This is a second take at an Allies deck in Modern.
The goal of this deck is to create a constant feed of threats to overwhelm your opponent, and push through damage. Because of our high creature count, they need to have a LOT of on-board removal to deal with our allies.
FAQ:
Why Collected Company only, and not Aether Vial?
- This one was tough, because the more and more I looked at the deck, the more torn I was. That said, after some goldfishing and work with the deck, I feel that having the CoCo's did the most work. When your hand empties and you need more gas to apply pressure to the opponent, there's nothing more helpful to rip off the top of the deck than a copy of Collected Company, which will in at least 80% of situations get you something.
Why Noble Hierarch instead of Harabaz Druid or Beast Caller Savant?
- A lot of this comes down to mana efficiency. Harabaz druid can create explosive mana, yes, and in fact this was what I was using in combination with CoCo to create the big plays. The problem is, with Harabaz costing us 2, and taking a turn to actual generate any value from, it means that should our opponent bolt / push / path our druid, we just lose the value on it, and wasted 2 mana to cast it. On the flip side, losing a Hierarch to the afforementioned removal feels less painful when it only cost us 1 mana. On top of this, Noble Hierarch generates mana of green and white, 2 of our most used colors in this deck. The blue is also nice in combination with our Jwari Shapeshifters.
Why Thalia's Lieutenant instead of Champion of the Parish?
- I honestly think that in this build of the deck, that Lieutenant is just strictly better. Even if you decide to rebuild this deck with vials instead of CoCo in the main board, it feels much safer to and better to have a 2 drop that impacts the board no matter what phase you bring him down, regardless if your board is empty or not. Functionally, they are just much better.
Okay, but why not jam in more Oran-Reef Survivalists then?
- Survivalist is a great card, and it does represent another ally to put pressure on the board with, plus it allows rally triggers to happen, but I think that ultimately, with some of the allies not having very high power/toughness or ways to generate counters on themselves, that having the Lieutenant creates a way to give more pressure on the board with slightly bigger creatures. Also, since we are running 3 lieutenants, the creatures have a chance to get very big, very fast.
Domri Rade VS Gideon, Ally of Zendikar?
- In all honesty, this is really because I haven't gotten the Gideon's yet, but truthfully speaking, Domri is a fantastic planeswalker in this deck. His +1 helps to generate value through potential creature draw (which with our deck being 50% creatures, is pretty much guaranteed to happen), his -2 is pseudo removal, since we will have a ton of creatures getting bigger as the game goes on, and if for SOME bizarre reason you can create his ultimate, you are almost guaranteed the win. Vs. Gideon, though, auto-sub the Gideon.
Sideboard isn't really finished yet, since it's still in the tuning phase.
Any suggestions or ideas to help the deck would be greatly appreciated! I'm looking to pit this against all tiers of decks in modern.
