Sideboard


After callously scattering my old standard build to the internet winds, feeling like it was going nowhere, I took a bit of a hiatus from standard for a while. But, hey, now I'm back, and I'm trying my hand at building a deck around this silly combo once more!

What combo, you ask?

We'll get to that, but, first, some prefacing:

One of the big problems with Rally the Ancestors is that it doesn't give the recurred creatures haste--and that certainly is a big problem, make no mistake. What's more, it exiles the whole lot of them during your next upkeep, so you need to be able to win the game the turn you cast it, essentially. I've loved the card ever since I first laid eyes upon it, but I've struggled with that little contention for a pretty good while.

Enter Chasm Guide !

As you can see, she gives everything that has just been recurred....haste! What's more, she herself is an ally, which can trigger things like Kalastria Healer if they both ETB from the graveyard at the same time.

However, as we're playing Mardu, we really don't have any reliable ways to self-mill in order to fill up our yard for this combo--in fact, the closest thing we have to this, at the moment, is Tormenting Voice, at least from what I can tell. As such, for the most part, instead of just depositing them directly into the graveyard, I've opted to instead cast them onto the battlefield and let them swing in for a little damage, then either sac them to Butcher of the Horde (giving him vigilance, lifelink, and/or haste, as the situation demands), or simply wipe my board (and potentially theirs) with spells like Radiant Flames of everything except the butcher, draining them with Zulaport Cutthroat as they die, and then casting Rally the Ancestors for five to close out the game with all the ETB Rally triggers and hasty creatures (that I can sacrifice AGAIN)!

That's the strategy, in a nutshell, but it can take a while to pull off, so I try to keep myself from dying in the interim with spells like Crackling Doom (which, handily enough, can take care of a lot of things that Radiant Flames can't) and Ruinous Path. Sometimes, of course, the combo isn't even necessary, but it can lead to a lot of come-from-behind wins, from our opponent's perspective.

What with such vital spells as Butcher of the Horde , Crackling Doom, and even Radiant Flames requiring me to have all my colors out, manafixing can obviously be a bit of an issue, at times, but I'm trying to squeak by without running any fetches. There may come a point when I deem it necessary, though--oh, and I hope that this also helps explain just why there aren't any turn one plays in the maindeck.

Also, I don't really think the addition of tutors would be all that helpful, here--to my knowledge, the only tutors currently in standard are Bring to Light, which I can't use, Dark Petition, which costs too much mana at 3BB and will almost never be cast with spell mastery online, and Sidisi, Undead Vizier, who seems like the most usable of the bunch, but her lack of ally-ness, her legendary status, and also her prohibitively expensive 3BB mana cost have combined to deter me from including her, at least for now.

Besides, tutoring for Rally the Ancestors early on doesn't actually progress my side of the game at all--it'll just sit there in my hand for a couple of turns, which tells me that perhaps I'd just be better off with simply waiting to draw into it.

Any suggestions you may have would be very much welcome. Thanks for reading!

Addendum: When SOI rotates in, and, thus, Khans/Fate rotate out, I'm officially retiring this deck. I just don't think that it'll have the pieces to properly function any longer, and, frankly, I kind of just want to play something else. It's been fun, though. It's served me well ever since Theros block rotated out and BFZ rotated in, even through OGW. I'll keep this archived here for future reference, once I retire it.

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Top Ranked
  • Achieved #29 position overall 8 years ago
Date added 8 years
Last updated 8 years
Legality

This deck is not Standard legal.

Rarity (main - side)

1 - 0 Mythic Rares

24 - 3 Rares

16 - 9 Uncommons

7 - 3 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.92
Folders Standard Deck Ideas, Deck Concepts, Old Standard Seasons Archive
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