This thread is for the discussion of Naya Allies. It has been putting up decent results on MTGO and a 9-0 at GP:Brussels. Discussion is limited to Naya Allies in this thread. The old Allies thread is being archived and locked. It is located here.
I think a good way to open the new thread and new discussion would be to give the list that won the online premier event (going 5-1 in the swiss, then winning the top 8):
The overlap between the decks is as follows, and should point towards the key cards (since its pretty heavy, this could perhaps be considered a skeleton, or a very close one, for future builds):
And my own list is below, which aims to strengthen the Ranger of Eos theme and speed up the deck with noble hierarchs, and the full complement of druids, and cutting taplands as much as possible. A new aim is to hit ranger or BBE on turn 3 when possible (in the style of boss naya), but it still has the 'standard' ally-aggro plan available to it. This is mostly a reaction to the huge popularity of RDW and RDW/b online.
I suspect the deck functions slightly better with the hierarchs, but replacing them and a ranger with 4 path to exile/talus paladin seems pretty reasonable too (I think the deck can handle 3 rangers).
I don't know which I prefer. Hierarchs and rangers enable more t4 and t5 kills as both help you flood the field when you want to (particularly tricky for Jund to deal with unless they have Jund charm, which most don't), but obviously noble hierarch is a lacklustre late-game draw and the 31 mana sources can lead to more mana-flooding. Ranger of Eos, though, is probably just about the best late-game draw possible, and a good mana sink early on.
I honestly believe Murasa Pyromancer would be a perfect pick for this build. SB or MB.
Sooooo expensive though for a body that isn't useful as an attacker or blocker. If he is useful when he comes into play, it would only be because you have a rather significant board presence already. I mean, killing some 3 toughness creature isn't worth 6cmc, so ideally you are killing a BSA or something better.
Thing is, if you already have 5-6 creatures out with this build, they are HUGE, and you are pounding face already and/or have won. You won't get into a stalemate usually with allies because of Kabira, and your creatures will inevitably outclass theirs if neither of you are running removal. This would also be one of the worst top-decks ever.
I mean, most people don't even run the bomb-to-beat-all-bombs for allies in Kazuul Warlord, because he is expensive and possibly only a win-more card. The pyromancer is, well, not a bomb or win-more. He needed to cost about 4 to be considered IMO.
I honestly believe Murasa Pyromancer would be a perfect pick for this build. SB or MB.
Seems pretty bad. Efficient creatures are the name of the game, not 6 mana, conditional burn that can't even get players. This isn't limited. Curving out at 4 seems like a lot better plan.
As I mentioned before, 2 of these losses were to control decks. U/W and American. This deck is very resilient against removal, but it does struggle against extremely aggressive boardwiping; especially when the opponent can stabilize with lifegain. I can't really think of any ways of dealing with this. I suppose I'll just have live with the fact that this is one matchup that will always be bad.
Aside from that, I haven't encountered any matchups that I would consider poor; except perhaps certain variants of Jund. I'm currently 3-2 against Jund, but the favorability of the matchup can vary a LOT. The cards that give you the most trouble, but don't always encounter are:
Broodmate Dragon - can't block it, and have to use twice as much of our scarce removal)
If they're not running any of these (and many people don't), then I think the matchup is very much in our favor.
This one is pretty much universal in Jund decks, but it bears mention: Sprouting Thrinax. If you can't play around these with Kabira or by exiling them, then you have your work cut out for you. It's especially annoying because Akroum Battleslingers almost always have 1 toughness, and though I usually don't mind too much trading them, it does suck to exchange it for a 1/1 saproling. One of my losses came against a guy that managed to land 3 Thrinaxes. I couldn't swing through them or draw into removal, so the board just got flooded with chump blockers and bought him loads of time. That's kind of a rare exception, though.
Putrid Leech is also an annoynce, albeit to a lesser extent. You just have to swing through with protection or remove them. Or sometimes you can trade if one of your allies get beefed up.
I've seen quite a few people poo-pooing Ondu Cleric and Talus Paladin. Granted, I do find myself siding out the clerics fairly often, but in some matchups they're absolutely crucial. I'm 5-0 against WW/RDW/Boros, and I wouldn't have stood a chance against any of them without the lifegain. Even if Talus Paladin gets nuked the second he hits the board, sometimes that one turn of lifelink can make all the difference in the world.
Anyway, I do intend to revise this decklist. For one thing, I have been convinced of the virtues of cutting down to 60 cards. Harabaz Druids can be very nice early game, but more often than not they're just dead weight (aside from being an ally-trigger). I pretty much never want to cascade into one. Kazuul Warlord continues to function as a win-more card, so I may cut those. I still think Violent Outburst is awesome, but perhaps it's not deserving of being a 4-of. It's somewhat underwhelming when I have 2 or fewer creatures on the board. I should also tinker with the mana-base some. As much as I hate them, fetches would help a lot, and there are many situations where manlands could be useful; especially in games that go a bit long and put you in top-deck mode.
The only thing I changed was the amount of some creatures.
I really do not believe Oran-rief Survivalist is any real help in this build, I'd honestly rather run Harabaz Druid, or Turntimber Ranger IMO.
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EDH UThada Adel AcquisitorU GB Savara, Queen of the Golgori BG GR Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG
Looking at lord_ra's list, I am intrigued by Dauntless Escort and Naya Charm. The Escort may actually give us that extra push we need to overcome aggressive board-wipe. And Naya Charm could be extremely useful, either for alpha-striking or retrieving lost Kabiras/Paladins.
I honestly believe Murasa Pyromancer would be a perfect pick for this build. SB or MB.
SB only for sure, and even that's a stretch because of how expensive it is. As metioned, I think I would prefer to play kazuul warlord in an awful lot of situations, for one less and a less red-intensive cost.
As I mentioned before, 2 of these losses were to control decks. U/W and American. This deck is very resilient against removal, but it does struggle against extremely aggressive boardwiping; especially when the opponent can stabilize with lifegain. I can't really think of any ways of dealing with this. I suppose I'll just have live with the fact that this is one matchup that will always be bad.
Suggestions:
Manlands, stirring wildwood in your case since ziggurats will interfere with raging ravine pretty madly. Arid mesa coming in alongside them should mean you don't lose any colours.
Taking a couple of ideas from the boss naya sideboard (who aren't quite as bad against day of judgement, but still have some issues there), dauntless escort and manabarbs are probably worth consdering.
The only thing I changed was the amount of some creatures.
I really do not believe Oran-rief Survivalist is any real help in this build, I'd honestly rather run Harabaz Druid, or Turntimber Ranger IMO.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the 'point' of the survivalist is that he's a cheap growing beater.
Even maxed out on him, freeblades and blademasters, we only have access to 12 efficiently costed beaters in our 60 (ok, possibly 16 if you include the paladin, though whether he is efficiently costed is another debate).
Given we generally win off the back of these guys with evangel and battlesinger functioning as powerful support cards, I feel uncomfortable going below that.
Edit: Naya charm, I suspect, is mostly to bring back ranger of eos and bloodbraid elf when its deployed that way, given you get to re-cascade or re-fetch 1-drops. Evangel would be situationally good too, but getting either of those two cards back will be powerful in almost any given situation.
The fact it can act as removal (the only removal in the deck!), or enable an alpha-strike, is an added bonus.
Does anyone have any experience or reports with the Vamps matchup? It seemed to be a really hard matchup for the other Ally builds.
I have run into several, and I didn't find any of them particularly difficult. Any deck that features little removable is an easy matchup for us. Most of the removal Vamps bring to the table can be easily played around. Using deathtouch as pseudo-removal isn't sufficient when we can swing through with Kabira. Gatekeeper of Malakir is not terribly effective since we can usually just sac non-essential allies. Gatekeeper is at his best when opponents have few creatures on the board, but our deck is almost pure creatures. Aside from that, they might run Tendrils of Corruption mainboard (not everyone does though), and Deathmark in the sideboard. But that's still not an overwhelming amount of removal. I've overcome worse.
And if you run any black hate in your sideboard (as I do) then games 2 and 3 will often be blowouts.
About Vamps: If you've got at least 1 Kabira Evangel, you're doing pretty well. If you think they've got the Tendrils, hold onto your Violent Outbursts (if you're playing that build) for instant speed protection.
I use Naya Charm almost exclusively as removal or for alpha striking. I've almost never found it useful for recurring BBE or Ranger.
@SrslySirius--I think the term you're looking for is Deathmark.
I'm still having trouble with the Jund matchup, even with 3 Purges and 4 Devout Lightcasters (I'm playing lord_ra's list with Purges instead of Paths).
I'm tempted to add some number of Bolts to the list because I find myself stalled on the board with my opponent at 3 or less life far too often.
Manlands, stirring wildwood in your case since ziggurats will interfere with raging ravine pretty madly. Arid mesa coming in alongside them should mean you don't lose any colours.
Taking a couple of ideas from the boss naya sideboard (who aren't quite as bad against day of judgement, but still have some issues there), dauntless escort and manabarbs are probably worth consdering.
Manlands and Dauntless Escort I had considered. Manabarbs is intriguing, but I'm not entirely convinced I could justify squeezing that into the sideboard. It would really only be good in that one matchup, and I wonder even then if it wouldn't backfire at times.
Edit: Naya charm, I suspect, is mostly to bring back ranger of eos and bloodbraid elf when its deployed that way, given you get to re-cascade or re-fetch 1-drops. Evangel would be situationally good too, but getting either of those two cards back will be powerful in almost any given situation.
The fact it can act as removal (the only removal in the deck!), or enable an alpha-strike, is an added bonus.
Indeed, it would be great for fetching BBE and EoS. But I would imagine that I'd end up using it to fetch Kabira far more often. She is the closest thing this deck has to a win condition; she just seals the victory any time she sticks. The most frequently devastating move opponents make against me is removing Kabira. Take my 6/7 Hada, Maelstrom Pulse my Paladins, I might shrug it off. But when Kabira hits the graveyard I shed a single tear.
Honorable Mentions: Greypelt Hunter (Talus is in almost all ways better at a 4 drop, trample is trumped by lifelink, and should be relatively unnecessary with Kabira) Kazuul Warlord (if you're going to 5cmc in the curve, IMO this guy deserves a slot. But since this is a purely aggro variant, he probably doesn't make the cut)
After playing the deck at FNM this week, and tons and tons against all my friends (we have about 8 of us that get together weekly to play EDH and Standard and talk about deck construction), I found myself not wanting to lose tempo by throwing either of these dudes early, I ALWAYS wanted to throw one of the other 2cmc guys if I had them. I mean honestly, these only accelerate you by a single turn since you top out at 4. It is a nice acceleration though, since we only have Kabira at 3, so skipping the 3 mana slot to go right to 4 can be nice, but not nice enough to skip dropping a Kazandu or Oran-Rief. And I HATE cascading into these guys.
Since this leaves some gaps in the slots, we go to cascade in BBE and Violent Outburst. However, I want these to ALWAYS cascade into an ally, so that leaves really no option to run anything else outside of Ranger of Eos. But the power of having every single one of the spells you cast be another ally trigger is awesome.
Naya Charm is a possibly exception to the rule of no other cascade targets, as there will likely be at least 1 function of the charm that will be useful if you happen to hit it with a BBE. I haven't played with it yet, but I would imagine that most often I would like to be able to grab an ally out of my GY or tap all the guys on the other side of the field to attack unopposed.
The singleton Goblin Bushwhacker in the winning list is something that I don't agree with. Yes, you can grab it with RoE, but I would almost always prefer to draw a Violent Outburst, which will grant the same bonus to all my allies as the bushwhacker, AND I get another ally trigger off of it. And at RR for the Bushwhacker, the VO should be at least as easy to get off.
As previously mentioned, I found myself using Naya Charm pretty much only as removal and for tapping dudes. Which the Regrowth effect is nice, I think the most important thing is to keep up the tempo, which means taking out a blocker or, if you've got the power, going in for lethal. They're especially important for kill Master of the Wild Hunt, which this deck has virtually no other answer to.
As previously mentioned, I found myself using Naya Charm pretty much only as removal and for tapping dudes. Which the Regrowth effect is nice, I think the most important thing is to keep up the tempo, which means taking out a blocker or, if you've got the power, going in for lethal. They're especially important for kill Master of the Wild Hunt, which this deck has virtually no other answer to.
Yeah, that makes total sense. Like I said, I haven't played with them yet (they should be here this week, never played naya colors before!), and I totally agree about the Master. One of the decks my friend plays has those (playing a Boss Naya) and they just WRECK me once they land if I don't already have a dominating board position. I have been trying to figure out how to deal with those types of threats without slowing down too much, and I think these might be the answer.
As previously mentioned, I found myself using Naya Charm pretty much only as removal and for tapping dudes. Which the Regrowth effect is nice, I think the most important thing is to keep up the tempo, which means taking out a blocker or, if you've got the power, going in for lethal. They're especially important for kill Master of the Wild Hunt, which this deck has virtually no other answer to.
Against those sort of decks I wouldn't even play Naya Charm. As a removal spell, it's not cost-effective at all. Master of the Wild Hunt is the only removal they usually pack, which is quite lackluster. At best they can remove one creature per turn. Most of the time it will be something like every 2 turns. This means your Kabiras are much more likely to hang around, so you don't even really need the tap-out effect.
These decks that ramp up with a bunch of mana dorks and try to rush out huge creatures or tons of tokens are by far our easiest matchup, because they have almost zero removal. I've stomped every such deck I've faced 2-0. Not even close.
I think manabarbs wouldn't be a good match-up against grixis control very much. Without doing multiple amounts of damage before throwing it down to play the stall game isn't quite worth it IMO.
I would actually consider running that white counterspell sb. I don't remember the name off the top of my head. Though, the problem with that spell is it bounces it to the top of their library. But if it helps us win, it helps us win.
Lifegain = important. I would actually run 3-4 Ondu Clerics instead of 3-4 Talus Paladins. If we can just gain gain gain life. They can't really stop that unless they kill out clerics. Now, I'm not trying to say remove the paladins for the clerics. But it would be nice to run 3-4 of both.
Kazuul Warlord imo helps win the game. When you drop it every ally you control gets pumped. Which is really good in most cases if you have 4 clerics down and 1 hada.
I am going to invest in running 2-4 Path to Exiles sb. They would be good against Jund, and WW matchups or anything that runs things like BSA.
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EDH UThada Adel AcquisitorU GB Savara, Queen of the Golgori BG GR Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG
Does anyone have any experience or reports with the Vamps matchup? It seemed to be a really hard matchup for the other Ally builds.
I played against vampires this past Friday and it was really easy. Granted in both matches he drew none or did not play any removal. Still I never felt the need to pull celestial purge or path in from my sideboard. I was using ra's list that Gordy posted above.
Because conservative bias is a far, far worse thing. Liberal bias doesn't, statistically speaking, make people stupid. Conservative bias (or at least Fox's version of it) does.
Arrghh now I have a new thread I need to keep up with lol. I didn't know an Allies list did so well though, that's pretty awesome. I wonder where he got the idea?
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Against those sort of decks I wouldn't even play Naya Charm. As a removal spell, it's not cost-effective at all. Master of the Wild Hunt is the only removal they usually pack, which is quite lackluster. At best they can remove one creature per turn. Most of the time it will be something like every 2 turns. This means your Kabiras are much more likely to hang around, so you don't even really need the tap-out effect.
These decks that ramp up with a bunch of mana dorks and try to rush out huge creatures or tons of tokens are by far our easiest matchup, because they have almost zero removal. I've stomped every such deck I've faced 2-0. Not even close.
Against those sort of decks? You mean Jund? Because some Jund builds still play Master, and that was what I had no answer to.
Naya Charm is good because even if it's bad removal, it's still removal, and it can do lots of other things as well.
4 Arid Mesa
2 Forest
4 Jungle Shrine
1 Mountain
5 Plains
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Akoum Battlesinger
4 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Hada Freeblade
3 Harabaz Druid
4 Kabira Evangel
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
2 Ranger of Eos
4 Talus Paladin
3 Cunning Sparkmage
4 Kor Firewalker
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Path to Exile
3 Tuktuk Scrapper
Lord_ra's naya allies:
1 Forest
4 Jungle Shrine
2 Mountain
4 Plains
1 Raging Ravine
3 Stirring Wildwood
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Akoum Battlesinger
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Kabira Evangel
4 Kazandu Blademaster
1 Ondu Cleric
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
2 Ranger of Eos
3 Talus Paladin
4 Violent Outburst
3 Dauntless Escort
4 Devout Lightcaster
2 Ondu Cleric
3 Path to Exile
3 Tuktuk Scrapper
The overlap between the decks is as follows, and should point towards the key cards (since its pretty heavy, this could perhaps be considered a skeleton, or a very close one, for future builds):
4 Jungle Shrine
4 Sunpetal Grove
1 Mountain
4 Plains
1 Forest
4 Akoum Battlesinger
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Kabira Evangel
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
3 Talus Paladin
2 Ranger of Eos
x Path to Exile
3 Tuktuk Scrapper
And my own list is below, which aims to strengthen the Ranger of Eos theme and speed up the deck with noble hierarchs, and the full complement of druids, and cutting taplands as much as possible. A new aim is to hit ranger or BBE on turn 3 when possible (in the style of boss naya), but it still has the 'standard' ally-aggro plan available to it. This is mostly a reaction to the huge popularity of RDW and RDW/b online.
I suspect the deck functions slightly better with the hierarchs, but replacing them and a ranger with 4 path to exile/talus paladin seems pretty reasonable too (I think the deck can handle 3 rangers).
I don't know which I prefer. Hierarchs and rangers enable more t4 and t5 kills as both help you flood the field when you want to (particularly tricky for Jund to deal with unless they have Jund charm, which most don't), but obviously noble hierarch is a lacklustre late-game draw and the 31 mana sources can lead to more mana-flooding. Ranger of Eos, though, is probably just about the best late-game draw possible, and a good mana sink early on.
4 Arid Mesa
4 Sunpetal Grove
3 Stirring Wildwood
2 Plains
3 Forest
3 Mountain
2 Jungle Shrine
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
4 Kabira Evangel
4 Akoum Battlesinger
4 Harabaz Druid
4 Ranger of Eos
3 Noble Herarch
1 Goblin Bushwacker
2 Baneslyer Angel
3 Talus Paladin
4 Path to Exile
4 Celestial Purge
2 Tuktuk Scrapper
Edit: Added links.
9-0 at GP brussels
(as in the OP)
8-1 and winner online
(as at the start of my post)
2011-2012:Bantblade, BantPod
2010-2011:Bant Shaman, Naya Shaman, Naya allies + Scars, URG Turboforce
2009-2010:Naya allies, Mono-White Titan Control
UThada Adel AcquisitorU
GB Savara, Queen of the Golgori BG
GR Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG
Sooooo expensive though for a body that isn't useful as an attacker or blocker. If he is useful when he comes into play, it would only be because you have a rather significant board presence already. I mean, killing some 3 toughness creature isn't worth 6cmc, so ideally you are killing a BSA or something better.
Thing is, if you already have 5-6 creatures out with this build, they are HUGE, and you are pounding face already and/or have won. You won't get into a stalemate usually with allies because of Kabira, and your creatures will inevitably outclass theirs if neither of you are running removal. This would also be one of the worst top-decks ever.
I mean, most people don't even run the bomb-to-beat-all-bombs for allies in Kazuul Warlord, because he is expensive and possibly only a win-more card. The pyromancer is, well, not a bomb or win-more. He needed to cost about 4 to be considered IMO.
Seems pretty bad. Efficient creatures are the name of the game, not 6 mana, conditional burn that can't even get players. This isn't limited. Curving out at 4 seems like a lot better plan.
7 Mountain
4 Plains
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Ancient Ziggurat
3 Forest
3 Jungle Shrine
Creatures
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Ondu Cleric
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Kabira Evangel
4 Akoum Battlesinger
2 Talus Paladin
2 Ranger of Eos
2 Kazuul Warlord
2 Harabaz Druid
4 Violent Outburst
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Devout Lightcaster
3 Journey to Nowhere
4 Kor Firewalker
3 Celestial Purge
As I mentioned before, 2 of these losses were to control decks. U/W and American. This deck is very resilient against removal, but it does struggle against extremely aggressive boardwiping; especially when the opponent can stabilize with lifegain. I can't really think of any ways of dealing with this. I suppose I'll just have live with the fact that this is one matchup that will always be bad.
Aside from that, I haven't encountered any matchups that I would consider poor; except perhaps certain variants of Jund. I'm currently 3-2 against Jund, but the favorability of the matchup can vary a LOT. The cards that give you the most trouble, but don't always encounter are:
Siege-Gang Commander - Many allies are vulnerable to ping.
Deathtouch - one of the few tools at their disposal to deal with Kor Firewalker
Broodmate Dragon - can't block it, and have to use twice as much of our scarce removal)
If they're not running any of these (and many people don't), then I think the matchup is very much in our favor.
This one is pretty much universal in Jund decks, but it bears mention: Sprouting Thrinax. If you can't play around these with Kabira or by exiling them, then you have your work cut out for you. It's especially annoying because Akroum Battleslingers almost always have 1 toughness, and though I usually don't mind too much trading them, it does suck to exchange it for a 1/1 saproling. One of my losses came against a guy that managed to land 3 Thrinaxes. I couldn't swing through them or draw into removal, so the board just got flooded with chump blockers and bought him loads of time. That's kind of a rare exception, though.
Putrid Leech is also an annoynce, albeit to a lesser extent. You just have to swing through with protection or remove them. Or sometimes you can trade if one of your allies get beefed up.
I've seen quite a few people poo-pooing Ondu Cleric and Talus Paladin. Granted, I do find myself siding out the clerics fairly often, but in some matchups they're absolutely crucial. I'm 5-0 against WW/RDW/Boros, and I wouldn't have stood a chance against any of them without the lifegain. Even if Talus Paladin gets nuked the second he hits the board, sometimes that one turn of lifelink can make all the difference in the world.
Anyway, I do intend to revise this decklist. For one thing, I have been convinced of the virtues of cutting down to 60 cards. Harabaz Druids can be very nice early game, but more often than not they're just dead weight (aside from being an ally-trigger). I pretty much never want to cascade into one. Kazuul Warlord continues to function as a win-more card, so I may cut those. I still think Violent Outburst is awesome, but perhaps it's not deserving of being a 4-of. It's somewhat underwhelming when I have 2 or fewer creatures on the board. I should also tinker with the mana-base some. As much as I hate them, fetches would help a lot, and there are many situations where manlands could be useful; especially in games that go a bit long and put you in top-deck mode.
I cooked up a list of my own using some of the things above.
4 Arid Mesa
1 Forest
4 Jungle Shrine
2 Mountain
4 Plains
2 Raging Ravine
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Sunpetal Grove
1 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Akoum Battlesinger
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Kabira Evangel
4 Kazundu Blademaster
3 Talus Paladin
2 Ranger of Eos
2 Kazuul Warlord
3 Oran-rief Survivalist
3 Naya Charm
3 Violent Outburst
The only thing I changed was the amount of some creatures.
I really do not believe Oran-rief Survivalist is any real help in this build, I'd honestly rather run Harabaz Druid, or Turntimber Ranger IMO.
UThada Adel AcquisitorU
GB Savara, Queen of the Golgori BG
GR Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG
I'll try those out for sure.
SB only for sure, and even that's a stretch because of how expensive it is. As metioned, I think I would prefer to play kazuul warlord in an awful lot of situations, for one less and a less red-intensive cost.
Suggestions:
Manlands, stirring wildwood in your case since ziggurats will interfere with raging ravine pretty madly. Arid mesa coming in alongside them should mean you don't lose any colours.
Taking a couple of ideas from the boss naya sideboard (who aren't quite as bad against day of judgement, but still have some issues there), dauntless escort and manabarbs are probably worth consdering.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the 'point' of the survivalist is that he's a cheap growing beater.
Even maxed out on him, freeblades and blademasters, we only have access to 12 efficiently costed beaters in our 60 (ok, possibly 16 if you include the paladin, though whether he is efficiently costed is another debate).
Given we generally win off the back of these guys with evangel and battlesinger functioning as powerful support cards, I feel uncomfortable going below that.
Edit: Naya charm, I suspect, is mostly to bring back ranger of eos and bloodbraid elf when its deployed that way, given you get to re-cascade or re-fetch 1-drops. Evangel would be situationally good too, but getting either of those two cards back will be powerful in almost any given situation.
The fact it can act as removal (the only removal in the deck!), or enable an alpha-strike, is an added bonus.
2011-2012:Bantblade, BantPod
2010-2011:Bant Shaman, Naya Shaman, Naya allies + Scars, URG Turboforce
2009-2010:Naya allies, Mono-White Titan Control
3 Ancient Ziggurat
4 Arid Mesa
1 Stiring Wildwood
2 Forest
3 Jungle Shrine
2 Mountain
5 Plains
4 Sunpetal Grove
24 lands
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Hada Freeblade
2 Harabaz Druid
4 Kabira Evangel
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Oran-Rief Survivalist
2 Ranger of Eos
3 Talus Paladin
1 Ondu Cleric
32 creatures
2 Lightning Bolt
4 other spells
4 Kor Firewalker
2 Day of Judgement
2 White Knight
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Celestial Purge
3 Tuktuk Scrapper
15 sideboard cards
RGRWolf Run RampGRG
Modern
UUUVial FishUUU
Legacy
BUGDredgeBUG
EDH
RUGCombo/ControlRUG
I have run into several, and I didn't find any of them particularly difficult. Any deck that features little removable is an easy matchup for us. Most of the removal Vamps bring to the table can be easily played around. Using deathtouch as pseudo-removal isn't sufficient when we can swing through with Kabira. Gatekeeper of Malakir is not terribly effective since we can usually just sac non-essential allies. Gatekeeper is at his best when opponents have few creatures on the board, but our deck is almost pure creatures. Aside from that, they might run Tendrils of Corruption mainboard (not everyone does though), and Deathmark in the sideboard. But that's still not an overwhelming amount of removal. I've overcome worse.
And if you run any black hate in your sideboard (as I do) then games 2 and 3 will often be blowouts.
I use Naya Charm almost exclusively as removal or for alpha striking. I've almost never found it useful for recurring BBE or Ranger.
@SrslySirius--I think the term you're looking for is Deathmark.
I'm still having trouble with the Jund matchup, even with 3 Purges and 4 Devout Lightcasters (I'm playing lord_ra's list with Purges instead of Paths).
I'm tempted to add some number of Bolts to the list because I find myself stalled on the board with my opponent at 3 or less life far too often.
Manlands and Dauntless Escort I had considered. Manabarbs is intriguing, but I'm not entirely convinced I could justify squeezing that into the sideboard. It would really only be good in that one matchup, and I wonder even then if it wouldn't backfire at times.
Indeed, it would be great for fetching BBE and EoS. But I would imagine that I'd end up using it to fetch Kabira far more often. She is the closest thing this deck has to a win condition; she just seals the victory any time she sticks. The most frequently devastating move opponents make against me is removing Kabira. Take my 6/7 Hada, Maelstrom Pulse my Paladins, I might shrug it off. But when Kabira hits the graveyard I shed a single tear.
1. ONLY use the allies that pump up and/or give awesome offensive abilities, which is what Naya excels at:
Hada Freeblade
Kazandu Blademaster
Oran-rief Survivalist
Akoum Battlesinger
Kabira Evangel (the evasion granted is absolutely game-changing)
Talus Paladin
Honorable Mentions:
Greypelt Hunter (Talus is in almost all ways better at a 4 drop, trample is trumped by lifelink, and should be relatively unnecessary with Kabira)
Kazuul Warlord (if you're going to 5cmc in the curve, IMO this guy deserves a slot. But since this is a purely aggro variant, he probably doesn't make the cut)
Notable allies left OUT:
Ondu Cleric
Harabaz Druid
After playing the deck at FNM this week, and tons and tons against all my friends (we have about 8 of us that get together weekly to play EDH and Standard and talk about deck construction), I found myself not wanting to lose tempo by throwing either of these dudes early, I ALWAYS wanted to throw one of the other 2cmc guys if I had them. I mean honestly, these only accelerate you by a single turn since you top out at 4. It is a nice acceleration though, since we only have Kabira at 3, so skipping the 3 mana slot to go right to 4 can be nice, but not nice enough to skip dropping a Kazandu or Oran-Rief. And I HATE cascading into these guys.
Since this leaves some gaps in the slots, we go to cascade in BBE and Violent Outburst. However, I want these to ALWAYS cascade into an ally, so that leaves really no option to run anything else outside of Ranger of Eos. But the power of having every single one of the spells you cast be another ally trigger is awesome.
Naya Charm is a possibly exception to the rule of no other cascade targets, as there will likely be at least 1 function of the charm that will be useful if you happen to hit it with a BBE. I haven't played with it yet, but I would imagine that most often I would like to be able to grab an ally out of my GY or tap all the guys on the other side of the field to attack unopposed.
The singleton Goblin Bushwhacker in the winning list is something that I don't agree with. Yes, you can grab it with RoE, but I would almost always prefer to draw a Violent Outburst, which will grant the same bonus to all my allies as the bushwhacker, AND I get another ally trigger off of it. And at RR for the Bushwhacker, the VO should be at least as easy to get off.
Edit: Card tags for great justice!
Yeah, that makes total sense. Like I said, I haven't played with them yet (they should be here this week, never played naya colors before!), and I totally agree about the Master. One of the decks my friend plays has those (playing a Boss Naya) and they just WRECK me once they land if I don't already have a dominating board position. I have been trying to figure out how to deal with those types of threats without slowing down too much, and I think these might be the answer.
Against those sort of decks I wouldn't even play Naya Charm. As a removal spell, it's not cost-effective at all. Master of the Wild Hunt is the only removal they usually pack, which is quite lackluster. At best they can remove one creature per turn. Most of the time it will be something like every 2 turns. This means your Kabiras are much more likely to hang around, so you don't even really need the tap-out effect.
These decks that ramp up with a bunch of mana dorks and try to rush out huge creatures or tons of tokens are by far our easiest matchup, because they have almost zero removal. I've stomped every such deck I've faced 2-0. Not even close.
I would actually consider running that white counterspell sb. I don't remember the name off the top of my head. Though, the problem with that spell is it bounces it to the top of their library. But if it helps us win, it helps us win.
Lifegain = important. I would actually run 3-4 Ondu Clerics instead of 3-4 Talus Paladins. If we can just gain gain gain life. They can't really stop that unless they kill out clerics. Now, I'm not trying to say remove the paladins for the clerics. But it would be nice to run 3-4 of both.
Kazuul Warlord imo helps win the game. When you drop it every ally you control gets pumped. Which is really good in most cases if you have 4 clerics down and 1 hada.
I am going to invest in running 2-4 Path to Exiles sb. They would be good against Jund, and WW matchups or anything that runs things like BSA.
UThada Adel AcquisitorU
GB Savara, Queen of the Golgori BG
GR Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG
I played against vampires this past Friday and it was really easy. Granted in both matches he drew none or did not play any removal. Still I never felt the need to pull celestial purge or path in from my sideboard. I was using ra's list that Gordy posted above.
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Against those sort of decks? You mean Jund? Because some Jund builds still play Master, and that was what I had no answer to.
Naya Charm is good because even if it's bad removal, it's still removal, and it can do lots of other things as well.
Sorry, my mistake. I don't think I've ever encountered a Jund deck running Master. The sort of deck I was referring to was:
UThada Adel AcquisitorU
GB Savara, Queen of the Golgori BG
GR Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG