I've been trying so hard to actually win a GPT that I've contorted my deck into the 3 color manabase with 4 Caverns, and now that I've been running those lists for a few weeks and Big Red is one of the best decks in the format, all I want to do is go back to a monowhite build and beat some faces in with Avengers and Crusaders.
I think 1x Recruiter and 1x Prelate still have their places in the deck. Prelate shuts off so many unfair cards and Recruiter provides Flickerwisp Loops if nothing else, which is strong enough on it's own to be worth 1 slot in the deck.
On the one hand, I miss all the *****ty things I've gotten used to doing to my opponent's game plan, on the other, T3 Serra Avengers and Crusaders are strong plays all by themselves.
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.
If you play Legacy at all, one of the current best decks in the format is Food Chain which is playing 4x Walking Ballista and one of the scariest things they can do in a game is simply put it on the battlefield for a moderate amount of mana. A 6 mana Ballista means your opponent has to deal with it before putting anything with 2 or less toughness on the board or they just gave you a free card. If it sticks around for another turn, you can put another counter on the thing and now that's 3 toughness or it's a free card. When they DO deal with it, they still get to eat a lightning bolt to the face. I am not talking combo here, I am not talking absurd amounts of mana, I'm talking about playing a single card on turn 6+ against a control-oriented deck. And any Food Chain player will tell you they win a notable percentage of their games by simply resolving Ballista and pinging down enemy creatures.
While the decks are very different, both have a lot of similar goals. Ramp mana in the first 2 turns of the game (Birds for us, DRS for them), play value cards (CoCo for us, Manipulate Fate for them) and accidentally win X% of games by presenting an infinite combo (Creature combos for us, Food Chain for them).
While you guys are talking about how you can't Chord for it, and how it whiffs on CoCo, I'm over here thinking that I would never WANT to put it into play through either of those means anyway, nor do I need to do so in any given game state, but as far as random junk goes, I'd much rather play a Walking Ballista for 4 in a random situation than I would Rhonas for 3, who's probably just going to sit there for several turns or Bloodrite Invoker who is essentially a 3/1 for 3 unless you happen to win the game, Mirror Entity is probably the best of these alternate wincon cards and has it's own way of providing value, but I appreciate the ability to kill problem creatures my enemy controls in any given game state and win at sorcery speed, rather than relying on the combat step for those situations that require it. Best of all, Walking Ballista doesn't need an off-colored mana to do any of that in any situation. Green is good to go!
Yes, the card gives us the opportunity to instantly win games when we do a Devoted Vizier combo, but it ALSO presents value on it's own, which, if I'm not mistaken, has been the strength of this deck all along.
In response to Pokken's earlier criticisms of my list, I guess I'll go point-by-point.
The Lands - I'm not cutting the Swamp just because having a 4th basic is favorable to me, I'd rather cut the Godless Shrine, and I might do that (I guess the other option would be to go from Swamp to Forest?). I also don't own a 3rd Horizon Canopy, but can probably borrow one. Alongside swapping the 2nd Marsh Flats for a 3rd Gavony, I have no problem with that adjustment. Last week, if there's one thing I felt I needed more of, it was Gavony Township. I used to run 3 back when it was highly unpopular, and I only recently cut the 3rd to add more fetch lands and deck thinning for the minor percentage gains on my CoCos.
Walking Ballista - I've lost entirely too many games of Legacy to a Walking Ballista played for 6 mana on turn 5+. How everyone is convinced that is a bad magic card in a deck that is capable of making infinite mana is beyond me. If anything, I want more Ballistas, not less, but due to it's poor interaction with both Chord and CoCo, I'm not willing to go there. Otherwise, that card is a house all on its own. That card is insane in any deck that can make infinite mana. It is my 30th creature in the deck and the only one that can't be hit by CoCo, I'm ok with those statistics.
Fiend Hunter - You mention nobody is playing Kalitas and I can beat Scooze but both cards have been notable problems in at least 1 game at each of the last 2 5+ round tournaments I've attended. I actually wasn't playing Fiend Hunter last weekend and missed the card so he came back. He's great against those cards, anything out of Eldrazi, adds another layer of defense against DS, and is has the obscure combo of Reveillark-Safi-Seer-Fiend Hunter available to exile all my opponent's creatures all the time.
Saffi - She's not competing with other combo slots honestly, I left that logic behind long ago. She's competing with Spellskite and Selfless Spirit and it was a discussion with a local Abzan CoCo player that moved me back from Spirit to Saffi. The quote was somewhere along the lines of "I'm just not seeing a whole lot of board wipes in general, especially not in game 1" She does a poor Spellskite impression and offers multiple obscure Viscera Seer infinites. IMO, she's the best piece of combo protection we can be playing in the MB right now.
Tireless Tracker - I'm not sold on running him MD, and if you want to consider any piece of the deck my substitute for the 6th 1 mana dork, this is it. As I mentioned in my last post, I've been encountering a ton of heavy-removal control decks in my area and they even top 8 fairly consistently. This is more of a nod to my local meta than anything else. I need creatures that do stuff other than just make mana.
The biggest local threats to me are - Eldrazi Tron, Bant Eldrazi, decks that play a ton of removal and counters, Tron, Scapeshift, Ponza, and other AbzCo decks. Everything else I've played against feels at least somewhat positive. (Note that DS is not on that list, I have not actually bumped into it in a serious tournament in the past few weeks - right now, I'm more scared of Faeries than I am of DS, I'm 0-2 against that deck over the past 2 tournaments).
With all due respect to your "faster is better" stance, I am both encountering a large amount of control decks when I go to bigger tournaments in my area AND have been struggling with consistently presenting threats in longer games.
I am actually cuttin down to 5 mana dorks in the 1 mana slot because my issue is rarely having enough mana to do stuff and more often running out of things to do that are relevant in a given game.
Round 1, 0-0
Against a Girl who was new to Legacy on Grixis Delver with a bunch of Miracle effects. Game 1, she discovered how good Mom is. Game 2, she beat me in the face with a Delver, Thunderous Wrath, and Lightning Bolt. Game 3, was and early Magus blocking her from doing anything. It wasn't super close but I never really felt comfortable either, the game ended up with me at 18 health and her dead. Supposedly, she had a Pyrokinesis in hand the whole game but didn't draw a red card until after I suited my Magus up with a SoFaI, so it could have been much worse than it went at any moment.
Round 2, 1-0
Food Chain - Game 1 - Turn 4 Combo, yey. Game 2 I end up with a Prelate on 3 holding a Batterskull and am trading away SFMs holding Jittes for his creatures. Luckily, I keep pulling creatures off the top to continue the trade game while I slowly whittle him down. After the game is over, he mentions he had an edict and the combo in his hand the whole game, which made me feel better about the way I played because that's exactly what I was playing around. Game 3, Turn 4 Combo again. IMO, Food Chain is definitely a consideration for 'Best Deck in the Format' right now.
Round 3, 1-1
Grixis Peezy - Game 1 was an early Kambal into standard D&T beats. Notable play of the game was me not swinging in with my Revoker vs his YP + token, followed by him not remembering to sac his token to Cabal Therapy to get my Batterskull in hand, followed by me beating his face until I win. Kambal felt great here as at one point, I had Kambal and Thalia on the board and he had a YP and a Delver, the way the game was going I was immediately like "yeah, I'll take that 2 for 1" and swung in with both. He couldn't double block fast enough and we were all happy about the 2-for-1 there. What an awesome card. Game 2 was Delver and YP getting down on my face. Game 3 was me jacking up everything he wanted to do, followed by me having a vial on 3, 2 Rishadan Ports and 1 Cavern of Souls in play while I draw anything but a true white source or any creature with 3CMC or any human to play off the Cavern. I lost to Zombie Fish beats to the face with multiple removal spells in hand.
Round 4, 1-2
Aluren (with Recruiter of the Guard) - Game 1 is just the perfect D&T game. T1 Vial, T2 Thalia + vial in Mom, T3 SFM, T4 doesn't matter because he's already dead on board. Biggest problem here is that my opener was so oppressive, I didn't actually know what he was playing. I saw a Brainstorm, a Baleful Strix, and BUG lands. Game 2 was mostly the same. It was fairly uneventful, I didn't actually know he was on Aluren until the match was over since he didn't really do anything at any point in the match.
Round 5, 2-2 (in 10th place)
Turbo Depths - Game 1, he goes T1 Blooming Marsh into Thoughtseize, sees 2 Karakas, a Wasteland, and a bunch of other nonsense, sighs really hard, and I already know what deck he's on. Revokers + Jitte beats get there. At one point, he got Marit Lage into play and hit a Not of This World in response to Karakas. That's fine, gain 2 - go to 21, take 20, go to 1, kill you. If you've played the MU, you know we're heavily favored. Game 2, I again get all sorts of stuff screwing up his game plan, and he gets to see Magus for the first time. I messed up by attacking with a Revoker (naming Vampire Hexmage) into a Vampire Hexmage, I play the damn deck for fun regularly and STILL forgot that card has First Strike, next turn he manages to kill my Magus, Revoker, make Marit Lage, and kill me. Game 3, turn 3 Magus into Magus/Revoker beats. He hit me with a Dread of Night in G2, so that made me feel a bit better about all the non-white dudes. We chatted for a bit after the MU and he briefly discussed how D&T is now - by far - the worst MU for him. He will be adjusting his SB even harder to hate on the deck since it was his only 2 losses of the day, and having played it, I agree. G2 and 3 might get really bad for us in the future of this MU since they will probably be dedicating 10+ cards to us specifically.
I end up in 9th, but 1 guy doesn't want to play for byes so I'm in top 8.
Quarter Finals
Food Chain - Again, same guy had secured first (even more reason why I'm sure this deck is competitive for title of "Best Deck in the Format"). I had a modestly good G1 which revolved around him never drawing Food Chain and me leaving a vial on 2 in hopes of drawing a Revoker off the top to shut off his Walking Ballista with 3 counters on it. I do exactly that, active vial, slam the revoker, suit up my Mirran Crusader with a Batterskull and shove it down his throat, he chumps with Ballista and dies the next turn. G2 we see a T4 combo again. G3, he's stumbling a bit and I'm on the beatdown plan, eventually getting him to 7. Karakas his Leovold back to his hand and Rishadan all his blue lands. He eventually gets to 3 mana post-Rishadan ports and plays his Eternal Scourge he exiled earlier with Manipulate Fate (such a silly card), slams Food Chain for value the next turn and floods the board with every creature he draws. I can't attack any more and just die because Vigilance Griffins are good.
That's the gist of my tournament. Kambal felt fantastic against Delver, I never got to play Pontiff because there were 0 Elves players in the room (other best deck?) and I never went up against D&T or anything so... yeah... and the worst card in the deck was clearly Rishadan Port and I don't say that lightly.
Thoughts moving forward - Maybe drop down to 0 Ports and replace them with Ghost Quarter or Ancient Tombs? I think I want a 4th Canonist - in the main, would have been good against all the things I want to beat right now. Suture Priest seems like it's actually somewhat relevant right now since Food Chain, Aluren, and Elves are all T1 decks at this point. It would completely shut down the Food Chain combo and some versions of Aluren have moved to Kalastria Healer as their wincon of choice, so it would shut them down too; but it could also be reaching too far to deal with situations we just don't want to get into in the first place. Elves is still probably a terrible MU but at this point, it's starting to feel like I have relevant tech against their game plan with all the Canonists, Magus of the Moon, and Orzhov Pontiffs in the deck. Also, my SB needs work, I never cast Rest in Peace and only even thought it relevant in 1 MU, maybe 1 should be a Grafdigger's Cage? I've always liked having RIP vs things like DRS + Snappy and DRS + Goyf, but I ran into 0 of those decks today. I don't know, I'm up for suggestions on the whole SB at this point.
Anyway, let me know what you guys think. I'll be updating my list tonight/tomorrow.
I ended up shaving the 2nd Noble and am trying out the crazy idea of running a Magus in the side, but I had an opponent immediately target him last night so that feels good for now. Everything else is at least semi-standard. Also thinking of going back up to 3 Gavony Township by swapping out the 2nd Marsh Flats, haven't pulled the trigger yet though.
Here's where I'm at with my understanding of what we want to be doing in the deck, feel free to disagree, it's kinda long, but I'm just putting it here so it's somewhere.
I want 4 druids because 1) I feel like it is unequivocally our best turn 2 play in the vast majority of situations and I want that to happen as often as possible. A turn 3 kill is rare in Modern, and being able to untap with druid on T3 is a huge threat all on it's own, as opponents learn how to respond, this will become a bolt-or-potentially-lose-the-game situation. 2) Untapping at any point in the game with a druid in play is a huge threat. This has to be the scariest 0/2 in Modern right now.
After dropping Ana, Rallier, and Saffi from the deck, I'm adding them back because they're all very good for several reasons. Firstly, I no longer view Ana as a counter-engine. She is that, sure, but more importantly, she's an infinite-bolster wincon. This is important because it means she isn't competing with Vizier for slots, she deserves one of her own. The ability to make all your dudes unreasonably large is the primary reason to play her at this point, and that alone makes her worth a slot. Rallier and Saffi are back because I've been bumping into a lot of control decks lately and more recursion is welcome. My primary concern in control seems to be just getting guys on board that give me multiple cards worth of value. And there's also the super-cute Rally/Saffi/Seer combo for infinite scry, having Ana allows us to turn that into infinite bolster as well.
I'm not sure what the right number of EWit and Vizier is right now. A large part of what this deck brings to the table is a value beatdown plan, and a 2/1 for 2 seems to die to a LOT of stuff right now. The same thing goes for the 3rd EWit but that card is obviously better in grindy MUs. The power of T3 goes way up when you add density to these slots, but our grinding value goes down significantly as well, and as I said, as opponents figure out how the new combo works, Druid on T2 is going to get a huge bulls-eye on its back. Right now, I'm on 3/3, but I'm far from sure that is where I want to be.
I had a decent discussion with a guy (and fellow AbzCo player) at my LGS about Walking Ballista in the deck and while he made some convincing arguments for why it is completely unnecessary to combo-win when you have infinite bolster available and can stack your deck and CoCo/Chord for whatever you want, so waiting a turn to actually kill your opponent isn't a concern at all, I still like it's ability to notably combo-win without touching the GY and do a bad Redcap impression when played for value. You don't get the recursion in the face of removal, but you still get to ping enemy creatures at will. Right now I am still running it, but I don't feel hugely committed to the card. It's good, but not necessary.
I guess that's it for now. I'm currently stuck at 61 cards, and need to find a slot to shave.
I would say 4/4/1 is wrong regardless. Duskwatch is much better 2 drop for 2 than vizier, and I've never felt like I'm not seeing enough vizier in a given game. 4/3/2 would be the closest I could get to that, and I'm not sure 4 is the right number of druids either, the card is still an 0/2 for 2 if you're not comboing with it. That said, it is VERY powerful to untap with one, but I think having 4 CoCos, 4 Chords, and 2 Ewits gives us more than enough redundancy for all that at the end of the day. I'd rather go up to 4/3/3 before I go up to 4/4/1, but I can't even find a card I want to cut for a 4th druid right now so no reason talking about 4rd Vizier vs 3rd Recruiter yet.
As far as Finks/Ana/Seer numbers, Ana has been a 1-of in many versions of the deck for the longest time and with 3 Vizier, I think Ana is just a great value card and 'yet-another-potential-wincon' which is something I'm completely fine with. Finks, Ana, and Scooze are the best creatures in my deck when we're talking beat-stick value, and if we can't threaten our opponent with bear-beats, that leaves our opponent free to put their full focus on stopping our combo kill instead of not dying. We want to keep them focused on both at the end of the day. I am currently running 3 Seers + Rallier + Saffi, I could see an argument for dropping to 2 Seers, but the ability to scry my way to the next threat in the face of removal and/or board wipes is plenty enough as far as I'm concerned. It's also a 1 drop, and I find that helps a little bit - not so much as far as having a T1 play, but those T3/T4 situations where you're just trying to dump your hand on the board so you can have stronger Chords in future turns. Being able to squeeze Finks + Seer onto a board with 4 mana is a valuable thing all on it's own.
Right now, I'm a little more concerned with the SB. I think 3x Sculler + 3x Path are going to be fairly stock in the near future, I've also seen lists running Linvala and Revoker, a move I think is prudent given the likelihood of mirror matches in the near future... I personally have a 3rd Recruiter in the side for grinder MUs like Grixis, and he's served me well, but other options don't fee as good. Spellskite, Selfless Spirit, Rec Sage, Maelstrom Pulse, Orzhov Pontiff, Kataki, Stony Silence, all these cards seem lost all of a sudden, should we be playing stuff like Rally again? Tasigur? Thrun? Confidant? I'm not even sure what we need at this point.
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~
The deck has consistently been putting up results both on MTGO and in paper tournaments. It's worth considering at least for the time being.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19745-Deck-Dragon-Stompy/page146 is also going to be worth looking at as it's neither sneak attack nor dragon stompy that is sticking out as the clearly better chalice moon deck, but both are putting up results at the same time.
I've been trying so hard to actually win a GPT that I've contorted my deck into the 3 color manabase with 4 Caverns, and now that I've been running those lists for a few weeks and Big Red is one of the best decks in the format, all I want to do is go back to a monowhite build and beat some faces in with Avengers and Crusaders.
I might try something like this next week:
4x Flickerwisp
2x Mirran Crusader
3x Mother of Runes
3x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Recruiter of the Guard
1x Sanctum Prelate
3x Serra Avenger
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4x Aether Vial
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
Land (23)
3x Karakas
12x Plains
4x Rishadan Port
4x Wasteland
Instant (4)
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Containment Priest
2x Council's Judgment
3x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Leonin Relic-Warder
2x Path to Exile
1x Pithing Needle
2x Rest in Peace
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
I think 1x Recruiter and 1x Prelate still have their places in the deck. Prelate shuts off so many unfair cards and Recruiter provides Flickerwisp Loops if nothing else, which is strong enough on it's own to be worth 1 slot in the deck.
On the one hand, I miss all the *****ty things I've gotten used to doing to my opponent's game plan, on the other, T3 Serra Avengers and Crusaders are strong plays all by themselves.
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.
If writing up a new list is easier, by all means do that.
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.
While the decks are very different, both have a lot of similar goals. Ramp mana in the first 2 turns of the game (Birds for us, DRS for them), play value cards (CoCo for us, Manipulate Fate for them) and accidentally win X% of games by presenting an infinite combo (Creature combos for us, Food Chain for them).
While you guys are talking about how you can't Chord for it, and how it whiffs on CoCo, I'm over here thinking that I would never WANT to put it into play through either of those means anyway, nor do I need to do so in any given game state, but as far as random junk goes, I'd much rather play a Walking Ballista for 4 in a random situation than I would Rhonas for 3, who's probably just going to sit there for several turns or Bloodrite Invoker who is essentially a 3/1 for 3 unless you happen to win the game, Mirror Entity is probably the best of these alternate wincon cards and has it's own way of providing value, but I appreciate the ability to kill problem creatures my enemy controls in any given game state and win at sorcery speed, rather than relying on the combat step for those situations that require it. Best of all, Walking Ballista doesn't need an off-colored mana to do any of that in any situation. Green is good to go!
Yes, the card gives us the opportunity to instantly win games when we do a Devoted Vizier combo, but it ALSO presents value on it's own, which, if I'm not mistaken, has been the strength of this deck all along.
The Lands - I'm not cutting the Swamp just because having a 4th basic is favorable to me, I'd rather cut the Godless Shrine, and I might do that (I guess the other option would be to go from Swamp to Forest?). I also don't own a 3rd Horizon Canopy, but can probably borrow one. Alongside swapping the 2nd Marsh Flats for a 3rd Gavony, I have no problem with that adjustment. Last week, if there's one thing I felt I needed more of, it was Gavony Township. I used to run 3 back when it was highly unpopular, and I only recently cut the 3rd to add more fetch lands and deck thinning for the minor percentage gains on my CoCos.
Walking Ballista - I've lost entirely too many games of Legacy to a Walking Ballista played for 6 mana on turn 5+. How everyone is convinced that is a bad magic card in a deck that is capable of making infinite mana is beyond me. If anything, I want more Ballistas, not less, but due to it's poor interaction with both Chord and CoCo, I'm not willing to go there. Otherwise, that card is a house all on its own. That card is insane in any deck that can make infinite mana. It is my 30th creature in the deck and the only one that can't be hit by CoCo, I'm ok with those statistics.
Fiend Hunter - You mention nobody is playing Kalitas and I can beat Scooze but both cards have been notable problems in at least 1 game at each of the last 2 5+ round tournaments I've attended. I actually wasn't playing Fiend Hunter last weekend and missed the card so he came back. He's great against those cards, anything out of Eldrazi, adds another layer of defense against DS, and is has the obscure combo of Reveillark-Safi-Seer-Fiend Hunter available to exile all my opponent's creatures all the time.
Saffi - She's not competing with other combo slots honestly, I left that logic behind long ago. She's competing with Spellskite and Selfless Spirit and it was a discussion with a local Abzan CoCo player that moved me back from Spirit to Saffi. The quote was somewhere along the lines of "I'm just not seeing a whole lot of board wipes in general, especially not in game 1" She does a poor Spellskite impression and offers multiple obscure Viscera Seer infinites. IMO, she's the best piece of combo protection we can be playing in the MB right now.
Tireless Tracker - I'm not sold on running him MD, and if you want to consider any piece of the deck my substitute for the 6th 1 mana dork, this is it. As I mentioned in my last post, I've been encountering a ton of heavy-removal control decks in my area and they even top 8 fairly consistently. This is more of a nod to my local meta than anything else. I need creatures that do stuff other than just make mana.
The biggest local threats to me are - Eldrazi Tron, Bant Eldrazi, decks that play a ton of removal and counters, Tron, Scapeshift, Ponza, and other AbzCo decks. Everything else I've played against feels at least somewhat positive. (Note that DS is not on that list, I have not actually bumped into it in a serious tournament in the past few weeks - right now, I'm more scared of Faeries than I am of DS, I'm 0-2 against that deck over the past 2 tournaments).
I am actually cuttin down to 5 mana dorks in the 1 mana slot because my issue is rarely having enough mana to do stuff and more often running out of things to do that are relevant in a given game.
Same argument goes for 22 vs 23 lands.
edit: updating this post with actual information, here's the list:
3x Flickerwisp
1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
2x Magus of the Moon
4x Mother of Runes
1x Orzhov Pontiff
3x Phyrexian Revoker
2x Recruiter of the Guard
1x Sanctum Prelate
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Instant (4)
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Aether Vial
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
Land (23)
4x Cavern of Souls
1x Flooded Strand
2x Karakas
1x Marsh Flats
7x Plains
1x Plateau
2x Rishadan Port
1x Scrubland
4x Wasteland
2x Containment Priest
2x Council's Judgment
3x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1x Orzhov Pontiff
2x Path to Exile
1x Pithing Needle
2x Rest in Peace
1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
Round 1, 0-0
Against a Girl who was new to Legacy on Grixis Delver with a bunch of Miracle effects. Game 1, she discovered how good Mom is. Game 2, she beat me in the face with a Delver, Thunderous Wrath, and Lightning Bolt. Game 3, was and early Magus blocking her from doing anything. It wasn't super close but I never really felt comfortable either, the game ended up with me at 18 health and her dead. Supposedly, she had a Pyrokinesis in hand the whole game but didn't draw a red card until after I suited my Magus up with a SoFaI, so it could have been much worse than it went at any moment.
Round 2, 1-0
Food Chain - Game 1 - Turn 4 Combo, yey. Game 2 I end up with a Prelate on 3 holding a Batterskull and am trading away SFMs holding Jittes for his creatures. Luckily, I keep pulling creatures off the top to continue the trade game while I slowly whittle him down. After the game is over, he mentions he had an edict and the combo in his hand the whole game, which made me feel better about the way I played because that's exactly what I was playing around. Game 3, Turn 4 Combo again. IMO, Food Chain is definitely a consideration for 'Best Deck in the Format' right now.
Round 3, 1-1
Grixis Peezy - Game 1 was an early Kambal into standard D&T beats. Notable play of the game was me not swinging in with my Revoker vs his YP + token, followed by him not remembering to sac his token to Cabal Therapy to get my Batterskull in hand, followed by me beating his face until I win. Kambal felt great here as at one point, I had Kambal and Thalia on the board and he had a YP and a Delver, the way the game was going I was immediately like "yeah, I'll take that 2 for 1" and swung in with both. He couldn't double block fast enough and we were all happy about the 2-for-1 there. What an awesome card. Game 2 was Delver and YP getting down on my face. Game 3 was me jacking up everything he wanted to do, followed by me having a vial on 3, 2 Rishadan Ports and 1 Cavern of Souls in play while I draw anything but a true white source or any creature with 3CMC or any human to play off the Cavern. I lost to Zombie Fish beats to the face with multiple removal spells in hand.
Round 4, 1-2
Aluren (with Recruiter of the Guard) - Game 1 is just the perfect D&T game. T1 Vial, T2 Thalia + vial in Mom, T3 SFM, T4 doesn't matter because he's already dead on board. Biggest problem here is that my opener was so oppressive, I didn't actually know what he was playing. I saw a Brainstorm, a Baleful Strix, and BUG lands. Game 2 was mostly the same. It was fairly uneventful, I didn't actually know he was on Aluren until the match was over since he didn't really do anything at any point in the match.
Round 5, 2-2 (in 10th place)
Turbo Depths - Game 1, he goes T1 Blooming Marsh into Thoughtseize, sees 2 Karakas, a Wasteland, and a bunch of other nonsense, sighs really hard, and I already know what deck he's on. Revokers + Jitte beats get there. At one point, he got Marit Lage into play and hit a Not of This World in response to Karakas. That's fine, gain 2 - go to 21, take 20, go to 1, kill you. If you've played the MU, you know we're heavily favored. Game 2, I again get all sorts of stuff screwing up his game plan, and he gets to see Magus for the first time. I messed up by attacking with a Revoker (naming Vampire Hexmage) into a Vampire Hexmage, I play the damn deck for fun regularly and STILL forgot that card has First Strike, next turn he manages to kill my Magus, Revoker, make Marit Lage, and kill me. Game 3, turn 3 Magus into Magus/Revoker beats. He hit me with a Dread of Night in G2, so that made me feel a bit better about all the non-white dudes. We chatted for a bit after the MU and he briefly discussed how D&T is now - by far - the worst MU for him. He will be adjusting his SB even harder to hate on the deck since it was his only 2 losses of the day, and having played it, I agree. G2 and 3 might get really bad for us in the future of this MU since they will probably be dedicating 10+ cards to us specifically.
I end up in 9th, but 1 guy doesn't want to play for byes so I'm in top 8.
Quarter Finals
Food Chain - Again, same guy had secured first (even more reason why I'm sure this deck is competitive for title of "Best Deck in the Format"). I had a modestly good G1 which revolved around him never drawing Food Chain and me leaving a vial on 2 in hopes of drawing a Revoker off the top to shut off his Walking Ballista with 3 counters on it. I do exactly that, active vial, slam the revoker, suit up my Mirran Crusader with a Batterskull and shove it down his throat, he chumps with Ballista and dies the next turn. G2 we see a T4 combo again. G3, he's stumbling a bit and I'm on the beatdown plan, eventually getting him to 7. Karakas his Leovold back to his hand and Rishadan all his blue lands. He eventually gets to 3 mana post-Rishadan ports and plays his Eternal Scourge he exiled earlier with Manipulate Fate (such a silly card), slams Food Chain for value the next turn and floods the board with every creature he draws. I can't attack any more and just die because Vigilance Griffins are good.
That's the gist of my tournament. Kambal felt fantastic against Delver, I never got to play Pontiff because there were 0 Elves players in the room (other best deck?) and I never went up against D&T or anything so... yeah... and the worst card in the deck was clearly Rishadan Port and I don't say that lightly.
Thoughts moving forward - Maybe drop down to 0 Ports and replace them with Ghost Quarter or Ancient Tombs? I think I want a 4th Canonist - in the main, would have been good against all the things I want to beat right now. Suture Priest seems like it's actually somewhat relevant right now since Food Chain, Aluren, and Elves are all T1 decks at this point. It would completely shut down the Food Chain combo and some versions of Aluren have moved to Kalastria Healer as their wincon of choice, so it would shut them down too; but it could also be reaching too far to deal with situations we just don't want to get into in the first place. Elves is still probably a terrible MU but at this point, it's starting to feel like I have relevant tech against their game plan with all the Canonists, Magus of the Moon, and Orzhov Pontiffs in the deck. Also, my SB needs work, I never cast Rest in Peace and only even thought it relevant in 1 MU, maybe 1 should be a Grafdigger's Cage? I've always liked having RIP vs things like DRS + Snappy and DRS + Goyf, but I ran into 0 of those decks today. I don't know, I'm up for suggestions on the whole SB at this point.
Anyway, let me know what you guys think. I'll be updating my list tonight/tomorrow.
1x Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Devoted Druid
2x Duskwatch Recruiter
3x Eternal Witness
1x Fiend Hunter
4x Kitchen Finks
1x Noble Hierarch
1x Renegade Rallier
1x Saffi Eriksdotter
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Tireless Tracker
2x Viscera Seer
3x Vizier of Remedies
1x Walking Ballista
2x Forest
2x Gavony Township
1x Godless Shrine
2x Horizon Canopy
2x Marsh Flats
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Plains
1x Swamp
2x Temple Garden
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Windswept Heath
Instant (8)
4x Chord of Calling
4x Collected Company
1x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Magus of the Moon
1x Orzhov Pontiff
3x Path to Exile
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Reveillark
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Selfless Spirit
1x Kataki, War's Wage
I ended up shaving the 2nd Noble and am trying out the crazy idea of running a Magus in the side, but I had an opponent immediately target him last night so that feels good for now. Everything else is at least semi-standard. Also thinking of going back up to 3 Gavony Township by swapping out the 2nd Marsh Flats, haven't pulled the trigger yet though.
I want 4 druids because 1) I feel like it is unequivocally our best turn 2 play in the vast majority of situations and I want that to happen as often as possible. A turn 3 kill is rare in Modern, and being able to untap with druid on T3 is a huge threat all on it's own, as opponents learn how to respond, this will become a bolt-or-potentially-lose-the-game situation. 2) Untapping at any point in the game with a druid in play is a huge threat. This has to be the scariest 0/2 in Modern right now.
After dropping Ana, Rallier, and Saffi from the deck, I'm adding them back because they're all very good for several reasons. Firstly, I no longer view Ana as a counter-engine. She is that, sure, but more importantly, she's an infinite-bolster wincon. This is important because it means she isn't competing with Vizier for slots, she deserves one of her own. The ability to make all your dudes unreasonably large is the primary reason to play her at this point, and that alone makes her worth a slot. Rallier and Saffi are back because I've been bumping into a lot of control decks lately and more recursion is welcome. My primary concern in control seems to be just getting guys on board that give me multiple cards worth of value. And there's also the super-cute Rally/Saffi/Seer combo for infinite scry, having Ana allows us to turn that into infinite bolster as well.
I'm not sure what the right number of EWit and Vizier is right now. A large part of what this deck brings to the table is a value beatdown plan, and a 2/1 for 2 seems to die to a LOT of stuff right now. The same thing goes for the 3rd EWit but that card is obviously better in grindy MUs. The power of T3 goes way up when you add density to these slots, but our grinding value goes down significantly as well, and as I said, as opponents figure out how the new combo works, Druid on T2 is going to get a huge bulls-eye on its back. Right now, I'm on 3/3, but I'm far from sure that is where I want to be.
I had a decent discussion with a guy (and fellow AbzCo player) at my LGS about Walking Ballista in the deck and while he made some convincing arguments for why it is completely unnecessary to combo-win when you have infinite bolster available and can stack your deck and CoCo/Chord for whatever you want, so waiting a turn to actually kill your opponent isn't a concern at all, I still like it's ability to notably combo-win without touching the GY and do a bad Redcap impression when played for value. You don't get the recursion in the face of removal, but you still get to ping enemy creatures at will. Right now I am still running it, but I don't feel hugely committed to the card. It's good, but not necessary.
I guess that's it for now. I'm currently stuck at 61 cards, and need to find a slot to shave.
3x Flickerwisp
1x Magus of the Moon
1x Mirran Crusader
4x Mother of Runes
1x Orzhov Pontiff
2x Phyrexian Revoker
3x Recruiter of the Guard
1x Sanctum Prelate
2x Serra Avenger
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3x Cavern of Souls
3x Karakas
9x Plains
4x Rishadan Port
4x Wasteland
Artifact (7)
4x Aether Vial
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
Instant (4)
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Containment Priest
2x Council's Judgment
3x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Magus of the Moon
1x Orzhov Pontiff
2x Path to Exile
1x Pithing Needle
2x Rest in Peace
As far as Finks/Ana/Seer numbers, Ana has been a 1-of in many versions of the deck for the longest time and with 3 Vizier, I think Ana is just a great value card and 'yet-another-potential-wincon' which is something I'm completely fine with. Finks, Ana, and Scooze are the best creatures in my deck when we're talking beat-stick value, and if we can't threaten our opponent with bear-beats, that leaves our opponent free to put their full focus on stopping our combo kill instead of not dying. We want to keep them focused on both at the end of the day. I am currently running 3 Seers + Rallier + Saffi, I could see an argument for dropping to 2 Seers, but the ability to scry my way to the next threat in the face of removal and/or board wipes is plenty enough as far as I'm concerned. It's also a 1 drop, and I find that helps a little bit - not so much as far as having a T1 play, but those T3/T4 situations where you're just trying to dump your hand on the board so you can have stronger Chords in future turns. Being able to squeeze Finks + Seer onto a board with 4 mana is a valuable thing all on it's own.
Right now, I'm a little more concerned with the SB. I think 3x Sculler + 3x Path are going to be fairly stock in the near future, I've also seen lists running Linvala and Revoker, a move I think is prudent given the likelihood of mirror matches in the near future... I personally have a 3rd Recruiter in the side for grinder MUs like Grixis, and he's served me well, but other options don't fee as good. Spellskite, Selfless Spirit, Rec Sage, Maelstrom Pulse, Orzhov Pontiff, Kataki, Stony Silence, all these cards seem lost all of a sudden, should we be playing stuff like Rally again? Tasigur? Thrun? Confidant? I'm not even sure what we need at this point.
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~