Lots of 1 mana spot removal and pumps to screw up combat math and let you attack even into larger creatures. Temur Battlerage combines well with Mutagenic Growth and gives the deck needed evasion. The Blossoming Defense was a flex spot I hadn't nailed down yet, might just be the second Path instead (though it's much easier to get R/G mana for spells). Atarka's Command isn't bad, necessarily, but getting RG mana in a Cavern manabase was just a little shakier than I liked.
You can bump it up to at least 3 copies of Kytheon. I'm running 4. This is easily the best 1-drop 2/1 with upside, you can play a second one after the first flips, and your opponent will always try to kill it before it flips if they can. The chances of being completely screwed by the Legendary rule are pretty low.
I liked Swiftspear in the 1 CMC slot. The haste helps flip Kytheon earlier, 12 spells were enough to make her a hasty 2/3 on average which is a good enough rate, and in particular Mutagenic lets you pump her without holding mana open. Double Swiftspear opener can steal games. Lastly I like running Inspiring Vantage over a green 1-drop and Razorverge Thicket since we need Red the most to cast our non-creature spells. Warden of the first tree can be ok but I sometimes found the white mana needed for pumps to be a little limiting and he's less aggressive than Swiftspear without additional investment. Experiment One is poorly supported due to the high number of creatures that enter as 1/1s and our curve topping out at 3 power/toughness.
The most important thing that I found was to be cautious of cards that are too reliant on synergy and support to function well -- Gather the Townsfolk, Boros Elite, etc -- and focus on playing individually strong cards that happen to get even better if you're lucky enough to have everything stick. It might goldfish a little slower, obviously, but it performs better in real matches.
I've tried 2-3x Goblin Bushwhacker and while it makes for some really explosive plays with BTE I wanted to go with a more consistent game plan.
The sideboard is too rough to share but I enjoyed 2x Lead the Stampede for grindier matchups.
---
Overall I think moving towards an interactive CoCo strategy is perhaps better suited for the current meta but the Naya Blitz list can have some strong games, too.
Yeah you're right about Relic. It's worth noting that I can still get a discarded Relic back and since it cantrips on activation maybe it's not a big deal that I can't recycle it with Rallier.
After my Bolt experiment I think I'm going back to Path, lol. It seems to be worth it to pre-board against DSJ and free up some more sideboard slots.
I'm also re-testing Meddling Mage. Like Thalia, Mage is a lock piece that loses value when it's easily answered, but Rallier might help it stick enough to be worth it.
As you may recall, I've been waffling back and forth on Thalia's place in a 4C list. The combination of running 3x Thalia with 2x Renegade Rallier has helped keep her on the board long enough to get a meaningful benefit out of her tax effect, even against interactive decks. There have been a few nonbo moments with CoCo but the benefits have outweighed the nonbos so far.
In general I've been pretty happy with Renegade Rallier in this deck as there are a lot of strong 2 CMC targets to rez. Unfortunately the 4 color manabase doesn't leave room for much more than 8 fetches so triggering Revolt isn't as guaranteed as I'd like. Haven't been burned by it too hard but it's something I'm keeping an eye on.
I'm re-testing Bolt in the current meta. The flexibility and reach is good as always, sniping dorks and other setup creatures can't quite be replicated with Path, and Reflector Mage does a decent job of handling the big stuff. Path and Blessed Alliance come in for the few matchups where Bolt underperforms, namely Death's Shadow Jund (DSJ).
Testing against GW Tron, Bant Eldrazi, and Jund have all gone pretty well but DSJ has been tricky. I'm bringing back 2 copies of Mirran Crusader since he can block their huge creatures and sticks to the board a little better in conjunction with Lieutenant when he's getting targeted by Goblin Tarfires instead of Bolts.
Also trying Rest in Peace to neutralize Goyf & Traverse, which is great when it works but I've also had RIP discarded which adds enchantment to the graveyard and powers up their Goyf / turns on Delerium ... I might try Relic of Progrnitus instead since they already get artifacts in their grave with Bauble, it plays better with Rallier, and I have more room in my curve at 1 CMC.
Grafdigger's Cage has shut me down a few times now, too, but I'm not sure that it's worth bringing in artifact removal just for two copies of Cage. Anyone have any other anti-DSJ tech they've been working with?
I agree with the sentiment that DSJ may become a gatekeeper of the format if it sticks around. This is bad news for all-in aggro variations of Human decks, particularly Naya. I'd guess that it's really tough for Mono-White game 1, too, but white has a lot of good sideboard cards for the matchup. Anyways, make sure you have a plan in mind for this matchup when you're building your deck! I'd recommend a MINIMUM of 8 pieces of interaction in your 75.
EDIT: OMG I can't believe I forgot about Deflecting Palm. Palm-ing a Battlerage'd Death's Shadow would be delicious. Even if that's a little Christmas-y, palm-ing a 5/6+ goyf would be pretty common.
I've messed around with Jeskai a bit and haven't quite gotten a balance of humans and spells that satisfied me but hopefully you'll have better luck. My personal experience has been that Gather the Townfolk is not worth running with less than 8 lords or anthem effects – those 1/1 bodies need a lot of support to do anything useful beyond chump blocking grounders. If your testing has brought you to a similar conclusion you might try replacing Gather with 2x Abbot and another 2x Lightning Helix or another 1-2 CMC spell. A singleton Slip through Space might be nice to help get your big Champ/Lt damage through while also drawing you into more gas.
There's a lot of midrange BGx and Eldrazi out there right now. IMO it's a better time for Inspector's value over Pilgrim's ramp. I tried 2x Avacyn's Pilgrim and while the extra T3 CoCos can be great, it'll often get zapped against interactive decks and you don't need any more bad topdecks.
For your Bant list with 9x three-drops I would play 22 lands with a Horizon Canopy as the 22nd land, and a single copy of Ghost Quarter and Gavony Township. 20 lands with 3 colorless sources is simply too greedy.
Out of curiosity, what's your thought process on running Kari Zev over Voltaic Brawler? I guess you value the bigger butt over more aggressive attack power? Have you thought about running 1x Kari, 1x Brawler to spare yourself the occasional legendary clashes?
Marauder doesn't seem good enough to build around, but I might be pleasantly surprised. As an aside, Alesha can't return Keldon Marauders.
I became a little bit more interested in Kari Zev when I realized that her token helps you have enough attackers to flip Kytheon or trigger Boros Elite in Naya lists.
I'm still struggling with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Smuggler's Copter in White-ish lists... I think the biggest draw to White is having an explosive start that can interact or sneak damage through with Brave the Elements:
Turn 1) Champion
Turn 2) Kytheon + 2/1, Champ attacks for 3
Turn 3) Lieutenant or Honor of the Pure, attack for 9-11, hold one mana open for Brave the Elements / Path / Bolt / Spell Pierce
Obviously that's an ideal curve but with enough redundancy in the deck there are a lot of variations that are only slightly less powerful.
The problem I have is that both Thalia GoT and Smuggler's Copter don't fit into this curve well:
Playing Thalia turn 2 slows down your clock relative to playing two 2/1s and forces you to hold 2 mana open instead of 1 if you want to be ready to interact.
Playing Copter turn 2 puts your Champ under curve and unable to safely attack. Getting your first 3 damage in on Turn 3 isn't very aggressive.
Yes you can hold both of these cards back and play them on T4 or something, but you get the most benefit out the Thalia's tax and Copter's looting when you start reaping their benefits as early as possible.
Where do these cards fit into the ideal curve of a White-ish list? Is it worth diluting the consistency of strong starts to run these cards in the main? I would love get more data on this.
I really thought the side would be the best place, because of the disynergy with gather the townsfolk and honor of the pure, but everything I replaced her with was just not on the same power level.
Yeah I definitely feel you there. Tried her in the side but couldn't find a great two-drop in white to replace her with. I was thinking maybe Knight of the Holy Nimbus since he really shines against Midrange & Control strategies. For now Thalia's staying in the Main.
I've been waffling back and forth on where Thalia, Guardian of Thraben belongs in the 75.
She's incredibly solid against decks that rely on free spells, pump spells, cantrips, deck manipulation, counterspells, and expensive haymaker noncreature finishers – which suddenly become a lot clunkier if they cost one more mana – but she becomes unreliable when you're facing decks with more than 4 pieces of spot removal, especially one-mana removal like Bolt or Push.
For these reasons she's great against Tron, decent against Infect, Ad Nauseum, maybe ok vs Valakut variants.. any others? I've found her to be useless against Affinity, and unreliable or mediocre against interactive decks like BGx Midrange, Eldrazi Midrange, Ux Control. I haven't gotten to test her against Burn, my guess is that she'd get a one-time tax on the next burn spell (aimed at her) but I'm not sure whether that slows them down enough to be useful.
Overall I acknowledge that she has the potential to make a very large impact in some matchups, I'm just haven't figured out whether she belongs in the Main or Side given how prominent Eldrazi and BGx are right now.
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With that said I've also been working on "White-ish" humans, going so far as to add a red splash to squeeze Mantis Rider and Bolt in there:
Even with the Red and Blue splashes (I call the deck "Wru-mans") all the creatures are white so we still get the full benefits from Brave the Elements and Honor of the Pure. Here we have Bolt over Javelineer. I've started to run it through a gauntlet to compare its matchups to my 4c list. I will report back when I have more data.
Kessig Malcontents and Shaman of the Pack are textbook win-more cards that can be good if you're ahead on board and might even secure you an otherwise impossible victory via direct damage through a locked board stall but otherwise will do very little for you when you're behind. Most Elf players currently feel that GW Elves is objectively a more competitive deck than GB Elves with Shaman.
With that said, GB Elves can make Shaman work because they go incredibly wide faster than almost any other deck and on top of that they'll run 4x Chord of Calling to tutor Shaman for a quick kill. With your Human list here you will have maybe.. 4-5 creatures down on turn 4. Malcontents could come in and deal 4-6 damage, yeah, but that's all it's going to do. A grounded 3/1 body is too fragile to reliably push any damage through so after its ETB trigger it won't do much of anything to fix your locked board state if that wasn't enough. Since humans don't have to go as "all in" as Elves and you're already in Red I think you could just run Lightning Bolt and some other burn spells and get the same game-closing reach that you want from Malcontents but with a lot more flexibility in terms of interaction and also utility when you're behind.
Hanweir Militia Captain is pretty win-more, too, and personally I would trim her but at least the value floor is a 2/2 for 2 instead of a 3/1 for 3.
Overall I'd recommend shaving your curve down a bit. You have a lot of cards that work better with more bodies on the field but don't have the token generators or 1-drop-centric curve to accomplish that quickly. Naya lists "work" because they're explosive enough to push early damage through on the the ground and then finish off with burn. Here you have some good value plays and tremendous synergy, and when you win you'll really win lol, but any disruptive midrange, control, or token deck is going to give you a lot of problems. If you want to keep the curve higher I would at least swap Hanweir Garrison in over Malcontents.
The curve looks a little wacky: 15x 3-drops and a fifth 4-drop. I'd guess the player must've been expecting a ton of midrange: it's packed to the gills with card draw / recursion, and removal for large creatures. Overall it seems a little clunky to me but maybe it was the right call for the tourney, who knows.
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Kytheon, Hero of Akros
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Burning-Tree Emissary
2x Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
2x Mayor of Avabruck
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
4x Voltaic Brawler
1x Blossoming Defense
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Mutagenic Growth
1x Path to Exile
2x Temur Battle Rage
Land (20)
2x Arid Mesa
4x Cavern of Souls
1x Forest
2x Horizon Canopy
2x Inspiring Vantage
2x Mountain
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Stomping Ground
1x Temple Garden
4x Wooded Foothills
You can bump it up to at least 3 copies of Kytheon. I'm running 4. This is easily the best 1-drop 2/1 with upside, you can play a second one after the first flips, and your opponent will always try to kill it before it flips if they can. The chances of being completely screwed by the Legendary rule are pretty low.
I liked Swiftspear in the 1 CMC slot. The haste helps flip Kytheon earlier, 12 spells were enough to make her a hasty 2/3 on average which is a good enough rate, and in particular Mutagenic lets you pump her without holding mana open. Double Swiftspear opener can steal games. Lastly I like running Inspiring Vantage over a green 1-drop and Razorverge Thicket since we need Red the most to cast our non-creature spells. Warden of the first tree can be ok but I sometimes found the white mana needed for pumps to be a little limiting and he's less aggressive than Swiftspear without additional investment. Experiment One is poorly supported due to the high number of creatures that enter as 1/1s and our curve topping out at 3 power/toughness.
The most important thing that I found was to be cautious of cards that are too reliant on synergy and support to function well -- Gather the Townsfolk, Boros Elite, etc -- and focus on playing individually strong cards that happen to get even better if you're lucky enough to have everything stick. It might goldfish a little slower, obviously, but it performs better in real matches.
I've tried 2-3x Goblin Bushwhacker and while it makes for some really explosive plays with BTE I wanted to go with a more consistent game plan.
The sideboard is too rough to share but I enjoyed 2x Lead the Stampede for grindier matchups.
---
Overall I think moving towards an interactive CoCo strategy is perhaps better suited for the current meta but the Naya Blitz list can have some strong games, too.
Also Cavern of Souls reprint! Yay!
But at Mythic...
After my Bolt experiment I think I'm going back to Path, lol. It seems to be worth it to pre-board against DSJ and free up some more sideboard slots.
2x Blessed Alliance
2x Deflecting Palm
2x Meddling Mage
2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Stony Silence
1x Izzet Staticaster
2x Mirran Crusader
1x Breeding Pool
4x Cavern of Souls
1x Forest
1x Mountain
2x Razorverge Thicket
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Steam Vents
1x Stomping Ground
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Kari Zev, Skyship Raider
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4x Voltaic Brawler
4x Mantis Rider
4x Reflector Mage
2x Renegade Rallier
Instant (8)
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Collected Company
2x Path to Exile
2x Negate
2x Blessed Alliance
1x Deflecting Palm
1x Qasali Pridemage
2x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
1x Izzet Staticaster
2x Mirran Crusader
In general I've been pretty happy with Renegade Rallier in this deck as there are a lot of strong 2 CMC targets to rez. Unfortunately the 4 color manabase doesn't leave room for much more than 8 fetches so triggering Revolt isn't as guaranteed as I'd like. Haven't been burned by it too hard but it's something I'm keeping an eye on.
I'm re-testing Bolt in the current meta. The flexibility and reach is good as always, sniping dorks and other setup creatures can't quite be replicated with Path, and Reflector Mage does a decent job of handling the big stuff. Path and Blessed Alliance come in for the few matchups where Bolt underperforms, namely Death's Shadow Jund (DSJ).
Testing against GW Tron, Bant Eldrazi, and Jund have all gone pretty well but DSJ has been tricky. I'm bringing back 2 copies of Mirran Crusader since he can block their huge creatures and sticks to the board a little better in conjunction with Lieutenant when he's getting targeted by Goblin Tarfires instead of Bolts.
Also trying Rest in Peace to neutralize Goyf & Traverse, which is great when it works but I've also had RIP discarded which adds enchantment to the graveyard and powers up their Goyf / turns on Delerium ... I might try Relic of Progrnitus instead since they already get artifacts in their grave with Bauble, it plays better with Rallier, and I have more room in my curve at 1 CMC.
Grafdigger's Cage has shut me down a few times now, too, but I'm not sure that it's worth bringing in artifact removal just for two copies of Cage. Anyone have any other anti-DSJ tech they've been working with?
I agree with the sentiment that DSJ may become a gatekeeper of the format if it sticks around. This is bad news for all-in aggro variations of Human decks, particularly Naya. I'd guess that it's really tough for Mono-White game 1, too, but white has a lot of good sideboard cards for the matchup. Anyways, make sure you have a plan in mind for this matchup when you're building your deck! I'd recommend a MINIMUM of 8 pieces of interaction in your 75.
EDIT: OMG I can't believe I forgot about Deflecting Palm. Palm-ing a Battlerage'd Death's Shadow would be delicious. Even if that's a little Christmas-y, palm-ing a 5/6+ goyf would be pretty common.
For your Bant list with 9x three-drops I would play 22 lands with a Horizon Canopy as the 22nd land, and a single copy of Ghost Quarter and Gavony Township. 20 lands with 3 colorless sources is simply too greedy.
I became a little bit more interested in Kari Zev when I realized that her token helps you have enough attackers to flip Kytheon or trigger Boros Elite in Naya lists.
I'm still struggling with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Smuggler's Copter in White-ish lists... I think the biggest draw to White is having an explosive start that can interact or sneak damage through with Brave the Elements:
Turn 1) Champion
Turn 2) Kytheon + 2/1, Champ attacks for 3
Turn 3) Lieutenant or Honor of the Pure, attack for 9-11, hold one mana open for Brave the Elements / Path / Bolt / Spell Pierce
Obviously that's an ideal curve but with enough redundancy in the deck there are a lot of variations that are only slightly less powerful.
The problem I have is that both Thalia GoT and Smuggler's Copter don't fit into this curve well:
Where do these cards fit into the ideal curve of a White-ish list? Is it worth diluting the consistency of strong starts to run these cards in the main? I would love get more data on this.
She's incredibly solid against decks that rely on free spells, pump spells, cantrips, deck manipulation, counterspells, and expensive haymaker noncreature finishers – which suddenly become a lot clunkier if they cost one more mana – but she becomes unreliable when you're facing decks with more than 4 pieces of spot removal, especially one-mana removal like Bolt or Push.
For these reasons she's great against Tron, decent against Infect, Ad Nauseum, maybe ok vs Valakut variants.. any others? I've found her to be useless against Affinity, and unreliable or mediocre against interactive decks like BGx Midrange, Eldrazi Midrange, Ux Control. I haven't gotten to test her against Burn, my guess is that she'd get a one-time tax on the next burn spell (aimed at her) but I'm not sure whether that slows them down enough to be useful.
Overall I acknowledge that she has the potential to make a very large impact in some matchups, I'm just haven't figured out whether she belongs in the Main or Side given how prominent Eldrazi and BGx are right now.
----
With that said I've also been working on "White-ish" humans, going so far as to add a red splash to squeeze Mantis Rider and Bolt in there:
4x Champion of the Parish
3x Kytheon, Hero of Akros
3x Soldier of the Pantheon
4x Thraben Inspector
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4x Mantis Rider
Instant (10)
4x Brave the Elements
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Path to Exile
4x Honor of the Pure
Land (21)
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Inspiring Vantage
4x Flooded Strand
4x Windswept Heath
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Sacred Foundry
3x Plains
1x Martyr of Sands
2x Path to Exile
2x Auriok Champion
1x Blessed Alliance
2x Meddling Mage
2x Spell Pierce
2x Stony Silence
1x Wear / Tear
1x Ranger of Eos
1x Riders of Gavony
Kessig Malcontents and Shaman of the Pack are textbook win-more cards that can be good if you're ahead on board and might even secure you an otherwise impossible victory via direct damage through a locked board stall but otherwise will do very little for you when you're behind. Most Elf players currently feel that GW Elves is objectively a more competitive deck than GB Elves with Shaman.
With that said, GB Elves can make Shaman work because they go incredibly wide faster than almost any other deck and on top of that they'll run 4x Chord of Calling to tutor Shaman for a quick kill. With your Human list here you will have maybe.. 4-5 creatures down on turn 4. Malcontents could come in and deal 4-6 damage, yeah, but that's all it's going to do. A grounded 3/1 body is too fragile to reliably push any damage through so after its ETB trigger it won't do much of anything to fix your locked board state if that wasn't enough. Since humans don't have to go as "all in" as Elves and you're already in Red I think you could just run Lightning Bolt and some other burn spells and get the same game-closing reach that you want from Malcontents but with a lot more flexibility in terms of interaction and also utility when you're behind.
Hanweir Militia Captain is pretty win-more, too, and personally I would trim her but at least the value floor is a 2/2 for 2 instead of a 3/1 for 3.
Overall I'd recommend shaving your curve down a bit. You have a lot of cards that work better with more bodies on the field but don't have the token generators or 1-drop-centric curve to accomplish that quickly. Naya lists "work" because they're explosive enough to push early damage through on the the ground and then finish off with burn. Here you have some good value plays and tremendous synergy, and when you win you'll really win lol, but any disruptive midrange, control, or token deck is going to give you a lot of problems. If you want to keep the curve higher I would at least swap Hanweir Garrison in over Malcontents.
Hope that's useful, take care.