MTG Salvation

Haven't been chatting much in this thread as of late, excited to see someone finally moving to 20 lands. I've been on this list, with few changes for the past few months, it feels much more akin to the older versions of Company that would come to the table with a value plan and shift into combo out of nowhere and kill you if you let your guard down for a second.



Obviously I'd like to go T1 Dork, T2 Voice/Finks/Druid, T3 Finks/Voice/EWit/Rallier/Saffi/CoCo/kill you, but in competitive magic we never really get what we want do we?

What I like about this list is that it's very good at grinding against all the control decks that are so popular these days and it has an ever-surprisingly good game against Shadow decks. I'd like to find more room for hate removal like RIP and Cage, but we just don't have that kind of space in the deck these days. I have to rely on the fact that I am faster and can win games through multiple angles against those cards.

Typical cards that come out for G2 and 3 are:
- 1-2x Vizier of Remedies depending on how likely I am to combo and how likely the are to bring in Staticaster.
- 2x Noble Hierarch & 2x BoP if the game is going to be grindy, I have to be aware that I need at least 2-3 lands/dorks in my opening hand (and be able to cast them), but after that, I'll have plenty of time to draw lands and drawing dorks that don't combo is often times the worst possible draw, so leaving 2 birds in the deck feels right for these MUs.
- 3x Voice & 1-2 EWit if the game is going to be super fast and/or combo centric and Voice will never get a chance to block. Decks like Storm and Affinity leave little space for Voice to gain you value, and I don't have time to untap and gain normal value out of EWit, so I'm happy to shave 1, sometimes 2 depending on the match.
- Surprisingly - Walking Ballista against things like Scapeshift since I don't actually need to kill my opponent to win this MU, merely gaining a million life will get me there, and Walking Ballista doesn't help me do that or anything else that really matters in the MU.
- 2x Chord and 2x Company, the 1st Chord is a go-to for grindy MUs that focus on keeping my board clear of threats. I don't want to be drawing Chords with no creatures in hand and no creatures on the board, so going down to 3 or 2 is regularly a good idea. Company comes out if I see my <4 CMC creatures dropping below the 28 mark. It's rare, but sometimes I go down to 26-27 creatures, and I don't want to have 4 CoCos in that situation since the target density is too low to be worth it anymore.

Going down on lands and up on creatures has helped me to reduce flood potential, present a more relevant clock and force removal on non-optimal targets like Voice, Finks, Rallier, and Viscera Seer to open the way for a Devoted Druid threat the next turn. And vice versa, if my opponent removes my T2 druid, I don't feel as bad shifting into a value game on T3.

While I lose percentage points on how often I hit a T3 combo, I still have all the major bases covered. 4x Druid for maximum T2 Druid, 3x Vizier doesn't feel bad because Vizier is terrible when you aren't comboing anyway, 2x Recruiter has him showing up often enough to combo easily but not so often that I'm stuck with vanilla 2/2 and nothing useful for him to do, and 3x EWit has always felt right, even when going harder on the combo.

Anyway, I have always preferred this deck being deep in value options, and with Blue being so popular lately, Voice is worth his weight in gold again. Figured I'd share my list for those of you looking for a different way to approach this deck and approach the meta with it. I regularly end games against blue control decks with 2+ CoCos/Chords in hand after taking 10+ turns each. Simply presenting threat after threat after threat and forcing them to tap awkwardly and inefficiently allows me to out-value them. Comboing in those MUs is not only a lot harder to actually pull off, it's completely unnecessary if you have an effective value plan.

Sorry for the late response, I was playing card games all weekend.

Here's the list:


tappedout link:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/voice-company/

Notably, you cannot keep hands in the same manner that you would with a bigger mana base as most other people are playing Abzan Company decks right now. I think of it more like burn. When you look at your hand, you need a clear plan for the first few turns and acknowledge that the deck probably needs to give you a certain set of cards for you to really kick things into high gear, given that you run 20 lands and 10 dorks, that thing is often more mana, but again, mana is literally half your deck, so that tends not to be an issue.

Also, you can end up stuck on 2-3 mana for a while so don't expect to hit T3 CoCo every game like you can with more traditional builds, and can just as often have a very stale game where you play out a druid, only to have your opponent kill it, only to play out another druid the next turn.

At the end of the day, the deck is primarily a GW beatdown deck with obviously undersized creatures, but that gives it the tools to play an older Abzan Company style where you keep presenting threats until your opponent is forced to answer them, at which point you get to combo in response, which means you play at a very different tempo than a deck that is primarily trying to kill it's opponents on turn 3 with a Druid>Vizier>Recruiter>Ballista combo. Not that you DON'T ever get T3 kills, you definitely do, you're just not going to be as consistent as someone running more mana sources and combo pieces when it comes to early combo kills.

I've found choke to be invaluable throughout my history of playing Abzan Company since blue-based control is such gear shift for us and Choke is one of the pieces that I feel has historically made it a good MU. Like I said, I'd rather it be 2, not 1, and your argument convinces me I need to find a spot to move it up. Especially when the best deck in the format is heavily reliant on Islands, I feel fine with it in the deck, and probably should have never shaved the 2nd one to begin with.

Being stuck on 2 mana is A-ok with me. I can play several turns on 2, the bigger concern would be having the right colors.

2/2 Path/Pulse split sounds good, I might move that direction.

Part of the appeal with Fulminator Mage is with the recursion available and the 1-of is very much so saying "I'd rather just not play against Tron to begin with" while still giving me something relevant to bring in and it has meaningful interaction with Grixis Shadow as well. The deck plays 3 red sources, 3 black sources, and 4 blue sources. Saffi, Rec Sage, and Reveillark all offer paths to destroy multiple lands and choking them off a single color can have huge ramifications on their tempo. It's won me games already, but not so many that I want to go all-in on the land destruction plan, especially with so few black sources of my own. It's also good against oddball situations like blowing up a mountain with exactly 6 Valakut triggers on the stack, another consideration I'd rather avoid but feel like I should have SOMETHING to do should I come up against that.

So after playing the Naya Druid list, I can firmly say that I hate it. I ended the night 1-5. I won against Burn, lost to Eldrazi Tron, Eldrazi Tron, UW Control, and Affinity. Draws weren't optimal in many of the games, but you shouldn't have to draw T3 kills every game for a deck to function.

To put it as concisely as possible, the problem is that the deck feels like crap if you never get to untap with a druid on the board and relevant cards in hand to combo. Yes, I got to hit people upside the head with a 8/2 trampling Rallier thanks to Kessig's Wolf Run, it didn't matter. Yes, I got to pump my druid to 4/2 with Rhonas and attack with both, all that did was trade for some removal from my opponent. Yes, I got to attack my opponent for 3 AND CoCo on the 3rd turn of a game, who cares?

The entire deck seems to hinge on the idea of untapping with Druid and in order for you to get there, your opponents need to not understand what Druid is capable of (everyone who is any good in my area understands what Druid is capable of). I had a game against Eldrazi Tron where I started with a turn 3 kill in hand, and as soon as Druid hit the board on T2, Dismember, paying 4 life went straight toward the Druid's face. I get that the deck is blazingly fast, and is almost a guaranteed kill by turn 4 if your opponent doesn't interact, but counting on your opponent being stupid, playing a bad deck, or not drawing anything relevant is not the way to win in this game. I'm going back to Abzan, because as always, the strength of this playstyle comes from the ability to play a value game and randomly turn that into an infinite combo. Going all in on the combo has never felt good to me in the past, and doesn't feel good to me now.

Alright Pokken, I'm gonna give your version a spin at a GPT tomorrow night. I see stuff like Grim Lavamancer in the main, you apparently got rid of Mirror Entity? And I'm not sure what exactly Fiery Justice and Primal Command is for in the side. If you would - please explain some of these choices and why they were made, if possible, skew some sideboard cards toward a more control-oriented meta because that's what's local around me, and I'll do as good a job as I can playing your 75 so I can see your side of the argument.

If writing up a new list is easier, by all means do that.

Pharika is definitely coming back for me and probably our best card we have vs control decks. I'm thinking of supplementing the control MUs further with something like Evolutionary Leap, but Pharika is what's been doing the heavy lifting vs control in my testing this week.

Voice isn't worth playing at all right now, and I say that as a general fan of the card. There's just so much more powerful things we can and should be doing with the space.

Been running a lot of games on Xmage and I must say, this Druid/Vizier tech has major teeth and may rebuild the deck further as time goes by.

3-4 druids seems like the right number. I am currently running 3 and many games revolve around me simply untapping with a druid in play. If I ever get to activate with any sort of Chord, Vizier, or EWit (w/ Chord in the GY) in hand, that is just an immediately closed out game.

2-3 Vizier seems like the right number. I am also running 3 of those, but I commonly find myself SBing the 3rd one out to make room for SB cards. There are so many combo pieces, it's hard to find room for what I actually want to replace at any given point, and since I rarely want Vizier in play by itself, the 3rd one is an easy target for SB. Right now I'm happy with that situation, but 2 might be a better number if we find we need something else to shore up rough spots.

Rallier/Saffi/Seer adds consistency, don't ignore it. I've had several games where I stall out and/or my opponent is removing things as they come down and I end up with this combo instead of one of the good ones. That said, this combo is great because it lets me scry my way to the nearest CoCo and all of a sudden, I've got gas.

Thune/Feeder seems completely unnecessary. While I've been a huge fan of feeder in older, grindier styles of this deck, it really is a 3 mana 'do nothing' card in this deck and Archangel of Thune is basically unplayable at 5 mana. I'd rather pop a Recruiter into play and dig for a replacement card if I have 5 mana and nothing really going on.

Finally, Walking Ballista feels like the best closer for Druid/Vizier/Recruiter because it's 1 card, can kill at instant speed using only green mana, and doesn't rely on the GY. I have only actually gotten to cast the Ballista once, and he's never made it past the stack, but that's how powerful of a finish it is. The fact that it doesn't get hit by CoCo or Chord is a minor drawback to have a single card win-con floating in your deck when the situation calls for it. The only other wincon I can see competing with this is Emrakul, which could be worth considering if mill becomes a bigger deal.

Druid tech is the nuts and I have a suspicion it may be ban-worthy in the long run due to the fact that you can regularly kill on T3 if your opponent doesn't interact with you. That said, get in while it's hot~

Quote from Curby »

How many would you run on a 3-THC, 0-Avenger build? Also, same question with the numbers flipped. (These are intentionally exaggerated, to illustrate the limits at which decisions might be made.)

Bonus question: has anyone ever cast countermagic against your Cavern-protected creature, then you said "ok" and the counter fizzled? That sounds like it would be fun.

Currently on 3 THC 2 Cataclysm 24/61 MD. I run 2 Cavern because W is still a concern and I simply can't fit a 3rd Cavern in. I WANT 3 caverns but can't really find the room.

If I flipped it to 3 Avengers, I would like shave back down to 23 lands and run 1 Cavern MAX since it has so many flaws when trying to push aggro out specifically.

For your bonus question, I've only ever had that happen at a weekly and I usually let those slide since we're here to learn mostly. I've never had it happen in a serious event like an IQ or something so I wouldn't know how fun that is. I know you can get into fights with that depending on how you declared the creature cast. If you, for instance, tapped a plains and the Cavern to play TGoT and simply say "Thalia?" and your opponent counters her, the judge could rule either way due to you not declaring the use of the special mana. So make sure to declare something like "Thalia, tapping cavern" or something along those lines.

Conversations like this are getting me interested in the Gideon/Cataclym lists again.

2x Gideon in the MB can help you tilt creature combat in G1 similar to Avenger/Crusader. Notably different in the sense that it spams 2/2 soldiers instead of using any sort of evasion or protection, but this works fairly well in general.

Then for post-board MUs, you have 3x Cataclysm in the SB for anything looking to play a game past turn 4. Elves, Shardless, Miracles, Maverick, Eldrazi, whatever. Cataclysm screwed them all. Then you just get to swoop in with a couple 2/2s and clean up the game. The answers are simple in their application and don't fall into the nuanced argument over which threat is better. Who cares, any threat will do after your opponent sacs all his creatures and lands.

Has anyone tried the concept in practice yet?

I guess expanding further on this. It's more of a "general" SB plan similar to how elves takes out Natural Order a solid 80% of the time against the field either due to not having a sac outlet due to 1-for-1 removal thorughout the game or fearing counter magic and giving away a free 2-for-1 (often both). They just sacrifice the plan all-together, and move into a grindy ground battle. We can play G1 like a typical D&T list with a little bit of hate, a little bit of beat, and then G2 we go 1 of 2 ways: Hatebear style against combo decks, siding out the SFMs and equipment because they don't really matter and bringing in our hatey-est bears we can find, or grindy style with Cataclysms and more removal. Extending games out long enough to cataclysm multiple times if needed. Casting a wider, non-specific net could win more games than having the perfect set of 15 sideboard card answers for every MU (already impossible). We'd probably want to be on 3 THC as it works against both creatures and lands, further compounding the effect of Cataclysm.

I jumped on the Abzan bus as soon as I saw the deck. I have had some fairly good results with it and even rode it to a top 4 at States.

That said, while I am still a fan of the deck, I spent the past month or so looking for something else to play before finally settling on Bant Eldrazi last week (Worship is such an awesome card btw).

The reason why I left the deck is pretty much exactly what is being talked about. The deck has gotten very popular, and has even achieved tier 1 status on sides like mtgsalvation. Rightly so, the deck can be very powerful and is resilient when played properly. That said, the deck can't function in a box. EVERYONE is bringing Company hate with them to any major tournament and while you can dodge hate cards for a handful of matches, it will eventually catch up to you when the entire field is prepared. I am even packing company hate in my Eldrazi deck in the form of Leonin Arbiter and Grafdigger's Cage.

I love the deck and will likely never trade away from it, but Company also doesn't handle the spotlight well. If everyone is bringing targeted SB cards, it's just a really really bad version of Wilted Abzan, and I'm not down for playing in that environment.

I will likely jump back on the bandwagon when the deck gets demoted to T2 and enjoys the freedom of not having targeted SB slots dedicated to it.

Quoth Ari Lax, in re Coco Elves without chord of calling (the messenger/lead builds): "I can't help but think that walking into a modern tournament with this is asking to die."

Edit: Best of both worlds?

Quote from jundimastah »

Based on your case it sounds like your only saying that cause a pro made that list. On top of that in standard I'm not a fan of abbot outside a aggro list. It doesn't do much as most of your Spells cost to much for it to matter other than t5 plus

I don't think that is what he is saying. I think his point is that it is a combination of cards in Jund colors that actually look like they are able to generate 2 for 1s. Every card, barring Wild Slash, looks to be generating value. I think there are ways to make Abbot better in the deck. Or more towards playable. And maybe ultimately you don't want four and you might need more spells to make his body relevant, but dismissing a card that makes the cut in modern Jund outright seems hasty. And spells are totally cheaper in an aggro deck and in modern, but I think discussing how to make Abbot better in the deck is more productive than just dismissing it.

Street Wraith is such a house in Ichorid (free extra Dredge + Ichorid fodder) that I wouldn't be entirely surprised if I saw a few copies of the Probe in Dredge soon. A free Dredge + insight into what might happen is pretty good, but I'm not sure if it's worth a slot. The upside is that it's free.