At that point, Aristocrats does the same job but better.

Why use the Ally sub-theme if you aren't playing to their strength?

I looked up aristocrats. There was only three listed. can you link?

These allies do seem to gain a lot of life pretty quick though. This may be a hidden strength. of course i havent playtested it yet.

I actually really like this build. You kept the idea of Allies straightforward, which was dudes. I see too many people trying to midrange allies. Midrange never works in a tribal deck. I also love your idea. I understand CoCo is awesome but considering you do have a couple creatures that do not meet the 3cmc requirement I would consider running Lead the Stampede in place of it so you can put your Hagra Diabolist and Felidar Sovereign in hand, and considering you only have one Sovereign, seeing him go by due to CoCo could be disappointing. That or consider putting a couple Chord of Calling in there and convoking your way to your Sovereign, orjust use Harabaz Druid to pump the mana and slam him down.

Skyrider Elf might be worth considering too for a nice flying aggro base and would combo well with Harabaz Druid.

I really love what you've done though. I've been running an Naya aggro variant since before they announced BFZ and can appreciate Allies very well. +1

Thx man! I really appreciate your comments. I'm going to work on this some more, incorporating your ideas.

Keep in mind that since Rally the Ancestors exiles your creatures after they die, Zulaport Cutthroat won't trigger (If you don't have the Chasm Guide + Evolutionary Leap + Harabaz Druid ). I like the idea, but having no interaction in a slow combo deck is asking for trouble.

I think you're onto a cool idea though.

I'm actually running a similar list right now if you want to check it out. Played it at my LGS' modern night for the first time last night. Bant Allies 2.0

@jlenzen, the idea is to bring them back with a sac outlet on board, not to let the second eff of Rally resolve.

Right, I mentioned that in my post. The issue is the only sac outlet is evolutionary leap, and you need enough mana to cast rally and sac all of them in the same turn, which requires either a Harabaz Druid out, or a Chasm Guide + Harabaz Druid in the graveyard, AND an Evolutionary Leap on the battlefield. Would probably be good to include a sac outlet among the creatures, Viscera Seer and Cartel Aristocrat are the best.

In my playtesting, I usually bring them back and then block, letting the trigger work that way, if leap isn't there. I'm also going to try genesis wave, it seems like it would work. I think I may try that other card that lets you search for a certain cmc ... Chord of Calling lol. I think those cards will help definitely.

I think you mean *Kamikaze.Plus one though.

lol thx :-)

This looks super interesting, and very fun to pilot - would definitely be interested in seeing the card by card breakdown as you develop this!

Thank you for your encouragement! I will work on that today; when and if you pilot it, let me know how it works and what changes you have made.

I've also made a post on reddit; you can follow the discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/3phj4i/the_new_modern_pod/

Hey everyone. I need some help getting some playtesting in on MODO for this deck. Also, I'm trying to get the deck, and myself tournament ready. Any play advice or deck advice would be helpful. Like how to sideboard, when to hold, when to mulligan, etc etc.

Don't have time to playtest, but I can tell off the bat that your mana base needs a lot of work. Selesnya Sanctuary is bad in everything that isn't amulet bloom. You don't have caverns, which is going to really hurt but I understand if they're too expensive. You should at least have a couple Ally Encampment though, since the majority of your creatures are still allies. You should probably have 8 fetches, a white filter land (like Mystic Gate) wouldn't be a bad idea because of how often you need , and Glacial Fortress should be a 1-of at most, though should probably be replaced with shocks (you're gaining a ton of life with this deck, shocks won't hurt you).

I'd suggest trying to find some articles by pros about building a good mana base, its the most common thing that can screw you over in a match. Hope this helps.

Cool, I'll see what I can do.

I took out the caverns and ally encampments because with eternal, the crab, and seer, not to mention the double white, I tended to get color screwed.

With selesnya, I often don't have a something to round out the extra mana on turn 3, so having that helps. but I know the downside is land destruction with ghost quarter, etc.

It disrupts some of the core mechanics of your build but I've noticed a successful strategy with Rally decks is to focus on a single creature type outside of the "Ally" type.

For example my variant runs on mostly human creatures so when Cavern of Souls hits the field I choose Human instead of Ally. That allows me to cast my Champion of the Parish off of Cavern of Souls, plus my Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Fiend Hunter from my sideboard, as well as almost all of my allies. The only creatures who aren't able to use Cavern in the whole deck are my four Ondu Cleric in the side.

That being said, if you could potentially find a way to focus your allies a bit more you could possibly increase the efficiency of Cavern of Souls.

cool, I'll look into it.

Yeah, I'm having a problem with the mana colors now; I am getting a more consistent turn 4 win, but salvage and witness, along with rally and ranks makes the mana a fun challenge. It almost makes me want to run a come into play tapped land, and I'm also thinking of doing one cavern; but the problem is that as of now, I have a seer, witness, cleric, and crabs(lol)... so I could mainstream that, but synnergy wise, iiiim not sure...

I'd recommend cutting the buddy lands, and putting in at least two Cavern of Souls naming Ally, then keep the rest of your lands focused on Fetches and Shocks (with some basics thrown in to avoid getting wrecked by Blood Moon. If you're consistently winning in three to five turns then your life total isn't of concern, not to mention most of your allies are centered around life gain effects.

The "cannot be countered" is a benefit you CANNOT deny in Modern.

On that same note - AEther Vial would be invaluable in this deck and I think is worth swapping out with Return to the Ranks or something you don't need. Not only does it accelerate your speed at which you're playing creatures, it creates more avenues for you to get around control spells.

If somebody drops a Chalice of the Void with X = 2 you are boned. Cavern of Souls doesn't care about Chalice. Or Mana Leak or Remand or Spell Snare or anything of that nature.

Yeah you have three creatures that can't use Cavern, but you have plenty more that can, and that's what matters.

Yeah, I was just thinking I could try vial since I have so many 2 drops, and 1 drops. The only thing is that it would mean dropping some lands, which makes it harder to cast ranks or rally. Ranks is basically equal to rally for the most part; I find that you need ranks and rally, with the crab and excavator for the redundancy, and I think salvage helps there too..... So then, really, the question comes into what to cut...Maybe there doesn't have to be a playset of vials? Idk, just thinking out loud.JLenzen I'm interested in reading some on what the pros do for mana-bases. Do you have any pages you would suggest?

My philosophy that I brought to brewing has been to look at deckbuilding with as fresh of a look as possible; I don't want to be confined to the predominate ideas out there unless I'm stuck(and usually stuck for a long time), or if I come to the conclusion myself. I kinda do that as a challenge to myself and I find it fun. With all that said, I'm willing to get some help too. I just try to strike a balance.

You don't have to use a four of AEther Vial but it is definitely helpful.You could survive on 21 lands easily in this deck. IMHO, at a CMC curving out at 3 and an average below 2, you don't honestly need more than 20, 21 at the most.

I recommended shocks and fetches just because its a simple method to filter out your deck.You don't need more than 5 lands on board and you should have won before that happens. Running 6 fetches, and then shocks, basics, and Caverns doesn't hurt your cause any.

3x Windswept Heath and 3x Polluted Delta and then any other shocks you want will likely you get there. That's basically six lands that say Get me the color I most need right now.

I'm justifying my mana advice. Not just rambling. It's the reason these lands are so god awfully expensive. Buddy lands are nice but you can't fetch them and that hurts their value, especially in an aggro deck. Look at Naya Burn for example. They don't want to see more lands than they need too. You really don't want too either. Hitting four lands is fairly simple in a 21 land deck.

Cut two lands, and then cut a Rally the Ancestors and Return to the Ranks and you'd be golden for four. Running two would be fine also and in that case you could just cut the lands as the AEther Vial will basically be taking creatures out of your hand for you. That's less mana you have to spend on them and its more you have to spend on your spells.

Hey guys. I haven't gone the vial route at this point, but I have reintroduced the Cavern of Souls. I just got wracked by uw control in the tournament practice room on MODO, and I could hear TMBRLZ words echoing in my head, ""Cavern of Souls is relevant in modern"" as I got Spell Snared 3 times in a row....

Also, Veteran Warleader is a new edition. I was looking for more allies, and more synergy, and I think this card does that. You put it down on turn 3, then on turn 4 you rally or return for the close to kill. I put this in here because I am not always getting critical mass with the graveyard, but warleader doesn't care as much. I'm not sure if he will stay, but it feels right. It gives me a beater, and options since I'm not always swinging with my other allies.

Also, I'm having trouble figuring out how to sideboard. During practice, I've just been adding cards without taking any others away. I'm hesitant to take anything out since it weakens the combo. The only thing I figured I could do is take one away from each, but even then, that has it's drawbacks.

That's typically what you have to do in a combo deck.

Your sideboard targets are anything that is going to be non-essential to the combo, and if you have four-ofs for your combo pieces, removing one of those copies. However if you resort to removing combo pieces, then you need to ensure that whatever card your siding in is going to be relevant enough that if drawn, it would help you last a bit longer by seriously disrupting your opponent or shutting them off altogether. You're going to need more time to reach your combo with your probability of drawing it going down.

It's the same logic I use when sideboarding in Bloom Titan.

By the way I'd like to point out that your deck is currently illegal. You have three Ondu Cleric main and two Ondu Cleric in the side. Surprised Tappedout didn't catch that.

If you could do a breakdown of your turns it would make it easier to break this deck down. I like the idea, +1.