Yeah, remember that the main reason the combo works so well in Twin is due to the control shell. Remand/Serum Visions/Cryptic Command all get you closer and the minimum amount of fetching also aids Serum Visions.
It is the closest thing to a draw-go deck we have in Tier 1 and rarely will a pro Twin player hastily go for the combo unless they're about to die the next turn. They can easily hold up and play plan B beats and wait to craft windows of opportunity.
Knightfall is more blunt in its overall approach as dumb beats and that is quite unavoidable when you are playing cards like noble hierarch and knight of reliquary as core.
Rather than compare the merits of these cards individually, we should take a holistic view and realise that the only real similarity between both decks atm is a two card combo that has a creature and an enchantment...
Comparing Retreat to Coralhelm to Splinter Twin, retreat is a better card. 3CMC vs 4CMC. Has lasting utility as the game goes on. Not a completely dead card in your hand, helps you find your combo pieces and other answers. And it is functional in multiples. I am mostly a twin player (the first deck I took seriously in modern), and Twin is just a horrible card to have in your and if you don't have any of your combo pieces. At least I can use retreat to some other utility.
I have started trying out the Zoo list, and the biggest thing I notices is Bolt is good. Making a bigger red splash in the bant list for Bolt is something to really consider.
I've played Twin alot myself and Splinter Twin on Snapcaster/Clique is pretty neat. Post-board, it even works well on Spellskite. I wouldn't say it's completely dead without Pestermite/Exarch.
@TheAller I recommend anywhere between 0 and 3 Healiana for similar reasons. Though I should add that burn will more often put themselves into topdeck mode since, outside of the omnipresent threat of mana flood, burn has great topdecks due to its natural redundancy.
It's more due to the fact that the lifelink and 3 toughness is actually quite relevant vs burn. Flipping her is good as well though.
Depends on your EWit, Fulminator numbers and the overall configuration of your deck. She drastically changes the way your deck plays out and makes your CoCo choices that much harder.
Against affinity, she just sits in my hand durdling while I try to get my combo plan online asap aka dead card (same against quick linear combo).
Against other combo decks, she can be useful together with fulm for locking lands out and buying time, eg. scapeshift.
Against burn, I want to bring her asap down after my skite/seer incase they searing blaze.
Against grixis/bgx, she provides so much value.
Against tron, fulm + lily is broken.
I personally run 3 Lily's, 3 Fulms, 2 Ewits. CoCoing into fulm + lily is so good.
To be fair, the majority of responses you receive here will range from 0-1.
A consensus hasn't been reached on any cards that are not Knight of the Reliquary and Retreat to Coralhelm for this archetype.
As for other established tier decks, CoCo is a staple in Abzan Company due to the fact there is a high percentage to yield you a piece of the combo or allow a tempo swing at opponents EOT.
CoCo definitely places alot of restrictions on your deck so you should be asking yourself whether or not you want to play a creature-light(or higher cmc)/spell-heavy deck or low cmc/creature-dense deck. CoCo will then present itself to you as either a favourable or disgusting choice.
I don't know..."The deck absolutely does not need goyfs in any incarnation" seems to be quite the shutdown.
edit: Let's move on from this and bring other suggestions to the board.
Potential blue cards for CoCo: Kira, Great Glass-Spinner - Don't think UU is an issue since we are not running GG (except Ewit?) or WW. Good for protection, a bit of a nonbo with Coralhelm but still ok with fetchlands.
Vendilion Clique - Great disruption, evasion. Clear information before proceeding with combo. Nice to have a flash play so CoCo isn't AS telegraphed.
Thassa, God of the Sea - Gives Geists evasion. Scry for combo. Bad because it does nothing and will almost never meet devotion (unless you run the above 2 as well).
Kiora, Master of the Depths - Alternative Win-Con and helps look for Knight and synergises with dorks/knight in play.
Other sideboard cards to consider: Meddling Mage - Two drop replacement for Voice in matchups where voices don't shine.
Unified Will - With 6-8 dorks, may be worth looking at. Brian Kibler used it in his Bant Company list in June IIRC.
The deck absolutely does not need goyfs in any incarnation; there will never be consensus that they're better than voice (or even Thalia, or some other strong 2-drop) because he's not strictly better than other cards in this archetype (either zoo or bant).
It's not a budget question, it's a preference and meta question. In no way is he core to to any version of the deck except one that tries to run stubborn denial (which I found to be kinda meh overall personally).
Please don't be so quick to shoot down ideas. Without any solid results from anyone, it's just a myopic approach.
Naya Company has been playing goyfs and performing competitively for a long time so there is at least that one possibility that the blue splash for Coralhelm may work in that version.
There may even be a version that plays UBGW and runs mainboard discards/removal and lily's and life from the loam to fuel goyfs.
Really seems to be a vocal minority on this thread and shutting down other people's ideas isn't going to help.
I beg to differ. Understanding how your G1 fares vs robots is important and people often forget that while SB cards are good, they should not be a reliance for a matchup (remember you still actually have to draw and play the card before their T4 clock).
It is one of the main reasons why Tron plays 4 x pyro. I mean sure you can just disregard G1 and say "Stony Silence/Kataki lol" but with such a high meta prevalence atm, I think it would be unwise. All the affinity hate in the world hasn't stopped the archetype from achieving great tournament results and maintaining a huge metashare.
There are definitely changes to be made to this archetype that would swing around %'s vs affinity and other tier 1 decks, just to list a few:
Splash red = bolt
Splash black = abrupt decay/discard
More Qasali, less Voice
Not saying that any of the above ideas are correct but they are not the same-ish against Affinity. For example, I know you may have convinced yourself that your hangarback, non-coco, academy ruins jank is ingenious but I think for the better of the archetype, you should also explore the upsides of lightning bolt (as an example) against affinity, etc.
I personally changed my Abzan company deck to incorporate Lily's and Fulm's even though everyone is like "Tron is such a bad matchup, just give up". Now I wreck Tron and it hasn't noticeably affected any of my other match ups outside of Merfolk and I'm happy to trade win percentages for that.
Things are still shaking out. I will definitely say Goyf has won me games in my any version, but there are other versions, like pokken's, that don't use the Goyf and have had good success online and at FNM level events.
Not saying that I agree/disagree, but I don't think Pokken has the deck in paper yet and online success is very iffy especially in the free non-mtgo mediums where a large representation of decks are just rogue/trial decks. I've been reading some of the FNM success as well on here and reddit and there are many low tier decks being represented. It's good that there is online testing but the people who are gunning for this deck to be tier 1 should know that popularity will only catch on if there are big results, so please sleeve this up at your next GPT/PPTQ.
My current thinking is that we need to get serious about trialing the deck against a gauntlet of the big four:
GBx
Twin
Tron
Burn
Would definitely include Affinity in that list.
Side note: For the beatdown players, Vendilion Clique has been the greatest performer for me, especially as an EOT Company even with one already on the field. Great disruption, great beats.
I think stony silence is a big blow out to Affinity but in my experience if it comes down later than T3, I've already taken a huge beating and my T1-T3 is all about racing to my combo. I find that Creeping Corrosion fits well as a curve topper against Affinity, keep in mind I also have 2 x Kataki's. I tried Fracturing Gust before it was always a turn too late.
Scooze I feel is too clunky in my deck where it is falls under two categories: 1) Bad investment for beatdown since I barely have creature removal and rarely want to remove my own creatures from gy. 2) Ok versus certain decks that use graveyards like grixis but the deck already has a great G1/G2 value plan against those decks anyway and I feel if I want GY disruption, I want one that is crippling and does not affect my tempo - Void.
Big Game Hunter I am not sold on, but it is in testing and I've only done the Lily madness thing once so far and I was already winning at that stage so it was just adding salt to injury. It is primarily there for Gurmags, and I feel Augur of Skulls may serve a similar purpose, being a chump blocker and representing an early T2 play that demands removal. 4 Voices has usually been sufficient for the Grixis matchups so maybe 2 Paths SB.
2nd Explosives is just another catch all against tokens, merfolk (which is quite tough with spreading seas), BGx for 2/3/4. The SB is not tweaked to my meta but rather something I would bring to a large event, need to look at Tier 1/Tier 2 lists again and adjust perhaps.
Redcap is in testing (replaced 2nd skite mainboard).
@EchoLaughing: I actually don't care about WW, since I very rarely cast Melira/Anafenza on curve and just hold them in hand (Lily can't bring back Legendaries T_T but Liliana -> Ewit -> Profit). Same goes with GG, Ewit is rarely cast on curve unless I just T2'd Fulm and I want to bring Fulm back against Tron. But you're absolutely right, it's a BGw deck and I've often questioned the need for white but then I see voice and my qualms dissipate. My fetch priority is usually Overgrown Tomb -> Godless Shrine, having access to BB is very important even though I may not use it straight away. Not entirely happy with Razorverge Thicket, please release enemy fastlands...
You realise against a deck that plays bolt, very happy just to pass turn and do it on their upkeep and lock them out of 2 mana sources on their T3 (1 dead, 1 tapped) BRUTAL!! Even better, just cast viscera on turn 3 followed by liliana since we have 4 mana from dork...hahaha oh man the package is amazing. Most people actually have to bolt fulm in response to lily landing cause playing around those two is such a tempo swing to me.
Efficiently destroying land is so critical in modern where everyone plays greedy mana bases and setting people a curve behind while you're going to company/combo off next is invaluable. Such an unsuspecting powerhouse against the top tier decks for me.
Yeah, everyone has different versions of the deck. Whatever works for you works for you
@EchoLaughing: To be completely honest, my primary win condition is still combo. It's just that the deck doesn't durdle as much with a less-than-ideal grip nor against removal and is always being proactive. I'd say 50% of my games are won with Combo, 40% with Voice/EWit/Lily grind and 10% straight up Lily/Fulm punishment.
My favourite opening on the play is T1: Dork, T2: Fulm, T3: Lily = destroy two lands + get a zombie.
When I play, I find the deck itself just adapting to the game state and I'm just steering it to avoid certain obstacles...it's hard to describe and feels very similar to my Twin days.
I am happy to play the race vs burn with finks + lily's, I am happy to play mid range and I love to grind out vs those snapcasters/kolaghan's command with my voices, lily's and witnesses.
@jermstuddog: I've been tweaking and playing this deck exclusively for the last 4 months with very positive results at my FNM (Local meta is great: Burn, Twin, Jund, Abzan, Scapeshift, Living End, Tron, Merfolk, Infect and Affinity). I know all the micro interactions with this deck in and out so feel free to ask any questions.
I have come first on numerous occasions and have also done alot of side deck testing with the above players. Here's the list:
I know the deck isn't the norms with what is regularly posted here but it has been performing consistently and very well for me against all the top tier decks and I plan to take it to the upcoming Atlanta 2016 GPT's here in Sydney and also the Modern GP in March 2016 (barring any massive meta shifts come Oath release in Jan).
I personally believe that too many people are holding onto the cards/concepts (eg. Linvala, Reivallark, etc.) of the earlier pod days and haven't fully embraced Collected Company for it's strengths.
@jermstuddog: Not wanting to change your deck too much but rather offer you ideas. Our lists are actually quite similar (look at our instants!) but you run more of a toolbox approach compared to me.
I think the greatest strength of my deck is the ability to grind really well against BGx and Grixis variants. Voice packs such a punch but the synergy between Lily, Witness, Company is too amazing. I believe the weakness to my deck is really fast linear combo, eg. Ad Nauseum, Storm, etc. My only answer is Eidolon of Rhetoric in the SB or for me to combo off faster. Another weakness is my Affinity G1 matchup where I'm exclusively looking to combo off by T4 so will mulligan aggressively for that. Hardest part of learning this deck isn't the interactions but knowing what hands to keep vs what match ups.
Anyways, best of luck jermstuddog I believe Abzan company in any of its variants will have strong showings in the upcoming season.
*Please note I'm not here to really receive feedback for the deck as I already have access to an excessive amount of resources from players and articles - this post is rather specifically for jermstuddog and I guess, anyone else looking for a different approach to toolbox*
Yes, I've been testing it daily on paper for around 4-5 hrs at my LGS (using proxy Coralhelms) against all Tier 1 except Tron. I provided a report earlier on.
I absolutely agree with your take on Qasali pridemage vs Twin but I probably wouldn't be replacing one for the other anyways, Dromoka's command would be the first to go. I disagree with your feeling that Skite is there as mainboard disruption for elves, and even then it only appears once in the 12th placed list, not the 4th placed one.
For conversation about path, it should be more about removal (specifically creature removal) than disruption anyways.
It is the closest thing to a draw-go deck we have in Tier 1 and rarely will a pro Twin player hastily go for the combo unless they're about to die the next turn. They can easily hold up and play plan B beats and wait to craft windows of opportunity.
Knightfall is more blunt in its overall approach as dumb beats and that is quite unavoidable when you are playing cards like noble hierarch and knight of reliquary as core.
Rather than compare the merits of these cards individually, we should take a holistic view and realise that the only real similarity between both decks atm is a two card combo that has a creature and an enchantment...
I've played Twin alot myself and Splinter Twin on Snapcaster/Clique is pretty neat. Post-board, it even works well on Spellskite. I wouldn't say it's completely dead without Pestermite/Exarch.
It's more due to the fact that the lifelink and 3 toughness is actually quite relevant vs burn. Flipping her is good as well though.
Against affinity, she just sits in my hand durdling while I try to get my combo plan online asap aka dead card (same against quick linear combo).
Against other combo decks, she can be useful together with fulm for locking lands out and buying time, eg. scapeshift.
Against burn, I want to bring her asap down after my skite/seer incase they searing blaze.
Against grixis/bgx, she provides so much value.
Against tron, fulm + lily is broken.
I personally run 3 Lily's, 3 Fulms, 2 Ewits. CoCoing into fulm + lily is so good.
To be fair, the majority of responses you receive here will range from 0-1.
As for other established tier decks, CoCo is a staple in Abzan Company due to the fact there is a high percentage to yield you a piece of the combo or allow a tempo swing at opponents EOT.
CoCo definitely places alot of restrictions on your deck so you should be asking yourself whether or not you want to play a creature-light(or higher cmc)/spell-heavy deck or low cmc/creature-dense deck. CoCo will then present itself to you as either a favourable or disgusting choice.
edit: Let's move on from this and bring other suggestions to the board.
Potential blue cards for CoCo:
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner - Don't think UU is an issue since we are not running GG (except Ewit?) or WW. Good for protection, a bit of a nonbo with Coralhelm but still ok with fetchlands.
Vendilion Clique - Great disruption, evasion. Clear information before proceeding with combo. Nice to have a flash play so CoCo isn't AS telegraphed.
Thassa, God of the Sea - Gives Geists evasion. Scry for combo. Bad because it does nothing and will almost never meet devotion (unless you run the above 2 as well).
Kiora, Master of the Depths - Alternative Win-Con and helps look for Knight and synergises with dorks/knight in play.
Other sideboard cards to consider:
Meddling Mage - Two drop replacement for Voice in matchups where voices don't shine.
Unified Will - With 6-8 dorks, may be worth looking at. Brian Kibler used it in his Bant Company list in June IIRC.
Please don't be so quick to shoot down ideas. Without any solid results from anyone, it's just a myopic approach.
Naya Company has been playing goyfs and performing competitively for a long time so there is at least that one possibility that the blue splash for Coralhelm may work in that version.
There may even be a version that plays UBGW and runs mainboard discards/removal and lily's and life from the loam to fuel goyfs.
Really seems to be a vocal minority on this thread and shutting down other people's ideas isn't going to help.
It is one of the main reasons why Tron plays 4 x pyro. I mean sure you can just disregard G1 and say "Stony Silence/Kataki lol" but with such a high meta prevalence atm, I think it would be unwise. All the affinity hate in the world hasn't stopped the archetype from achieving great tournament results and maintaining a huge metashare.
There are definitely changes to be made to this archetype that would swing around %'s vs affinity and other tier 1 decks, just to list a few:
Splash red = bolt
Splash black = abrupt decay/discard
More Qasali, less Voice
Not saying that any of the above ideas are correct but they are not the same-ish against Affinity. For example, I know you may have convinced yourself that your hangarback, non-coco, academy ruins jank is ingenious but I think for the better of the archetype, you should also explore the upsides of lightning bolt (as an example) against affinity, etc.
I personally changed my Abzan company deck to incorporate Lily's and Fulm's even though everyone is like "Tron is such a bad matchup, just give up". Now I wreck Tron and it hasn't noticeably affected any of my other match ups outside of Merfolk and I'm happy to trade win percentages for that.
Not saying that I agree/disagree, but I don't think Pokken has the deck in paper yet and online success is very iffy especially in the free non-mtgo mediums where a large representation of decks are just rogue/trial decks. I've been reading some of the FNM success as well on here and reddit and there are many low tier decks being represented. It's good that there is online testing but the people who are gunning for this deck to be tier 1 should know that popularity will only catch on if there are big results, so please sleeve this up at your next GPT/PPTQ.
Would definitely include Affinity in that list.
Side note: For the beatdown players, Vendilion Clique has been the greatest performer for me, especially as an EOT Company even with one already on the field. Great disruption, great beats.
I think stony silence is a big blow out to Affinity but in my experience if it comes down later than T3, I've already taken a huge beating and my T1-T3 is all about racing to my combo. I find that Creeping Corrosion fits well as a curve topper against Affinity, keep in mind I also have 2 x Kataki's. I tried Fracturing Gust before it was always a turn too late.
Scooze I feel is too clunky in my deck where it is falls under two categories: 1) Bad investment for beatdown since I barely have creature removal and rarely want to remove my own creatures from gy. 2) Ok versus certain decks that use graveyards like grixis but the deck already has a great G1/G2 value plan against those decks anyway and I feel if I want GY disruption, I want one that is crippling and does not affect my tempo - Void.
Big Game Hunter I am not sold on, but it is in testing and I've only done the Lily madness thing once so far and I was already winning at that stage so it was just adding salt to injury. It is primarily there for Gurmags, and I feel Augur of Skulls may serve a similar purpose, being a chump blocker and representing an early T2 play that demands removal. 4 Voices has usually been sufficient for the Grixis matchups so maybe 2 Paths SB.
2nd Explosives is just another catch all against tokens, merfolk (which is quite tough with spreading seas), BGx for 2/3/4. The SB is not tweaked to my meta but rather something I would bring to a large event, need to look at Tier 1/Tier 2 lists again and adjust perhaps.
Redcap is in testing (replaced 2nd skite mainboard).
@EchoLaughing: I actually don't care about WW, since I very rarely cast Melira/Anafenza on curve and just hold them in hand (Lily can't bring back Legendaries T_T but Liliana -> Ewit -> Profit). Same goes with GG, Ewit is rarely cast on curve unless I just T2'd Fulm and I want to bring Fulm back against Tron. But you're absolutely right, it's a BGw deck and I've often questioned the need for white but then I see voice and my qualms dissipate. My fetch priority is usually Overgrown Tomb -> Godless Shrine, having access to BB is very important even though I may not use it straight away. Not entirely happy with Razorverge Thicket, please release enemy fastlands...
Edit: Link to my deck for goldfishing purposes - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/19-06-15-ZYx-abzan-company/
(all 700 views over the last 3 months have been by me ^^;;)
Efficiently destroying land is so critical in modern where everyone plays greedy mana bases and setting people a curve behind while you're going to company/combo off next is invaluable. Such an unsuspecting powerhouse against the top tier decks for me.
Yeah, everyone has different versions of the deck. Whatever works for you works for you
My favourite opening on the play is T1: Dork, T2: Fulm, T3: Lily = destroy two lands + get a zombie.
When I play, I find the deck itself just adapting to the game state and I'm just steering it to avoid certain obstacles...it's hard to describe and feels very similar to my Twin days.
I am happy to play the race vs burn with finks + lily's, I am happy to play mid range and I love to grind out vs those snapcasters/kolaghan's command with my voices, lily's and witnesses.
I have come first on numerous occasions and have also done alot of side deck testing with the above players. Here's the list:
1x Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Dark Confidant
2x Eternal Witness
3x Fulminator Mage
4x Kitchen Finks
3x Liliana, Heretical Healer Flip
2x Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1x Murderous Redcap
1x Spellskite
2x Viscera Seer
4x Voice of Resurgence
Land (22)
1x Forest
1x Gavony Township
1x Godless Shrine
4x Overgrown Tomb
1x Plains
2x Razorverge Thicket
1x Swamp
1x Temple Garden
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Windswept Heath
2x Woodland Cemetery
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Chord of Calling
4x Collected Company
1x Abrupt Decay
2x Big Game Hunter
2x Burrenton Forge-Tender
1x Creeping Corrosion
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Kataki, War's Wage
3x Leyline of the Void
1x Orzhov Pontiff
I know the deck isn't the norms with what is regularly posted here but it has been performing consistently and very well for me against all the top tier decks and I plan to take it to the upcoming Atlanta 2016 GPT's here in Sydney and also the Modern GP in March 2016 (barring any massive meta shifts come Oath release in Jan).
I personally believe that too many people are holding onto the cards/concepts (eg. Linvala, Reivallark, etc.) of the earlier pod days and haven't fully embraced Collected Company for it's strengths.
@jermstuddog: Not wanting to change your deck too much but rather offer you ideas. Our lists are actually quite similar (look at our instants!) but you run more of a toolbox approach compared to me.
I think the greatest strength of my deck is the ability to grind really well against BGx and Grixis variants. Voice packs such a punch but the synergy between Lily, Witness, Company is too amazing. I believe the weakness to my deck is really fast linear combo, eg. Ad Nauseum, Storm, etc. My only answer is Eidolon of Rhetoric in the SB or for me to combo off faster. Another weakness is my Affinity G1 matchup where I'm exclusively looking to combo off by T4 so will mulligan aggressively for that. Hardest part of learning this deck isn't the interactions but knowing what hands to keep vs what match ups.
Anyways, best of luck jermstuddog
*Please note I'm not here to really receive feedback for the deck as I already have access to an excessive amount of resources from players and articles - this post is rather specifically for jermstuddog and I guess, anyone else looking for a different approach to toolbox*
I absolutely agree with your take on Qasali pridemage vs Twin but I probably wouldn't be replacing one for the other anyways, Dromoka's command would be the first to go. I disagree with your feeling that Skite is there as mainboard disruption for elves, and even then it only appears once in the 12th placed list, not the 4th placed one.
For conversation about path, it should be more about removal (specifically creature removal) than disruption anyways.
Edit: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/bant-zoo-primer/ is awesome. I love Duke's insight, especially his when/how to Thoughtseize article.