard too and get nerfed by the same hate.
I like the another list from SCG Classic top16 with trackers more - it helps playing against graveyard hate.
This is the link: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=111111
The key word for Rallier is tempo.
The vast majority of the time the worst case for rallier is either:
3 mana turns into 5 mana worth of dudes (and 5 power)
3 mana for a 3/2, that ramps you 1 (which is better than literally every 3 mana land ramp creature; see Wood Elves)
Tireless Tracker is a much worse tempo card. Firstly it only generates value if you hit it off company or play it on turn 4 with a fetchland to play and crack. Then to draw cards you have to spend mana.
Tracker is always a worse tempo play than rallier. The vast majority of the time, it's either:
A 3 mana 3/2 that dies to lightning bolt, unless you have a land to play when you play it
A 5 mana 4/3 that draws you a card
A 7 mana 5/4 that draws you two cards
Think about how just utterly slow that is. There are midrange matchups that we are already fairly good at that Tracker excels in. Allowing you to break the mana cost up over turns is nice.
But Rallier does something unique -- provides card advantage, sometimes enabling a combo, with almost no tempo loss.
Think about our three card advantage engines (tracker, witness, rallier), and this scenario (which is pretty common at least for me)
Hand: Chord, Fetchland
Board state: 3 lands, Bird, Finks, Seer
Graveyard: Melira, fetchland and coco in the graveyard.
You untap and draw:
1) Eternal Witness. Well cool you witness for coco or witness for melira, play a land and run melira out, cross fingers. You cannot chord (3 untapped creatures, 2 green).
In this scenario you have the combo online but it can be disrupted.
2) Tracker. play and crack fetch, keep clue up, can chord for 2 (1 untapped land, 4 creatures)
You can chord for the combo but it can be disrupted.
3) Rallier. Play and crack fetch, play rallier for melira, can chord for 3 (1 untapped land, 5 creatures)
You can chord for protection or any missing combo piece and have the combo online.
Obviously there are many other scenarios to consider but you can see the massive tempo advantages for rallier; you have the combo online and can protect it vs. have the combo and can be disrupted.
This is a scenario I have run into with eternal witness MANY times; the super slow tempo is horrid. I won't even get into tracker--you can see how miserable that card would be as a topdeck if you need to combo to win.
Spot on evaluation of the Saffi-Rallier loop Torpf, though I should say a few things:
Saffi's activated ability creates a triggered ability, not a replacement effect. This means Trickbind can mess with it, but also enables it to reset used Finks with Seer.
If Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast are any precedent, you can fulfill an intervening condition while the spell or ability is on the stack and have it work as normal. Not sure how different wording is, so I'm not 100% sure on this.
EDIT: Eh ... the official rulings don't lie, but the wording is just about the same. I'm scratching my head right now hehe.
Intervening if clauses are different when they determine whether a trigger fires. See Knight of the White Orchid for how Rallier works.
Edit for clarification: So yes you can fulfill it while the rallier or the coco is on the stack, but you cannot do it after you have resolved a coco into rallier because the ability will never go on the stack and rallier will be on the field.
TL;DR- If CoCo lists end up running multiple copies of Renegade Rallier, IMO I think Eldritch Evolution is worth testing out. Probably in a more combo-centric build with more sac fodder like Aristocrats, but nonetheless, Evolution into Rallier returning something is strong. I haven't seen any discussion on EE at all yet, so mainly I just wanted to stir up some discussion on the card, given that Rallier is now being considered.
I don't play CoCo currently, but an Abzan Aristocrats deck that runs a fairly similar package to the CoCo lists here, but with Return to the Ranks / Blood Artist win con instead of a combo/CoCo. I'm posting here because this is where the discussion of Rallier is going on. I'll post my current Aristocrats list below.
As soon as Renegade Rallier was spoiled I immediately knew it was going into my Aristocrats deck. Like most of you are reporting, I've found it has extremely strong interactions with Voice of Resurgence, and specifically in my Aristocrats deck, Satyr Wayfinder as well. I also decided to run the Saffi Eriksdotter combo- All the rest of the pieces were already in my deck (Viscera Seer, Blood Artist, and now Rallier) so there really wasn't much opportunity cost to run a 1x Saffi to enable a combo when I had ways to both tutor for her and return her from the yard.
But as I've thought about a more all-in combo list, I've also noticed that Eldritch Evolution is extremely good with Rallier. It auto triggers revolt, so anytime you tutor for Rallier you can return something. Now, I'm not suggesting that the core CoCo list as is + Rallier should now just run Evolution. But I'm thinking, maybe a combo-heavy approach might be great now that Rallier is around. My Aristocrats shell already provides many cheap sac outlets/fodder because that's how the deck was designed- to abuse sac outlets with Blood Artist draining. In fact, in my deck, Eldritch Evolution isn't far off from Chord of Calling, and in some instances is even better. Having Chord 5-8 makes an all-in combo shell much more consistent.
The main gist of my post isn't really to support or recommend some more combo centric version of these shells. I haven't playtested the new cards enough to really make those kinds of statements yet. My post is more to see what peoples' opinions are of Eldritch Evolution now that Rallier is being discussed, because the interaction is quite good. I'm 100% sold on Rallier in my current Aristocrats deck, and I'm also feeling pretty confident that stock CoCo lists are gonna start running Rallier- even without the Saffi combo- simply because of how much value Rallier provides. Anyways, I'm glad that there's a lot of hype around these kinds of decks right now, and hopefully CoCo lists make a return to higher tiers!
Here is my current deck (not all-in combo)
Note: I don't have Fatal Push yet, still on the way :(, but a bunch would in the board.
From above (sorry don't know how to use quote machine): Voice + Saffi + Rallier interaction enables a lot of really quick almost-combo kills. Sac voice for token, rally voice token, sac voice for another token, sac saffi to protect rallier, sac rallier, rally back voice, sac voice token, etc."
Tried to make this work to get lots of tokens, can only get two elementals out of it before Saffi gets stranded in the yard.
Is that the limit or is there a way with Seer + Voice + Saffi + Rallier to make an arbitrarily large number of dudes?
From above (sorry don't know how to use quote machine): Voice + Saffi + Rallier interaction enables a lot of really quick almost-combo kills. Sac voice for token, rally voice token, sac voice for another token, sac saffi to protect rallier, sac rallier, rally back voice, sac voice token, etc."
Tried to make this work to get lots of tokens, can only get two elementals out of it before Saffi gets stranded in the yard.
Is that the limit or is there a way with Seer + Voice + Saffi + Rallier to make an arbitrarily large number of dudes?
There is no way to make an arbitrarily large number without panharmonicon that I can think of.
You can make 3 with seer + voice + saffi + rallier --
1) sac voice, make token (1)
2) play rallier, get voice, sac voice, make token (2)
3) sac saffi to protect rallier, sac rallier to scry, rallier returns gets voice sac voice make token (3)
It's not exactly a combo but it does leave you with 3x 5/5s and a 3/2 and a viscera seer and 4 scries, which isn't bad for cards that you would want to play anyway (excepting maybe saffi).
Rallier with 8 fetchlands is working so why add 3 horizon canopy when i have 8 fetchlands in main?
Fetchlands don't draw cards. Canopy/rallier is a way to out-value a grafdigger's cage potentially (or any form of creature-only grave hate like anafenza the foremost or kalitas).
. . . On the the other hand, pitching Saffi to Shaman to grab Rallier, then playing Rallier to bring back Saffi (most likely after saccing Shaman to Viscera Seer or cracking a Canopy or fetch) seems like a really good way to assemble the infinite scry engine.
Not that my feedback is the gold standard or anything but I didn't want you to think you're just getting ignored--typically budget discussion is discouraged in these threads, and I personally try to not comment on budget posts here because it dilutes the overall deck discussion. Best of luck
My plan is to add these to the Courser/Tracker package main deck, instead of 3x Voice of Resurgence. I'm holding off on Voice & Saffi for now to avoid even more reliance on the graveyard.
Your deck is at 12 3-drops, which is too many for 22 lands (and probably 23 lands too). The typical number of 3-mana spells the 23 land / 9 dork version can support is 9 (4x finks 4x witness 1x flex is the "standard").
You're going to have a bad time operating with a curve like that. Start with 9 and then consider 10 is my recommendation. -2 tracker/-1 courser/+3 voice is a straight swap that will fix that.
It's a hard thing to understand about curves in modern but the numbers of things are there for a reason.
Manabase
* I am a strong advocate of 3 gavony townships. Make of that what you will, there's a long and storied history of the most successful decks playing 23 lands and natural drawing township is good.
* I would run no fewer than 2 horizon canopy with ralliers. (-1 overgrownt omb -1 thicket is probably the right cuts)
Sideboard
* With ralliers, again, I think I would play the sculler package instead of thoughtseize if you think you need that.
* I am not a big fan of abrupt decay because it doesn't remove leyline. I'd probably run fatal push or path in this slot, as you want to deal with Scooze and Kalitas and 1 mana is better. But lots of folks have had luck with AD, your call
Otherwise seems fine I guess, depends on your meta.
I know Rallier and the new Saffi combo are all the rage wight now but I'd like to know what are your thoughts on the Archangel/Spike Feeder package? I personnally still play it because it is not reliant on the graveyard and thus, gets around Relic and RIP. Also, Spike feeder acts as a pseudo Finks #5 in the burn matchup as a way to gain 4 and eat a bolt which is nice value. For reference, here's the list I'm currently running :
I'm looking to add the Ralliers while still keeping the Angel/Feeder but maindeck space is tight. I'm thinking -1 Eternal Witness, -1 Viscera Seer, +2 Renegade Rallier. Also, moving the Scooze to the Sideboard to add the second Voice of Resurgence maindeck to improve the Value Rallier plan. My meta is split between Aggro and Control (esper draw-go, blue moon, grixis) with some (common) rogue decks such as 8-Rack.
I am not a big fan of abrupt decay because it doesn't remove leyline. I'd probably run fatal push or path in this slot, as you want to deal with Scooze and Kalitas and 1 mana is better. But lots of folks have had luck with AD, your call
I think we need to commit to rallier at least for testing. Run 3-4. Test, adjust.
I do not think feeder/archangel is well positioned right now. Archangel is just slow. I don't see a need to play redcap either until we evaluate whether the rallier aggro beats plan is good enough to squeak out a decent tron matchup.
if u want infinite life, just stick to kitchen finks as finks is able to be hit by coco.
5 mana angel in a deck that likes to curve at turn 3 with 3 lands + 1 mana dork is bad deck building.
anafenza also enables infinite +1/+1 tokens and is also able to get hit by coco.
using chord to tutor any of the missing pieces mentioned above is still a lower cost investment which allows you to dodge potential mana leaks or allow multiple end turn plays like path to exile + chord/coco.
angel combo isn't even that good in kiki-chord despite it having the foundation to support it as that deck prefers to either go combo kill with redcap, anafenza, melira or the current saffi, rallier combo. the kiki-resto combo is usually to break deadlocks or finish the game before the opponent turns a corner.
Just Top 8'ed a GPT with the Rallier list, felt awesome. It was relatively small and I only actually played four matches (Merfolk, RG Ponza, Abzan, Infect) with the rest being byes and IDs, so I won't bother with a full report, but I will share some thoughts. First, the list:
As you can see, I'm all in on Rallier for the sake of testing -- no Witnesses, 3 Voices, 3 Ralliers and a Saffi.
About Saffi -- I'm still not 100% convinced, because I missed Spellskite hard against Infect (and Abzan bc paths), but I did like the card a lot. There was one sequence against merfolk that comes to mind, where I swung into their board of two creatures with my Rallier and Voice: they went to block, I chorded for Saffi, sacced Saffi targeting Rallier, traded with both their dudes, got a Voice token, Rallier came back, Voice came back. That's a ridiculous amount of value. I only pulled off the combo proper once, and it was win-more when it happened, but as a value piece alone Saffi put in work.
About Rallier -- love it love it love it. It's already been mentioned, but the tempo you get with Rallier is the nuts. My Abzan opponent in Game 1 didn't realize I was on the Rallier plan -- I went T1 Birds, he went T1 Thoughtseize discarding my Voice, I topdecked a Rallier, played and cracked a fetch, played Rallier bringing back Voice. It was a pretty easy beatdown game from there. Then there was a game against Ponza where I had Viscera Seer and Rallier in hand, with an Anafenza in the yard and a Finks on the field, on only four lands -- with Witness, that wouldn't have been a win, but with Rallier it could have been (it wasn't, though, because nothing in my hand was castable thanks to Blood Moon -_-).
About Tireless Tracker -- I still jam three and a Courser because I just can't help myself. Graveyard hate is still pretty prevalent where I'm at so I don't feel like I can depend on combo / Rallier shenanigans so much in games two and three. Against Abzan, for example, my opponent saw 2x Surgical Extraction in game two and used them to pull out Kitchen Finks and Rallier -- I cared exactly zero about that, because I was totally off the combo and only had 2 Ralliers in deck with no Saffi postboard. He ran out of cards a couple of turns later, during which time I cracked five clues and totally overwhelmed him. Courser pulled its weight too, keeping me stocked on lands against Ponza. The 1x Tracker and 1x Courser in my maindeck are the slots that would go to Witnesses, but I just wanted to rely less on the graveyard -- I never ran into a situation where I wanted Witness, for what its worth, but I would consider switching these slots back to Witness in the right meta. Edit: I could also see it being correct to just run an extra Viscera Seer and Kitchen Finks in these slots, it did feel weird to be so light on combo pieces.
About Fiend Hunter -- This still seems necessary to me, especially since this build is so focused on getting the combo in game one. I feel like otherwise we'd just scoop to a resolved Scooze. Card put in work over the course of the night -- it did kill a Scooze once, and it took out an Inferno Titan against Ponza, which ended up buying me three extra turns that game.
Overall, I like the Rallier build a lot. Being able to put a ton of power on the board in the early game feels strong, and it's something this deck has been missing. Compared to my old list (which was basically the most recent DeMars list), it seems like you have more game against most of the field -- the only match where I think I'd prefer the DeMars list would be Abzan/Jund, which is an okay match either way, so this feels like an upgrade on first impression. Will definitely be doing more testing.
The key word for Rallier is tempo.
The vast majority of the time the worst case for rallier is either:
3 mana turns into 5 mana worth of dudes (and 5 power)
3 mana for a 3/2, that ramps you 1 (which is better than literally every 3 mana land ramp creature; see Wood Elves)
Tireless Tracker is a much worse tempo card. Firstly it only generates value if you hit it off company or play it on turn 4 with a fetchland to play and crack. Then to draw cards you have to spend mana.
Tracker is always a worse tempo play than rallier. The vast majority of the time, it's either:
A 3 mana 3/2 that dies to lightning bolt, unless you have a land to play when you play it
A 5 mana 4/3 that draws you a card
A 7 mana 5/4 that draws you two cards
Think about how just utterly slow that is. There are midrange matchups that we are already fairly good at that Tracker excels in. Allowing you to break the mana cost up over turns is nice.
But Rallier does something unique -- provides card advantage, sometimes enabling a combo, with almost no tempo loss.
Think about our three card advantage engines (tracker, witness, rallier), and this scenario (which is pretty common at least for me)
Hand: Chord, Fetchland
Board state: 3 lands, Bird, Finks, Seer
Graveyard: Melira, fetchland and coco in the graveyard.
You untap and draw:
1) Eternal Witness. Well cool you witness for coco or witness for melira, play a land and run melira out, cross fingers. You cannot chord (3 untapped creatures, 2 green).
In this scenario you have the combo online but it can be disrupted.
2) Tracker. play and crack fetch, keep clue up, can chord for 2 (1 untapped land, 4 creatures)
You can chord for the combo but it can be disrupted.
3) Rallier. Play and crack fetch, play rallier for melira, can chord for 3 (1 untapped land, 5 creatures)
You can chord for protection or any missing combo piece and have the combo online.
Obviously there are many other scenarios to consider but you can see the massive tempo advantages for rallier; you have the combo online and can protect it vs. have the combo and can be disrupted.
This is a scenario I have run into with eternal witness MANY times; the super slow tempo is horrid. I won't even get into tracker--you can see how miserable that card would be as a topdeck if you need to combo to win.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Saffi's activated ability creates a triggered ability, not a replacement effect. This means Trickbind can mess with it, but also enables it to reset used Finks with Seer.
If Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast are any precedent, you can fulfill an intervening condition while the spell or ability is on the stack and have it work as normal. Not sure how different wording is, so I'm not 100% sure on this.
EDIT: Eh ... the official rulings don't lie, but the wording is just about the same. I'm scratching my head right now hehe.
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
Edit for clarification: So yes you can fulfill it while the rallier or the coco is on the stack, but you cannot do it after you have resolved a coco into rallier because the ability will never go on the stack and rallier will be on the field.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I don't play CoCo currently, but an Abzan Aristocrats deck that runs a fairly similar package to the CoCo lists here, but with Return to the Ranks / Blood Artist win con instead of a combo/CoCo. I'm posting here because this is where the discussion of Rallier is going on. I'll post my current Aristocrats list below.
As soon as Renegade Rallier was spoiled I immediately knew it was going into my Aristocrats deck. Like most of you are reporting, I've found it has extremely strong interactions with Voice of Resurgence, and specifically in my Aristocrats deck, Satyr Wayfinder as well. I also decided to run the Saffi Eriksdotter combo- All the rest of the pieces were already in my deck (Viscera Seer, Blood Artist, and now Rallier) so there really wasn't much opportunity cost to run a 1x Saffi to enable a combo when I had ways to both tutor for her and return her from the yard.
But as I've thought about a more all-in combo list, I've also noticed that Eldritch Evolution is extremely good with Rallier. It auto triggers revolt, so anytime you tutor for Rallier you can return something. Now, I'm not suggesting that the core CoCo list as is + Rallier should now just run Evolution. But I'm thinking, maybe a combo-heavy approach might be great now that Rallier is around. My Aristocrats shell already provides many cheap sac outlets/fodder because that's how the deck was designed- to abuse sac outlets with Blood Artist draining. In fact, in my deck, Eldritch Evolution isn't far off from Chord of Calling, and in some instances is even better. Having Chord 5-8 makes an all-in combo shell much more consistent.
The main gist of my post isn't really to support or recommend some more combo centric version of these shells. I haven't playtested the new cards enough to really make those kinds of statements yet. My post is more to see what peoples' opinions are of Eldritch Evolution now that Rallier is being discussed, because the interaction is quite good. I'm 100% sold on Rallier in my current Aristocrats deck, and I'm also feeling pretty confident that stock CoCo lists are gonna start running Rallier- even without the Saffi combo- simply because of how much value Rallier provides. Anyways, I'm glad that there's a lot of hype around these kinds of decks right now, and hopefully CoCo lists make a return to higher tiers!
Here is my current deck (not all-in combo)
Note: I don't have Fatal Push yet, still on the way :(, but a bunch would in the board.
1 Forest
2 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Razorverge Thicket
1 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Blood Artist
1 Eternal Witness
2 Renegade Rallier
1 Saffi Eriksdotter
4 Satyr Wayfinder
4 Tukatongue Thallid
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Viscera Seer
2 Zulaport Cutthroat
2 Eldritch Evolution
2 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
4 Return to the Ranks
Tried to make this work to get lots of tokens, can only get two elementals out of it before Saffi gets stranded in the yard.
Is that the limit or is there a way with Seer + Voice + Saffi + Rallier to make an arbitrarily large number of dudes?
There is no way to make an arbitrarily large number without panharmonicon that I can think of.
You can make 3 with seer + voice + saffi + rallier --
1) sac voice, make token (1)
2) play rallier, get voice, sac voice, make token (2)
3) sac saffi to protect rallier, sac rallier to scry, rallier returns gets voice sac voice make token (3)
It's not exactly a combo but it does leave you with 3x 5/5s and a 3/2 and a viscera seer and 4 scries, which isn't bad for cards that you would want to play anyway (excepting maybe saffi).
Fetchlands don't draw cards. Canopy/rallier is a way to out-value a grafdigger's cage potentially (or any form of creature-only grave hate like anafenza the foremost or kalitas).
------------------------------------------------------------
Some further commentary;
Fauna Shaman is incredibly strong with rallier. Rallier can get back a dead shaman, and shaman enables you to chuck a rallier target.
Possible we should be considering some more dramatic rebuilds. Will keep you guys apprised of my testing results once I get the new build sleeved up
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I agree the potential is there, but what exactly do we cut for the Shaman? It's not like we're Kiki-Chord and can play Fauna Shaman into Village Bell-Ringer into Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.
. . . On the the other hand, pitching Saffi to Shaman to grab Rallier, then playing Rallier to bring back Saffi (most likely after saccing Shaman to Viscera Seer or cracking a Canopy or fetch) seems like a really good way to assemble the infinite scry engine.
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/26-01-17-abzan-company/
Suggestions welcome!
EDIT: Updated link to non-budget version for discussion.
TL;DR it's a 2/2 split between Renegade Rallier and Eternal Witness
together with Courser/Tracker main deckUW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I updated the above post to my non-budget version. The "only" difference from my previous post is upgrading to Noble Heirarch & Verdant Catacombs.
Discussion on the tempo advantages of Renegade Rallier got me wanting to try a 2/2 split with Eternal Witness.
My plan is to add these to the Courser/Tracker package main deck, instead of 3x Voice of Resurgence. I'm holding off on Voice & Saffi for now to avoid even more reliance on the graveyard.
You have:
4 finks
1 fiend hunter
2 witness
2 rallier
1 courser
2 tracker
You're going to have a bad time operating with a curve like that. Start with 9 and then consider 10 is my recommendation. -2 tracker/-1 courser/+3 voice is a straight swap that will fix that.
It's a hard thing to understand about curves in modern but the numbers of things are there for a reason.
Manabase
* I am a strong advocate of 3 gavony townships. Make of that what you will, there's a long and storied history of the most successful decks playing 23 lands and natural drawing township is good.
* I would run no fewer than 2 horizon canopy with ralliers. (-1 overgrownt omb -1 thicket is probably the right cuts)
Sideboard
* With ralliers, again, I think I would play the sculler package instead of thoughtseize if you think you need that.
* I am not a big fan of abrupt decay because it doesn't remove leyline. I'd probably run fatal push or path in this slot, as you want to deal with Scooze and Kalitas and 1 mana is better. But lots of folks have had luck with AD, your call
Otherwise seems fine I guess, depends on your meta.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I know Rallier and the new Saffi combo are all the rage wight now but I'd like to know what are your thoughts on the Archangel/Spike Feeder package? I personnally still play it because it is not reliant on the graveyard and thus, gets around Relic and RIP. Also, Spike feeder acts as a pseudo Finks #5 in the burn matchup as a way to gain 4 and eat a bolt which is nice value. For reference, here's the list I'm currently running :
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Viscera Seer
2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Spike Feeder
ToolBox
1 Spellskite
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Voice of Resurgence
Core
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
3 Noble Hierarch
3 Eternal Witness
2 Wall of Roots
Lands
1 Swamp
2 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
2 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
1 Horizon Canopy
2 Marsh Flats
4 Windswept Heath
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
2 Anafenza, the Foremost
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Path to Exile
1 Pharika, God of Affliction
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Sin Collector
1 Voice of Resurgence
1 Orzhov Pontiff
I'm looking to add the Ralliers while still keeping the Angel/Feeder but maindeck space is tight. I'm thinking -1 Eternal Witness, -1 Viscera Seer, +2 Renegade Rallier. Also, moving the Scooze to the Sideboard to add the second Voice of Resurgence maindeck to improve the Value Rallier plan. My meta is split between Aggro and Control (esper draw-go, blue moon, grixis) with some (common) rogue decks such as 8-Rack.
WGB Traverse
I always went back and forth between Abrupt Decay and Celestial Purge myself: one gets rid of Ensnaring Bridge and Grafdigger's Cage, the other gets rid of Night of Soul's Betrayal and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, and both hit Liliana of the Veil and Dark Confidant. However, the correct call may just be to up the number of Qasali Pridemage we run in our 75 because of Renegade Rallier and run 3-4x Push/Path/Slaughter Pact and 1x Pulse/Beast Within/Anguished Unmaking/something that can hit Nahiri, the Harbinger
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
I do not think feeder/archangel is well positioned right now. Archangel is just slow. I don't see a need to play redcap either until we evaluate whether the rallier aggro beats plan is good enough to squeak out a decent tron matchup.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
5 mana angel in a deck that likes to curve at turn 3 with 3 lands + 1 mana dork is bad deck building.
anafenza also enables infinite +1/+1 tokens and is also able to get hit by coco.
using chord to tutor any of the missing pieces mentioned above is still a lower cost investment which allows you to dodge potential mana leaks or allow multiple end turn plays like path to exile + chord/coco.
angel combo isn't even that good in kiki-chord despite it having the foundation to support it as that deck prefers to either go combo kill with redcap, anafenza, melira or the current saffi, rallier combo. the kiki-resto combo is usually to break deadlocks or finish the game before the opponent turns a corner.
Active thread contributor of Jeskai Prowess Tempo
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Wall of Roots
Core
2 Viscera Seer
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
3 Kitchen Finks
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
Flex
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Tireless Tracker
3 Voice of Resurgence
3 Renegade Rallier
1 Saffi Eriksdotter
1 Fiend Hunter
3 Gavony Township
2 Horizon Canopy
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
2 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Path to Exile
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
1 Murderous Redcap
As you can see, I'm all in on Rallier for the sake of testing -- no Witnesses, 3 Voices, 3 Ralliers and a Saffi.
About Saffi -- I'm still not 100% convinced, because I missed Spellskite hard against Infect (and Abzan bc paths), but I did like the card a lot. There was one sequence against merfolk that comes to mind, where I swung into their board of two creatures with my Rallier and Voice: they went to block, I chorded for Saffi, sacced Saffi targeting Rallier, traded with both their dudes, got a Voice token, Rallier came back, Voice came back. That's a ridiculous amount of value. I only pulled off the combo proper once, and it was win-more when it happened, but as a value piece alone Saffi put in work.
About Rallier -- love it love it love it. It's already been mentioned, but the tempo you get with Rallier is the nuts. My Abzan opponent in Game 1 didn't realize I was on the Rallier plan -- I went T1 Birds, he went T1 Thoughtseize discarding my Voice, I topdecked a Rallier, played and cracked a fetch, played Rallier bringing back Voice. It was a pretty easy beatdown game from there. Then there was a game against Ponza where I had Viscera Seer and Rallier in hand, with an Anafenza in the yard and a Finks on the field, on only four lands -- with Witness, that wouldn't have been a win, but with Rallier it could have been (it wasn't, though, because nothing in my hand was castable thanks to Blood Moon -_-).
About Tireless Tracker -- I still jam three and a Courser because I just can't help myself. Graveyard hate is still pretty prevalent where I'm at so I don't feel like I can depend on combo / Rallier shenanigans so much in games two and three. Against Abzan, for example, my opponent saw 2x Surgical Extraction in game two and used them to pull out Kitchen Finks and Rallier -- I cared exactly zero about that, because I was totally off the combo and only had 2 Ralliers in deck with no Saffi postboard. He ran out of cards a couple of turns later, during which time I cracked five clues and totally overwhelmed him. Courser pulled its weight too, keeping me stocked on lands against Ponza. The 1x Tracker and 1x Courser in my maindeck are the slots that would go to Witnesses, but I just wanted to rely less on the graveyard -- I never ran into a situation where I wanted Witness, for what its worth, but I would consider switching these slots back to Witness in the right meta. Edit: I could also see it being correct to just run an extra Viscera Seer and Kitchen Finks in these slots, it did feel weird to be so light on combo pieces.
About Fiend Hunter -- This still seems necessary to me, especially since this build is so focused on getting the combo in game one. I feel like otherwise we'd just scoop to a resolved Scooze. Card put in work over the course of the night -- it did kill a Scooze once, and it took out an Inferno Titan against Ponza, which ended up buying me three extra turns that game.
Overall, I like the Rallier build a lot. Being able to put a ton of power on the board in the early game feels strong, and it's something this deck has been missing. Compared to my old list (which was basically the most recent DeMars list), it seems like you have more game against most of the field -- the only match where I think I'd prefer the DeMars list would be Abzan/Jund, which is an okay match either way, so this feels like an upgrade on first impression. Will definitely be doing more testing.