That wasn't him. That's a Naya Allies build running Path and Scout's Warning.

It's been a while since I last looked at this deck, but I feel that it's going in the wrong direction. Drana, Liberator of Malakir is not a Modern-caliber card, because it fails the Bolt test as a 3-drop (look at the list of cards that do that and see Modern play - it's a short list, and it's almost entirely composed of creatures that have ETB effects), and no mainboard interaction means you're scooping on Game 1 to combo decks like Splinter Twin, Amulet Bloom, and the like. Hardened Scales is not worth it if it means you have to cut your disruption - Allies are explosive, but one well-placed Lightning Bolt can go a long, long way.

rothgar13 sorry, I am going to really disagree with your comment. With all due respect, but going by that logic. Tarmogoyf is also useless. Swiftspear falls into that as well. So does majority of the modern "staples" because they die to bolt. To extend that, all the ally cards are useless as well - because they die to bolt. All I can say in a short sentence is that if you let a single bolt stop your game, you are not playing Ally Aggro properly.

The point of having something not modern-caliber because it dies to bolt, it's just plain ridiculous. That argument, IMO, is not constructive in any way. In addition, your comments gave us nothing to think about, but just another point that we have heard from many others.

The whole idea of aggro-ally decks is to be explosive. Hardened Scales works especially well to bolster the game plan. How is it bad? Sure, against combo decks, it can be a dead card, but how about against aggro decks, which constitutes 50% of the meta? In post-games, even if we side out, it's still worth the slot because game 1 matters! We don't lose out much if we board out hardened scales, but we have something to gain when we have them on board.

Talking about match-ups, we have good and bad matches. Combo is not in our favour. Granted. But, don't forget about post-boarding. If you are thinking of t2 Bloom or t4 twin, please tell me which or what other decks that can easily stop them? I really don't think Jund or any tier 1 decks are having a good time stopping them as easily. As I said, we all have good and bad matches, as well as good/bad days.

Personally, I stand for Drana in the deck. If left unchecked, she is easily a game-ender by herself. To put that in perspective, if you don't bolt it, something is really wrong with that decision; you better have something else on hand to deal with her.

You're misunderstanding my argument. The reason why Drana is bad is not because she dies to Bolt - as you said, lots of things die to Bolt (though I'll point out that Tarmogoyf often doesn't). It's that she dies to Bolt as a 3-drop without having necessarily made much of an impact on the board. As aggro, that's a very painful tempo loss, and a tempo loss on T3 (or 4 if you Vial her in) usually means bad things for you. A 1-drop or even a 2-drop dying to Bolt usually isn't a dealbreaker - that's mana parity (or close to it), so you live with that. However, losing a 3-drop to Bolt tends to not put much of a dent in your opponent's game plan. They can Bolt you and drop a Goyf in the same turn, for example. That's not good.

With regards to Hardened Scales' explosiveness... again, I bring up the comparison to Bolt. Bolt can be evasion (kills a blocker), reach (3 to the dome), or disruption (kill a mana dork to slow their tempo). Given that you have precious few non-creature spell slots available (since AEther Vial and Collected Company are integral to the deck's function), it has to be versatile as well as potent. Hardened Scales only meets half of those criteria, and then only conditionally. Count the times where the Scales contributes in an equivalent fashion. I think you'll find it rare. And if you do come to the same conclusion as me (and I think you will), why not play Bolt instead?

The rest of your statements make me question how much attention you pay to the metagame. Look at Merfolk decks (a very close parallel to Allies, with the exception of being tier 1) how well it does against Twin, or Bloom for that matter (hint: not poorly). Combo will always be a relative weakness for Allies, but that doesn't mean you punt on it and move on. As you said yourself, Game 1 matters.

Drana seems like a win-more card to me personally. But some cards get value just by being a rod as well. Chances are that bolt was used on turn 1 or 2. Sure you don't want to trade 3 cmc for a 1 cmc removal spell, but sometimes it comes down to risk versus reward.

And 4x Suppression Field for combo _ bwaha

Question: who is the better 3 drop (in a game 1 situation), Adaptive Automaton who can get 2 for 1'd with Kommand or Mirror Entity who dies to a breeze and requires mana to sink?

rothgar13 so having said, what are your suggestions to improve the deck?

I really think Bolt should be maindeck, based on my testing. It's versatile, powerful, and I'm never unhappy to draw it. Given that Harabaz Druid is once again absent, I'd also advocate cutting Drana and maybe a Jwari Shapeshifter for land, so that Collected Company can be cast on curve a bit more consistently. I'd also like to see some Spell Pierce and Thoughtseize in the sideboard so that the deck has a fighting chance against combo in Games 2 and 3 (probably at the expense of Tuktuk Scrapper, who's not Company-friendly, and Return to the Ranks, which is not all that good without the Druid).

So, at the very same tourney I went to, a dude placed 10th, and I placed like....41st? I went 5-3. After looking at his deck and other people's decks I've realized that I need 22 lands if I want to keep COCO, and that 4 caverns and 4 ally encampments was making it really hard on the scales and coco. So, I have changed the deck accordingly. I'm currently working on another, pretty killer (in my opinion), ally deck. I'll update the Kamikaze Allies soon :-).

rothgar13 I think if there is already trouble hitting the green for CoCo (with Green being the second most relevant color), the deck will have even more problems hitting Red for Lightning Bolt or black for Thoughtseize.Thoughtseize wasn't even easy to cast when I tried it in my 3-color Abzan build. So in a 5-color build, it should be even harder (also no Harabaz Druid makes it harder too)

He'll have a bit more wiggle room for Bolt now that he's rocking 22 lands instead of 20. But yes, this is why I would not actually run a 5-color version of this deck - the gains are marginal, and the downsides are real and significant.

5 colors really is a non-issue... it was hitting the 4 lands. The green was because i was running 8 special lands.

Running the 5 colors vs the dude who ran the 3 in the same tournament, I think, would have pushed him over the edge. You end up running out of gas quicker with automation and champion.

Even if this was not true, having 7 more 2 drops, esp one that copies any ally on the field really pushes u over. If anything, one could go to 26 or 25 and then put the removal that you would like.

I think as a brewer, the current 'phase' I'm in is as a starter. I start good ideas, like this one and perhaps kamikaze, and then let people like the person who brought the other allies to the same tourney, make the finishing touches. My friend looked it up, the guy who brought the deck to Atlanta was actually apart of a group from Florida who specializes in 'finishing' rogue decks.

Were you losing game 1, or out the sideboard; what matches could you not run your game plan against? I think those questions lead to the next phase.

I would keep all my tech to G/W. All the successful decks thus far haven't had a need to go into a third number too heavily (mostly bc they recognize how weak the manabase is without filtering mechanisms or mana dorks). Even with 22 lands I've had to path myself to get a CoCo off because I was out of gas. Mana screw/flood can lose matches without a draw/filter mechanic; Mentor of the Meek, Bob and Horizon Canopy can help (though the last nets you a loss of a land). Harabaz Druid is the only Dork that fits the theme, and I admittedly felt a smoother tempo with 2 of her; but I hate that she's a 0/1. That's a tradeoff decision to make.

In my testing, this deck is positioned kind of weird against other decks. We can't match the speed of affinity and burn, and we can sit there and have Grixis/GBx trade 1-for-1s and 2-for-1s all day. I developed my boarding strategies against these matches within the context of this deck, and try to generalize them to other matches. This deck's weakness is loss of tempo (kind of like BW tokens), so my strategy is to slow the opponents tempo with Suppression Field/Thalia/Scooze/Lifegain while I gain momentum to play my game.

Personally, I don't think you should try to run both Vial and Scales. One offers speed, the other offers size, but neither improve your board state top deck, nor do they disrupt your opponent enough to keep them from winning. 8 slots of cards that do nothing out of context is kind of pushing it. Maybe use 4 of these for the slots you need interaction.

Keep doing good bro! My hard part is figuring out what 3 drops I want to run :(

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I've stuck to green and white for the same reasons. However, if one were to run the 8 special lands, then Dismember may help alot.

Yeah, well said about the 8 drops, I'll get back to you on that. Maybe there could be a way for you to use em top deck.....I like the idea of being all in, and playing a lot off of your initial hand, at least for a turn 3-4 win.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/12-11-15-modern-allies/ BEHHHHOOOLLLDDD!!!!

Was TukTuk Scrapper too slow?

Nice alex0m. How is the build working for you?

jonathanveedot, I think I did find it too slow; too late for machines, and doesn't do anything against torpor orb.

THE GODS HAVE WEPT AT SUCH A BRILLIANT VERSION OF ALLIES FOR MODERN!! gone 4-0 at my local meta 2 weeks in a row~! my local meta includes splinter combos, 1500 dollar junds and a variety of filthy zoo, burn and control decks... the only time i was worried was the merfolk matchup! i didnt have my choke or boil sideboard then! but still no losses since ive built it hahaha

alex0m Which list have you been running?

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/12-11-15-modern-allies/

alex0m, I've been playing pretty much the same deck for awhile now for my all-in ally version of the deck, with the same results. I added the Returns after seeing Houghton using the same deck with the Ranks. You really want the full playset of Kabira. It's beast with the vials! But yea, you def want to get that Choke on the side; it's been ridic against twin, grixix and merfolk for me.

That makes me happy to see you guys are getting good results at your lgs. :-)

I am from australia and for me choke is nearly becoming impossible to find! Allot of island hate out there :P so for now im using a boiling seas (sorcery speed boil) untill i find them chokes, and from then on it will be happy days!

haha, I could trade for some for you, then send them overseas...(I'm from the USA)

i like it ! inbox me your want list and ill see if i have any of them