Your splashing green might as well Collected Company to hit those allies

good card, good suggestion, with one major snag - i could add two Drana, Liberator of Malakir for the price of single Collected Company or pay a little bit more and add Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

and in my opinion both of these would be more powerfull than 4drop that puts 2 small creatures on the board

second snag with this is that my closest GS that sells singles have only foil version on stock at +-33 dollars price tag - there is NO way im paying that for a single card

just to clarify collected company is currently set at 11 dollars at that store and out of stock while Gideon is avaliable for 16 dollars

So what's the plan for T1? Just hope opponents don't want to start the game until everyone has 2 lands? I mean, if you play a land and you can't use the mana, you're conceding a play. That seems weak. Even beyond that, I'd rather play (2) 1-drop creatures on T3 and have 1 land open for an instant spell than play 1 (3) drop creature that might be countered, destroyed, or just leave me tapped out when I might have been able to stop an opponent's business. I'm not saying weenie decks are the best, I'm just arguing for the excellent value 1 drop spells bring to decks. So I suggest you carve out some space for at least (4) 1-drop spells. Stoneforge Masterwork looks pretty good. I bet Stoneforge Acolyte, Despise, Duress, or Expedition Envoy would be worth it, too.

i usually play Shambling vent at T1

yes im conceding first turn play, which means 1/1 that will not do any damage because at T2 before it can attack ill play Kalastria Healer or any of the other two drops to block it.

This deck can afford it because it doesnt even need to attack so chumpblockers are not an issue (and most of its direct damage flyes anyway) and it heals very nicely.

4 1 drops would cost me 4 cards somewhere else - can you point to me 4 cards that you would sacrifice to get a 1 drop card that saves you one mana at T1 and at best gives you a chumpblocker ?

only one from your suggestions that has any vallue for this deck is Stoneforge Masterwork - and i would LOVE to squeeze it somewhere, thing is again instead of what ...

There are some cards that I would do away with in this deck namely Tandem Tactics and 1 to 2 of the Bloodbond Vampire, but I would personally replace Tandem Tactics with 1 more of each planeswalker and Bloodbond Vampire with Brutal Hordechief. I do not see any real need for this deck to have a 1CMC creature, as you want to play most of your creatures after Kalastria Healer, but reducing the average cost of your creatures could help.

Also I can't help myself, but splashing green is pretty fun because you can play Evolutionary Leap which works brilliant with Kalastria Healer and Zulaport Cutthroat. Check out my version of the deck if you're interested:

Abzan Ally Revival

Standard Aric_Haldan

SCORE: 1 | 0 COMMENTS | 114 VIEWS

id have to disagree with all of that

firstly Bloodbond Vampire is a core creature in this deck, not having it out at T4 hurts the play a LOT because all the life triggers go to waste. Dont think of it as mere 3/3 fourdrop, the least i got out of it when i play it is 4/4 and i can get it to 7/7 or more when played (two triggers from healers + paying twice the price on serene steward) depending on cards in the play, then continue to boost it every turn with emissary. All of that completely defensive without needing to risk attacks at all.

Brutal Hordechief has few problems, namely that it doesnt trigger rally, is dependant on attacking (BFZ and OTG has a lot of removal based on tapping or attacking) and his activated ability is basically opposite of what you want to do with ally deck - i want my creatures to live for rally triggers, cutthroats arent there to be forcibly triggered by saccing creatures, they are there for making enemy pay for a block i am FORCED to take.

which of course disqualifies the Evolutionary Leap almost completely - paying a card extra and a creature already on board for a cutthroat trigger and a random creature that goes in hand and i have to pay up for it to play it is simply a bad for this deck, especially with the risk of bottoming out some very important cards with that search ... (can you imagine losing Gideon, Sorin or Captains claws to pull cutthroat or healer ? and yes losing, this deck doesnt have ANY shuffling whatsoever, once the card is on the bottom its basically unreachable ...)

lastly Tandem Tactics is a hard for me to pass up, because it works SO well with this deck, instant speed combat pump on TWO creatures with simultaneous trigger for Bloodbond Vampire and Serene Steward sometimes results in pretty hillarious block/attack scenarios. Show me better black or white combat pump and ill consider it gladly, but so far im quite pleased with results i get from Tandem Tactics

PS: more plainswalkers feels kinda dirty to me, i personally dont like PW cards much, they are way too powerfull + Gideon is still bit too pricey + i did mention i really like combat tricks above right ? :)

Bloodbond Vampire is a 4CMC creature that doesn't impact the battlefield immediately and can be killed of easily, that's why he's bad. If your opponent has a fiery impulse or a draconic roar open he can kill it by playing those cards in response to it's trigger. most non-burn removal like Abzan Charm or Valorous Stance also kill it outright before it can do anything. Furthermore, even if it sticks and becomes a 7/7 or something like that it doesn't have trample or vigilance so any chump blockers like Kolaghan's Command makes this card only good at blocking. It's also one of the worst topdecks.

Brutal Hordechief can easily present lethal no matter how the opponent blocks, if you've had enough drain triggers or some Zulaport Cutthroats on the battlefield. And he can already impact the game the turn he's played, in other words he is a finishing blow. The lifegain and threat of lethal drain can also protect you better than Bloodbond Vampire can. He also has great synergy with Cliffhaven Vampire as it means you deal 2 damage to your opponent for every creature you attack with (all triggers are separate).

Evolutionary Leap not only triggers Zulaport Cutthroat, it also gives you a new creature that can be played to trigger Kalastria Healer and it can help you gather 2-3 of the before mentioned creatures which causes enormous drain. Furthermore you're not supposed to sacrifice a creature during your turn, but you're supposed to sacrifice them when chump-blocking or when targeted by a removal. Evolutionary Leap creates card advantage.

And about Tandem Tactics, you can keep them if you want. B/W doesn't really have good combat tricks, but I guess you could do some stuff with this one if you've got a Serene Steward or Bloodbond Vampire on the battlefield. It just seems like a low impact card even in that situation and quite useless in every other situation. Planeswalkers are expensive, but I personally think even some plain removal like Immolating Glare or Valorous Stance would be better.

a.) the purpose of the Bloodbond vampire isnt to decide the game or even present the threat at its core, yes it can be boosted to the insane number of counters quickly, its there to act as a defense with offense potential.

its no less vulnerable to removal than your Hordechief, its in fact way less likely to be burned thanks to requirement of being burned immediatelly rather than in oponents turn while Hordechief is just 3/3 for 4 mana that has sweet ability but doesnt fit in the deck - which you still refuse to understand, this is not rusher aggro deck that HAS to attack its built around simple premise of NOT having to attack (yes i know i have Drana, but Drana is just simply too awesome to pass up xD ... and is an ally), ever and still win the game or build the board presence strong enough to be able to counter even eldrazi size targets.

If anything i would be tempted to take out both planeswalkers to get in two Hordechiefs to act as finisher. Thing is, i want to keep this Standard legal and Hordechief should be rotating out with the next set, which makes him VERY poor investment.

b.) from my point of view Evolutionary leap creates card disadvantage, you pay mana and creature to MAYBE draw a creature thats useful, you then end up with same amount of cards that you had before (therefore NO card advantage) you played it, have one creature on the board less and can potentially bury important noncreature cards on the bottom of the library - i simply dont see the point of playing that card at all, all it does is preventing you from putting actually useful creatures in the deck that can be drawn normally

and if you bomb creatures that are about to die anyway, then you arent even creating additional triggers which makes that card used the way you described downright useless - id much rather then play Feat of Resistance, save the body i already have in play, pump it and potentially get a lethal returned damage in block ... for the same price or have Immolating Glare in the same card slot, again saving body on the field and costing enemy one of his for the same price ...

if the text read "search library for creature" then yes THEN it would be worth it, but paying 2 mana and a body on the board to play a lottery while showing enemy exactly what he can expect and what he can now know is buried on the bottom of your deck is terrible

c. Immolating Glare will replace Feat of Resistance when it rotates out and ill have to think about playing four of while dropping the Tandem Tactics too

The thing about 1 drop creatures is that you can cast them after T1 and still have lands open. You've got 5 spells that give you tokens, so I'd argue that you could cast (2) 1-drop creatures instead for less mana and achieve the same number of triggers. The tokens don't have any special abilities, but 1-drop creatures do, so they're a better value. Furthermore, instead of tapping 4 lands for 2 triggers, with 1-drops, you have the option of casting only one of them and using your remaining lands to cast any other spell. And of course, you can cast them T1 and at least establish some board presence, which you can't do right now.

at which point they are just giving you card disadvantage because at later turns id rather have solid 2+ creature or combat trick on my hand than one drop chumpblocker that ISNT NEEDED ...

one drops are relevant for modern decks that are expected to play every turn and keep insane tempo, this is STANDARD deck that is nowhere near requiring to play anything at first turn and would SUFFER from card disadvantage at later turns by playing USELESS 1/2 or 2/1 creature

this is final i will NOT add any onedrops to this deck, period

@Asghaad sure Brutal Hordechief can be killed more easily, but he also needs to be killed instantly, because his value is in his drain effect more than as a blocker or attacker himself. Brutal Hordechief can use your creatures to easily ping 4 or 5 life in a single turn, even if you take some casualties it's worth it because it often makes your victory inevitable, if you've dealt 10 or so damage through pings and perhaps here and there an attack from a flyer and you have a Zulaport Cutthroat or a cliffhaven vampire then with 4 creatures only a single of your 2 power flyers needs to get through to inevitably win, if you've got 5 creatures, it's inevitable no matter what happens. Bloodbond Vampire is rendered useless even when it's killed on your opponents turn, it's only a single blocker, it only pings once more when you've got a kalastria healer. And as a defense it isn't that great, it comes in after anafenza and savage knuckleblade and at the same time as Siege Rhino, Thunderbreak Regent and Woodland Wanderer. It can easily be outmatched and since it has no protection, it doesn't ensure your protection either. hordechief is there to ensure your victory when you have built up a slight advantage or create an advantage when things aren't going your way. bloodbond vampire is there to stall a bit until the opponent draws a good removal or a decent flyer. Now you could also play Foul-Tongue Shriek and you wouldn't have any problems with removal and still have the inevitability effect, but there are some other problems with that card. And have you ever thought about how you want to play against eldrazi ramp decks, control decks or mirror matches ? Either way even if you do not play hordechief, you should do away with at least 1 to 2 Bloodbond Vampire because she's just too slow and low-impact.

now then, Evolutionary Leap, first of all if you've got any useless creatures in your deck, get rid of them. Secondly, if your opponent plays a removal or god forbid a board wipe, he uses a card. When you sacrifice the creature with Evolutionary Leap you still have the same amount of cards, therefore you have more cards than your opponent, in other words card advantage. Of course this is not true with chump blocking, but in this case you would normally lose a card if it's necessary, where now you do not. It doesn't create card advantage, but it prevents card disadvantage and you've got token spells so it can 'upgrade' the tokens to more useful creatures. And it makes chump blocking (,which buys you precious time, because we all know you can't keep taking hits from 4/4's like knuckleblade,) near costless. It also creates more triggers for Kalastria Healer, and provides new fodder for Zulaport Cutthroat. It can keep doing these things and keep your life healthy whilst ensuring you always have creatures to play. Of course it works better when you some cheap creatures like Beastcaller Savant and/or revival cards like March from the Tomb, but it still works well even without those. Also about the burying part, have you ever consider it can do the opposite as well, namely bringing those cards closer ? It was as good as random before the trigger and it's as good as random after, so nothing really changed. However even with all that, you don't need to play it, because splashing green can be a high cost and most of the cards in your deck are pretty high in CMC which might cause some mana problems.

I don't get point c) ? You might have a slight problem 3 months from now at a time a lot of new cards come out, so you don't change anything now ? and what's wrong with running a playset of a card ?

@kamarupa token spells create at least 2 creatures for one card, leaving room for more creatures (and more triggers) in the rest of the deck. he doesn't really have any cards he would want to hold up until he already has some important creatures on the battlefield. And there aren't any 1-drop allies that have an effect that can really help this deck, even so this deck is kind of slow. I like Despise as a turn 1 play though.

a.) you play hordechief at T4, swing with everything hoping to trade and oponent just trades creatures and you end up with 3/3 on board 4 maybe 5 life advantage and have to start building the presence again ... which KILLS the deck because without allies already on board to use rally you just conceded the play ...

BBV doesnt protect itself because it eating up hard removal spell is the best thing that can happen xD id much rather lose BBV than healers especially whn i know there are 4 of them in the deck,

AGAIN this deck does NOT attack to trade, it does NOT sacrifice creatures unless absolutely necessary. The vampire is there to draw the game to allow the health triggers from RALLY to flow, because the rally triggers do not have any risk or cost with them, unlike having to attack and risk losing the whole board which basically concedes the game

c.) it means that im not willing to pay that much for card with very limited lifespan that im not exactly confident especially when it breaks the core phylosofy of the deck itself turning it from ally rally to drain aggro which frankly would work much better with B/G scion aggro deck than with allies

b.) no i do not have any useless creatures in the deck NOT A SINGLE ONE... the evolutionary leap does not create card advantage, you still get one card for one card leaving you at net ZERO, in your example you act as if the removal your enemy played changes anything in the fact that you have already card on hand but you play it to get another one... all you bypass is the "sac a creature" price of the leap, you DO NOT create card advantage from that at all ...

and no it doesnt bring desirable cards closer, it literally mills the topdeck until it hits a creature - its a pure gamble if it mills down a cards you dont need at that point or burries the Planeswalker that would win you the match on the bottom of the deck ...

and if you thing 4drops are "high cost" what the hell are the Eldrazi decks with 7+ mana cost monsters ?

eldrazi decks are late game decks with huge amounts of ramp and their high cost creatures have enormous impact. an ulamog or kozilek can win the game on it's own, a BBV gets traded for a 2CMC removal without doing anything and is near worthless even when it stays. Also you do not play hordechief on t4 with this deck that would be idiotic. on t4 you should play 2 2 CMC creatures, one of those token spells, or some other combination of things. You play hordechief on t5-7 when you don't have any more cards to play, that's what I meant with him as a finisher, because he closes the game. The only time it is advisable to play one spell when you can play two is when that one spell has a huge impact like Siege Rhino. hordechief needs a good board presence, but he can win you the game even when you're on 3 life and the opponent's on 10. The reason why I consider 4 drop high-cost creatures is because they are the end of your curve and in a deck without ramp and only 22 lands and because most removal is cheaper.

Also do you even understand what card advantage is ? it means having more cards than your opponent, so that when you start trading creatures and removal or counters and it turns into an attrition battle that you're the one who ends up with stuff to play. that's exactly what evolutionary leap helps with(, though it doesn't help with counters).

and about bringing cards closer, it can happen. let's say you have a slight manascrew and the next 5 cards of your deck are Allied Reinforcements, Ruinous Path, Captain's Claws, Kalastria Healer and Plains, then activating evolutionary leap causes you to draw a land instead of 3 high cost cards in a row. if you have too much lands and the next 2 cards are lands as well than activating evolutionary leap can put those lands on the bottom so you're more likely to draw a useful spell. Basically, chances that a useful card is on the top of your deck or below your next creature are exactly the same, so you cannot say evolutionary leap has any effect on your card draw at all, or at least not the same effect.

I get the concern that Brutal Hordechief rotates, but frankly he's relatively cheap, so I don't really care about that.

Anyway you should bring this to a couple of FNM's, because I have a feeling you're the type that will not accept anything as the truth before experiencing it him/herself, so just try it out and see for yourself.

Retreat to Emeria would work better than the claws. The claws offer marginal benefit to the creature they equip to, and yes it puts an ally out but it must be attacking. Token will most likely die and if the creature with claws dies you must pay again to reequip them onto something else which may not exist. The claws also force the attack for the ally trigger. Retreat is overall safer and equal in mana if even one equipped creature dies . It is more versatile in letting you have options within the retreat and doesnt force a token into attacking

no its not - the Captain's Claws have self replicating effect ... get 1/1 token on board, equip claws for one and swing it, even if it doesnt go through you have 3 power attacking for 1 mana played that turn that can be combat pumped to get lethal damage to blockers + another rally trigger.

Claws also synergises EXTREMELY well with Drana, Liberator of Malakir, if you can get her to hit face first, then she pumps the token to 2/2 before the normal combat damage is calculated, then if it dies it triggers Zulaport Cutthroat, and its summoning triggers rally - Kalastria Healer and thus pumps Bloodbond Vampire again BEFORE the combat even begins.

landfall effects are unreliable, statistically you should play 1 land every third turn after T4, which means that by the time you cast the Retreat, its expected to trigger only once per THREE turns - it will work in G/W ally deck, but deffinatelly NOT in W/B

Aric_Haldan -

card advantage isnt gained by swapping card in your hand for another card - there is no advantage there because you end up at exactly what you had before - only if the card played had impact on enemy side of the board - like a removal - with addition of drawing the card THEN you would get card advantage, but as evolutionary leap kills YOUR creature to draw a creature its card DISADVANTAGE because you are using mana and card slot in your deck to draw absolutely random creature you might as well have drawn instead of the card you just played ... Its a card that sits well with decks that churn out tokens for no cost and depend on Cutthroat triggers to do its work, in deck that tries to get as many bodies on board as possible and KEEP THEM ALIVE its worthless ...

and if you dont play Hordechief at T4, with what exactly are you planning to block those 5/5 or 6/6 creatures the green ramp or any color Eldrazi scion decks are going to have out at T4 (Eldrazi scion deck can have 9/9 Ulamog's Despoiler out at t4 if he has perfect hand... but lets not get into extremes) ?

this isnt one of those aggro decks that have to win by T6 or go down i personally like to have a response to big creatures and im using 4 card slots for that purpose, if i slotted Hordechief id put him in a finisher/threat slot - ie planeswalker, Drana, Cliffhaven vampire, Claws ... these are the cards in the same category of purpose that Hordechief could replace, but BBV is there to keep me alive - almost pure defense and by the way one of its purposes is also to eat up hard removal - she is not a win condition for me, she is there to keep me alive and make the rest of the deck work even in longer game, otherwise i would play Kor Bladewhirl in that cardslot over 4drop - but that would be ally aggro deck, not a lifedrain one

Advantage is relative. After all when you play a board wipe you lose a card, so you have less cards than before. Are you going to say boardwipes create card disadvantage? Of course not. Evolutionary Leap renders your opponent's removal near obselete simply by holding up a green mana, just like a boardwipe renders the creatures played obselete. It doesn't impact the opponent's board, but it impacts his hand. Also between playing and sacrifing that creature it trigger the drain effects this deck is built around, so you might not have drawn the new creature as well. Of course it takes 2 instances of removal before it creates card advantage, but it does create a lot of late game potential. And it is true that if you invest a lot of mana in creatures you do not want to sacrifice them, however mana problems are completely unrelated to card advantage, in fact decks often choose between the two. aggro uses up a lot of cards, but cuts back on manacost in order to be able to play faster whilst control often has relatively high CMC cards and is slower but uses spells that can trade for several of the opponent's spells creating card advantage in doing so. Now, from what you say I can conjecture that you want to keep your creatures alive to chump block and attack whenever you can finish off your opponent, which is fine and simply a different strategy from evolutionary leap, who relies on cheap chump blocks and pings to stay alive and in the meanwhile drain the opponent empty. After all why else would you need them alive, except for drana's emmisary they don't ping no more once they're on the battlefield.

and as for how to defend when playing brutal hordechief, you chump block with weaker creatures like tokens and cheap stuff like Serene Steward where necessary. You might take some blows, but even if you go down to 3 life or something like that, an attack like I described before wins you the game on the spot. And I always say "winning is better than dragging out the game and losing" :p

And what I am trying to say most of all, is that BBV isn't that great a defense, she comes in late so she isn't an early defense measure and against big creature decks it just isn't enough. now I know that abzan is a bit OP, so i will refrain from explaining that scenario, but other decks also get past pretty easily. a Savage Knuckleblade can attack whilst keeping open 3 mana (he can use that mana later if you do not block) and BBV won't be able to block before 3 seperate healing triggers and she comes in 1 turn later. Thunderbreak Regent can just dodge her, Woodland Wanderer creates a similar problem though he comes in at the same turn. and most of these decks, especially eldrazi decks don't just stop at one of these guys, they play far more of them than you can hope to compete with. In order to play BBV you use up a turn and a card and she doesn't really slow down any aggro or midrange deck, especially those with black or white removal like abzan has. If you still think she's great, than prove me wrong and go win some FNM's.

no, saccing your own creature thats about to be removed does NOT make enemies removal obsolete, he reached his goal of removing what he was aiming for, it just makes losing that creature a little bit less painful loss ...

and it DOESNT impact opponents hand either, again, he used a card to remove, he reached his goal and the card served its purpose all you manged to do is to get out of that loss a body cost for your card, thats all...

and you drew one card that might as well been in your hand instead of that evolution all along, therefore you DO NOT create any card advantage AT ALL, only cards that draw multiple cards OR have side effect that isnt about drawing that one card create card advantage, but when card is "spend this card to draw another card" all it does is FILTERING effect not card advantage ...

blocking with Serene Steward ? are you NUTS its exactly one of the creatures in this deck that you HAVE to keep alive, because from all the cards you mentioned it basically counters all of them in combination with others ...

Thunderbreak Regent is just fodder for Drana if you can manage to pump her to 4 (which coincidentally single Tandem Tactics which procs Serene Steward does ...

Woodland wanderer is a nice card, but will usually not grow beyond 5/5 while BBV can be pumped to the same number easily when playing it then outgrow it fast.

Savage Knuckleblade is only one that would actually force me to spend a removal to get rid of or maybe let one or two hits to get through before my defense would be set up ( so either 6 health if opponent doesnt pump or 10 health but basically gain one turn for free because of that activation cost... and im fine with that in deck that gains life like this one), but frankly, having all three colors out at T3 isnt something that you can count on to happen all the time unless you play 500 bucks insane deck (if you didnt notice, this decks is marked as budget, because it is pretty damn cheap ...)

oph and three triggers for BBV ? thats basically next turn after its played xD while playing it there should be at least one Kalastria healer and one Dranas emissary / Serene steward on the board (if not Drana herself) which would mean that she enters board as 4/4 and gets to 5/5 at the next turn upkeep and 6/6 or higher with any ally i play on T5 ... if not bigger

PS: im SO glad these ridiculous Khans cards will be gone soon xD

hell especially that Woodland Wanderer is exactly the type of creature BBV is in this deck to counter - its should be just as big when played or at the least next turn even if its played as 3 color which will make enemy hesitant to just attack with it, leaving him in defense which is EXACTLY what i want to do with this deck - prevent enemy form attacking me while draining him.

and you cannot chumpblock him ...

You know what, you might be right. I'm just too used to playing against decks like Abzan Aggro and Atarka Red that slow cards that get easily removed like BBV seem like a bad choice, but this is a budget deck so it might be good at the level you play at.

Evolutionary Leap still creates card advantage, but I don't know how to explain it in a way you would understand. btw, removal has the purpose to trade with another card, which it doesn't when you replace the creature with another one, it's like killing a zombie and another one just rising up from the ground. though as I admitted it still does slow you down. a bit. so NEAR obsolete.

And yeah I'm looking forward to April as well, it's not like this deck will lose everything it has to worry about (still got them legendary dragons and eldrazi's), but Abzan Aggro is just too strong right now, it's kinda getting boring.

On a completely different subject, I feel like playing 22 lands might be a bit too few. It would be fine if you didn't have that much 4 CMC cards, but it's usually a fist-rule to play 40% lands in a deck and this deck isn't that low cost. Also playing Caves of Koilos would be advisable to fix your manabase especially when playing double blacks like Drana and BBV and they aren't that expensive.

as i sayd, Evolutionary Leap is perfect card for deck that has Zulaport Cutthroat as its core mechanic - in other words B/G eldrazi scion token deck - but i simply do not see it working for ally deck.

as for lands that i honestly have no idea, in the meta i play against i never found myself manastarved even when this deck was three color, but that doesnt mean a thing i guess ... ill add Caves of Koilos on my "buy next time" list but as for number of lands, so far i felt 2-3 lands on first draw + 1 by turn 3 should be enough to have 2 swamps on board by the time i need to play drana. On the other hand, taking standard lands down to 6 each and playing set of Caves of Koilos would mean 80% chance of having dual land in hand on turn 1.

so, made the swap, i will have to use Scoured Barrens instead for now till the next order of cards gets to me

Check this one here: BW Allies - life gain/drain FTW

if you find that you usually have 4 land by turn 4 you don't need extra land, if you however find that you can't play cards fast enough or that the opponent plays stronger cards faster, you might want to make changes.