Ruinous Path or Infinite Obliteration may allow you to destroy or remove Jace from the game if they are tapped out. I run an Ally deck as well and the only time I have beaten a control deck was a 1st turn Despise(rotating out) or Duress.

@Lordeh, that's why I have the Quarantine Field cards. They help. For 4 mana they can exile anything except lands, and you can have more than 1 target if you have the mana. Ruinous Path is in the sideboard, if needed...

That is a good option, but it is a turn 4 drop that if you are versing blue and they have mana open, will be countered.

But against blue the best option is to hit harder and faster.

Anguished Unmaking for jace

PISStolOFFence, yes, I saw that card in the new set! I agree it will be a nice addition!

Hi, your deck is very similar to mine, check this out: BW Allies - life gain/drain FTW

Have you thought of subbing in Serene Steward for the Ondu's?

C7M8, I have indeed thought of that, and even tried that. Ultimately, I decided to not include it, though. It's a great card, but I needed to draw the line somewhere so that I don't end up with too many creatures. Too often I didn't actually have the 1 mana available to generate the counter, so I just had a 2/2 creature whose ability I rarely used. I decided to instead go with Vampire Envoy because I get a 1/4 flier that gains me life when it gets tapped.

I know that the biggest weakness of this deck is that creatures are low toughness and power, but if 3 or 4 can get out at the same time then each becomes a bit harder to deal with because of all of the abilities that can get triggered by affecting 1. Ultimately, I decided that Serene Steward just didn't work well for me. Again, it's a good card, just not working well for me at my local FNMs.

With Ondu War Cleric, if I held it back to do defense, I can do the ability at the end of the opponent's turn (it's an ability that can be activated at instant speed, so it doesn't have to be during my turn) and untap it at the start of my turn. If I leave Vampire Envoy also untapped, then I get 3 life. Most importantly, I didn't have to pay any mana for this.

Thanks for the suggestion, though! I have tried it and just decided that for me and for the location I play that it just didn't work quite as well. Against decks in other stores it may be fine-- different flavors in each area.

Sorin, Grim Nemesis damages the opponent plus draws a card with his first ability and has life gain / creature removal with his second. Anguished Unmaking for great removal since you can spare the life.

As a side note, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar's first ability does not trigger Kalastria Healer, since he was already on the battlefield and rally is an ETB effect. His second ability still does though.

Fal1enKing, yes, thank you for catching my mistake with Gideon! Not sure why I put that in there because I know that you are correct. Must have been in a hurry and wrote that without thinking. Changing it when I finish this response.

I have deeply considered Sorin, Grim Nemesis and he would fit nicely in many ways. I agree that he is a good fit!

Anguished Unmaking, I have mixed feelings. You say that I have life to spare, but that's not often the case. It's a great card and it's at instant speed, but I prefer paying 1 extra mana for Quarantine Field. I can also side in Stasis Snare if it's creatures that need to be targeted at instant speed.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Problem with those white removal is that people will side in removal against them. Still, if it works where you play this deck, that's what matters.

Quarantine Field is still an enchantment and is vulnerable to Felidar Cub and Dromoka's Command while Anguished Unmaking is an instant speed removal that can affect plainswalkers. Declaration in Stone is handy as well if they are using thopters or dropping lots of cheap value cards such as Sylvan Advocate.

Lordeh and Fal1enKing, Quarantine Field will work against any non-land permanent, so it, too, will work against planeswalkers. Granted, it is not instant speed. True, as an enchantment, it is subject to removal, but, in my experience, that's exceptionally rare (this last Friday was the first time I ever had that happen, in fact). I think Quarantine Field is used infrequently, so there aren't as many people expecting it.

Unfortunately, Stasis Snare and Silkwrap have become quite popular in the last couple of months. The person who snapped my Quarantine Field (different deck, but same card) said he specifically sidebaorded it because of those two cards.

I get why people like Anguished Unmaking, I just have a hard time with the 3 lost life. However, when facing Ormendahl, Profane Prince  ^Flip or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, 3 life doesn't looks so terrible to lose, does it?

I think bone splinters could be a brutal addition to this deck

It's looking great!

Dredgar, did you check out my more recent version of this? B/W Another crappy life gain/drain deck

Thanks for the +1!

Captain's Claws?

BudyWolfe, I have thought of Captain's Claws, but it seems like a hard fit into this deck. To make room for it probably means dropping some of the removal and/or Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. I could take out some of the Always Watching and/or March from the Tomb, but those cards have proven to be extremely valuable to the success of the deck.

I'll tinker with Captain's Claws and see if there's a way to integrate it. Thank you for the suggestion!

Looks fun as Hell to play.

Geo67, it is! The problem is that it's just not quite enough to push it to highly competitive. I haven't quite figured out the missing piece, but it is definitely strong against friends. FNM is a bit more cutthroat, and I think it will hold its own, but not be a top deck.

It's a lot of fun to play, whether it's winning or not, though. :-)

So I took the deck and did minor changes....2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet in, since he is a vampire, and gets stupid huge. I squeezed him in by taking out the cut throat...which is a card I love, but Kalitas puts the fear on peoples faces like few other cards. I was looking for something that would protect the creatures, but haven't found it yet, some type of 'fog' technique....like a Heroic or a Blossoming Defense, but in white.

I also upped the removal, and added an extra Gideon, Ally of Zendikar for ally creating. There are several Mardu players in my meta, so Ruinous Path is almost a must have in a black deck. If you could splash it for a tiny, tiny bit of red, and run Unlicensed Disintegration, that would be a nice finisher.

After play testing a bit, I think that 4 Shambling Vent may be too much land coming in tapped especially when we want to strike fast, and apply pressure.

Make a Stand is a good white card to protect your creatures

Awesome +1

pax.wellington:

1. March from the Tomb and 4x Kalastria Healer is correct-- 16 gained, 16 lost by opponent.

2. March from the Tomb + 2x Kalastria Healer & 1x Cliffhaven Vampire = 6 gained, 12 lost by opponent.

3. Fumigate + 4x Zulaport Cutthroat = correct, 16 gained, 16 lost.

4. Still correct! 8 gained, 16 lost.

5. Panharmonicon would be insanity. I have thought of this, but that requires making room for it, and I like the current balance. It is worth play testing, but at this time I'll stick with the current list. Thanks for the suggestion!

6. Yes, Vampire Envoy is counter-intuitive when it would have vigilance, but a 2/5 or 3/6 flier (if two Always Watching are out) is worth the trade for me! I used to have Ondu War Cleric and Smuggler's Copter (and then Aethersphere Harvester) in the deck, but removed them to make room for other cards. I think a 2/5 blocker is pretty good, so I'm okay with the tradeoff.

When the deck hits all cylinders, it is efficient. Opponent's learn to use removal virtually every turn because getting 2 or 3 creatures out means they start to combo off one another and they get terribly painful. Picking them off as they enter the battlefield minimizes the damage.

The good news is that the current meta seems to be more aggro, so board wipes are not as common, and removal seems more targeted. In other words, control decks are the minority, meaning that this deck has a chance to flourish!

Thanks for the questions and the suggestions!

+1 from me. Interesting deck to look over. My first thought was that this essentially gets gutted by any board wipe in the meta and/or that it can't do well against the top end stuff but the addition of anthem effects and March from the Tomb might give you the edge that you need in order to win.

I think i'll try bringing this deck for some standard, with a few custom changes. Which I wouldn't mind discussing with you BioProfDude

I think the land base could lose 2 Shambling Vent and be better for it. Life gain is not a problem for this deck at all and we need the quick mana. Replacing them will be 1x Westvale Abbey  ^Flip which I see is in your maybe board and 1 swamp because frankly you have so much need for black mana that having an equal amount of white mana might actually be bad in the early game!

Looking over your creatures I think a few changes can be made. Vampire Envoy for example feels super weak to me. Being a 1/4 you want to use him as a potential blocker. But he only does something when he attacks.. for 1. And he's not capable of blocking Heart of Kiran before an anthem effect is played (which admittedly you have lots of). But maybe that's good enough?

How do you deal with the saheeli combo in game 1? That's where I think we agree that trying to get Authority of the Consuls into the main would be good, just like it would be good against mardu vehicles. Not that the deck needs more passive life gain per se, but being able to stop crewing + the combo with a 1CMC enchant is pretty good. But what to take out? I think the only card that could be reasonable to take out would be the 3 Always Watching . And I know it's an anthem BUT with metallic mimic and gideon already there to give anthems are they really needed? You have so much passive life gain that you shouldn't need to worry about crack backs from other decks. That's what I'm looking at right now or perhaps taking out some of the less impactful allies.. Thoughts?

I think Gideon should be a 2x in this deck because of how powerful he is against basically everything. Not to mention that he can give an anthem and/or allies and/or attack as a 5/5. He's basically a win-con all on his own that also works as an engine for your deck. So 2x minimum imo.

Sideboard is good but I think Collective Brutality for example could be taken out in favor of something more useful. Fragmentize is kinda meh these days and I would probably prefer to run it as a singleton and have 2x Fatal Push instead that I can bring in against mardu vehicles for example or other aggro decks. You could also run some hand hate. Transgress the Mind for example hits every board wipe in the meta along with other big things.