Renegade Rallier combo
Modern forum
Posted on Jan. 12, 2017, 7:24 p.m. by Goody
Hi all, wanted to see people's opinions on this card in modern. The main thing I want to discuss are its combo potentials.
Renegade Rallier is a 3-card combo with Saffi Eriksdotter and a sac outlet (like Viscera Seer) that gains you infinite ETB/Die triggers. With Seer, scry your way to a Blood Artist if you don't have one in play and win the next turn.
This plays out very similarly to current Melira, Sylvok Outcast/Kitchen Finks lists, except that the combo does not gain infinite life the turn it is assembled. The upside of using Rallier, however, is that it can be used as a ramp card with fetchlands or as recursion of dead combo pieces before comboing off.
Alternatively, Rallier can potentially be slotted into existing Melira shells as a value/recursion creature similar to Eternal Witness, except that it brings cards to the field instead of hand, but can't hit Collected Company or Chord of Calling.
Thoughts on the viability of either build? I do have a list, feel free to check it out via my profile.
chaosumbreon87 says... #3
its way good. My atraxa deck currently has a couple of the combos listed. Rallier is busted. Have fun until WotC realizes their mistake
January 12, 2017 8:35 p.m.
i think it's fine to throw in because it's good, but for combos the melira one is better. but rallier to bring back a piece of the combo is always a pretty good too.
January 12, 2017 9:34 p.m.
@UpperDeckerTaco, I think you underestimate rallier as a value card. Melira or Anafenza are less utility than Rallier or Saffi IMO, the only real loss is Finks
@chaosumbreon87, I don't know if the card was a mistake but it certainly is very good
@aholder7 it's so good that I want to run 4 of it! That's why I want to make it its own combo, that way it's great even when I don't have the whole combo assembled, and can either ramp you for a faster combo or recur a lost piece of the combo
@EpicFreddi deckbuilding concerns might not make both combos very feasible. The main issue is that Finks and Rallier don't work together, so it seems like you should pick one of them to be a 4-of, and run the other as a value creature. You could potentially include the second combo as a 1-ofChord of Calling target in case you have one half of this combo, but not the main combo.
January 13, 2017 10:34 a.m.
I mean combined with viscera seer it should still at least make for perfect draws for the next turn; a win with blood artist... it's not infinite life like finks provides but it's still powerful and makes for synergy with rallier
January 17, 2017 1:20 p.m.
Infinite life is only truly relevant against non creature aggro decks though. Tron won't care and will deck you with ulamogg, any combo deck will combo anyway, grixis/jeskai will play some walker that grinds you out of a deck or board state. Having a 2/2 persist is about as strong as a 3/2 persist, and in the match-ups where life might matter, you can always run sideboard finks. Or split the mainboard between finks and safehold.
I'm literally just spitballing here... I just think an upgraded eternal witness which had combo potential might be worth looking into.
January 17, 2017 1:35 p.m.
@DuTogira, some of what you said is objectively incorrect. Finks helps a ton against most aggro strategies (notably weak vs infect) just on its face value: gains 4 life while trading for two creatures.
Also, there's not a good enough reason to replace it with a 2/2 Persist even with Rallier in the deck since Safehold Elite doesn't do anything when it ETBs or dies.
By the way, some combo decks can't kill through infinite life, like Storm variants and Scapeshift
January 19, 2017 10:15 a.m. Edited.
EpicFreddi says... #12
Storm, Scapeshift, Through the Breach, Ad Nauseaum. You also win every creature/burn match ever. So yeah, it's not too bad.
Decks that can beat that are Infect, Tron and Mill (?).
January 19, 2017 10:34 a.m.
Of the modern played creatures that a 3/2 can kill which a 2/2 can't, there's Wild Nacatl, Scavenging Ooze when pumped exactly once, and that's about it (maybe I'm missing one or two creatures but point made). Yes finks becomes the better blocker post persist, I'll give it that. The tradeoff between the two outside of combo is 4 life vs one turn of tempo, slightly worse blocking capability, and accessibility via rallier. Inside of combo, finks is no doubt better, but both lead to perfect draws and I'm not suggesting cutting finks entirely, just splitting between safehold and finks.
So the only major question is, given that they block creatures similarly, is 4 life worth rallier access and one turn's tempo IN SOME SUBSET (obviously you want infinite life so you don't cut finks entirely)? Against control, they should be similar, against combo they should be similar (4 life won't save you from any combo deck, and ad nauseam runs lab maniac so infinite life won't even matter there), against creature based aggro the tempo gain from safehold may often save you as much life as finks would have gained you, and against non creature aggro finks is better hands down.
I don't play coco combo so I really don't know the answer to this question... I simply keep pushing it because tempo matters a lot and I feel this thread is largely dismissing rallier (which would love safehold and can get back combo pieces from the yard) and as a deckbuilder, I lament that.
January 19, 2017 2:02 p.m.
or forget the safehold idea and run some subset of saffi (the welding jar of creatures) and rallier main deck to create a greater degree of resilience to removal and such... and now I'm back to OP's idea... well I may have just caused a useless tangent
UpperDeckerTaco says... #2
I would just much rather run the Melira/Finks combo. It is more resilient and they are better threats/utility on their own.
January 12, 2017 8:16 p.m.