The Allies Harden Their Scales
Modern
SCORE: 4 | 6 COMMENTS | 954 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER
8/25 FNM and small updates —Aug. 26, 2017
Been a while since I took this build of allies to FNM but once again it performed really well. 3-1 overall and 4th place for a pretty great last FNM at my current LGS before I head back up north for college.
I lost only in the first round to Grixis Delver. Young Pyromancer combined with the ridiculous amount of disruption and removal in that deck (not to mention tons of cheap cards to trigger the pyromancer) is really bad for allies that want to stick and swing for big beats. The matchups against these kind of aggro-control decks like Delver feel somewhat unfavorable after sideboarding in particular because I'm rarely able to stick an ally long enough to make it huge. Death's Shadow is similar but the matchup is much more even due to how much life it loses. One big beat is all it takes to win most of the time.
Round 2 was a quick 2-0 against some amonkhet eternalize thing. I basically won before he could play anything. Round 3 was a 2-1 win against grishoalbrand. Opponent got the combo in game 1 but I had RIP in game 2 and leyline of sanctity in game 3 that went unanswered and brickwalled the combo. Round 4 was a 2-1 win against BW Eldrazi. I won game 1 by outracing damage but I don't really recall specifics, lost game 2 because it went late and vault of the archangel kept gaining my opponent a ton of life and killing off my giant blockers, and won game 3 on the back of opening hand leyline of sanctity basically turning his entire hand into bricks.
Decklist changes - just fine-tuning the removal a bit. I'm liking the 2-2 split of path-decay in the main deck with 1 more of each in the board better than 4 decay because decay is hard to cast and path hits stuff like gurmag angler that decay can't deal with.
Main deck:
-2 Abrupt Decay
+2 Path to Exile
Sideboard:
-1 Path to Exile
+1 Abrupt Decay
WynkenBlynken says... #2
Hey zezgotpwned! I actually have two functional ally decks - this one, in Abzan colors, and the other in Naya colors. That one runs Aether Vial and Akoum Battlesinger along with Reckless Bushwhacker and a bunch of other things designed to win the game very quickly. I put black instead of red in this build mostly for Drana and extra removal in the form of Abrupt Decay and possibly Fatal Push. It was built with a slightly grindier game plan in mind as opposed to the all-out aggression of the Naya build. Allies has a very difficult time dealing with decks like Ad Nauseam, Affinity, and other decks that use artifacts or enchantments to win. Even Liliana of the Veil and other walkers can be difficult to kill if you don't find a Kabira Evangel.
I do like shapeshifter, however, and I've been playing around with it in my other build. I'm not entirely sure if I want to slot it in here, though. Even though it's not really hard to cast and it is incredibly versatile, it's not exactly what I'm looking for here.
Thanks for the suggestions! I love allies and I love it when I see others playing them. I'll definitely check out your list as well.
zezgotpwned says... #1
Hey man! Great deck - yours and mine are pretty similar Miracle Gro - Moist Naya Allies I think you'll find more success subbing black out for red (akoum battlesinger is amazing), but I do like Drana - one big change I'd advise is taking out the Survivalists in favour of jwari shapeshifters - much more versatility, and with encampments and harabaz druids, it's not that hard to cast.
August 2, 2017 4:20 p.m.