Day 1 went 3-3 at SCG Baltimore. Lost to the mirror on a back to back CoCo whiff, lost to burn (but won another burn matchup), and lost 1-2 to deaths shadow. I'll post a full write up tomorrow.
Trust me on this, you want the 4th witness over rallier. The clunkiness in multiples is outweighed by them acting as an additional combo piece and chaining cocos.
I think 1 viscera seer will become the norm as the 7th 1 cmc dork allowing you to kill turn 4 by casting a coco on turn 3 is important.
Otherwise the list seems great. I don't care for the invoker but to each their own
Kiki chord is such a stupid joke of a deck now that I don't think I would lose much sleep over it. It's never going to be a major concern. Pontiff and linvala are solid. Problem is they'll go bigger than you so playing paths is sketchy - you just wind up being a worse version of their deck. But you probably still have to.
Scooze is the definer of the matchup since they can rarely combo without witness shenanigans, and that plus Gavony should enable you to win. It doesn't seem like scooze should be so important but blinking witness and recurring their removal spells or blinking witness into combo is one of their most common wins vs. us.
Just watching the SCG Open round 14 Piland on Counters vs Brad Nelson and I really don't know how this guy (Piland) is 11-3. I have never seen such a run of terrible decisions in my life. It's not just bad play...it's like he suddenly decided he didn't want to win anymore and deliberately did everything necessary to punt. I'm sitting here tearing my hair out...
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Some people like to win MtG matches in the Red Zone. I prefer to win the way God intended: on the stack.
That was a sad watch wouldn't the path he had in hand on the snapcaster when Brad tried to kill it with izzet been the win for him in game 2? It would have made it so he couldn't double cast kolaghans for the 4 ptns of dmg? or was that not a viable play? Also he seemed to be prioritizing eternal witness to keep casting cocos when he coulda chorded for something like a finks or possibly a silver bullet he brought in. There was a lot of odd choices i would imagine he was very tired by that point and if hes just a casual gamer that kind of endurance wears on ya. I know when i go to a larger event that's 7 or 8 rounds my head is pounding by the end of it if its been awhile since i did a big event in a day.
I agree with @pokken - it feels like a tier 1 combo deck that is not oppressive.
I went 3-3 at SCG Baltimore, and I'll run briefly thought my experiences:
R1: Mirror (loss)
Game 1, on the play, I had T3 Druid/Vizier live, but only a CoCo to cast with it. Whiffed 100% on that cast (6 lands, wtf). He had the Combo T3 on the crackback. G2-G3 went T3 to whoever was on the play. We finished this full round in like 12 minutes total.
R2: Burn (win)
I stole this matchup - generally its bad.
Game 1 I managed a T3 CoCo into double finks, which was the only way I had game against him. Game 2 I had a Burrenton Forge-Tender and Finks in my opener, which did the trick. It got grindy towards the end; but Township + Finks did the trick. Zero possibility of combo here.
R3: Eldrazi Tron (win)
Dude made some serious punts. At one point I had a Druid on board; and a hand that was Chord of Calling, Collected Company, Rhonas, and Finks... and he took Finks. I'm sure he understands the combo much better now.
R4: Burn (loss)
This was as it normally goes. Just had nothing. I managed to get a Kor Firewalker on board at one point, but was not sufficient. This opponent went into the top 64 for the event.
R5: Elves (win)
This is one of the easiest matchups possible. 2-0, goldfishing. I won one game on a mulligan to 4. This just feels unlosable.
R6: Death's Shadow Jund (loss)
I was paired up; he was 4-1 and I was 3-2. Regardless, he knew his *****.
Game 1, he thoughtseized my mana outlet (Rhonas) and left me with Druid/Vizier. I managed to Topdeck a Walking Ballista the next turn and he was dead.
Game 2/3 he had immense pressure + discard + early Grafdiggers Cage. Just didn't have enough grind against him.
3-3; I'm happy with the decisions I made and how I played. Could have swung either way. Overall quite happy with the deck.
That was a sad watch wouldn't the path he had in hand on the snapcaster when Brad tried to kill it with izzet been the win for him in game 2? It would have made it so he couldn't double cast kolaghans for the 4 ptns of dmg? or was that not a viable play? Also he seemed to be prioritizing eternal witness to keep casting cocos when he coulda chorded for something like a finks or possibly a silver bullet he brought in. There was a lot of odd choices i would imagine he was very tired by that point and if hes just a casual gamer that kind of endurance wears on ya. I know when i go to a larger event that's 7 or 8 rounds my head is pounding by the end of it if its been awhile since i did a big event in a day.
You are being very understanding and remind me that I should be more charitable. I am sure he is just kicking himself right now. So if we decide to look at it as a learning exercise...you have to kill the Staticaster immediately. It shuts you out of too much of your deck and you just can't play around it. When it came down and killed the BoP Piland had two P2E in hand and four E Witness still in his deck, so there can be no excuse for not killing it on the spot. If you are afraid of Tasigur/Death's Shadow/Angler then you can always Ewit it back later anyway. Playing against a deck with so much hand destruction, I think you have to assume you're going to need to do that anyway. In fact, when he Chorded for 4 I thought he'd spotted his screw up and tapped an extra W into his pool so he could Ewit back a P2E and kill the Staticaster. And while I always hate giving my oppo a land, especially when he's land light, you cannot tolerate the Staticaster living. He also had Druid in hand for ever...So he finishes 18th and Nelson wins the tournament.
And yeah, even right at the end he could have Pathed the Snapcaster to break up the double KCommand. I'm wondering if he hadn't completely given up by then.
Thoughts on switching to straight GW combo with a more aggressive plan? Has anyone had any success with this? I dislike Abzan CoCo and the consistency issues it brings.
When you really think about it, you are only playing one or two cards to accommodate the black elements of the deck, meaning you aren't adding any significant consistently issues. The rest of the cards are the same, but in return for adding one Viscera Seer and maybe one tree spirit you get access to a secondary combo that doesn't need to untap to go off. You also get access to good sideboard cards like Pulse, Decay and Big Game Hunter. On one hand I agree with you as I was never a fan of Abzan CoCo in it's previous incarnation but I think I like it a lot more now that it's got three different legit routes to victory.
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Some people like to win MtG matches in the Red Zone. I prefer to win the way God intended: on the stack.
My general opinion is that Kitchen Finks is the weakest link. Most times I saw it on camera this weekend it was not great. Rallier feels much better positioned atm.
With 4 birds in you deck list I don't think there's a reason not to splash though. Some thoughts:
* If you are playing finks you should play 1 viscera seer and one overgrown tomb. It's essentially free and gives you an angle to win some unwinnable games, since you can win at instant speed vs. needing to untap with druid.
* If you are not playing finks, you should probably be playing renegade rallier in its spot, which makes playing 8 fetchlands a good idea, which makes a splash virtually free. The exception might be if you decide to play some number of ghost quarters.
* In a U splash, Spell Queller is OKAY, but tested poorly for me. I would try Rogue Refiner before Queller, and sideboard reflector mages.
* The red splash has kessig wolf run which has been spectacular in testing for me. It also has Lightning Mauler which is a way to make Druid win on the turn it drops, and some great anti-big-mana sideboard cards. Red also has the most efficient mirror breaker (Harsh Mentor).
* Evolution builds have not seemed to bear up under scrutiny. They're soft to countermagic and removal.
* The main draw to a GW build with no splash is a slightly more stable manabase that allows playing ghost quarters, which does not seem good enough to me.
* Human Tribal is another potential angle for GW without a splash, but the desirability of that is based on Cavern of Souls which enables easy splashes for great cards like Orzhov Pontiff. Abzan Falconer and Thalia's Lieutenant and Metallic Mimic all could enable a very fast beatdown deck with a combo finish with Mirror Entity or Duskwatch. Noble Hierarch and Avacyn's Pilgrim do a great job fixing mana.
My personal take thus far is that the R splash is the best mix of consistency and beatdown potential for me -- it somewhat splits the difference between evolution builds and the more resilient finks builds. Wolf run enables a lot of wins that Township would not and gives a more optimized number of infinite mana outlets without having to play lots of iffy cards.
I don't think there is a lot of merit in playing straight GW without a complete rethink, and even then I am not sure it's there. I've seen some builds and they tend to misunderstand how important deriving lots of value from 3 CMC creatures is.
Playing random 3-drops like Tireless Tracker and Knight of the Reliquary miss the point -- the reason we play 4 witness and 4 finks (or 4 rallier in my list) is to drown your opponent in cards. Finks and Witness represent 2-4 cards each without any real regard to what your opponent is doing.
It would take some serious results to get me on the train to running any fewer than 8 value (mulldrifters, in the Chapin parlance) creatures at 3 cmc.
Geez, thanks for your reasoning behind that! Now i will totally take her out of my list! /s
In the goldfishing i did Emrakul proved to be more than good enough to play than the ballista. When the ballista gets Thoughtseized, Inquisitioned or similar the deck does what Abzan Company did before but way worse. Emrakul shuffles back in if need be and a turn 3 Annihilator 6 also seals the deal.
Further it plays around Leyline and other Hexproof stuff that opponents may bring in.
I can't quite remember the Sideboard (I'm at work right now) but it was somewhat generic of Abzan Company. Need to put some thuoght into that.
What are your thoughts?
I'm assuming that you aren't running CoCos because of having siege rhino and ballista in the deck? I think not playing CoCo is probably a bad call because it gives us such a good board state and can set up the combo at the end of an opponents turn.
Out of curiosity, why are you not running eternal witness?
How's using one rallier worked out?
I haven't tried Emrakul, but probably won't because if you don't have the combo then you really can't do anything with it for a large number of turns (if at all!). How many games have you managed to play it when the opponent has disrupted the combo by removing/exiling a creature?
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I'm assuming that you aren't running CoCos because of having siege rhino and ballista in the deck? I think not playing CoCo is probably a bad call because it gives us such a good board state and can set up the combo at the end of an opponents turn.
Out of curiosity, why are you not running eternal witness?
How's using one rallier worked out?
I haven't tried Emrakul, but probably won't because if you don't have the combo then you really can't do anything with it for a large number of turns (if at all!). How many games have you managed to play it when the opponent has disrupted the combo by removing/exiling a creature?
a) Correct. I felt that with Ballista, Rhinos and Emrakul there are too many whiffs. Also the Evolution can be played turn 2 if need be to fetch out whatever you need.
b) Simply due to lack of space. I have played the normal Abzan Company for some time before and i found Witness to be rather underwhelming about 80% of the time and OK for the rest. With the new combo and wanting to keep the old combo i had to make some cuts.
c) The one of Rallier is a relic from my old list. I figured that if the combo is somehow disrupted saccing a voice, getting rallier, the token and the voice back for 3 Mana is a decent deal to get ahead on board. Also it can buy back any combo pieces. If i had more Ralliers i would play more, probably 2-3 of them though i don't know what to cut for it.
d) Emrakul is dead without the combo, true. But so far assembling the combo on turn 3, latest turn 4 worked out the vast majority of times considering you can get your missing piece a lot easier with Eldritch Evolution. I mainly want to jam Emrakul in there because of my love for the tentacles as well as to get around Hexproof of Leylines or other random shenanigans.
PS: Thanks for actually providing feedback compared to that other dude...
I think splashing black is the right choice. The old combo is still good and wins most of the game. Going all in on the Vizier/Druid Combo makes us vulnerable to things like Surgical Extractions and stuff. Abzan Company is Midrange deck with Combo finish. With the include of the New Combo we lose a bit of our Value, but we shouldn't give them up by dropping the Finks. Kitchen Finks is so much better than Rallier in this Deck, since Vizier works with both Combos. And Red doesn't look that great in my opinion. Maybe a Magus of the Moon + Harsh Mentor in the Sideboard
Kessig wolf run provides a turn 3 combo outlet that can't be counterspelled or really interacted with at all and if you play it pre-combo it can't be removed by most decks (unlike recruiter). That's the main draw to red for me.
I understand the believe that we're vulnerable to extraction effects but in general there are a lot of ways to beat those - I have straight up outvalued those decks by rallier drawing cards. Rallier is much less vulnerable to cage than finks because it's got a backup plan of horizon canopy/fetchlands. I have snuffed an extraction by rallying back the piece they were trying to kill and by preemptively protecting my yard with ooze.
I generally disagree on finks v. Rallier for a variety of reasons; Rallier is another way to instant speed eot a druid (in that you can rally a dead one back) and Rallier gains tempo simply by resolving. Finks only gains tempo if they kill it. Rallier's also excellent at fixing your land drops and provides another way to naturally ramp to big chords or coco.
I've talked a little before about how the Finks combo encourages over-committing to the board, and I have found this to be true in watching. All weekend I wached people slam viziers and have the opp. remove them at opportune times and punish them with persisted finks. Persisted Finks is really awful when we're not playing as many anafenzas and people are cutting gavony townships.
Red allows some very strong sideboard card options - I have found Fiery Justice to be much stronger than Orzhov Pontiff in the mirror since it can kill devoted druid. Harsh Mentor and Magus are strong options, as is Crumble to Dust. Nahiri has been pretty good in testing, much better than Ally of Zendikar (as it summons a hasted druid -- have done this).
There're a lot of trade-offs for sure but there are definite reasons to want to go faster - and if you want to combo faster, playing 4 combo pieces in your land slot helps.
I can't quite remember the Sideboard (I'm at work right now) but it was somewhat generic of Abzan Company. Need to put some thuoght into that.
What are your thoughts?
I don't think this list fits in the abzan company area. There're various chord threads. It's not really doing what we're trying to do, which is drown an opponent in collected companies.
I like a lot of what's going on here. Rallying back Duskwatch Recruiter is a very very strong play and can understand wanting to go deep on that. It's pretty hard for most modern decks that want to grind to beat a resolved duskwatch, but it's fairly slow.
Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 19 years later.
Happy is the man who has broken the chains that hurt the mind and given up worrying once and for all. Be patient and tough. One day this pain will be useful to you.
Geez, thanks for your reasoning behind that! Now i will totally take her out of my list! /s
In the goldfishing i did Emrakul proved to be more than good enough to play than the ballista. When the ballista gets Thoughtseized, Inquisitioned or similar the deck does what Abzan Company did before but way worse. Emrakul shuffles back in if need be and a turn 3 Annihilator 6 also seals the deal.
Further it plays around Leyline and other Hexproof stuff that opponents may bring in.
Sorry if someone with a kappa avatar seems less willing to take criticism rofl
Well, in fairness he gave good reasons for playing Emrakul and Moneymaker just said "don't play Emrakul." I think advice should always be backed up by reasoning. I'm not a big fan of Emmy in the deck either (although I am open to being convinced otherwise), but the only way people understand the reason behind a piece of advice is if the people giving the advice take a few more seconds to explain it.
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Some people like to win MtG matches in the Red Zone. I prefer to win the way God intended: on the stack.
Do you guys think 4x druid 4x vizier is basically required now?
I believe it's 4 druid and 3-4 vizier. In abzan the 4th vizier should probably be anafenza. The ability to reset busted finks is pretty important at times.
My advice on Naya is: Try renegade ralliers. Tracker and Reliquary should be sideboard cards in a heavy wolf run build. 4 Rallier and 3 canopy has been amazing for me but I could see 1 knight or 1 tracker in the 4th slot.
You really only need one finisher other than Duskwatch in Naya since you can fit 4 wolf runs it's rare not to have one, and you can often canopy one off the top after stacking with Duskwatch.
The thinking is that the two evolutions come in for not-very-interactive matchups where I need to combo fast (ie. other combo decks, big mana decks, elves) and the Township and value pieces come in vs. any grindy decks and I side dorks out. The grindy plan is actually working really well vs. control/midrange decks where I'm not likely to combo; I feel like it's improved those matchups post-board. Not sure about the 2 evolutions - not seen a lot of decks that I put them in for so can't really say how that's working - it's fun, though, managed at t3 kill on a mull to 5 on the play with an evolution.
Even with the hate, and the deck having a target on it's head somewhat, I'm doing really, really well on cockatrice in testing (though obviously opponent skill is random). In person, though, I've only played twice and am sub-.500 due to abysmal starting hands (ie. keep drawing hands with no green source or fetch - probably means i need to shuffle better).
The one matchup I seem to consistently struggle against is the mirror (doesn't seem to matter what my sb is), which is really frustrating and means I must be playing the matchup wrong in some ways (I'm something like 1-5 vs. the mirror; generally losing in 3 games). Anyone got tips on how to the play the mirror?
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Deck felt good, but the hate was real.
I think 1 viscera seer will become the norm as the 7th 1 cmc dork allowing you to kill turn 4 by casting a coco on turn 3 is important.
Otherwise the list seems great. I don't care for the invoker but to each their own
Kiki chord is such a stupid joke of a deck now that I don't think I would lose much sleep over it. It's never going to be a major concern. Pontiff and linvala are solid. Problem is they'll go bigger than you so playing paths is sketchy - you just wind up being a worse version of their deck. But you probably still have to.
Scooze is the definer of the matchup since they can rarely combo without witness shenanigans, and that plus Gavony should enable you to win. It doesn't seem like scooze should be so important but blinking witness and recurring their removal spells or blinking witness into combo is one of their most common wins vs. us.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I was very impressed with the deck on the weekend but it wound up feeling like a tier 1 deck that is eminently beatable which seems fine.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I went 3-3 at SCG Baltimore, and I'll run briefly thought my experiences:
R1: Mirror (loss)
Game 1, on the play, I had T3 Druid/Vizier live, but only a CoCo to cast with it. Whiffed 100% on that cast (6 lands, wtf). He had the Combo T3 on the crackback. G2-G3 went T3 to whoever was on the play. We finished this full round in like 12 minutes total.
R2: Burn (win)
I stole this matchup - generally its bad.
Game 1 I managed a T3 CoCo into double finks, which was the only way I had game against him. Game 2 I had a Burrenton Forge-Tender and Finks in my opener, which did the trick. It got grindy towards the end; but Township + Finks did the trick. Zero possibility of combo here.
R3: Eldrazi Tron (win)
Dude made some serious punts. At one point I had a Druid on board; and a hand that was Chord of Calling, Collected Company, Rhonas, and Finks... and he took Finks. I'm sure he understands the combo much better now.
R4: Burn (loss)
This was as it normally goes. Just had nothing. I managed to get a Kor Firewalker on board at one point, but was not sufficient. This opponent went into the top 64 for the event.
R5: Elves (win)
This is one of the easiest matchups possible. 2-0, goldfishing. I won one game on a mulligan to 4. This just feels unlosable.
R6: Death's Shadow Jund (loss)
I was paired up; he was 4-1 and I was 3-2. Regardless, he knew his *****.
Game 1, he thoughtseized my mana outlet (Rhonas) and left me with Druid/Vizier. I managed to Topdeck a Walking Ballista the next turn and he was dead.
Game 2/3 he had immense pressure + discard + early Grafdiggers Cage. Just didn't have enough grind against him.
3-3; I'm happy with the decisions I made and how I played. Could have swung either way. Overall quite happy with the deck.
You are being very understanding and remind me that I should be more charitable. I am sure he is just kicking himself right now. So if we decide to look at it as a learning exercise...you have to kill the Staticaster immediately. It shuts you out of too much of your deck and you just can't play around it. When it came down and killed the BoP Piland had two P2E in hand and four E Witness still in his deck, so there can be no excuse for not killing it on the spot. If you are afraid of Tasigur/Death's Shadow/Angler then you can always Ewit it back later anyway. Playing against a deck with so much hand destruction, I think you have to assume you're going to need to do that anyway. In fact, when he Chorded for 4 I thought he'd spotted his screw up and tapped an extra W into his pool so he could Ewit back a P2E and kill the Staticaster. And while I always hate giving my oppo a land, especially when he's land light, you cannot tolerate the Staticaster living. He also had Druid in hand for ever...So he finishes 18th and Nelson wins the tournament.
And yeah, even right at the end he could have Pathed the Snapcaster to break up the double KCommand. I'm wondering if he hadn't completely given up by then.
When you really think about it, you are only playing one or two cards to accommodate the black elements of the deck, meaning you aren't adding any significant consistently issues. The rest of the cards are the same, but in return for adding one Viscera Seer and maybe one tree spirit you get access to a secondary combo that doesn't need to untap to go off. You also get access to good sideboard cards like Pulse, Decay and Big Game Hunter. On one hand I agree with you as I was never a fan of Abzan CoCo in it's previous incarnation but I think I like it a lot more now that it's got three different legit routes to victory.
With 4 birds in you deck list I don't think there's a reason not to splash though. Some thoughts:
* If you are playing finks you should play 1 viscera seer and one overgrown tomb. It's essentially free and gives you an angle to win some unwinnable games, since you can win at instant speed vs. needing to untap with druid.
* If you are not playing finks, you should probably be playing renegade rallier in its spot, which makes playing 8 fetchlands a good idea, which makes a splash virtually free. The exception might be if you decide to play some number of ghost quarters.
* In a U splash, Spell Queller is OKAY, but tested poorly for me. I would try Rogue Refiner before Queller, and sideboard reflector mages.
* The red splash has kessig wolf run which has been spectacular in testing for me. It also has Lightning Mauler which is a way to make Druid win on the turn it drops, and some great anti-big-mana sideboard cards. Red also has the most efficient mirror breaker (Harsh Mentor).
* Evolution builds have not seemed to bear up under scrutiny. They're soft to countermagic and removal.
* The main draw to a GW build with no splash is a slightly more stable manabase that allows playing ghost quarters, which does not seem good enough to me.
* Human Tribal is another potential angle for GW without a splash, but the desirability of that is based on Cavern of Souls which enables easy splashes for great cards like Orzhov Pontiff. Abzan Falconer and Thalia's Lieutenant and Metallic Mimic all could enable a very fast beatdown deck with a combo finish with Mirror Entity or Duskwatch. Noble Hierarch and Avacyn's Pilgrim do a great job fixing mana.
My personal take thus far is that the R splash is the best mix of consistency and beatdown potential for me -- it somewhat splits the difference between evolution builds and the more resilient finks builds. Wolf run enables a lot of wins that Township would not and gives a more optimized number of infinite mana outlets without having to play lots of iffy cards.
I don't think there is a lot of merit in playing straight GW without a complete rethink, and even then I am not sure it's there. I've seen some builds and they tend to misunderstand how important deriving lots of value from 3 CMC creatures is.
Playing random 3-drops like Tireless Tracker and Knight of the Reliquary miss the point -- the reason we play 4 witness and 4 finks (or 4 rallier in my list) is to drown your opponent in cards. Finks and Witness represent 2-4 cards each without any real regard to what your opponent is doing.
It would take some serious results to get me on the train to running any fewer than 8 value (mulldrifters, in the Chapin parlance) creatures at 3 cmc.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I haven't really put much thought into the new combo. Until now. Here's the list i came up with:
4 Windswept Heath
3 Temple Garden
3 Razorverge Thicket
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
2 Gavony Township
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Kitchen Finks
4 Vizier of Remedies
4 Devoted Druid
3 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Walking Ballista
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Siege Rhino
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Wall of Roots
1 Renegade Rallier
3 Eldritch Evolution
I can't quite remember the Sideboard (I'm at work right now) but it was somewhat generic of Abzan Company. Need to put some thuoght into that.
What are your thoughts?
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In the goldfishing i did Emrakul proved to be more than good enough to play than the ballista. When the ballista gets Thoughtseized, Inquisitioned or similar the deck does what Abzan Company did before but way worse. Emrakul shuffles back in if need be and a turn 3 Annihilator 6 also seals the deal.
Further it plays around Leyline and other Hexproof stuff that opponents may bring in.
BRGJundGRB
GCTronCG
WBRMardu PyromancerRBW
Legacy:
GElvesG
I'm assuming that you aren't running CoCos because of having siege rhino and ballista in the deck? I think not playing CoCo is probably a bad call because it gives us such a good board state and can set up the combo at the end of an opponents turn.
Out of curiosity, why are you not running eternal witness?
How's using one rallier worked out?
I haven't tried Emrakul, but probably won't because if you don't have the combo then you really can't do anything with it for a large number of turns (if at all!). How many games have you managed to play it when the opponent has disrupted the combo by removing/exiling a creature?
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a) Correct. I felt that with Ballista, Rhinos and Emrakul there are too many whiffs. Also the Evolution can be played turn 2 if need be to fetch out whatever you need.
b) Simply due to lack of space. I have played the normal Abzan Company for some time before and i found Witness to be rather underwhelming about 80% of the time and OK for the rest. With the new combo and wanting to keep the old combo i had to make some cuts.
c) The one of Rallier is a relic from my old list. I figured that if the combo is somehow disrupted saccing a voice, getting rallier, the token and the voice back for 3 Mana is a decent deal to get ahead on board. Also it can buy back any combo pieces. If i had more Ralliers i would play more, probably 2-3 of them though i don't know what to cut for it.
d) Emrakul is dead without the combo, true. But so far assembling the combo on turn 3, latest turn 4 worked out the vast majority of times considering you can get your missing piece a lot easier with Eldritch Evolution. I mainly want to jam Emrakul in there because of my love for the tentacles as well as to get around Hexproof of Leylines or other random shenanigans.
PS: Thanks for actually providing feedback compared to that other dude...
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GCTronCG
WBRMardu PyromancerRBW
Legacy:
GElvesG
Kessig wolf run provides a turn 3 combo outlet that can't be counterspelled or really interacted with at all and if you play it pre-combo it can't be removed by most decks (unlike recruiter). That's the main draw to red for me.
I understand the believe that we're vulnerable to extraction effects but in general there are a lot of ways to beat those - I have straight up outvalued those decks by rallier drawing cards. Rallier is much less vulnerable to cage than finks because it's got a backup plan of horizon canopy/fetchlands. I have snuffed an extraction by rallying back the piece they were trying to kill and by preemptively protecting my yard with ooze.
I generally disagree on finks v. Rallier for a variety of reasons; Rallier is another way to instant speed eot a druid (in that you can rally a dead one back) and Rallier gains tempo simply by resolving. Finks only gains tempo if they kill it. Rallier's also excellent at fixing your land drops and provides another way to naturally ramp to big chords or coco.
I've talked a little before about how the Finks combo encourages over-committing to the board, and I have found this to be true in watching. All weekend I wached people slam viziers and have the opp. remove them at opportune times and punish them with persisted finks. Persisted Finks is really awful when we're not playing as many anafenzas and people are cutting gavony townships.
Red allows some very strong sideboard card options - I have found Fiery Justice to be much stronger than Orzhov Pontiff in the mirror since it can kill devoted druid. Harsh Mentor and Magus are strong options, as is Crumble to Dust. Nahiri has been pretty good in testing, much better than Ally of Zendikar (as it summons a hasted druid -- have done this).
There're a lot of trade-offs for sure but there are definite reasons to want to go faster - and if you want to combo faster, playing 4 combo pieces in your land slot helps.
I don't think this list fits in the abzan company area. There're various chord threads. It's not really doing what we're trying to do, which is drown an opponent in collected companies.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-modern-constructed-league-2017-05-29
I like a lot of what's going on here. Rallying back Duskwatch Recruiter is a very very strong play and can understand wanting to go deep on that. It's pretty hard for most modern decks that want to grind to beat a resolved duskwatch, but it's fairly slow.
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Devoted Druid
4 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Eternal Witness
1 Llanowar Elves
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Renegade Rallier
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Selfless Spirit
4 Vizier of Remedies
1 Walking Ballista
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
3 Forest
2 Gavony Township
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Plains
1 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Harsh Mentor
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Mirran Crusader
4 Path to Exile
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Stony Silence
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 19 years later.
Happy is the man who has broken the chains that hurt the mind and given up worrying once and for all. Be patient and tough. One day this pain will be useful to you.
Well, in fairness he gave good reasons for playing Emrakul and Moneymaker just said "don't play Emrakul." I think advice should always be backed up by reasoning. I'm not a big fan of Emmy in the deck either (although I am open to being convinced otherwise), but the only way people understand the reason behind a piece of advice is if the people giving the advice take a few more seconds to explain it.
I believe it's 4 druid and 3-4 vizier. In abzan the 4th vizier should probably be anafenza. The ability to reset busted finks is pretty important at times.
4 druid is just so danged good.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
You really only need one finisher other than Duskwatch in Naya since you can fit 4 wolf runs it's rare not to have one, and you can often canopy one off the top after stacking with Duskwatch.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
// 60 Maindeck
// 30 Creature
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Eternal Witness
4 Kitchen Finks
1 Viscera Seer
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Vizier of Remedies
4 Devoted Druid
2 Duskwatch Recruiter
1 Mirror Entity
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Walking Ballista
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Selfless Spirit
// 8 Instant
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
// 22 Land
2 Forest
1 Plains
2 Gavony Township
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Razorverge Thicket
1 Misty Rainforest
// 15 Sideboard
// 8 Creature
SB: 2 Qasali Pridemage
SB: 1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
SB: 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
SB: 1 Sin Collector
SB: 2 Tireless Tracker
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
// 3 Instant
SB: 3 Path to Exile
// 1 Land
SB: 1 Gavony Township
// 3 Sorcery
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 Eldritch Evolution
The thinking is that the two evolutions come in for not-very-interactive matchups where I need to combo fast (ie. other combo decks, big mana decks, elves) and the Township and value pieces come in vs. any grindy decks and I side dorks out. The grindy plan is actually working really well vs. control/midrange decks where I'm not likely to combo; I feel like it's improved those matchups post-board. Not sure about the 2 evolutions - not seen a lot of decks that I put them in for so can't really say how that's working - it's fun, though, managed at t3 kill on a mull to 5 on the play with an evolution.
Even with the hate, and the deck having a target on it's head somewhat, I'm doing really, really well on cockatrice in testing (though obviously opponent skill is random). In person, though, I've only played twice and am sub-.500 due to abysmal starting hands (ie. keep drawing hands with no green source or fetch - probably means i need to shuffle better).
The one matchup I seem to consistently struggle against is the mirror (doesn't seem to matter what my sb is), which is really frustrating and means I must be playing the matchup wrong in some ways (I'm something like 1-5 vs. the mirror; generally losing in 3 games). Anyone got tips on how to the play the mirror?