Well, not particularly bad, but not very impressive either. You are not doing much compared to the top decks in the field. If you want to have a different deck than the top field and still be successful, you want to innovate in the right way.

1/ Lifegain is not something to aspire to. Winning the game at 1 life counts for just as much as winning the game at 100 life. There are three top decks right now: Jeskai, GW/X megamorph and Atarka red/GR landfall. Life only matters vs one of these.

2/ Nearly 0 ways to draw cards or come back when behind. Allies is a synergy-based deck, which falls apart at the removal of 1 or 2 cards only, but is strong when everything clicks. Most of the time, things will not click and I do not see any contingency plans.

3/ Most creatures are incredibly weak and do nothing, until something else happens. You are playing Elite Vanguard and Hill Giant and even Wind Drake and Grizzly Bears (all allies are vanilla until you play another guy and the guy you play is vanilla in the turn you play him/her). You are facing the likes of Siege Rhino and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip. Not a good plan.

Some questions to follow this:

• Do you have a max budget (currently, this deck is about 260 bucks according to the site)?

• Do you want to keep the deck BW, or do you want another color?

• What is the most important aspect of this deck for you - the lifegain, the allies, anything else?

Answer all of these criticsms/questions and I will be able to help you.

the most important part of this deck is this card Kalastria Healer i don't know if you have played it or against it, of course i think you have. Having two of them in battlefield + gideon and putting allies in the battlefield is really hard for the other, each turn you will win 4 lives and your opponent will take 4 dmg almost for free + Bloodbond Vampire will be getting stronger by 2 if you add a sorin in battlefield it's really hard for the other to keep up even with an abzhan. I've tested against the top decks and it can compete almost with any abzhan (with the sidedeck it's easier of course). Jeskai is a really bad pairring.

The problem i've seen so far is that if i don't have ob nixilis in battlefield it's too hard to compete in hand domination. I've tried adding red but it was greatly innefective even with fetches.

For the knowledge i have other decks which are competitive in standard such as abzhan and grixis. But I love this kind of playing and i don't know why. It feels great to win against the top decks with something i just made up, although i know it can be much better. That's why i asked for your advice.

About the budget. Well I'm not rich but I have all the cards i've posted and i can test it before looking to purchase anything. It's not a problem for now

Ok, so you outlined the best case scenario - it involves 3 cards, 2 of which are basically vanilla 1/2s and a Gideon to do 66% of what a Siege Rhino does for half the mana. I see your ally business and raise you t3 Mantis Rider into a t4 Mantis Rider - less cards, same minimum turns to establish, more damage and life gain.

To be blunt, I am not impressed and I still do not see an upside to the whole ally business or answers to the questions posed. I will restate them with a new one added to keep it fresh:

• Do you want to keep the deck BW, or do you want another color or changing existing colors?

• What is the most important aspect of this deck for you - the lifegain, the allies, anything else?

• What is the reason you made this deck (besides having the expensive bits of it)?

Oh that's not the best escenario... that's quite the normal escenario

But whatever, taking another color will be like rebuilding from 0 as everything will go off to anything like this. I'm not planning in making and entire new deck from this one. So BW it will be maybe with a splash to any other color for some cards but not a rebuild maybe Crackling Doom or Mardu Charm?.

The most important aspect of this deck is not the lifegain even if it's important to stay alive enough to control. The most important aspect i would say is the planeswalkers and the pressure you give the opponent of loosing life while you keep getting bigger without much effort.

The reason i made this deck? I went to the prerelease games and i just had 2 kalastria healers a bunch of allies and enough removal to take the big threats and for my surprise it worked greatly. So I begun to build this deck firstly based in lifegain but then I just realised that it was inefficient at first. Changed the strategy to be a bit more controller and with lower mana basis and I had quite good results testing it. I'm not confident enough yet to play it in pptq's or anything like that. I have my grixis control for that. But the thing is that it works. I can't see the point in how a rhino can be a threat, it's not a threat to this deck. Mantis is another thing or den protector. Haste, flying, vigilance. A pain in the ass. But I alredy have an abzhan so if you're gonna tell me to change all this deck into it i'm not doing it.

I asked advice to upgrade it.

Sorry if I sounded harsh or anything. It's not like that at all, just tired of hearing abzhan abzhan abzhan rhino rhino rhino. It's a good deck but it has flaws as every other one.

I do not think you understood what I meant, but it does not matter.

Ok, understood. Now I have a bit more info to work with. I am seeing this as the best variant going forward for this deck:

1/ Get 4 Collected Company and splash for them, removing 1 Quarantine field, 2 fissure and 1 Planar outburst.

2/ remove 3 bloodbond and 1 quarantine field (maybe) for 4 Smothering Abomination. 3 toughness threats are awesome in the format now.

3/ -2 ruinous path for 2 more 3 CMC or less allies.

4/ - 2 non-Gideon walkers for 1 more 3 CMC or less Ally and 1 more March from the Tomb.

Thus, you will lose interaction, but gain pressure and the ability to allyfall at instant speed, a key weakness of ally decks. You should have at least 25 3 CMC or less allies to be able to hit them often with CoCo.

And there, you go, upgrades galore!

I'll try it. I'll post the results soon. I've alredy thought of companies for allies but in a penta fantasy deck with mantis as well.

Changed the deck completely after testing it.

I like the rework. It is a completely different deck now. However, it has the problem of being extremely demanding in terms of mana requirements.

Despise should be Duress.

Remove 2x Drana, Liberator of Malakir, 3x Expedition Envoy, 3x Kalastria Healer, 2x Mardu Charm. These can have some lower cost options. Drana is weak with 9 dudes only, healer has very few opportunities to proc and playing Elite Vanguard is never a good idea. Mardu Charm is just a bit too expensive.

2x Fiery Impulse, 4x Draconic Roar, 4x Thunderbreak Regent.

I know this is killing the ally theme, but it is currently not very represented anyways.

-1 command and 1 crackling doom for 2x Painful Truths. You really need some card draw.

-2 Languish for 2 Radiant Flames. Not killing your 4 toughness dudes is good and 1 mana less is even better.

• 2 quarantine field + 2 Mardu Charm - thought about it, but all three modes are great.

Will comment later on the SB.

Get at least 1 basic mountain in the deck. This is a 24 land deck. I would cut an Ob nixilis and add 1 more mountain.

Ok, thanks, I'll try those, it would be more like a normal mardu control.

so gameday. 4th 3 wins 1 lost.

ROUND 1

ME 2-1 OPPONENT

It was quite a bad pairing to go against. Red Aggro and superfast deck.

In the first game I just controlled the battlefield and my oppnonent's hand from the start. Too easy with those Duress taking his second turn and in turn 3 with Crackling Doom. From that point onward, I controlled the game with gideon and ob nixilis until I put on the battlefield a Dragonmaster Outcast and Dragonlord Kolaghan. He just surrended.

Game 2

He started as fast as a red deck can go. 9 dmg received in total at second turn. 3rd turn i started controlling the battlefield and his hand but unluckily when I controlled everything (my opponent with no creatures and no hand) I was at 3 lives. Next turn i would have won 4 but he just had luck and his top deck was Exquisite Firecraft. Nothing to do.

Game 3

It was hard those initial 3 turns that i took 11 lives but one Languish and the game was mine. He surrended turn 8 at top deck with 8 lives.

ROUND 2

ME 2 - 0 OPPONENT

This deck was a Red/White with Monastery Mentor and those kind of cheap and useless cards (irony) but he just had bad luck with me. I knew my deck was his nemesis so I just had to kill those crucial cards and make him discard his hand without worrying of killing. One Ob made the job, he gave me hand dominance and sorin's emblem just let me play the easiest game I've ever played. I won playing both my Dragonmaster Outcast in the same turn and he surrended. The next game it was the same almost. Sorin, drana and gideon in battlefield.It was incredible how people surrended so easily.

ROUND 3

ME 1-2 OPPONENT

His deck was an eldrazi aggro. First game, i won in 6 turns he couldn't do anything against my drana and my battlefield control so he surrended. Next two games were the same. Mulligan to 6 and no luck with the mana. Nothing to do without mana. That's the only flaw i've seen so far. But sometimes this happens to everyone. So ulamog entered the battlefield and i had just 3 mana, exiled 2, 1 mana left, surrended.

ROUND 4

ME 2-0 OPPONENT

In the last round I won to an Abzan deck. Too easy, hand control, exiled the Hangarback Walker and my removal controlled the battlefield while gideon did his best as finisher. I love those Radiant Purge i had in my sidedeck and of coruse those Crackling Doom as countertactic to Dromoka's Command. I have to say it was not as easy as I'm putting it.

SO 4th in gameday. Jeskai won the tournament. Would have loved to test this deck against that one but that round 3. Ummmm that hurt.