At this point Rally the Ancestors has a well-deserved reputation as the best deck in Standard. It’s probably fair to say that most people wouldn’t consider it an option for Modern, but KIWY has something to say about that.
This Rally the Ancestors deck is actually deceptively simple, utilizing basically just a few subset of creature effects and then a bunch of payoff cards.
There’s not much reason to bother with a high land count when you can just play a bunch of mana creatures and Satyr Wayfinders that can be sacrificed for drain triggers. Viscera Seer is the workhorse of this Rally deck, functioning as a free sacrifice effect that digs into more copies of both Rally the Ancestors and Return to the Ranks. In essence, it essentially combines the effects of Catacomb Sifter and Nantuko Husk from the Standard version – not bad for a one-mana creature!
Some of the most frightening draws from Standard Four-Color Rally are when they are able to quickly assemble multiple Zulaport Cutthroats. In Modern, Blood Artist makes that a much more likely reality – the deck can now play up to eight drain creatures – and Blood Artist even triggers on your opponent’s creatures should they die in combat!
Abzan Rally should be fairly resilient to the Eldrazi menace so long as it does not get run over immediately – it’s not necessary for this deck to make headway on the board, it can simply chump block and buy time before assembling a critical mass of creatures in the graveyard and casting a lethal Rally or Return to the Ranks.
What is potentially problematic is the movement towards U/W Eldrazi and their potential to utilize cards like Rest in Peace. This Rally strategy is fairly vulnerable to linear hate cards, but due to the straightforward nature of the archetype its sideboard can mostly just target specific strategic or metagame holes.
Qasali Pridemage can handle the aforementioned graveyard hate effects, Spellskite provides some additional resiliency in creature form that also helps out against decks like Burn and Infect, while Wrath of God and Stain the Mind can help against creature decks or combo decks respectively.
I certainly think there is some room to improve the sideboard, but as far as a linear creature combo deck I like the looks of this Rally deck: it doesn’t have to rely on assembling a two-card combo amongst an anemic squad like traditional Abzan Company and Chord of Calling decks do.
Creatures (29)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 2 Elves of Deep Shadow
- 4 Tidehollow Sculler
- 4 Viscera Seer
- 4 Blood Artist
- 4 Voice of Resurgence
- 4 Satyr Wayfinder
- 3 Zulaport Cutthroat
Lands (19)
Spells (12)
Sideboard
