Topic: Black / white Ally deck help

Hello, i'm rather new to Magic The Gathering and i'm still learning on how to build decks properly. I've been working on an improved version of my ally deck. I just always end up with too many cards.

I would be open to ideas about what to drop:

4 Ally Encampment
1 Blighted Fen
4 Blighted Steppe
4 Caves of Koilos
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Godless Shrine
4 Isolated Chapel
1 Mortuary Mire
4 Scoured Barrens
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Agadeem Occultist
2 Altar's Reap
2 Angel of Renewal
2 Bala Ged Thief
4 Bloodbond Vampire
2 Campaign of Vengeance
4 Captain's Claws
3 Cliffhaven Vampire
2 Demonic Pact
2 Drana's Emissary
4 Eerie Interlude
4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
3 Hada Freeblade
4 Hagra Diabolist
3 Hero of Goma Fada
2 Kabira Evangel
3 Kalastria Healer
2 Kazandu Blademaster
4 March from the Tomb
3 Ondu Cleric
4 Path to Exile
2 Retreat to Emeria
3 Soul Warden
3 Soul's Attendant
3 Supernatural Stamina

Sideboard:

4 Tithe Drinker

https://deckbox.org/sets/2026230

Thanks in advance!

Re: Black / white Ally deck help

Can't really say much but I will say this Take a look at my Ally Deck and see how I played them with each other, I know you said that it's Black/White and you want to keep it down to less then 100 where I went for a 3+ Color Ally Scheme, it may give you some Ideas.

Last edited by Jasoneagle (2019-01-16 22:02:27)

Re: Black / white Ally deck help

That is a lot of cards. I have a couple of general pointers.

Learn discipline. Almost all of us build early decks with more than 60 cards. I have been hard pressed to justify that mathematically in a really long time, myself. Any modern spreadsheet program will contain a hypergeometric distribution function. Learn how it works and watch what happens to probabilities when the total population increases beyond 60, and you are limited to just four copies of anything but basic lands (and a couple of rare exceptions).

Evaluate. Not all cards are equal, even in the same spot on your mana curve. Are Hagra Diabolists truly worth twice as many spots in this deck as Hero of Goma Fada? What role does Tithe Drinker, a non-ally, play in this ally deck, especially at a 2-spot crowded with creatures?

Respect the mana curve. Consider that you are going to be drawing a card every turn, with some variation (not always under your control). Can you get to what you need when you need it? If your curve is fairly flat, as this one is, you that will have a linear ramp through five turns. If you have to spend a turn or lose life, that can be a lost tempo, so you might need around 24 land for this deck once you pare it to 60. Deckbox displays the curve above the card list, though it does not differentiate between various card types within the curve (stacked bar graph could be cool, no?).

Focus. You look to have taken a lot of allies to have a lot of allies. That's fine. We all start there, which is how we start out making decks of more than 60 cards (see above). But ask yourself this: of all of these allies' abilities, which are most important to you, and when do you need them? If something is there to be an ally, but not really much more, why take it? If 80% of your other creatures are better than one you have in mind for this deck, and you need to cut creatures (without blowing your curve badly), cut away.

The only time I even designed a B/W ally deck was mid-2010. I have the link to it below, but it only played four games, and lost three (including two where it just plain stalled against others that looked aggro by comparison). You can see what I did, and maybe think where I might have come up short. It is located in my folders under Played->2-star->F. The last folder is the grade it's winning percentage would be in a traditional American classroom. Not good.

https://deckbox.org/sets/310528