Be the last one to act. The one who goes for the combo first seems to lose a lot in the Abzan mirror.
I generally think people are making a mistake bringing in Paths in that matchup. Their creatures suck so you never want to path and give them the mana advantage. It's better to play hate like like Linvala, Pontiff or Phyrexian Revoker, etc.
Mana advantage and board advantage are key, township is important, and whoever has the better sideboard hate is likely to win.
Linvala is a card I see floated a lot but it needs to be protected with spellskite(s) if you want to to ride it to victory.
One thing you can do is play 4 damned Townships (at minimum 3)! Try it. The deck can support them easily and drawing a township in the mirror is very important.
Edit: Another thing you can do is be unpredictable in your sideboarding. Try keeping all the combo in and just boarding in like 2 cards (say pontiff + spellskite or something) and aggressively jamming the combo on the play, then sideboarding controlly on the draw.
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.
I play 2 Renegades right now. So far the upside of slamming a revolted one turn 2/3 has been so high I'll probably cut the Trackers and play 4 of them. Regarding the mana base, I am at 2 Kessig, 1 Gavony. I don't want to give up the Gavony and I don't want to go up to 4 colorless as it seems too much to me. Thoughts?
P.S: the main purpose of Selesnya Guildmagewill be to meme my friends. I am aware it is not necessary/good.
I have had zero mana issues running 4 wolf runs. I run 8 dorks and 4 druids which is adding a net of 1 hierarch and 2 2cmc dorks to the deck. I believe that supports running 19 colored sources, 17 of which are green. The deck runs just fine on G for the most part. Additionally 4 ralliers add functional mana fixing as well as rallier is quite easy to cast and will get a second shockland a high portion of the time.
Essentially I removed one G source from the original deck and added 1 hierarch and 2 druids.
If you want to play a more conservative line you can run 3 wolf run and 1 razorverge thicket, but my manabase has functioned beautifully so far.
Note: I can see the argument for playing 2 township/2 wolf run. My experience with goldfishing was that drawing township instead of wolf run lost me a lot of t3 kills that I wanted. YMMV but I think playing Naya you should run 4 wolf runs and see if it's too much in practice. So far it has been great for me. Very confident the deck can support 4 colorless lands.
If running some number of KOTR I can see playing 1 township/3 wolf run, but I think you might win more games with Hanweir Garrison than Township.
I am positive that's the way the abzan lists will end up. Seer is so bad. One is plenty. Anafenza I think you may be underrating but I can see both sides of that.
Something to keep in mind is that with the super light splash some cards are less desirable..decay pulse and pharika especially, but shaving that stuff does free you to cut the atrocious basic swamp.
Be the last one to act. The one who goes for the combo first seems to lose a lot in the Abzan mirror.
I generally think people are making a mistake bringing in Paths in that matchup. Their creatures suck so you never want to path and give them the mana advantage. It's better to play hate like like Linvala, Pontiff or Phyrexian Revoker, etc.
Mana advantage and board advantage are key, township is important, and whoever has the better sideboard hate is likely to win.
Linvala is a card I see floated a lot but it needs to be protected with spellskite(s) if you want to to ride it to victory.
One thing you can do is play 4 damned Townships (at minimum 3)! Try it. The deck can support them easily and drawing a township in the mirror is very important.
Edit: Another thing you can do is be unpredictable in your sideboarding. Try keeping all the combo in and just boarding in like 2 cards (say pontiff + spellskite or something) and aggressively jamming the combo on the play, then sideboarding controlly on the draw.
Just wanted to say I disagree strongly to this.
You want paths, it's what wins the mirrors. I won 4 mirrors this weekend at GP Copenhagen. Actually a 100% mirror win rate. (and I only won 1 of the die rolls)
Linvala isn't as great as people think imo as everyone brings in lots of removal anyway, and getting your 4 drop pathed feels bad. Just keep path up to remove the druid in response to any shenanigans and try to develop your board/get your own druid out.
Pontiff can also be a beating in the mirror.
Revoker is bad to bring in, as it shuts down your own druids as well.
I rarely win with the township part. It happened once out of maaaaany games in the mirror, someone usually ends up comboing.
Also one of the mirror matches, the guy didn't know how the combo actually worked, and didn't use his 2/2 ballista untill I already had the vizier out.. This was round 3 of the GP when I was 2-0 so you'd assume he would know.. This happened a couple of times during the weekend, but I guess people will catch on eventually and wise up..
Revoker was simply an example of a permanent based solution but since you can always suicide it or sac it to get rid of it if you want to combo.
What I witnessed in many games over the weekend was people pathing stuff then dying to being so far behind on mana. The guys who had decays were advantaged. Not that I like decay but path seemed far from ideal.
Often the guys who had more chords in would win too.
I think there is probably deeper thinking about the mirror than bring in some efficient removal and cross fingers. I saw that plan lose bad to spellskite a few times also.
Is there any discussion going on in this thread regarding the Abzan variant of the deck?
I think the Abzan builds are pretty well solidified, with the main points of contention being:
* 1 or 2 viscera seers? And how much of a black splash -- 2 shocks and a swamp or just an overgrown tomb? How deep does the sideboard go?
* sideboarding strategies (paths vs. decays vs pulse and how many, pharika vs. control, etc.)
* Value slot - 4 witness or mix of witness/rallier/tireless tracker
* 6 or 7 dorks
* 2 or 3 townships
* Rhonas or Walking Ballista as finishers (with some folks trying both or mixing in a mirror entity)
* Number of duskwatch recruiters
* 3 or 4 viziers, and to play an anafenza or not in that 4th slot
* Flex slot(s) (there are really only a couple right now and usually we're seeing selfless spirit or scooze right now)
Everyone appears to be on 22 lands with 6 or 7 dorks and 1 or 2 seers, and most top finishes have been with a walking ballista so far.
Is there any discussion going on in this thread regarding the Abzan variant of the deck?
For what it's worth I'm looking into trading my Wilted Abzan deck to a Abzan Company.
Is it better to go Abzan or is everyone doing Naya now? Why do some people think Seer is no good? He's one of the main combo pieces as far as I know. Either way, here's the list I plan on getting, let me know if I should change anything!
I post a lot but most people are still on Abzan and there're a lot of good reasons for that. Main one is Finks combo is a known quantity that's strong, and Finks makes the burn matchup good.
My best guess is that Naya and GW without the black splash are 10% of the decks out there right now if that. There've been some good Naya results and good GW results but most folks are on finks.
In regards to your list:
* I think 1 viscera seer is right. The extra hierarch letting you hit Coco on 3 more often is important.
* I would max out on witnesses before playing any ralliers or the extra fetchlands to support it.
* I would shave a vizier from your list. You don't need 5 persist enablers.
* I don't love the maindeck scooze myself but I understand why people like it. I'd play a selfless spirit there and sideboard the ooze. I think you want one piece of creature protection in the MD, and with all the paths running around I am considering switching to skite myself, but I like spirit a lot.
Everything else seems fine to me. Sideboards are so meta specific.
Thanks for the pointers I missed most of the optimization of the abzan lists and only had the list from Brad carpenter to go off of.
I can say personally that I've enjoyed skite in the main, and with some draws allows you to force the your opponent's hand on removal which I like.
I've also been off of 4 E-wit for a couple days of testing now in favor of an additional flex spot (been trying 1-of tracker, or selfless spirit) I think 3 is a fine number if you aren't trying to race to the combo and in some matches it's proven terribly slow.
I was on two seer, but I think one is where I want to be. The upside of the OTK is so strong that I often see infinite life as a backup plan rather than a viable combo kill, mostly because with 8 company/chord, 2 duskwatch, and 3 Ewit, I find the combo feels like it's really more of a 2-card combo than a legitimate 3-card combo.
I post a lot but most people are still on Abzan and there're a lot of good reasons for that. Main one is Finks combo is a known quantity that's strong, and Finks makes the burn matchup good.
My best guess is that Naya and GW without the black splash are 10% of the decks out there right now if that. There've been some good Naya results and good GW results but most folks are on finks.
In regards to your list:
* I think 1 viscera seer is right. The extra hierarch letting you hit Coco on 3 more often is important.
* I would max out on witnesses before playing any ralliers or the extra fetchlands to support it.
* I would shave a vizier from your list. You don't need 5 persist enablers.
* I don't love the maindeck scooze myself but I understand why people like it. I'd play a selfless spirit there and sideboard the ooze. I think you want one piece of creature protection in the MD, and with all the paths running around I am considering switching to skite myself, but I like spirit a lot.
Everything else seems fine to me. Sideboards are so meta specific.
Thanks! This is super helpful, I know what I need to do haha
We've got an additional piece of combo hate (canonist) and 2 stingscourgers as our creature hate - temporary, but can be repeatedly used via Rallier and also sac'd to evolutionary leap.
General thinking is to bring 2 leaps in for 2 chords when playing grindy decks and stingscougers for creature decks. Scourger enables revolt on its own so the interaction with Rallier seems quite good. Hopefully proves out
Generally I shave hierarchs, a vizier and witnesses for interactive critters and that's worked out fairly well.
It's a lot tougher now cos there are fewer flex slots.
My general plan is:
-board out up to 2 chords vs. likely cage decks or attrition decks
-board out up to 3 eternal witnesses vs. very fast decks (burn, tron, storm)
-board out up to 3 noble hierarchs vs. attrition decks (I keep birds because they are better with wolf run; ymmv with township)
-board out 1-2 viziers vs. attrition heavy decks
-board out lavamancer, selfless spirit or flickerwisp if they suck or are slow in the match (which is analogous to ooze, skite/spirit, etc. in abzan lists - the 2-3 flex slots)
-(If I were playing Abzan I would be playing one viscera seer; if you play 2 viscera seers, cut one in any attrition heavy match)
Then board in whatever is right. I generally think this sort of approach will work for Abzan coco as well.
Something I've learned is that we want to dilute the combo a lot less than we did before most of the time. Never, ever board out druids. It rarely seems right to board down below 2 chords anymore, because druid makes chord so good.
Just to reiterate YMMV, but this is what I'm doing so far.
I fell off the face of the earth a few weeks ago. Anyway, I'm back with new ideas:
Went to a GPT last night and got destroyed by control, so I'm moving back toward Voice of Resurgence and my favorite SB card - Choke. Oddly enough, there was another guy in the room who was already on Voice tech and he went undefeated through Swiss, it's just too good against removal-heavy decks that are often also sporting counter magic:
Things to note: 0 BOPs, 21 lands. There are plenty of 2 mana plays and 29 mana sources in the deck, we needed room for action somewhere, and these feel worse and worse the longer the game goes on.
4 Finks + 3 Voice + 3 Ralliers backed up by 4 Nobles and a Pridemage for Exalted triggers: The beatstick plan is real.
Everything else is fairly obvious. This is a rough idea, and definitely will need some refinement, but control has gotten bigger and bigger in my area and I feel like you need to be taking things like Grixis Control and UW stuff into consideration right now.
You will simply never find me playing 5 1-drops in modern except post board. That alone makes the build untenable in my opinion--despite the idea being sound. It's just greed pure and simple to think you can play a standard format curve aiming for a fundamental turn of 6 in a format with a fundamental turn of 3.5-4.5 depending on the day.
Add to that that you want to cast Coco on turn 3 every game, and 21 lands and only 8 total mana creatures, your likelihood of doing that is not great. Your likelihood of casting it on turn 4 is not particularly high (60% or so if no dorks survive)
You're even in serious danger of not being able to cast a 3-drop on turn 3 in some games.
If you want to get serious about this build, I would go up to 23 lands and consider making room for 2-3 creature lands or Oath of Nissa. Hissing Quagmire seems really desirable with Rallier since you can trade it then rally it back. Oath is also good as it helps you dig and can be rallied back -- maybe only go 22 lands with 2 oaths.
Every single game I play that goes beyond 4 turns, I find myself flooding out. I was side boarding lands out last night because there are too many do-nothing mana sources in the deck and I still lost due to flooding.
23 lands, 6 1 drop dorks, and 4 druids = 33 cards that do jack all in a control match, and that is by far the biggest problem I've been having with the deck lately. All the mana in the world doesn't matter when all you're doing is drawing more mana.
I had a game where I had 21 lands, 2 birds, and 2 druids in the deck and STILL couldn't find anything relevant to do in the match because the deck is so full of do-nothing creatures and completely reliant on the combo.
The meta in my area has changed, nobody lets you untap for T3 without having a removal spell ready to go. The Druid combo will never get off the ground, so it's time to take it to their face and punish them for hating so hard on an 0/2.
T3 CoCo is nice, but what I really want to be doing is putting Voice into play and swinging into their face.
I'm super confused by that stuff man. When I was playing Abzan Coco I would just start activating Township with a couple dorks and control players would lose their minds.
With Coco, witness, rallier and finks it should be pretty easy to get even two crappy guys to stick and then you start townshipping and they're forced to 1-for-1 your value creatures. I've had 5/6 birds of paradise get double bolted in desperation.
Do you think maybe you are cutting too many mana dorks? An issue I find with control a lot of times is if you're casting 1 spell a turn they're able to stomp you, but if you have a mana advantage they have a difficult time. It's why I rarely board more than 2 hierarchs out--having 4 druids means they can't just kill my dorks usually.
Last night I ran into no less than 4 Supreme Verdicts, 1 Damnation, and 1 Anger of the Gods.
Lighthing Bolt, Terminate, Path to Exile and Fatal Push all got to hit a Druid in response to a Chord for 2.
I watched my opponents draw at least 15 cards off Ancestral Visions and Planeswalkers provided further value and eventual wincons. Hell, I lost to Narest drawing an extra card every turn one game.
Control is a force in my area, and is getting better in Modern in general. Grixis Shadow just won an Open this past weekend.
Gavony + BoP isn't enough to get you there vs endless card advantage decks.
I might move Spirit to the main, I mostly wanted to get the core idea of the shift out there. Drop the birds, move up to 4 nobles, and get a Finks/Voice/Rallier set for attacking. To be clear, I'm not having an issue running out of cards necessarily, I'm not having an issue keeping SOMETHING on board the vast majority of the time, the issue comes down to the fact that I find myself lacking ways to turn those things into meaningful threats in a timely manner. A 5/6 bird takes 5 turns to get that big and can be handled with a single removal spell. But a Voice can be a 4/4 attacker on T3. If we're not pressuring our opponents life total, they have the freedom to keep counters and removal up for the important stuff and they can safely ignore the rest, that's the problem I'm encountering over and over.
The guy who was on Grixis Control last night had 4 Damnations in his SB. He came ready to kill some creatures...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I generally think people are making a mistake bringing in Paths in that matchup. Their creatures suck so you never want to path and give them the mana advantage. It's better to play hate like like Linvala, Pontiff or Phyrexian Revoker, etc.
Mana advantage and board advantage are key, township is important, and whoever has the better sideboard hate is likely to win.
Linvala is a card I see floated a lot but it needs to be protected with spellskite(s) if you want to to ride it to victory.
One thing you can do is play 4 damned Townships (at minimum 3)! Try it. The deck can support them easily and drawing a township in the mirror is very important.
Edit: Another thing you can do is be unpredictable in your sideboarding. Try keeping all the combo in and just boarding in like 2 cards (say pontiff + spellskite or something) and aggressively jamming the combo on the play, then sideboarding controlly on the draw.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I have had zero mana issues running 4 wolf runs. I run 8 dorks and 4 druids which is adding a net of 1 hierarch and 2 2cmc dorks to the deck. I believe that supports running 19 colored sources, 17 of which are green. The deck runs just fine on G for the most part. Additionally 4 ralliers add functional mana fixing as well as rallier is quite easy to cast and will get a second shockland a high portion of the time.
Essentially I removed one G source from the original deck and added 1 hierarch and 2 druids.
If you want to play a more conservative line you can run 3 wolf run and 1 razorverge thicket, but my manabase has functioned beautifully so far.
Note: I can see the argument for playing 2 township/2 wolf run. My experience with goldfishing was that drawing township instead of wolf run lost me a lot of t3 kills that I wanted. YMMV but I think playing Naya you should run 4 wolf runs and see if it's too much in practice. So far it has been great for me. Very confident the deck can support 4 colorless lands.
If running some number of KOTR I can see playing 1 township/3 wolf run, but I think you might win more games with Hanweir Garrison than Township.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Something to keep in mind is that with the super light splash some cards are less desirable..decay pulse and pharika especially, but shaving that stuff does free you to cut the atrocious basic swamp.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Just wanted to say I disagree strongly to this.
You want paths, it's what wins the mirrors. I won 4 mirrors this weekend at GP Copenhagen. Actually a 100% mirror win rate. (and I only won 1 of the die rolls)
Linvala isn't as great as people think imo as everyone brings in lots of removal anyway, and getting your 4 drop pathed feels bad. Just keep path up to remove the druid in response to any shenanigans and try to develop your board/get your own druid out.
Pontiff can also be a beating in the mirror.
Revoker is bad to bring in, as it shuts down your own druids as well.
I rarely win with the township part. It happened once out of maaaaany games in the mirror, someone usually ends up comboing.
Also one of the mirror matches, the guy didn't know how the combo actually worked, and didn't use his 2/2 ballista untill I already had the vizier out.. This was round 3 of the GP when I was 2-0 so you'd assume he would know.. This happened a couple of times during the weekend, but I guess people will catch on eventually and wise up..
What I witnessed in many games over the weekend was people pathing stuff then dying to being so far behind on mana. The guys who had decays were advantaged. Not that I like decay but path seemed far from ideal.
Often the guys who had more chords in would win too.
I think there is probably deeper thinking about the mirror than bring in some efficient removal and cross fingers. I saw that plan lose bad to spellskite a few times also.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
https://www.mtgstocks.com/decks/133269
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
2 Eternal Witness
3 Magus of the Moon
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Devoted Druid
4 Vizier of Remedies
2 Renegade Rallier
1 Walking Ballista
3 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
2 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Arid Mesa
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Fairgrounds Warden
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
There's a number of approaches I wouldn't do myself but I can really dig a lot of things about it.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I think the Abzan builds are pretty well solidified, with the main points of contention being:
* 1 or 2 viscera seers? And how much of a black splash -- 2 shocks and a swamp or just an overgrown tomb? How deep does the sideboard go?
* sideboarding strategies (paths vs. decays vs pulse and how many, pharika vs. control, etc.)
* Value slot - 4 witness or mix of witness/rallier/tireless tracker
* 6 or 7 dorks
* 2 or 3 townships
* Rhonas or Walking Ballista as finishers (with some folks trying both or mixing in a mirror entity)
* Number of duskwatch recruiters
* 3 or 4 viziers, and to play an anafenza or not in that 4th slot
* Flex slot(s) (there are really only a couple right now and usually we're seeing selfless spirit or scooze right now)
Everyone appears to be on 22 lands with 6 or 7 dorks and 1 or 2 seers, and most top finishes have been with a walking ballista so far.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
For what it's worth I'm looking into trading my Wilted Abzan deck to a Abzan Company.
Is it better to go Abzan or is everyone doing Naya now? Why do some people think Seer is no good? He's one of the main combo pieces as far as I know. Either way, here's the list I plan on getting, let me know if I should change anything!
1x Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Devoted Druid
2x Duskwatch Recruiter Flip
2x Eternal Witness
1x Fiend Hunter
4x Kitchen Finks
2x Noble Hierarch
1x Renegade Rallier
1x Rhonas the Indomitable
1x Scavenging Ooze
2x Viscera Seer
4x Vizier of Remedies
1x Walking Ballista
2x Forest
2x Gavony Township
1x Godless Shrine
2x Horizon Canopy
1x Marsh Flats
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Plains
1x Swamp
2x Temple Garden
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Windswept Heath
Instant (8)
4x Chord of Calling
4x Collected Company
2x Abrupt Decay
1x Anafenza, the Foremost
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
2x Fatal Push
1x Kataki, War's Wage
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2x Path to Exile
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Selfless Spirit
1x Sin Collector
2x Tidehollow Sculler
RWG Burn
GW Abzan Company
My best guess is that Naya and GW without the black splash are 10% of the decks out there right now if that. There've been some good Naya results and good GW results but most folks are on finks.
In regards to your list:
* I think 1 viscera seer is right. The extra hierarch letting you hit Coco on 3 more often is important.
* I would max out on witnesses before playing any ralliers or the extra fetchlands to support it.
* I would shave a vizier from your list. You don't need 5 persist enablers.
* I don't love the maindeck scooze myself but I understand why people like it. I'd play a selfless spirit there and sideboard the ooze. I think you want one piece of creature protection in the MD, and with all the paths running around I am considering switching to skite myself, but I like spirit a lot.
Everything else seems fine to me. Sideboards are so meta specific.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I can say personally that I've enjoyed skite in the main, and with some draws allows you to force the your opponent's hand on removal which I like.
I've also been off of 4 E-wit for a couple days of testing now in favor of an additional flex spot (been trying 1-of tracker, or selfless spirit) I think 3 is a fine number if you aren't trying to race to the combo and in some matches it's proven terribly slow.
I was on two seer, but I think one is where I want to be. The upside of the OTK is so strong that I often see infinite life as a backup plan rather than a viable combo kill, mostly because with 8 company/chord, 2 duskwatch, and 3 Ewit, I find the combo feels like it's really more of a 2-card combo than a legitimate 3-card combo.
Thanks! This is super helpful, I know what I need to do haha
RWG Burn
GW Abzan Company
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Evolutionary Leap
2 Fiery Justice
1 Kor Firewalker
1 Lone Missionary
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Stingscourger
We've got an additional piece of combo hate (canonist) and 2 stingscourgers as our creature hate - temporary, but can be repeatedly used via Rallier and also sac'd to evolutionary leap.
General thinking is to bring 2 leaps in for 2 chords when playing grindy decks and stingscougers for creature decks. Scourger enables revolt on its own so the interaction with Rallier seems quite good. Hopefully proves out
Generally I shave hierarchs, a vizier and witnesses for interactive critters and that's worked out fairly well.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
It's a lot tougher now cos there are fewer flex slots.
My general plan is:
-board out up to 2 chords vs. likely cage decks or attrition decks
-board out up to 3 eternal witnesses vs. very fast decks (burn, tron, storm)
-board out up to 3 noble hierarchs vs. attrition decks (I keep birds because they are better with wolf run; ymmv with township)
-board out 1-2 viziers vs. attrition heavy decks
-board out lavamancer, selfless spirit or flickerwisp if they suck or are slow in the match (which is analogous to ooze, skite/spirit, etc. in abzan lists - the 2-3 flex slots)
-(If I were playing Abzan I would be playing one viscera seer; if you play 2 viscera seers, cut one in any attrition heavy match)
Then board in whatever is right. I generally think this sort of approach will work for Abzan coco as well.
Something I've learned is that we want to dilute the combo a lot less than we did before most of the time. Never, ever board out druids. It rarely seems right to board down below 2 chords anymore, because druid makes chord so good.
Just to reiterate YMMV, but this is what I'm doing so far.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Went to a GPT last night and got destroyed by control, so I'm moving back toward Voice of Resurgence and my favorite SB card - Choke. Oddly enough, there was another guy in the room who was already on Voice tech and he went undefeated through Swiss, it's just too good against removal-heavy decks that are often also sporting counter magic:
1x Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
4x Devoted Druid
1x Duskwatch Recruiter
3x Eternal Witness
4x Kitchen Finks
4x Noble Hierarch
1x Qasali Pridemage
3x Renegade Rallier
1x Saffi Eriksdotter
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Viscera Seer
3x Vizier of Remedies
3x Voice of Resurgence
1x Walking Ballista
2x Forest
3x Gavony Township
1x Godless Shrine
3x Horizon Canopy
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Plains
1x Swamp
2x Temple Garden
3x Verdant Catacombs
4x Windswept Heath
Instant (8)
4x Chord of Calling
4x Collected Company
1x Burrenton Forge-Tender
1x Choke
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
4x Path to Exile
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Reveillark
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Selfless Spirit
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
3x Tidehollow Sculler
Things to note: 0 BOPs, 21 lands. There are plenty of 2 mana plays and 29 mana sources in the deck, we needed room for action somewhere, and these feel worse and worse the longer the game goes on.
4 Finks + 3 Voice + 3 Ralliers backed up by 4 Nobles and a Pridemage for Exalted triggers: The beatstick plan is real.
Everything else is fairly obvious. This is a rough idea, and definitely will need some refinement, but control has gotten bigger and bigger in my area and I feel like you need to be taking things like Grixis Control and UW stuff into consideration right now.
Add to that that you want to cast Coco on turn 3 every game, and 21 lands and only 8 total mana creatures, your likelihood of doing that is not great. Your likelihood of casting it on turn 4 is not particularly high (60% or so if no dorks survive)
You're even in serious danger of not being able to cast a 3-drop on turn 3 in some games.
If you want to get serious about this build, I would go up to 23 lands and consider making room for 2-3 creature lands or Oath of Nissa. Hissing Quagmire seems really desirable with Rallier since you can trade it then rally it back. Oath is also good as it helps you dig and can be rallied back -- maybe only go 22 lands with 2 oaths.
Good luck
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
23 lands, 6 1 drop dorks, and 4 druids = 33 cards that do jack all in a control match, and that is by far the biggest problem I've been having with the deck lately. All the mana in the world doesn't matter when all you're doing is drawing more mana.
I had a game where I had 21 lands, 2 birds, and 2 druids in the deck and STILL couldn't find anything relevant to do in the match because the deck is so full of do-nothing creatures and completely reliant on the combo.
The meta in my area has changed, nobody lets you untap for T3 without having a removal spell ready to go. The Druid combo will never get off the ground, so it's time to take it to their face and punish them for hating so hard on an 0/2.
T3 CoCo is nice, but what I really want to be doing is putting Voice into play and swinging into their face.
With Coco, witness, rallier and finks it should be pretty easy to get even two crappy guys to stick and then you start townshipping and they're forced to 1-for-1 your value creatures. I've had 5/6 birds of paradise get double bolted in desperation.
Do you think maybe you are cutting too many mana dorks? An issue I find with control a lot of times is if you're casting 1 spell a turn they're able to stomp you, but if you have a mana advantage they have a difficult time. It's why I rarely board more than 2 hierarchs out--having 4 druids means they can't just kill my dorks usually.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Lighthing Bolt, Terminate, Path to Exile and Fatal Push all got to hit a Druid in response to a Chord for 2.
I watched my opponents draw at least 15 cards off Ancestral Visions and Planeswalkers provided further value and eventual wincons. Hell, I lost to Narest drawing an extra card every turn one game.
Control is a force in my area, and is getting better in Modern in general. Grixis Shadow just won an Open this past weekend.
Gavony + BoP isn't enough to get you there vs endless card advantage decks.
The guy who was on Grixis Control last night had 4 Damnations in his SB. He came ready to kill some creatures...