Newlamog was a definite upgrade if you haven't played against it yet. It's on-cast ability is a bitch. The eldrazi decks popping up are pretty sweet. I can actually see Sylvan being a legit threat in even non ally midrange decks. He's a 2/3 vigilance early, which is decent; but a 2 mana 4/5 to apply pressure, buff manlands (4/4 mutavaults that get buffed by other triggers), and still chump block Tas and Goyf? That's nastyyyyy. I could see him as a 1 of in bgx.

The equip will make fast aggro stronger. Your 2/2 gets equipped on turn 3 and becomes a 4/3 while popping out a body. That's more than decent.

Newlamog was an upgrade, but not by a lot. In fact, I think Oldamog is better at actually closing out games with annihilator. Newlamog has a bigger immediate presence, but I don't think it was really that big of an upgrade -- even after playing against it a lot as Twin and Tron make up a lot of my meta. I do like Newzilek a lot for Tron. But they kind of feel like Ugin vs Karn. Ugin is great and is certainly an arguable upgrade over Karn. but it isn't like they are bringing anything vastly new to the table like Karn did when he first became playable.

and the problem with the equip is that it can be a huge loss of tempo -- especially with Kommand running around. Consider these two scenarios:

A. T1 Hada Freeblade, T2 Kazandu Blademaster, swing with Hada Freeblade for 2 dmg, T3 Captain's Claws, equip to Kazandu Blademaster, swing with Hada Freeblade and Kazandu Blademaster for 8 dmg.

B. T1 Hada Freeblade, T2 Kazandu Blademaster, swing with Hada Freeblade for 2 dmg, T3 any 1-3 drop ally, swing with Hada Freeblade and Kazandu Blademaster for 6.

Yes, the second scenario swings for 2 less damage, but it also doesn't get time walked by almost any form of removal. Kommand in response to equip. Lightning bolt before combat... ect. In the second scenario, you are far more likely to have 2 creatures in play to continue the beat down path. The claws are good when you don't need them because you're probably going to win anyways. They are win more, imo.

have someone of you guys playtested Gift of Immortality it could be quite good I think as a possible ETB every turn or with some sacrifice engine like Evolutionary Leap What do you think about this?

I think TheDuggernaught's argument partly applies here as well. If you use Gift to keep a sac-Engine going, you are opening yourself up to a 2-for-1 if the enemy removes your creature before Gifts becomes (re)attached to the creature. And if you want to go for a value-engine like Leap... Idk, I'm just not yet convinced by ideas floating around about a possible Midrange Allies deck in Modern.

I threw together an aggro list featuring Reckless Bushwhacker, Naya Aggro Allies. I'm open to suggestions, especially for the Sideboard and adjusting the interactivity.

I somehow like "zulaport chainmage" In combination with Kalastria Healer and Zulaport Cutthroat, maybe also with "captain's claws" for some funny life drain?:)

That's a good point, but Aether vial also opens us up to 2/1, and kom will always be a 2/1 because either way we're losing 2 cards. I'd be playing suppression fields against those decks anyway, so I'd board out the claws if they're obviously bad against a single card, but that's not the match up I want them in anyway. I agree that the tempo loss is real if they do anything in response though. I agree with all the points against it, but I think it's better in practice than in theory, same as PKN and Painful Truths which people just started hopping on as the norm. It deserves testing, I'm not saying it's auto playable.

And Newlamog is more reasonable to cast against bloodmoon and can't be handled by twin (except jeskai). It adds percentage points to their bad match that is more than common. From the perspective of fast aggro though, you're right, it's barely an upgrade against those decks.

Midrange might never become a thing, but Sylvan Advocate seems good in Junk or maybe even Knightfall as a 2 of that's OK early but great late.

The thing with AEther Vial though is that they need Kolaghan's Command to get a 2-for-1. With the claws, any creature (or artifact) removal suffices to timewalk you, if your intention is to play and equip it on T3.

The problem with Suppression Field is that it also slows down your Vials and Fetchlands. Thus, I'd at least side out my Vials if I side in Suppression Fields.
I'm not quite sure what belongs in the Sideboard in general/what are bad matchups. I'd hazard a guess that other linear strategies (Bogles, Burn, etc) could necessitate some Resistance, at least in the form of 4 Ondu Clerics. Then, Removal-heavy decks (Jund, Junk, Control) would encourage soem copies of Return to the Ranks. Against Affinity and Tron both Suppression Field and Stony Silence can do a lot of work. Against Infect and Twin strategies, I believe we need some form of Removal, or at least Spellskite to slow them down. I'm not sure whether we need Choke for Twin and Merfolk, but it might be worth a shot. Maybe one could consider Worship, though I'm not really sure against which decks it would be particularly useful, since Twin variants can simply burn away our creatures, and Infect strategies don't cause us to lose life.
Both Dromoka's Command and Warping Wail have plenty of useful effects, but they might be overshadowed in their utility by other cards.

What are your thoughts on decent sideboard cards?

Suppression Field works well aginst twin too. Preventing the combo and slowing down their fetchs and Desolate Lighthouse activations constricting their mana.

I personally play with 21 lands (5 fetches) and 4 vials, and sometimes I just go +4 suppresion field -4 aether vial with no problem.

Jund can also have a hard time if you land a Suppression Field on turn 2. It affects lili, scavengng ooze, olivia, tasigur, manlands and fetchs.

I'm considering taking out the splash for black in Unity and either adding red or blue. Thoughts?

Nef adding red gives you access to lightning bolt, battlesinger, firemantle mage, boros charm. Blue gives you a powerful secondary win condition: Halimar Excavator. Also, counterspells. Depends on how you play and your strategy. What do you wish to accomplish?

I believe I will add both. I am adding in Boros Charm, Taurean Mauler, and Jwari Shapeshifter. I think those are the best for my deck.

Makes sense, although I'm not sure about Taurean Mauler. But I'm looking forward to read about your experience with your deck.

Mauler is impressive with scales. He can never get bolted.

Nef I personally played Taurean Mauler with scales and I seconded it! He is easily left unchecked and can just punch in a lot of damage when least expected!

Hmm good to hear. I'll see how it goes for me.

I really appreciate all your work on this page!

I've been playing modern allies for about three months now, including at an IQ and seven of our FLGS's Thursday night tournaments (usually 12-28 players, with around 2/3 of those being Tier 1 or Tier 2 decks and a good portion of the players regularly finishing above .500 at GPs in the region). My current version is at WurG Vial Allies.

I'm enjoying the above conversation about some possible non-aggro versions, and am mulling over if I want to put something together to try out in some practice games.

(As an aside, a post a week or so back asking about Oath of Nissa was the product of a night of frustrated five-color goldfishing experiments. In some untuned decks it could be helpful... but not nearly as helpful as a lot of other changes!)

Thanks for the feedback!

I really like your deck. Running 19 lands is daring, but with Harabaz Druid I understand why. I think the best non-aggro version uses Return to the Ranks and Halimar Excavator. My current list is Return of the Allies [Competitive], I've had a lot of success with it, going even with most Tier 1 decks in the format. The issue now is that both the rising Eldrazi deck and RG Tron destroy it. RG tron is probably a 10-90 matchup. With those decks on the rise, im currently planning on switching to either a more aggro version, or a different deck entirely.

So are the OGW cards going to be in here soon? There's not much, but this is an ally primer.

I made a comment above, but the general answer is when I have time. I'm pretty busy right now and the OGW allies left me incredibly disappointed. I expect I will add them pretty soon, but probably won't do a large-scale re-edit like I did for BFZ

Yeah, fair enough. I don't actually find the allies half bad (Tazri, etc...), it's rather that it's just become a regular subtype that has no relation to the old effect.

I would say they're bad. This primer refers specifically to modern, and the only playable allies in the set relate to equipment, which will never be good without Stoneforge Mystic. Tazri is fine in Commander, but nothing else.

So I dont know if this is our saving grace, but Warping Wail solves a lot of our deck's problems. (Even with the dismal allies out of Oath) The modes on it essentially read:

Kill Twin Target/Chump BlockerCounter Wrath of God/Damnation or SCAPESHIFTMake a Chump Blocker/Activate Reckless Bushwacker's Surge

I dunno, the card has really impressed me out of the board, might try to mainboard one or two upon release, the card is definitely nuts; plus with cavern and encampment we can reliably produce colorless mana to cast it.

Warping Wail is indeed quite interested. I'm just concerned about the colorless. I only run 4 colorless sources as I like to run many fetchable lands. If there was a fetchable colorless land maybe I'd consider it more. If you run 8 colorless lands maybe it's better.

If anyone's interested, I changed A New Unity to four colors. Everything but black.