Deceiver Exarch has more toughness than Pestermite, which is more important than what the 2/1 flying body offers on offense. It survives some removal spells, and is able to block in a relevant way.
Its advantage over Bounding Krasis and Village Bell-Ringer is its ability to (un)tap lands, which can mess with opponents (for example by tapping a Tron land or the one land the have kept open for their removal spell) or generate extra mana for us (can be very helpful to cast Kiki from hand).
All four of those are reasonable choices as 3cmc untappers, but I think Exarch is slightly better than the others in this context.
Why bother with Lancers when you can play Kiki instead? There are corner cases where Lancers are better, but on average, Kiki seems like the superior choice. Intruder Alarm is a win-more card - you're usually able to win without it once Vannifar is online, and it does basically nothing without Vannifar. (Okay, Kiki + Intruder Alarm + any creature with at least 1 power is a combo kill. But that is probably it.) And it also enables opposing Izzet Staticasters, Grim Lavamancers, and Elvish Archdruids.
Agreed; I actually believe that Vannifar will be best as a value town enabler
I think Vannifar is rarely going to sit on the board for a few turns and generare value: If you get to activate her, you'll usually just attempt to combo right away. She is capable to find a combo from almost any spot, so you should probably do that whenever you get the chance. If you expect disruption after an activation (which would have to be something that can't interact with Vannifar herself, so probably a burn spell or a non-revolted Fatal Push), you can still change plans and go for Voice/Finks/Rallier etc, but the plan A with her should be combo. (Additionally, there will be cases where combo isn't an option due to other factors like a lack of combo pieces left in the library, or disruption like Pithing Needle.)
I've done a handful of test games with Vannifar on Cockatrice, and so far I think I've won every time I untapped with her. The opponents might have misunderstood or underestimated the new card (which will quickly change if she turns out to be any good), and I'll need to play a lot more with her, but my early impressions are positive.
Vannifar seems promising. It might be a turn too slow, especially on the draw, but if you get to activate it, you'll usually win on the spot. We don't even need to change too many cards to enable it, it actually fits into the existing Saheeli+Kiki shell quite well. Scryb Ranger seems like a must, and a pro blue flyer could actually be useful as a blocker vs Spirits, Humans, Dredge and Inkmoth Nexus.
Cards like Fatal Push, Terminus and Spell Queller can easily disrupt Vannifar, but those cards were good against us already, so the bigger obstacle might be the fast decks. Is a 4cmc card that usually does nothing the turn it comes into play viable in the current meta? I have my doubts, but I'm willing to give it a real chance.
Btw, despite the similarities at first glance, I expect Vannifar to play very differently from Birthing Pod. It can't be cast on turn 2 off a dork, it can't activate right away without help, it's vulnerable to a much wider range of disruption, but it's also a lot more unfair once it starts doing things.
Sac outlets outside of black are rare, and often worse than the black ones. You could think about Mirror Entity (just put an arbitrary number of activations for X=0 on the stack to repeatedly kill your own board), Reaper of Flight Moonsilver, Thermopod, Greater Gargadon or Blasting Station (with Trophy Mage to find it). But none of those are particularly good cards, so probably it's better to choose a black sac outlet or give up on that second combo.
The 4th Oath also increases the chances that you draw a second copy, which thanks to the legend rule goes to the grave to be returned via Rallier. While Oath is never involved in your perfect draws that combo on turn 2-3, it just does so much work in the longer games.
Actually, the list has no 2-drops at all. Only 12 spells even cost less than 3 mana, and 4 cost 5 mana or more, which means it relies heavily on those 8 mana dorks. Also, in my experience Eldritch Evolution works really well with 2-drops, since those allow you to tutor for Felidar while still being cheap enough that you can cast both the 2-drop and Evolution in the same turn early on. Having lots of 3-drops instead makes Evolution a lot slower and drawing multiples seems worse.
That said, this approach obviously worked well for the pilot. Maybe it's worth giving it a try to see how it performs in non-interactive matchups (where Voice wouldn't be good anyway) vs interactive matchups (where the lack of 2-drops hurts the most, but at the same time Bugler and Knight of Autumn should be excellent). Definitely interesting.
Getting Bugler to hit somewhat reliably isn't too hard. Hitting actually relevant cards is another topic though. There are a number of matchups where grinding them out just isn't an option, like Storm, Tron, Affinity, Scapeshift, or even Spirits. How many of your 25 Bugler hits actually matter in that case? Probably only 4 Felidars (unless you already have one), 1 Kiki (if you can even cast it at that point), 1 Reflector Mage and maybe 2-3 sideboard cards. Sure, against some decks getting another Lotus Cobra or a chain of Buglers actually matters and will eventually overwhelm them. But in other matchups, the card just feels slow and only occasionally finds you what you need. I've had a number of games where I drew Felidar and Bugler, and realized that my Bugler needed to find exactly that one copy of Kiki to win. If I had played something like Court Hussar instead, I could've hit not only Kiki itself, but also 4 Saheeli and 4 Evolution in addition to that.
Overall, I think Bugler doesn't quite deliver what we need, even if I had high hopes for the card initially. Modern is just too fast and brutal to durdle around.
I agree. Optimally you have access to Hierarchs, but the deck works fine without them. As maniospas pointed out, red mana is often a bottleneck, which makes a combination of Birds and Cobra attractive anyway. Hierarch has other benefits, but those matter less if your list is combo centric.
Big upgrade to Reclamation Sage. This kind of flexibility is exactly what we are in the market for - it will usually have a useful mode if we happen to draw it, but at the same time, it can be a problem solver in a number of different matchups. The synergy with our backbone of Evo+Oath+Saheeli+Felidar is excellent, and I expect it to be a great addition to the sideboard, potentially even the maindeck in the right metagame.
-I won the die roll against Tron and kept this seven: BoP, land, Cobra, Wall, Kiki, Slime, nonland card I forgot. I think this is an acceptable keep but did not find second land and died horribly. In game 2 he had the Warping Wail to kill my Cat when I tried to combo.
Did you know what you were facing? Because in the dark, that hand relies heavily on the Bird living (and later on the Cobra too) and is therefore really weak to cheap removal. I would definitely keep it vs Tron though.
I've had similar experiences with Reveillark, it's so awful in matchups where generating value doesn't matter. Also, it's not the kind of 5-drop that gives us a big advantage if we can ramp it out early. There are a handful of matchups where it shines, but overall it clearly underperformed in my testing, despite me really wanting it to be good.
I've thought about maindeck Gaddock Teeg before, but ultimately decided against it (seems a little too weak in the matchups where it's ability isn't required). What do you guys think about that? Has anyone tested it?
Good job nal2, and nice overview of your changes! You've obviously been successful with your latest list, but could you please comment on it a little? Have the Trackers performed well? I noticed you've cut the Negates from your sideboard - why and how did you like the change? And why the switch back to Worship over Bridge?
Kiki Chord is more mana hungry, since in order to succeed at its midrange plan, it needs some high impact creatures like Pia and Kiran or Thragtusk. In addition to that, all of its combo pieces cost 4+ mana (unless you run something like Bounding Krasis), and Chord is also rarely useful before you have at least 3-4 lands in play. That leads to some rather slow draws and makes the deck susceptible to early interaction or fast combo.
Saheeli Evolution is leaner, with a lower mana curve and a faster potential combo. Winning on turn 3 with just 2 lands in play doesn't happen all the time, but you'll do it from time to time (I just recently stole a game this way after mulling to 5). Kiki Chord can never win that quickly and with so few resources. It might be the better deck if the game goes longer, but not every opponent will give you the time for that.
The same goes for sideboard silver bullets, as Shelldell already mentioned. Eldritch Evolution can bring them into play as early as turn 2 with minimal effort, whereas Chord of Calling usually needs another turn or two for the same result. Sure, you don't need to sacrifice a creature to Chord, but speed trumps value if a single hatebear can lock out multiple cards from the opponent.
I agree with nal2, counting fetchlands you have a total of only 14 green sources. Personally, I prefer 18. Also, the more shocklands you run (currently 6 in your list), the more damage you take whenever you draw them and have to play them untapped. If at all possible, play no more than 4 or 5 of them, and as nal2 already pointed out, you don't need Steam Vents anyway.
I would also recommend replacing a Kitchen Finks with a Reflector Mage.
With respect to Militia Bugler: Putting the occasional Saheeli on the bottom shouldn't be an argument against the card. You can just as well shuffle a Saheeli away from the top of your deck with a fetchland or Evo, you just don't see it happen in those cases. While it might feel bad, it's just variance, and you have to keep in mind that whenever you don't see Saheeli with your Bugler trigger, you've come 4 cards closer to the next Saheeli. Instead, you should judge Bugler by what its trigger actually achieves.
Which brings me to the point that, the more I play with Bugler, the less it impresses me. While it usually hits something (but I've also had quite a few complete blanks lately), it rarely does something great. The percentage of hits that are actually relevant (Felidar, Kiki, a handful of cards that matter in the respective matchup) isn't where I want it to be. While in theory, it can find both halves of the combo, in practice there is usually only one Kiki you can find, and chaining Buglers and Felidars for a few turns just doesn't accomplish enough in a format as fast as Modern. Maybe I've just not found the right shell for it yet, so I'll keep testing Bugler some more, but I'm not very high on the card at this point.
Its advantage over Bounding Krasis and Village Bell-Ringer is its ability to (un)tap lands, which can mess with opponents (for example by tapping a Tron land or the one land the have kept open for their removal spell) or generate extra mana for us (can be very helpful to cast Kiki from hand).
All four of those are reasonable choices as 3cmc untappers, but I think Exarch is slightly better than the others in this context.
I think Vannifar is rarely going to sit on the board for a few turns and generare value: If you get to activate her, you'll usually just attempt to combo right away. She is capable to find a combo from almost any spot, so you should probably do that whenever you get the chance. If you expect disruption after an activation (which would have to be something that can't interact with Vannifar herself, so probably a burn spell or a non-revolted Fatal Push), you can still change plans and go for Voice/Finks/Rallier etc, but the plan A with her should be combo. (Additionally, there will be cases where combo isn't an option due to other factors like a lack of combo pieces left in the library, or disruption like Pithing Needle.)
I've done a handful of test games with Vannifar on Cockatrice, and so far I think I've won every time I untapped with her. The opponents might have misunderstood or underestimated the new card (which will quickly change if she turns out to be any good), and I'll need to play a lot more with her, but my early impressions are positive.
Cards like Fatal Push, Terminus and Spell Queller can easily disrupt Vannifar, but those cards were good against us already, so the bigger obstacle might be the fast decks. Is a 4cmc card that usually does nothing the turn it comes into play viable in the current meta? I have my doubts, but I'm willing to give it a real chance.
Btw, despite the similarities at first glance, I expect Vannifar to play very differently from Birthing Pod. It can't be cast on turn 2 off a dork, it can't activate right away without help, it's vulnerable to a much wider range of disruption, but it's also a lot more unfair once it starts doing things.
That said, this approach obviously worked well for the pilot. Maybe it's worth giving it a try to see how it performs in non-interactive matchups (where Voice wouldn't be good anyway) vs interactive matchups (where the lack of 2-drops hurts the most, but at the same time Bugler and Knight of Autumn should be excellent). Definitely interesting.
Overall, I think Bugler doesn't quite deliver what we need, even if I had high hopes for the card initially. Modern is just too fast and brutal to durdle around.
Did you know what you were facing? Because in the dark, that hand relies heavily on the Bird living (and later on the Cobra too) and is therefore really weak to cheap removal. I would definitely keep it vs Tron though.
I've had similar experiences with Reveillark, it's so awful in matchups where generating value doesn't matter. Also, it's not the kind of 5-drop that gives us a big advantage if we can ramp it out early. There are a handful of matchups where it shines, but overall it clearly underperformed in my testing, despite me really wanting it to be good.
Saheeli Evolution is leaner, with a lower mana curve and a faster potential combo. Winning on turn 3 with just 2 lands in play doesn't happen all the time, but you'll do it from time to time (I just recently stole a game this way after mulling to 5). Kiki Chord can never win that quickly and with so few resources. It might be the better deck if the game goes longer, but not every opponent will give you the time for that.
The same goes for sideboard silver bullets, as Shelldell already mentioned. Eldritch Evolution can bring them into play as early as turn 2 with minimal effort, whereas Chord of Calling usually needs another turn or two for the same result. Sure, you don't need to sacrifice a creature to Chord, but speed trumps value if a single hatebear can lock out multiple cards from the opponent.
I would also recommend replacing a Kitchen Finks with a Reflector Mage.
With respect to Militia Bugler: Putting the occasional Saheeli on the bottom shouldn't be an argument against the card. You can just as well shuffle a Saheeli away from the top of your deck with a fetchland or Evo, you just don't see it happen in those cases. While it might feel bad, it's just variance, and you have to keep in mind that whenever you don't see Saheeli with your Bugler trigger, you've come 4 cards closer to the next Saheeli. Instead, you should judge Bugler by what its trigger actually achieves.
Which brings me to the point that, the more I play with Bugler, the less it impresses me. While it usually hits something (but I've also had quite a few complete blanks lately), it rarely does something great. The percentage of hits that are actually relevant (Felidar, Kiki, a handful of cards that matter in the respective matchup) isn't where I want it to be. While in theory, it can find both halves of the combo, in practice there is usually only one Kiki you can find, and chaining Buglers and Felidars for a few turns just doesn't accomplish enough in a format as fast as Modern. Maybe I've just not found the right shell for it yet, so I'll keep testing Bugler some more, but I'm not very high on the card at this point.