UWG Ally Mill

[xTrainx]

So my brother recently decided to try a deck like this(Standard legal). I decided to try for legacy.

x4 Halimar Excavator
x4 Jwari Shapeshifter
x3 Harabaz Druid

x4 Ghostway
x3 Rite of Replication
x3 Mask of the Mimic

x4 Force of Will
x3 Sensei's Divining Top
x2 Daze
x3 Swords to Plowshares
x4 Aether Vial

x3 Brainstorm

x4 Misty Rainforest
x2 Flooded Strand
x2 Windswept Heath
x1 Tundra
x2 Tropical Island
x1 Savannah
x6 Island
x3 Forest

Total: 62 cards.

Just wondering what people think of the concept.

[Zinch]

It won't be competitive, but at least you can play some better cards:

Clone is a joke, but is far better than rite of replication (3U intead of 2UU and cannot be countered killing its target). But you will need more allies if you want to deck your opponent and I'm afraid there isn't anymore good for your strategy... allies ara clearly designed for standard, not legacy

[DrJones]

How about Dance of Many?

[Zork]

Take it out on a goldfish in mws before posting. On what turn are you kicking rite for the win? Considering you have no backup plan, you should be "going off" on at latest turn 4 assuming no disruption to be legacy competative.

If you want a deck like this, I would try something mor along the lines of straight ally tribal combined with a tutor engine. Though I have a feeling that wont really work either.

[DrJones]

I would cut green and white altogether (the green allies are bad), and add black allies along with some strong milling cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable.

[xTrainx]

Sorry for not detailing the deck in the post, but the idea is to kick Rite of Replication onto a Halimar Excavator, which, with Harabaz mana is doable, thus milling for 7*5 = 35 cards, +3 from the initial playing of Halimar, harabaz. Maybe this should get moved to casual.

Rite goes off for a win ~4-5. Turn 3 I can generally get out a Harabaz or two. If a Excavator is already down, I can go off turn 4(6+6+3 mana), if I need to play him it takes to turn 5.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

Sorry for not detailing the deck in the post, but the idea is to kick Rite of Replication onto a Halimar Excavator, which, with Harabaz mana is doable, thus milling for 7*5 = 35 cards, +3 from the initial playing of Halimar, harabaz. Maybe this should get moved to casual.

Rite goes off for a win ~4-5. Turn 3 I can generally get out a Harabaz or two. If a Excavator is already down, I can go off turn 4(6+6+3 mana), if I need to play him it takes to turn 5.

Your math is bad. You mill for alot more than 35 with the rite.

[Zinch]

Sorry for not detailing the deck in the post, but the idea is to kick Rite of Replication onto a Halimar Excavator, which, with Harabaz mana is doable, thus milling for 7*5 = 35 cards, +3 from the initial playing of Halimar, harabaz. Maybe this should get moved to casual.



Well, that play is more impressive than you think. If I'm not totaly wrong, kicked Rite on Excavator (with a Harabaz also in play) mills the awesome number of 7*5 (the own allies entering play) + 7*5 (the first one sees each other entering play) + 28*4 (each of the entering allies see the others entering play) = 182 cards.

Edit: Corrected Maths. wow, you need a doctorade in maths to calculate it accurately...:laugh:

[DrJones]

I just found Shapesharer and Agadeem Occultist that should work well with your milling theme. I just saw one deck like yours in MWS that also used Aether Vial.

[xTrainx]

Well, that play is more impressive than you think. If I'm not totaly wrong, kicked Rite on Excavator (with a Harabaz also in play) mills the awesome number of 7*5 (the own allies entering play) + 7*5 (the first one sees each other entering play) + 28*4 (each of the entering allies see the others entering play) = 182 cards.

Edit: Corrected Maths. wow, you need a doctorade in maths to calculate it accurately...:laugh:

Oh man oh man. So Rite on Excavator, even alone, makes it go boom.

So one triggers 5 times, so 6*5*5 = 150 cards alone.

Vial is also a really cool idea, and I'm a little bit confused as to how Agadeem helps with mill. He seems just like a win more(less?) If I take their goyf, and they have no cards, it doesn't really change anything.

Original post edited.

[DrJones]

Agadeem helps you stay alive by using your opponent's milled creatures to block the creatures that attack you.

[Zork]

Not to mention you do need a backup plan, even if that plan is something like Rite of Replicating another Ally, be it the lifeloss or direct damage ally, though they all cost too much. Alternatively, you could have a backup plan of mirror entity. Basically, I think you need more of a solid win condition than one incredibly expensive spell that relies on having multiple specific creatures in play.

[xTrainx]

I'm thinking go with the Direct Damage ally - they'll be so focused on killing Halimar's he'll nuke them.

[rufus]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?16375-Countertop-Allies
I was looking at the allies when they came out, and as far as I can tell, the good ones are:


Akoum Battlesinger
Halimar Excavator


Either of those + Kicked Rite of Replication and you're doing well. (With Battlesinger the copies all 31/1 hasty.) Of course, even any of the - otherwise rather lame - +1/+1 allies looks good with Rite of Replication ... almost as good as 'goyf does.

A fundamental concern is that for the price of a kicked rite, you could cast an instant win card like Dragonstorm, and we know that that hasn't worked so well in Legacy.

There's lots of nice copy/replication/recycling spells like Dance of Many,Mask of the Mimic, Heat Shimmer, or Snap but unless you want to run a heavy protection suite, the deck really needs to run more than 2 bodies to bootstrap from.

[ryansolid]

I've been playing around with decklists with allies to see if they have any use in Legacy and I think they might just be too slow. The add +1/+1 counter allies end up being weaker than other lord (merfolk, elves) type aggro strategies. The only way to reasonably get out the expensive allies is Harabaz.

So I decided to also to look at UGW. As people have stated it is really easy to disrupt ally strategies since it depends on a few key cards harabaz/halimar and anyone familiar with allies knows to never let those hit the board or last a turn. The vial is great, but maybe Steely Resolve (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Steely%20Resolve), Vines of Vastwood (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Vines%20Of%20Vastwood), Vexing Shusher (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Vexing%20Shusher), Spell Pierce (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Spell%20Pierce) etc could be useful.

Alternative you can try to make it faster. Adding Hada Freeblade (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Hada%20Freeblade) and Ghostway (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Ghostway) to your list can do that. While Hada is in no means amazing, a 1 cmc ally just means that much more speed. He might even largely go ignored and he can double as an early blocker or worse case aggro win condition. Not only can Ghostway protect your allies for a turn if needed, but if you have 4 allies in play and say 2 of them are Halimar (or a clone) that's 4x4x2 = 32 mill for a 3cmc. (Plus the 10-19 cards you milled putting them into play initially). Even without Vial or Harabaz getting 4 allies(including 2 Halimar or Clones) in play by turn 3 is quite doable. The number of ways to goldfish in 4 goes up dramatically.

[xTrainx]

I reaaally like Ghostway.

List updated.

[(nameless one)]

My friend was doing something like this.

He currently doesnt have time to deal with it though. Anyways, since you are running Sensei's Divining Top, why not run Counterbalance as well?

Also, he did it like it was an aggro build and using the Mill combo as the alt-win condition.

What I remember, he was using these Allies:

Turntimber Ranger
Kabira Evangel

Along with Vial, Kabira Evangel becomes really good.

And with 1 Savannah, I think you're gonna have a hard time casting Akoum Battlesinger. Wasteland is prevelent in the format.

[xTrainx]

Oops. I didn't mean to write Battlesinger. I started thinking about another deck in my head...post edited.

Also put in Mask of the Mimic - can grab you another Excavator by sac'ing your Harabaz or even another Excavator, flipping the trigger again.

I'm trying to decide whether or not Rite of Replication is still worth it - without it, I can cut Harabaz, and make room for more protection.

[ryansolid]

Akoum Battlesinger is a great ally to Rites or Ghostway. I'm gathering the idea is to Vial or Harabaz them into play since you don't have any red land sources. The Rites combo also relies on Harabaz. Harabaz is a walking target. So including Akoum Battlesinger definitely raises the concern of consistency. Given the current manabase it is more likely to be a dead card than any other card in the deck. And isn't that great on it's own without Rites or Ghostway.

Anyway I thought I'd post the list I've been playing with the last few weeks list:

Flooded Strand 3
Forest 1
Island 2
Misty Rainforest 3
Plains 2
Tropical Island 2
Tundra 4
Wasteland 3
Hada Freeblade 4
Halimar Excavator 4
Harabaz Druid 4
Jwari Shapeshifter 4
AEther Vial 4
Force of Will 4
Ghostway 4
Rite of Replication 3
Umezawa's Jitte 2
Daze 4
Brainstorm 3

Lands: 20, Spells: 24, Crt: 16, Cards: 60

Ghostway is just awesome in this deck. The interaction with Jwari Shapeshifter is great. Even if you played them as something else they can come back in as the ally of your choice. Let's you hold back your Halimar until you combo out in some cases.

The biggest difficulty is this deck is begging for some type of draw engine but it doesn't really have one. While Top and Brainstorm secure card quality this deck relies on a minimum number of allies to hit and stay on board to make use of Ghostway or reliably use Harabaz to kick Rites. So to me here card advantage is more important than card quality. You probably realistically won't be able to have every ally hit the board and stay. A lot of allies end up being counter/removal fodder. Sea Gate Loremaster is crazy but is expensive here. I tried Standstill but didn't really like it. Ancestral Visions was too slow and hard to protect. For now I went back to Brainstorm as atleast it doesn't cost card advantage.

As you can see I've made a few different card choices. I run Wastelands as having Vial and Harabaz means that you are comfortable sitting around with only a couple free lands while disrupting the opponent is very much to your advantage to get your combo online. You will notice I run Hada Freeblade and Jitte. This for me is both for the initial speedup, ie vial at 1 as it ramps, early extra ally for Harabaz to use, and the fact that if you can land 4 allies or so in the first few turns, he's a 4/5. He can't quite race Tarmogoyf, but Jitte opens up the possibilities alot. Once Jitte is online your Halimars can even take part in combat.

The thing I have found playing is that I almost always win with Ghostway instead of Rites kicked. It makes me wonder if a version without Green would be better. Means for a sturdier manabase(more wasteland resilient), and without Harabaz or Rites it gives you 7 slots for disruption/protection/draw. With green and all the milling you could always run your own Tarmogoyf, but the deck needs to max out on Allies to be most effective. Kazandu Blademaster is a great 2 drop in a defensive allies deck with first strike and vigilance. Kabira Evangel might seem all aggro but with vial you can trigger it on your opponents turn to play the defense game.

[ryansolid]

Oops. I didn't mean to write Battlesinger. I started thinking about another deck in my head...post edited.

Also put in Mask of the Mimic - can grab you another Excavator by sac'ing your Harabaz or even another Excavator, flipping the trigger again.

I'm trying to decide whether or not Rite of Replication is still worth it - without it, I can cut Harabaz, and make room for more protection.

Oops didn't hit refresh and had the window open for a while before I posted. Yeah, seems like we came to similar conclusions. Cutting the green might be for the best. I've been play testing U/W Tempo (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?15562-[Deck]-UW-Tempo) as well and some of the play mechanisms in it would give the disruption this deck needs.

[ryansolid]

The other thing is it may not be possible to build a focused mill deck without black. Black appears to have the cards which prevent players from taking advantage of their graveyard like Leyline of Void, and Yixlid Jailer which may deserve to be sideboarded. Rise of the Eldrazi has a bunch of overpowered overcosted Eldrazi that while they will rarely see play except perhaps with Natural Order etc, they are the sideboard mill answer. Siding 1 in means unless you have a way of taking out the graveyard milling them automatically reshuffles the whole graveyard back into their library. The alternative win condition becomes all the more important which Allies may have going for them compared to other mill strategies.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Mirror Entity as a finisher?