Howdy, everyone! This is my newest take on a budget Ally deck: one focused more on combining the various talents of the black and white Allies to create a sort of "Heal-Burn" strategy.
The main win condition of the deck is this: You get either Cliffhaven Vampire, Bloodbond Vampire, or Serene Steward on the board (or in the ideal scenario, all three), and then start pumping up your life. This has a few different effects, dependent on which of the creatures you have on board; Cliffhaven burns your opponent whenever you gain life, Bloodbond buffs herself by +1/+1, and the Steward can buff anyone on your board for the same amount. Since these cards are so critical to your strategy, you run at least three copies of General Tazri for a high-cost yet effective searcher for any three of them, as all of the aforementioned cards are Allies.
But how do you gain life, I hear the voices in my head asking? HOW is the life gained?! Well, worry not, symptoms of my early-onset schizophrenia, for there are plenty of ways to gain life in order to trigger the aforementioned win conditions of the deck. One of the best ones is Kalastria Healer, which steals a single life point from your opponent and gives it to you each time you summon an Ally. Since you have plenty of Allies to summon, you'll be able to easily gain life and burn your opponent on a consistent basis, thus accomplishing your win condition all the more efficiently. Besides the Healer, Drana's Emissary is a nice card too, being essentially a flying Healer that triggers on upkeep rather than on an Ally summon. It's more consistent, since you don't need other cards to trigger it, but it has a far lower power ceiling, so it's perfectly understandable if you want to run fewer copies.
Besides those two key cards, Ondu Cleric gains you life on summon or summon of another Ally as well, but lacks the burn elements. It's a slight downgrade from the two life-gaining all-stars above, but not enough to not run the card. Revitalize gives you both card draw and life gain - two elements which this deck greatly appreciates, expectedly. Mortify is just useful removal, as the deck has none of it inherently, and Consecrate / Consume is a really neat double card which functions as card draw, disruption, removal, and life gain, all variably useful dependent on the context (for example, if you have plenty of life gain, but need removal, Consume is more useful; however, if your opponent is running a graveyard-focused deck and you need to disrupt their plays, Consecrate is more useful).
Phew. This was a long-winded description. I'm really excited about this deck, if y'all can't tell. Anyways, though, feel free to leave questions down below in the comments, and I hope y'all enjoyed this! Thanks for viewing! :)
