[Standard] Blue/White Allies

[Dark Wolf]

Here's the variation on Allies I've been working on with my buddy, who is also the local pro. It's still forming, so any comments would be very much appreciated.


4 Hada Freeblade
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Jwari Shapeshifter
3 Ondu Cleric
4 Kabira Evangel
3 Talus Paladin

4 Path to Exile
4 Negate
3 AEther Tradewinds
1 Journey to Nowhere
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Glacial Fortress
9 Plains
9 Islands

Sideboard
4 Kor Firewalker
2 Day of Judgment
4 Essence Scatter
The rest is up in the air.



When the blue replaces green in the color lineup, it opens one up to more options for play, and to be honest, is much more challenging to use because it forces you to think more and learn to use your deck effectively. Green/white is pretty simple: its identity is a straight aggro deck that does the same thing every time you play it. You're looking for the same draws every time, and honestly now that I've played it I'd probably add Eldrazi Monument to make the kill condition faster. Harabaz Druid really serves no other purpose because if you use her mana ability to ramp out all your Allies you're relying on your deck to draw you another one and if that doesn't happen you're stuck. I realized I got very lucky at my FNM because no one I played dropped a Wrath effect of any kind. The main weakness of the green/white build that I see is you are extremely prone to overextend yourself. You see yourself pounding your opponent and you're like "Dude, this is awesome, I'm just gonna play everything I've got and finish him!" Blue seems to give you more options to not overextend yourself and walk into a Day of Judgment or something like that, or if you do, it offers solutions to protect yourself and your creatures. The planeswalkers each serve their own purpose, Elspeth for generating chump blockers or sending one of your Allies in over the top to hit your opponent's life total and Jace bounces your opponent's creatures and offers a measure of control if you happen to not get out the Ally you're looking for right away. It's a pretty cheap deck to make minus the planeswalkers, which you could replace with a lot of things and still make it a tier 1.5 deck. However, I'm confident that with the addition of planeswalkers and the right spells Allies are a tier 1 deck that can compete with any of the big name decks out there. Let me know what you think everyone! Help me with the sideboard!

[Ferridge]

Have you thought about Halimar Excavator? They are great early blockers.

Something to think about with Jace, is bounce your own allies to recast for the trigger. That let me win a game with casting a Hagra Diabolist then bouncing it to recast.

[browncoat]

(2010-03-29 13:07 PM)Ferridge Wrote:  Have you thought about Halimar Excavator? They are great early blockers.

Something to think about with Jace, is bounce your own allies to recast for the trigger. That let me win a game with casting a Hagra Diabolist then bouncing it to recast.

The excavators are good but what would you replace with them? All the other early drops are better and the deck really does not have space for more mill. Aether tradewinds is even better than Jace for bouncing your own allies though Jace does allow for repeatable bounce which is nice.

The deck itself is not bad but suffers from allies main problem: you need to keep creatures on the board. If you face a deck with stacks of removal (ie. most of the decks in standard) you will have issues getting the most out of your allies. You may also need 1-2 more land to balance out the deck with the current curve. My one comment on the sideboard is what are you going to take out for the firewalker? If you take out the blademasted then you remove one of your more important creatures. If you take out anything else you mess up the mana balance.

[Dark Wolf]

Ok so now that browncoat is now here and active again thank heaven I'm gonna post the final or nearly final deck decision my friend and I have come up with. Always up for improvement/comments as always.

4 Hada Freeblade
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Jwari Shapeshifter
3 Ondu Cleric
4 Kabira Evangel
3 Talus Paladin

4 Path to Exile
4 Negate
4 AEther Tradewinds
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

4 Glacial Fortress
2 Halimar Depths
2 Celestial Colonnade
4 Sejiri Refuge
7 Plains
5 Island

Sideboard
4 Spell Pierce
4 Journey to Nowhere
4 Kor Firewalker
Still working out the rest.

I can understand wondering why the Firewalker is included, but I don't have any answers as of yet as to what I would sideboard out. I'll have to converse with my buddy and see what his line of thinking was. Though I do have to say browncoat, in regard to Allies being ineffective in the face of removal, I'm not going to say that I disagree, but rather that in my experience playtesting Allies thus far I've found that spot removal really doesn't mean that much because even if one dies, you have ten more to take its place. If you see my thread on my Green/White Allies that I went 3-1 with two weeks ago, I was too fast for anyone to keep up with except for Jund, which I lost to, though not by much. Additionally, by the time my opponents had a removal spell available, most of my Allies were too big to target unless it was something like Terminate or Oblivion Ring. The green/white version is highly effective and straightforward, but with playtesting I think that the blue/white version to prove to be a more viable deck option simply because blue has a lot more options that green does in terms of protection and counterspells.
I also decided to leave out the Excavator because whenever you try to make a deck do too much you run into problems, and I think that life gain from my Paladins and Clerics and making my guys huge is enough for one deck to do. The Excavator may have a place in a more dedicated mill deck with things like Hedron Crab in it or something

[Ferridge]

out of interest why are you not running join the ranks? In the allies decks ive had to face it always seems really good as mass giant growth when needed for blocking.

[browncoat]

Is there any real need for the refuges over the colonnades? The life gained is fairly small when compared to the having a finisher. Also how are the halimar depths working for you? While it does give you another first turn play the cipt part could be annoying when topdecked. Otherwise the spell pierce seem unnecessary in the sideboard unless you are really worried about noncreature spells in which case I would recommend adding a playset of dispel to the sideboard as well as you can't be too careful (note: the later portion of this sentence is sarcasm please do not take it literally).

Edit:

(2010-03-29 15:54 PM)Ferridge Wrote:  Out of interest why are you not running join the ranks? In the allies decks I've had to face it always seems really good as mass giant growth when needed for blocking.

The only reason I can think is that it does not fit the curve nicely.

[Dark Wolf]

This is a potential, untested deck list. The Refuges are simply budget mana...I'd run more than two Colonnades if I had them. Additionally, I had a typo...Join the Ranks is in this deck as well so I believe that I ended up with a different amount of lands or something. I forget. Regardless, comments on effectiveness? I'm hoping this is a tier one level deck, as the local pro and I really think it has the potential to be.

[Ferridge]

It looks a good deck, not sure on the sideboard. I agree with browncoat and i'd lose the spell pierce maybe replace them with either flashfreeze or celestial purge, depending on what your local clubs meta game is. I found celestial purge a great way to deal with the man lands that have black or red in them.

Would you not be better using oblivion ring instead of Journey to Nowhere? As it gives you more options.

Have you thought about using tectonic edge? They really screwed my UW control deck over, and were very good for me against Jund and grixis.

Have you play tested it much? Just wondering how the deck works with 8 lands coming into play tapped, and a possibly of another 4 if your unlucky.

[Dark Wolf]

Not yet no...which is why I say it's a potential deck list. I haven't had any time of late to actually play test any Magic decks...hoping to test this one soon though. Tectonic Edge I have considered and I still remain undecided. I love that land, I guess just until I play test this deck I'm not gonna use them. I'm trying to not take everything all at once. Oblivion Ring is a possibility just so far I've used Journey to Nowhere in the deck because in my green/white version of Allies it was a superb removal spell, particularly for nasties like Sprouting Thrinax and Baneslayer Angel. It really came in handy, especially when I needed a creature removed and I didn't want to ship my opponent a basic land with Path to Exile. However, I may end up using the Ring but I haven't gotten a chance to try it. The mana-base I am also unsure of. I don't like the coming into play tapped, so I'm undecided as to whether I'm going to play all of those dual lands. I'm trying to make sure that no matter what I have the mana I need. Because this deck isn't straight aggro, and in my opinion the deck is still trying to find its identity, I'm cautious on not putting in too many Islands because I'm basically splashing blue for Jwari Shapeshifter in the creature slot. The real power of the blue in the deck is in the spells, countering my opponent and bouncing creatures when I need an opening. Hopefully I'll be able to play test this soon lol.

[Deckbuilder]

With the considerable amount of life gain in this deck i would suggest felidar sovereign

[browncoat]

(2010-04-20 16:47 PM)Deckbuilder Wrote:  With the considerable amount of life gain in this deck i would suggest felidar sovereign

It is really unnecessary as you should have beaten your opponent to death by the time you have a relevant life total for the sovereign. There is not any thing you want to cut for the far more expensive win-more card making it a poor addition to the deck.

[Deckbuilder]

Well i suppose i would argue that it depends on how you use your shapeshifters. If you drop turn one freeblade fallowed by a turn two ondu cleric if you pull either another cleric or a shapeshifter you could easily have 40 life by turn 5 with join the ranks setting off each cleric, or a cleric and a shapeshifter twice. This could result in a fairly easy 6 turn felidar victory, this of course assumes no removal or damage, but throw in your vigilance blademasters and protective evangels and you have a pretty sturdy defense to protect your life total and creatures. All in all the sovereign would provide a solid alternate win condition as well as another powerful vigilance creature. I would also suggest throwing in seagate loremaster.

[Deckbuilder]

Another good combo to add to the deck would be basalisk collar and harms way. on turn three you could have a 2/2 first strike vigilance deathtouch lifelink freeblade that could surprise kill by harms way redirecting your first strike death touch damage. Once the blademaster makes it to a 3/3 which is bound to happen he will potentially be able to kill two creatures, one blocking and one harms wayed, without getting touched.

[browncoat]

(2010-04-20 18:48 PM)Deckbuilder Wrote:  Well i suppose i would argue that it depends on how you use your shapeshifters. If you drop turn one freeblade fallowed by a turn two ondu cleric if you pull either another cleric or a shapeshifter you could easily have 40 life by turn 5 with join the ranks setting off each cleric, or a cleric and a shapeshifter twice. This could result in a fairly easy 6 turn felidar victory, this of course assumes no removal or damage, but throw in your vigilance blademasters and protective evangels and you have a pretty sturdy defense to protect your life total and creatures. All in all the sovereign would provide a solid alternate win condition as well as another powerful vigilance creature.

You even noted the problem with the card choice. The sovereign basically allows you to keep hands you should mulligan (if you only have ondu clerics and shapeshifters you should probably mulligan). And that assumes no removal, burn or damage in general. You rarely want to draw the sovereign unless A. you have a hand that you should have mulliganed as you noted or B. you are already winning. That means that you are playing 3 copies of a card that is dead until turn 6 at the earliest and has no synergy with your deck. The sovereign is also not terribly great as a creature when compared to other competitive 5-6drops. Broodmate dragon gives you two 4/4 fliers, siege-gang commander gives you a stack of goblins as well as a killer sacrifice ability, and sphinx of jwar isle gives you a 5/5 shrouded flier. The 4/6 vigilance lifelinker is outclassed and the victory condition it brings along is only useful in a dedicated deck that can protect it.

[Deckbuilder]

A valid point browncoat, any comments on basilisk collar and harms way?