A Gem From NYC
Welcome back everyone. I myself have finally returned from a week-long trip to New York City. It was a great trip visiting a variety of campuses up there as well as all the sightseeing I did. If anyone every goes to NYC you have to try a few things. First get a sandwich from Joe's Gourmet Deli on the corner of W. 105th and Columbus. Best sandwiches ever and extremely cheap. Also Pizza Villagio near the Apple store and F.A.O. Schwartz is fantastic. Finally if you are into Broadway and musicals, then you definitely have to see "In the Heights." Well enough about the small details of my trip. In the end I was stuck in a hostel with my friends and there were ten of us in one room. So late at night I would get online just to wait until I was tired. With 7 nights of this I had a good amount of time to work on a decklist I have been tinkering with. The deck is close to done at this time. The only missing cards are 2 Verdant Catacombs, 2 Misty Rainforest, and some number as yet to be determined of Jwari Shapeshifter. However, I think it is time I let you see the whole list.
Well there we go. As you had probably guessed it is a U/G/b Ally deck. Now why black? Well at first I thought Agadeem Occultist was amazing. Then I bought some. Then I put him in the deck. Then I realized what he really does. What he doesn't do is allow you to reanimate your own allies from your graveyard. Bummer. So why is there still black? I really love the interaction between Rite of Replication and Hagra Diabolist. Also I get removal. And while Smother may not be the best choice, it does kill most early threats and I don't get blown out by Vampires like I would if using Doom Blade or the ilk. The deck probably could be run as solidly U/G and just fit in either more mill cards like Hedron Crab or more allies like Graypelt Hunter. However I still have faith in the three-colored version. So let's look at he individual card choices.
- One of this decks main workhorses. She can power out a turn 4 victory in an ideal situation. Tapping for 2+ mana from the get go make her indispensable.
- This is the preferred win-con. A kicked rite on the guy mills for...I don't know, but I have beaten 200 cards decks when first working on the idea.
- Another win-con simply by firing off huge amounts of life loss. Even with him as your only creature its 36ish damage.
- Nice little swarm guy and win-con if I get a more aggro hand with Umara Raptors and Oran-Rief Survivalists.
- Key card. Getting 5 allies for 9 mana is fair. Especially when 9 mana happens on turn 4 or 5.
Game 1: Halfdane playing Zombies
Well this pretty much says it all. I hit a turn 5 kicked-Rite of Replication on my Halimar Excavator and that was it. The Bala Ged Thief was amazingly useful this time as it allowed me to strip his Noxious Ghoul which would have killed my Harabaz Druid if it hit play.
Game 2- SulfuricAcid with Humans
His first turn was a Restore Balance. I didn't have a hand good enough to try to race the suspend card, so we both played out a few cards not really doing much. I mill a few and then the Restore Balance goes on the stack. We all resolve our triggers and nothing big happened. Then he casts a Battle Screech, and flashbacked it, then flashbacked another that I had milled. So he know has 6 2/2's birds. I draw...a land and play Turntimber Ranger. He attacks me and I draw another card that does not help at this point. one Divine Sacrament later, I'm packing it up.
Game 3- Crazy Foreigner with Spirits
This was A Great Match for me. The guy was playing a 250 card tribal deck. 250!!! But alas, turn 4 was all she wrote. I actually drew the godhand this game and was able to go t2 Harabaz Druid, t3 Harabaz Druid and Halimar Excavator. Turn 4 I was able to hit the kicked Rite of Replication. Good game indeed.
Well, those are just a few of many games I have played with the deck. Its certainly fun and a break from the general attack plan of tribal. And everyone always mentions Allies but, you never actually see them. As far as the black...I never used Smother or drew the Hagra Diabolist. The Bala Ged Thief was useful in the one game. But I wonder if a playset of Jwari Shapeshifters would not be the better solution. Then I could go strictly U/G but would rely almost solely on the Mill plan. Well use the comments below to let me know. Don't forget this coming Saturday at 12:30pm EDT we will be having Tribal Apocalypse.
-ShardFenix
16 Comments
It's all debatable Shard. I currentlly have four different builds for Allies. I have a green/blue one simmilar to what you are suggesting. It tends to fall flat in block simply because the blue support cards are not there. If you moved it into tribal classic, I think it would get much better because you can get decent control spells, counterspell should be convincing enough. However, Hagra Diabolist is a house if you can get him into play. Realistically speaking, the only good black ally is Bala Ged Thief. If you want a more powerful deck, I've found dropping black and adding white is much more useful. In block it runs counter to your fetch lands, but in classic that isn't an issue. I say add white because of one card, Join the Ranks. 2 allies at instant speed can crush an opponent. As for running shapeshifter, I was shocked to see it NOT in your decklist. This is a MUST RUN card in allies. Cut the raptor for it. You'll thank me later. :-)
P.s. there were two ally decks that I saw this weekend. I wish I had brought mine. I might have actually won a game. lol
I totally agree with Join the Ranks and Jwar Shapeshifter was a house when I played against it with Bingo but it wasn't as much of a house as it could have been. I too have been building various allies in an attempt to make them more than unfair. The problem I run into is they quickly get annoying to my opponents in casual which makes testing them well hard. Particularly since no one plays twc in tourney practice.
Diabolist is a great finisher, and a good target for combo (Rite of Replication for example) but costs enough to make it a pain to carry 4. Same can be said for Murasa Pyromancer. Pyromancer can sweep your opponent's board clean eventually but it so damned expensive. So red only gets 1-2 good allies (Warlord which pays for its high cost by being insanely good, and the little 2 coster which pumps things on the offensive.) Tuktuk is horrible and the scrapper is situational. So red is mainly a support color at best. And black has few good allies. Bala Ged is really not that good. Discard CAN be a tempo beating but at 4 cost you wont be hitting good cards early. If you are lucky you get their second rate filler stuff and not land. Late game it acts as a kind of lame win more finisher (if you cast it with a bunch of allies out chances are you have won already.)
Blue has a flier, a draw cards engine, and a shapeshifter. All solid but not amazing. Green gets the curve. turn 2 turn 3 turn 4 turn 5 drops all solid if not amazing individually they add up to must wrath numbers quickly. White is where Allies truly shine. Talas Paladin is fairly awesome, Evangel kills over time and incidentally with the aid of Join the Ranks gives instant speed protection from 2 colors and you can get out a quick stomp with turn 1 Hada Freeblade turn 2 Blademaster ... White imho is the core color for Allies until Rise comes out to complete the picture. I like Blue White splash black or green white splash black/blue.
while i agree white has some of the best the deck there is a totally beast. Though I have considered building it. The curve on Hada Freeblade, Kazandu Blademaster, Kabira Evangel,and Talus Paladin. Thats twenty right there. adding typical white removal and maybe a global pump or something would easily make a decent WW ally deck. There is also the option of splashing green for their aggro allies.
Unfortunately I've grown bored with aggro decks for the moment. So I'm working on various combo decks across the board actually. I was going to work with hedron crab in extended however JVL and someone on mana-something beat me to it.
This one is slowly looking to become either more solidly U/G unless I decide to add in mind funeral in the slot of Smother.
ok well first thing blau....look back at my game reports, it was tribal classic. It just happens to be a block deck at the moment. Though I did pick up 3 Jwari shapeshifters yesterday and was going to replace the bala ged thieves with them but you're right the raptors and the survivalists are probably the weakest allies in the deck. I have thought off and on about using aa white splash for join the ranks instead of black...It's just a tough decision for me since I like the secondary win con of Hagra Diabolist + Rite of Replication.
I noticed two ally decks this past PRE not to mention a number of em in casual (and not just tribal I've played em in classic/multi/ext) and I'm already tired of seeing them :\ ... I won't deny building a deck and trying them myself, but I get tired of things that are overplayed
that aside I do have to say I like the idea of Rite of Rep in there, I would think the cost was too heavy, but with the ally its pretty nice tech
Allies are the new slivers I will admit, though i slept through this past PRE due to a midnight bus ride coming back from new york so I did not see them. Im guessing they were base green/white but thats only a guess. Yeah allies are popular know, though its expected with how they all work together.
Have you tried some way of giving your allies haste? One of the things I've thought about is how Harabaz Druid and Seagate Loremaster can practically combo out with a Lightning Greaves or a Concondant Crossroads in play.
to be quite honest im kind of drawing a blank unless you mean some sort of play harabaz it has haste tap it, plays tons more, tap them for any abilities, etc.
If so then concordant crossroads would be great and it does give me a first turn play, it just makes me wish for more allies with good tap abilities.
Yeah, that's basically what I meant. My Ally version has 4 Loremasters because it's absolutely nuts with haste.
Also Thousand-Year Elixer is nuts with both. And the Agadeem guy too.
I will have to respectfully disagree with you on the agadeem occultist. In my opinion he takes too much work and things to go right. First off your opponent has to have targets in the yard and secondly you have to have allies greater than or equal to the CMC. In fringe situations it can be great but otherwise im not sold on it.
I was merely pointing out that he is another tapper to take advantage of any global hasting. I agree that he isn't a bomb, but I do think he is opportunistically good, and probably is bolt bait for the reason your op doesn't want you permanently getting a hold of their discards/dead guys.
Just to let you all know I will be covering the last two weeks of decks in an article after the one I have currently submitted is published.
yes many thanks to flippers for running the event in my place over spring break!
I'm working on a Grixis allies deck with Fervor, Sea Gate Loremaster, Kazuul, etc. Trying to figure if I should cut it down to UR or keep the Black doofs in. Thinking maybe moving into green for the druid + the trampler. That would make a Kazuul sort of like the limited M10 "Overrun.. k gg."
Yeah so far black allies have certainly gotten the short end of the stick in the previous two sets. Though hopefully RoE brings something to even the colors out.