Countertop Allies

[The Milkman]

Allies really got a boost from Worldwake. The Green mana maker, the Blue Clone, the Black Reanimator. You could throw together a really good deck in any of those colors. I started with G/W, because the mana maker seemed so potent. Sadly, it was not so successful. So I decided to go into U/W, because the clone is so potent and a huge 2U flier is awesome. So I asked myself, what is the best Blue interaction out there. I immeidately went to Countertop. So I threw a couple of ideas together and got this.


// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
6 [B] Plains (2)
6 [IA] Island (3)
4 [MOR] Mutavault
4 [B] Tundra

// Creatures
4 [WWK] Jwari Shapeshifter
4 [WWK] Talus Paladin
4 [ZEN] Kabira Evangel
4 [ZEN] Kazandu Blademaster
4 [ZEN] Umara Raptor

// Spells
4 [U] Counterspell
4 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [DS] AEther Vial

Vital Cards:
Countertop: Self-Explanitory

Kabira Evangel: Giving the whole creature base protection from a color? I think it's a good idea. I find this one of the key cards in any Ally deck, because it's so potent. Get 2 out and you can get protection from 4 colors on the turn and 2 colors every other turn an Ally comes into play.

Jwari Shapeshifter: 8 of any Ally. A field of 8 5/5 Fliers? I like it. Maybe 8 5/5 First Strikers. Who wouldn't like it?

Cards that Are Just Good:

AEther Vial: The more Allies the better. It's also a fun combat trick, Vialing in an Ally and getting them all pumped up, or giving them all Protection through Evangel.

Talus Paladin: Can be considered the bomb. Lifelink and getting larger. It seems to work.


The rest of the cards are all swapable, but I'm liking how they work. Ideas anyone?

[edgewalker]

Do you have anyway to get rid of creatures? Swords or path seem like a good idea...

[Cire]

Im also trying to make a viable allie deck, and i think the primary question you have to ask, is at any point, how is an allie deck justified over meathooks?

[The Milkman]

Well, do you have any ideas as to what to drop for Swords or Path?

[The_Red_Panda]

Im also trying to make a viable allie deck, and i think the primary question you have to ask, is at any point, how is an allie deck justified over meathooks?


I was about to ask that. It seems that the list most similar to yours is meathooks, but you don't have crystaline, while they have less +1/+1 bears than you do, and the bonii are permanent even if they remove one of your doods. Not sure that's better than crystaline sliver though.

[The Milkman]

I'm going to assume that Meathooks is a Sliver deck and say this.

Kabira Evangelist is a card that works pretty well in a lot of slots. It's evasion, Shroud from most cards and a good 2/3 body. Now I know Crystalline is permanent, but so are the bonuses. It's a good tradeoff I'd say.

[rufus]

I was trying to figure out which Allies are the most potent specifically to be stronger than Muscle/Crystaline/Sinew Sliver. Without that, it seems like you might as well just try to run those.
To that end - the following have low CC and 'snowball' effects that trigger per ally and when any ally comes into play, which seem to be:

Akoum Battlesinger
Halimar Excavator

Lifegain isn't my favorite, so Ondu Cleric doesn't really interest me.
In addition to this guy:
Jwari Shapeshifter

Then there are strong abilities that correspond to card advantage. The first two look the strongest to me.
Agadeem Occultist
Bala Ged Thief
Tuktuk Scrapper
Sea Gate Loremaster

Kabria Evangel
seems like it's primarly got potential to bring attackers home, since you need Vial or something similar to get the ability on your oppoonent's turn, or sneak it in front of an instant.

And a pseudo-combo
Turntimber Ranger + Artificial Evolution

There are more expensive abilities that scale as the square of the ally count, but I think they're too costly for Legacy:
Hagra Diabolist
Kazuul Warlord

Besides that, you can try for the changelings some of which have interesting abilties, of course Mutavault.

I contemplated putting a list together with Mask of the Mimic, Dance of Many and such, but those are just indications that there aren't enough playable allies.

[Cire]

Well there in lies the problem...the last ally played doesnt get the so called bonuses

lets look at this sliver line of play

1st - Vial
2nd - Muscle, vial out plated
3rd - Sinew, vial out crystilline

the sliver player has 3 shrouded 3/4's and one shrouded 4/4 out

now lets look at allies

1st - Vial
2nd - Blademaster, vial out hara
3rd - Shapeshifter, vial out...umm Cleric?

in that particular situation you would have a 5/5 vigilance firststrike, a 3/4, a 3/3 vigilance firststrike a 1/1 and 4 life..... a good deal ecpecially since you could have played out cleric first, and copied it instead doing the following instead gaining 16 life... by turn 3, but in the end i think the 4 3/4 shrouded creatures are better, one because the life is meaningless with such a pathetic army compared to zoo, storm would just take it's time, and even with the huge blademaster, regardless of how cool it is, its only one creature ... that takes a huge wrathable army to become good.

[rufus]

now lets look at allies

1st - Vial
2nd - Blademaster, vial out hara
3rd - Shapeshifter, vial out...umm Cleric?

How about:
3rd Akoum Battlesinger, Vial out Shapesharer/Whatever
Instead
Then you get:
Blademaster at 7/5 (4x +1/+1, and +2/+0)
Hara at at 5/4 (3x+1/+1 and +2/+0)
Battlesinger at 3/1
Swinging for a total of 15.

3rd:
Vial in Battlesinger
Play Dance of Many/Shapeshifter (copy battlesinger)
Yields:
Blademaster at 8/5
Hara at 6/4
Battlesinger at 4/1
Battlesinger Copy at 3/1
Swinging for 21 total.

[The_Red_Panda]

Ok, I didn't actually know what those allies did when I first posted, but I'll be the first to say you NEED the 1/2 for W. There's a reason that meathooks runs plated sliver, and it isn't because the art is so damn good. Also, aren't there a bunch of allies that don't cost 3 or more you could be running? The optimal list feels like it's going to be much more aggressively oriented than what you've got there. I totally agree with the Kazandu Blademaster, and the shapeshifter, and protection-man may even find a place in the maindeck, but your creature base should probably look something more like:

4 Hada Freeblade
4 Oran-Reif survivalist
4 Jiwari Shapeshifter
4 Kazandu Blademaster
2-3 Kabira Evangel.

That way you can run less than 24 lands, and you REALLY don't want that many basics. The list I would run, if I had to throw one together, would be:

Land: 19
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tundra
4 Trop
2 Plains
1 Island

Dudes: 18
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Jiwari Shapeshifter
4 Oran-Reif Survivalist
4 Kazandu Blademaster
2 Kabira Evangel

Other stuff: 24
4 Daze
4 Ponder
4 Swords
4 Brainstorm
4 Aether Vial
4 Force of Will

That there looks like I list I wouldn't be scared to play. It doesn't run counter-top, but in return it has a very nice aggro game, backed up with the classic Daze-Force protection suite, and lots of blue cards to pitch. The disadvantages when looking at this vs. meathooks is the loss of Winged Sliver and Crystaline Sliver. The upside is we have WAY more pumping on the dudes, what with all of them gaining power every time any other one of them enters play, and a fairly good second ability suite between the Blademaster-Shapeshifter-Evangel trick. Evangel could probably get the axe, but some part of me feels like vialing it in in response to removal will be cool.


AAAAND, a friend of mine just pointed out that the 2nd and third allies don't get a boost from the first two. Siiiiiigh. Now they're back to only being plausibly better than slivers some of the time. The third dude you drop is still just a 2/2 bear.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Mirror Entity anyone?

[rufus]

AAAAND, a friend of mine just pointed out that the 2nd and third allies don't get a boost from the first two. Siiiiiigh. Now they're back to only being plausibly better than slivers some of the time. The third dude you drop is still just a 2/2 bear.

It makes the +1/+1 allies suck, but it's not entirely true. Some of the ally effects scale with the number you have on the board - Bala Get Thief for example, and the Battlesinger makes stuff self pump as it CITP/ETB

So, it occurs to me that many of the ally abilities are all "enter the battlefield", so there might be some useful interaction with stuff like Astral Slide, Parallax Wave, Planar Guide, Angelic Renewal, Cauldron Haze, or Aluren, but it seems futile.