Blue splash is terrible. 1) That combo is entirely irrelevant to what our deck is doing, since we don't have a use for infinite mana. 2) We have no way to tutor for enchantments, making it unlikely to pull off this irrelevant combo. 3) Bloom Tender on its own is meh, and Freed From the Real on its own is maybe the worst thing you could have in your hand short of a singleton Hedron Alignment. 4) Enchantments are a great way to get 2-for-1'ed, so the combo wouldn't even be very good if it was relevant. 5) You're splashing an entire extra color just for this. Sorry to be so blunt but this forum is focused on developing a competitive deck, and Bloom Tender combo ain't that.
About the Ari Lax article: I'm also on the wrong side of the paywall, would be very grateful if someone could summarize.
Anyone have thoughts on the single Tireless Tracker in Jermol Jupiter's deck? Just one Tracker in the main, none in the sideboard and no Courser of Kruphix either.
He cut down to 3 Kitchen Finks to fit in the Tracker, so anyone think they know why?
With 3 Ralliers you'd be returning fetches which would be great with Tracker but it that enough reason to cut 1x Finks?
Oh man, I hate to be that guy, but... I would really like to see that fair abzan list from the Ari article.
Re the singleton Tracker: it does help to enable revolt, which is nice, and it's an amazing threat against midrange and control. Just helps to keep the deck ticking. I think he probably just thought it was fine to shave to three Finks bc of the backup combo, I doubt he was looking at Finks and Tracker as a direct swap. I've tried out 3x Finks and it seems fine, haven't tested enough to notice a difference yet though. I do think it's kinda weird to only run one Tracker, but I'd rather have one than zero.
Blue splash is terrible. 1) That combo is entirely irrelevant to what our deck is doing, since we don't have a use for infinite mana. 2) We have no way to tutor for enchantments, making it unlikely to pull off this irrelevant combo. 3) Bloom Tender on its own is meh, and Freed From the Real on its own is maybe the worst thing you could have in your hand short of a singleton Hedron Alignment. 4) Enchantments are a great way to get 2-for-1'ed, so the combo wouldn't even be very good if it was relevant. 5) You're splashing an entire extra color just for this. Sorry to be so blunt but this forum is focused on developing a competitive deck, and Bloom Tender combo ain't that.
While I agree a blue splash or infinite mana combo is not where we want to be, I have to ask what Tier you think Abzan Company is now? Because it isn't Tier 0, Tier 1, or even Tier 2.
What we should be focused on is innovating by any means necessary to make this deck a more viable pick.
While I agree a blue splash or infinite mana combo is not where we want to be, I have to ask what Tier you think Abzan Company is now? Because it isn't Tier 0, Tier 1, or even Tier 2.
We were the top deck in the format for a hot minute last year, T1 for a while longer, and we'd likely still be T2 if the deck was playable online. With Dredge being nerfed we're pretty likely to stage a comeback -- everyone's been talking about this for weeks.
"Terrible" was probably a bit harsh of a word, if that's what you're getting at here then fair, my bad. I don't want to hurt feelings or discourage people from posting / getting creative. But if your point is that we're a bad deck so it's okay to post bad ideas... just, no. The forum we're in is literally titled "Developing Competitive." Ideas that clearly aren't competitive should be labeled as such and set aside.
And that's not to say that there's no space for brainstorming, but like, at least provide reasoning for why you think the idea is good? "Hey guys, I added Tron to the manabase, here's a rough list, feels good." ...That isn't helpful to anyone.
What we should be focused on is innovating by any means necessary to make this deck a more viable pick.
People are doing lots of innovation right now, this is the most active the thread has been in months. If you look back through the thread, I've been (and everyone's been) very open minded towards changes and innovations lately. People have started cutting Witnesses and Finks! That's crazy! But if what you mean by "any means necessary" is that we should all be building plainly ridiculous jank... again, no. Post jank for laughs if you want, but if you post it with a straight face then someone, maybe me, is gonna tell you it's bad.
Guys it is very against the rules to ask for or share paywalled stuff. Just an FYI
From the official Forum Rules and Guidelines - "Please note that in the case of premium articles, sharing a decklist for the purposes of discussing is acceptable, but requesting decklists solely available in a premium article is not."
While I agree a blue splash or infinite mana combo is not where we want to be, I have to ask what Tier you think Abzan Company is now? Because it isn't Tier 0, Tier 1, or even Tier 2.
We were the top deck in the format for a hot minute last year, T1 for a while longer, and we'd likely still be T2 if the deck was playable online. With Dredge being nerfed we're pretty likely to stage a comeback -- everyone's been talking about this for weeks.
"Terrible" was probably a bit harsh of a word, if that's what you're getting at here then fair, my bad. I don't want to hurt feelings or discourage people from posting / getting creative. But if your point is that we're a bad deck so it's okay to post bad ideas... just, no. The forum we're in is literally titled "Developing Competitive." Ideas that clearly aren't competitive should be labeled as such and set aside.
And that's not to say that there's no space for brainstorming, but like, at least provide reasoning for why you think the idea is good? "Hey guys, I added Tron to the manabase, here's a rough list, feels good." ...That isn't helpful to anyone.
What we should be focused on is innovating by any means necessary to make this deck a more viable pick.
People are doing lots of innovation right now, this is the most active the thread has been in months. If you look back through the thread, I've been (and everyone's been) very open minded towards changes and innovations lately. People have started cutting Witnesses and Finks! That's crazy! But if what you mean by "any means necessary" is that we should all be building plainly ridiculous jank... again, no. Post jank for laughs if you want, but if you post it with a straight face then someone, maybe me, is gonna tell you it's bad.
My apologies for the late reply: worked 3rd shift last night then had to walk home.
Anyhow, my point was that we are a deck struggling to maintain relevancy, particularly against other creature-toolbox decks like Kiki Chord, and that we should at least evaluate the ideas presented before outright dismissing them as jank.
As for being open minded and cutting Witnesses and Finks:
The same three cards that have been used in value-oriented builds (Courser, Tracker, Voice) are being talked about more. Which is great, but it isn't exactly that innovative. Saffi as a combo-enabler and pseudo-Spellskite, I admit, is pretty ingenious though.
The only strong interaction Witness provides that Rallier doesn't is the chaining of Companies. And where the two intersect, Rallier does a better job overall as long as you have Revolt active.
Cutting Finks in a combo-oriented build is a mistake in my opinion, but most new lists are going towards value-town anyway, so I can see reason to cut 1.
So, yeah, we're innovating, but most of that innovation is tossing the same ideas around. Meanwhile, you (and maybe others) seem to be shutting down any kind of discussion for a Red or Blue splash. In my case in particular, you disregard Stingscourger as an option over Fiend Hunter despite it enabling Revolt without Seer and being retrievable with Rallier. And while it may not be the best choice if Blue or Red are the only options (Sidisi's Faithful looks really nice as we can Chord for it more easily, use blue more efficiently thanks to Hierarch and maybe Spellskite, etc.), it is still better than having Fiend Hunter with only 2 to 3 sacrifice outlets main against the likes of Jund and Abzan where we need that Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet off the field before we can combo.
@jayprev. Thanks for the explanation. Do you find yourself missing the Redcap at all?
In the majority of matchups, not even a little bit since most decks scoop to infinite life right now. I've been tossing one in the sideboard lately to help race against Tron and Emrakul decks -- haven't really decided if that's worth it, but I definitely don't miss it in the main.
From the official Forum Rules and Guidelines - "Please note that in the case of premium articles, sharing a decklist for the purposes of discussing is acceptable, but requesting decklists solely available in a premium article is not."
Thanks for looking into that, and for sharing! Assumed that was the case since that's how r/spikes handles it on reddit, should've checked the rules here first to make sure though.
I have been on almost exactly Ari Lax's deck for more than a year, since BFZ came out. It's my favorite deck and I play it almost every week so i think i could consider myself experienced with it : i'm not a super competitive grinder so I don't really do very large events, but I have had great success with it having my fair share of top8 in PPTQs, bigger local monthly Modern events and I go 3-0 FNMs more often than not.
Your list and Ari's both look really cool! I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this type of build in the future. I was interested because I've noticed that I'm getting a lot of my wins via beatdown anyway recently. I can see the big mana / combo matchups being worse without the melira combo, but maindeck Scullers look pretty sweet to mitigate that -- if you're playing in midrange.metagame I could see this sort of build being great. Will probably brew something up for that thread before too long.
You (and maybe others) seem to be shutting down any kind of discussion for a Red or Blue splash. In my case in particular, you disregard Stingscourger as an option over Fiend Hunter despite it enabling Revolt without Seer and being retrievable with Rallier. And while it may not be the best choice if Blue or Red are the only options (Sidisi's Faithful looks really nice as we can Chord for it more easily, use blue more efficiently thanks to Hierarch and maybe Spellskite, etc.), it is still better than having Fiend Hunter with only 2 to 3 sacrifice outlets main against the likes of Jund and Abzan where we need that Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet off the field before we can combo.
Sooooo this is still about the red splash thing, got it. I think that splashing a fourth color opens the deck up to some weaknesses and that the strengths added by the cards you'd be splashing for aren't worth opening the deck up to those weaknesses. It isn't a controversial opinion that adding a fourth color is greedy. If that makes me the fun police, fine. I'll refrain from commenting on further posts about the splash since my opinion's already out there.
In the meantime, if you'd like to provide us with an explanation of why Freed From the Real is secretly amazing in this deck I would LOVE to hear it. Otherwise, yeah, we should stop talking about that.
You (and maybe others) seem to be shutting down any kind of discussion for a Red or Blue splash. In my case in particular, you disregard Stingscourger as an option over Fiend Hunter despite it enabling Revolt without Seer and being retrievable with Rallier. And while it may not be the best choice if Blue or Red are the only options (Sidisi's Faithful looks really nice as we can Chord for it more easily, use blue more efficiently thanks to Hierarch and maybe Spellskite, etc.), it is still better than having Fiend Hunter with only 2 to 3 sacrifice outlets main against the likes of Jund and Abzan where we need that Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet off the field before we can combo.
Sooooo this is still about the red splash thing, got it. I think that splashing a fourth color opens the deck up to some weaknesses and that the strengths added by the cards you'd be splashing for aren't worth opening the deck up to those weaknesses. It isn't a controversial opinion that adding a fourth color is greedy. If that makes me the fun police, fine. I'll refrain from commenting on further posts about the splash since my opinion's already out there.
In the meantime, if you'd like to provide us with an explanation of why Freed From the Real is secretly amazing in this deck I would LOVE to hear it. Otherwise, yeah, we should stop talking about that.
Blue splash is terrible. 1) That combo is entirely irrelevant to what our deck is doing, since we don't have a use for infinite mana. 2) We have no way to tutor for enchantments, making it unlikely to pull off this irrelevant combo. 3) Bloom Tender on its own is meh, and Freed From the Real on its own is maybe the worst thing you could have in your hand short of a singleton Hedron Alignment. 4) Enchantments are a great way to get 2-for-1'ed, so the combo wouldn't even be very good if it was relevant. 5) You're splashing an entire extra color just for this. Sorry to be so blunt but this forum is focused on developing a competitive deck, and Bloom Tender combo ain't that.
While I agree a blue splash or infinite mana combo is not where we want to be, I have to ask what Tier you think Abzan Company is now? Because it isn't Tier 0, Tier 1, or even Tier 2.
What we should be focused on is innovating by any means necessary to make this deck a more viable pick.
I already said before that I think infinite mana (implicitly including with Freed from Real combos) is not at all where we want to be. I'm not arguing for Freed from the Real or Keldon Marauders or even Purphoros, God of the Forge despite my previous stance on it. I'm arguing for the potential for blue or red as a splash ... not a full-fledged color, but as a splash.
And I'm well aware that running a 4th color is greedy, that's why I'm looking at what benefits there are to adding a splash in addition to the obvious detriment of potential color screw, and the magnitude of all benefits and detriments.
Also, for reference, you know our fellow creature-toolbox deck, Kiki Chord? This one? (link) It splashes Black for a variety of different cards, namely Orzhov Pontiff and targetted-discard-on-a-stick, despite having RRR and GGG mana-costs. And while I admit we do not require a splash to function in a blind meta, the excuse 'it's greedy to add a 4th color' doesn't invalidate a splash, especially when we only require GGG, WW, and sometimes BB if running Redcap.
What we should be focused on is innovating by any means necessary to make this deck a more viable pick.
If you just wanted to talk about the splash again you could've said so. I already said I'd fall back if you have something positive to post about the splash so I don't really know what your goal is here.
@jayprev Want me to underline and capitalize my statement agreeing with you that infinite mana is not where we want to be as well as putting it in bold? I defended the post not for the contents of the post itself, but because you seemed eager to shut down any talk of unconventional experimentation (though specifically I was referring to splashes).
Yes we should use discretion when evaluating card choices. However, when it comes to that uncharted territory between staple and jank, discretion should be accompanied by discussion and experimentation.
Added Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded for card advantage, Desperate Ravings to take advantage of self-discard and Intangible Virtue for synergy with Voice tokens -- had to shave a couple of spells to find room. Manabase works great. Pls don't be mean and dismiss the ideas.
Added Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded for card advantage, Desperate Ravings to take advantage of self-discard and Intangible Virtue for synergy with Voice tokens -- had to shave a couple of spells to find room. Manabase works great. Pls don't be mean and dismiss the ideas.
At this point you aren't open-minded; you are just mocking me without actually listening to what I'm saying (or rather reading what I'm typing), so there is no point actually trying to be reasonable with you.
Looking at your 'list' though, I've forgotten a key component of deck building--that is each card should help with the overall strategy either directly or indirectly. Fiend Hunter and Qasali Pridemage help against hate (also Sc.Ooze to some extent against Surgical Extraction effects), and Saffi/Spellskite/BFT/Selfless Spirit against removal/sweepers. In this way, Voice is a subpar card in a combo-build.
So yeah, ideas that don't contribute anything to either plan A or plan B fail step 1 of evaluation (step 2 may be: is it abstractly good?), but ideas that can should be evaluated further (in the example of a splash, finding a more tempo-ish replacement to Fiend Hunter that is better against removal heavy decks).
I'm going to try deadeye harpooner tonight. I'm thinking the situational nature might make it bad but people might also start playing around it by not attacking, which is to my advantage in general (since my goal in grave hate games is to play some voices, evolutionary leap and gavony township).
Harpooner also seems MUCH better against burn and other aggro deck
I don't know. The exile a creature tapped or untapped power of Fiend Hunter is better than destroy or -3 if revolt triggered. Especially with a sac outlet on the board, then you can permanently exile. Plus one Gavony activation or Anafenza puts Fiend hunter out of bolt range, and even as a 1/3 isn't a bad hard cast early blocker.
About the Ari Lax article: I'm also on the wrong side of the paywall, would be very grateful if someone could summarize.
He cut down to 3 Kitchen Finks to fit in the Tracker, so anyone think they know why?
With 3 Ralliers you'd be returning fetches which would be great with Tracker but it that enough reason to cut 1x Finks?
Re the singleton Tracker: it does help to enable revolt, which is nice, and it's an amazing threat against midrange and control. Just helps to keep the deck ticking. I think he probably just thought it was fine to shave to three Finks bc of the backup combo, I doubt he was looking at Finks and Tracker as a direct swap. I've tried out 3x Finks and it seems fine, haven't tested enough to notice a difference yet though. I do think it's kinda weird to only run one Tracker, but I'd rather have one than zero.
While I agree a blue splash or infinite mana combo is not where we want to be, I have to ask what Tier you think Abzan Company is now? Because it isn't Tier 0, Tier 1, or even Tier 2.
What we should be focused on is innovating by any means necessary to make this deck a more viable pick.
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
We were the top deck in the format for a hot minute last year, T1 for a while longer, and we'd likely still be T2 if the deck was playable online. With Dredge being nerfed we're pretty likely to stage a comeback -- everyone's been talking about this for weeks.
"Terrible" was probably a bit harsh of a word, if that's what you're getting at here then fair, my bad. I don't want to hurt feelings or discourage people from posting / getting creative. But if your point is that we're a bad deck so it's okay to post bad ideas... just, no. The forum we're in is literally titled "Developing Competitive." Ideas that clearly aren't competitive should be labeled as such and set aside.
And that's not to say that there's no space for brainstorming, but like, at least provide reasoning for why you think the idea is good? "Hey guys, I added Tron to the manabase, here's a rough list, feels good." ...That isn't helpful to anyone.
People are doing lots of innovation right now, this is the most active the thread has been in months. If you look back through the thread, I've been (and everyone's been) very open minded towards changes and innovations lately. People have started cutting Witnesses and Finks! That's crazy! But if what you mean by "any means necessary" is that we should all be building plainly ridiculous jank... again, no. Post jank for laughs if you want, but if you post it with a straight face then someone, maybe me, is gonna tell you it's bad.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
From the official Forum Rules and Guidelines - "Please note that in the case of premium articles, sharing a decklist for the purposes of discussing is acceptable, but requesting decklists solely available in a premium article is not."
Discuss away:
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Eternal Witness
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Tireless Tracker
3 Voice of Resurgence
3 Wasteland Strangler
Lands (22)
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Marsh Flats
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Razorverge Thicket
1 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Abrupt Decay
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Orzhov Pontiff
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Worship
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
My apologies for the late reply: worked 3rd shift last night then had to walk home.
Anyhow, my point was that we are a deck struggling to maintain relevancy, particularly against other creature-toolbox decks like Kiki Chord, and that we should at least evaluate the ideas presented before outright dismissing them as jank.
As for being open minded and cutting Witnesses and Finks:
So, yeah, we're innovating, but most of that innovation is tossing the same ideas around. Meanwhile, you (and maybe others) seem to be shutting down any kind of discussion for a Red or Blue splash. In my case in particular, you disregard Stingscourger as an option over Fiend Hunter despite it enabling Revolt without Seer and being retrievable with Rallier. And while it may not be the best choice if Blue or Red are the only options (Sidisi's Faithful looks really nice as we can Chord for it more easily, use blue more efficiently thanks to Hierarch and maybe Spellskite, etc.), it is still better than having Fiend Hunter with only 2 to 3 sacrifice outlets main against the likes of Jund and Abzan where we need that Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet off the field before we can combo.
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
In the majority of matchups, not even a little bit since most decks scoop to infinite life right now. I've been tossing one in the sideboard lately to help race against Tron and Emrakul decks -- haven't really decided if that's worth it, but I definitely don't miss it in the main.
Thanks for looking into that, and for sharing! Assumed that was the case since that's how r/spikes handles it on reddit, should've checked the rules here first to make sure though.
Your list and Ari's both look really cool! I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this type of build in the future. I was interested because I've noticed that I'm getting a lot of my wins via beatdown anyway recently. I can see the big mana / combo matchups being worse without the melira combo, but maindeck Scullers look pretty sweet to mitigate that -- if you're playing in midrange.metagame I could see this sort of build being great. Will probably brew something up for that thread before too long.
Sooooo this is still about the red splash thing, got it. I think that splashing a fourth color opens the deck up to some weaknesses and that the strengths added by the cards you'd be splashing for aren't worth opening the deck up to those weaknesses. It isn't a controversial opinion that adding a fourth color is greedy. If that makes me the fun police, fine. I'll refrain from commenting on further posts about the splash since my opinion's already out there.
In the meantime, if you'd like to provide us with an explanation of why Freed From the Real is secretly amazing in this deck I would LOVE to hear it. Otherwise, yeah, we should stop talking about that.
I already said before that I think infinite mana (implicitly including with Freed from Real combos) is not at all where we want to be. I'm not arguing for Freed from the Real or Keldon Marauders or even Purphoros, God of the Forge despite my previous stance on it. I'm arguing for the potential for blue or red as a splash ... not a full-fledged color, but as a splash.
And I'm well aware that running a 4th color is greedy, that's why I'm looking at what benefits there are to adding a splash in addition to the obvious detriment of potential color screw, and the magnitude of all benefits and detriments.
Also, for reference, you know our fellow creature-toolbox deck, Kiki Chord? This one? (link) It splashes Black for a variety of different cards, namely Orzhov Pontiff and targetted-discard-on-a-stick, despite having RRR and GGG mana-costs. And while I admit we do not require a splash to function in a blind meta, the excuse 'it's greedy to add a 4th color' doesn't invalidate a splash, especially when we only require GGG, WW, and sometimes BB if running Redcap.
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
But you jumped in to defend the post with:
If you just wanted to talk about the splash again you could've said so. I already said I'd fall back if you have something positive to post about the splash so I don't really know what your goal is here.
Yes we should use discretion when evaluating card choices. However, when it comes to that uncharted territory between staple and jank, discretion should be accompanied by discussion and experimentation.
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
2 Wall of Roots
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Voice of Resurgence
3 Renegade Rallier
1 Saffi Eriksdotter
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
2 Loxodon Smiter
2 Kitchen Finks
3 Eternal Witness
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Blood Artist
3 Viscera Seer
1 Qasali Pridemage
4 Chord of Calling
1 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Woodland Cemetery
i am currently testing this. deck feels good. i like the alternate win con with blood artist. been catching many people off guard with it.
renegade rallier is so good!
Active thread contributor of Jeskai Prowess Tempo
3 Collected Company
3 Chord of Calling
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Wall of Roots
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Viscera Seer
Flex
4 Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
4 Desperate Ravings
2 Intangible Virtue
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Renegade Rallier
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Sandsteppe Citadel
4 Opulent Palace
4 Nomad Outpost
4 Mana Confluence
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Urza's Tower
1 Urza's Mine
1 Urza's Power Plant
4 Rest in Peace
4 Goblin Electromancer
1 Chord of Calling
1 Collected Company
1 Myr Battlesphere
4 Hedron Alignment
Added Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded for card advantage, Desperate Ravings to take advantage of self-discard and Intangible Virtue for synergy with Voice tokens -- had to shave a couple of spells to find room. Manabase works great. Pls don't be mean and dismiss the ideas.
Edit: Goblin Electromancer = cheap Cocos.
Lookin' forward to seeing how it tests out tonight.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
At this point you aren't open-minded; you are just mocking me without actually listening to what I'm saying (or rather reading what I'm typing), so there is no point actually trying to be reasonable with you.
Looking at your 'list' though, I've forgotten a key component of deck building--that is each card should help with the overall strategy either directly or indirectly. Fiend Hunter and Qasali Pridemage help against hate (also Sc.Ooze to some extent against Surgical Extraction effects), and Saffi/Spellskite/BFT/Selfless Spirit against removal/sweepers. In this way, Voice is a subpar card in a combo-build.
So yeah, ideas that don't contribute anything to either plan A or plan B fail step 1 of evaluation (step 2 may be: is it abstractly good?), but ideas that can should be evaluated further (in the example of a splash, finding a more tempo-ish replacement to Fiend Hunter that is better against removal heavy decks).
Avatar and Signature by XenoNinja via Heroes of the Plane Studios
Has anyone spent time with Flickerwisp? Not sure if this is an improvement but I've seen people mention it as a potential Fiend Hunter replacement.
Harpooner also seems MUCH better against burn and other aggro deck
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Modern
URB Grixis Delver
GWB Abzan Company
RWB Mardu Burn
WB Martyr Proc