I feel like alot of people aren't familiar with Mardu Ascendancy, I got "Obliterated" by an opponent who selected to remove Zulaport Cutthroat. As soon as he did that I played 2 Ascendancys and created 6 extra attackers, and for the lulz I sacked 3 for Butcher, got the counters from drana and sacked both enchantments for /+6

Needless to say, it was a pretty clean cut win

Yeah that card has gotten me a win lots of times.

I've used it in defense when they've hit with just about everything. I block, sac the Ascendancy, all my Creatures survive, then I whack with my Creatures on the next turn and they have no blockers.

The other thing I've found is that people often destroy the wrong Ally. The other day someone killed Firemantle Mage instead of Chasm Guide. Butcher of the Horde came out next turn.

Ouch.

Doing better against that upgraded event deck now Argeaux, it was 4/1 to him before I swapped in what you recommended, now its 5/5.

I am still finding myself mulligan a fair amount of times though due to the land though, but not sure how it can be improved. Some times I have to go down to 5 cards, which really makes it a struggle to come back from.

Try taking out a Mountain, Swamp, and Plains and putting in three Ally Encampment.

You might also want to put one more Mardu Ascendancy in and take out a Valorous Stance.

I haven't tested that configuration but have a feeling that it might work.

gradyhawks how are you shuffling the deck?

Believe it or not that can affect your opening hand more than you might think.

I pile shuffle into piles of seven, then thread through about ten times.

can i ask how you sideboard? what to change out?

Sorry for not replying earlier jeffthezombiejesus. I've been on holiday, sans internet.

Sideboarding depends on what is proving difficult for you.

In most cases you would take out all the Ruinous Path unless you were having issues with Planewalkers.

In that case you would put the Ruinous Path from the sideboard in and take out four of something to make way for Utter End.

The easiest four cards to remove are Valorous Stance as they have the caveat of only being able to destroy a Creature of toughness 4 or greater.

Try not to take out Mardu Ascendancy as it's just too valuable.

Against Indestrucible or the stupid Hangarback Walker (one of the most overused and mostly ineffective cards currently out there) put in more Crackling Doom and Utter End. Sub them for Ruinous Path and Valorous Stance.

More Crackling Doom also deals with Hexproof Creatures.

March from the Tomb comes in against board wipes.

Deflecting Palm is great against anything that grows to be huge or inflicts a large amount of damage eg. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Managorger Hydra, etc. You can also use it if you need to get one last hit of damage through at the end.

Control is this deck's weak spot, unfortunately. At the moment most decks are moving in that direction.

You can try basically taking out Mardu Ascendancy and a lot of Creatures and shoving all of your non-creature spells in the deck.

I am about to start testing that to see if that gets anywhere. I'll keep you posted.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions and thanks for taking a look at my deck.

No Munda, Ambush Leader even as a two-of for post-board wipe comebacks?

He was in an early version of this deck (this thing has had a LOT of revisions) and he just didn't work for where it ended up.

If he put Allies on the field like CoCo, or even in hand, he could be great. He doesn't help that much post board wipe as it takes at least one turn later to get any decent Rallies happening.

Chasm Guide + March from the Tomb works much better.

Your deck looks great. I've also built an Ally deck, but for some reason I can't link it. It's called rAlly deck. I'd love to know what you think.

One question; How come you don't use Ally Encampment in your manabase? You're only running 12 non-creature spells so it should be solid for your allies, right?

PG7m I just finished commenting on your deck. How's that for kismet?

I started off with four copies of Ally Encampment and found that, while they were great for letting me play all my Allies on time, they were getting in the way of me casting equally useful cards that weren't Allies, such as Mardu Ascendancy, Crackling Doom and, most importantly, Butcher of the Horde.

why no Gideon, Ally of Zendikar?

Because even 2 of them would add over $60 to the deck? Idk

I own 2 copies of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar.

How do I explain this?

He was in an earlier version of this deck but his spot is filled with more value by using other cards.

I can have one Gideon and make a 2/2 Ally, or I can have a 5/4 flier with Haste in Butcher of the Horde.

I can have one Gideon or I can have a Haste Rally trigger with Chasm Guide.

I can have one Gideon or I can have a 2/3 flier and a 2/1 with Drana, Liberator of Malakir and Expedition Envoy.

You'd have to play this deck a lot to get it.

Gideon doesn't automatically go into every deck with Allies in it.

I didn't know if you had tried it or not. I was just curious if you had, how it worked. I wasn't demanding Gideon be in there.

No worries.

I thought he would be great but in testing he turned out not to be.

I'm going to use him in a RW deck I'm making for my partner once OGW drops.

He'll only be used for his Emblem in that deck.

the GW with the new nissa and hardened scales combo is going to be nasty.

Yeah, could be.

She's easy to kill, though.

I really like the deck. +1

You could call it budget with the removal of Drana and Bloodstained Mire (not suggesting you do).

Would like to see March from the Tomb in the mainboard, I don't know if you feel it's worth any other cards or what other cards you'd remove if you did add it.

It never ceases to amaze me that people will go the the trouble of writing "+1" without actually hitting the Upvote button.

Anyway ...

This deck is perfectly balanced at the moment. Probably not once OGW drops.

March from the Tomb is situational. I rarely side it in, so it would be wasted in the Mainboard. The other non-creature spells are MUCH more useful.

It is only used to counteract board wipe, or to return Creatures against Control.

Thanks for taking a look at my deck.

I did upvote it a while ago and only just recently got around to commenting so it may seem that I said "+1" without backing it up. lol

I actually ended up getting 2 March from the Tomb for now instead of 2 Drana, Liberator of Malakir because of budget reasons, but eventually I'll move those to the side.

Thanks for the great deck! Should be fun to play against my friends.

Ah no worries. You'd be surprised how many people write "+1" without upvoting. I just noticed that the number of votes hadn't changed.

Drana is fairly important in this deck. She helps it be quite aggro. She is expensive, though. I was lucky enough to crack two copies of her.

You can try using Drana's Emissary instead of Drana, Liberator of Malakir. It will be nowhere near as good, but at least will give you some more fliers.

You are dead right that you don't absolutely need Bloodstained Mire. It helps to make this deck more competitive, but against friends you can just throw 2 more Smoldering Marsh in, or even just a Mountain and a Swamp.

This deck is as FUN AS HELL TO PLAY!! It became well-known at my LGS.

Get to know it's tricks, like when to use Valorous Stance. Get Mardu Ascendancy and Butcher of the Horde out ASAP, and sac just about any Creature you can to give Butcher Haste.

Try to hold on to Crater's Claws as a finisher, or use it to knock loyalty counters off a Planeswalker.

Good luck and let me know how you go.

Have you ever thought of Spirit Bonds? It's another creature ramp that triggers on creature entry and adds indestructible to your creatures? Not sure if it's standard legal anymore though.

Spirit Bonds isn't standard legal, M15 isn't in current rotation. It's the Khans/Fate/Dragons block, Magic Origins, and Battle for Zendikar currently.