Shalai seems pretty strong given that it is a respectable flying body, acts as protection from targeted removal if chorded, and has a persistent effect that can win the game on its own without needing infinite mana (in a more convincing way than Rhonas).
You should not run Godless shrine if you don't run verdant catacombs, otherwise it's fine to run all forest fetches. You'll lose some tiny points by running only temple gardens and a plains as white sources, but not as much as you'll lose by being unable to fetch white or black with all your fetches.
There is also a build that is plus by running wooded foothills, which is a list that runs one stomping ground and one kessig wolf run. There's some risk there but also you'll steal games with wolf run. And you can play Crumble in the sideboard if you want.
Rallier was the best Fink's replacement I tried but you need to play more horizon canopy or fetches or kotr to enable it. It also requires thinking ahead before you coco. In my experience revolt was live 90% of the time I wanted it. Having a selfless spirit really helps.
I think red splash is the best still overall. I did the best by far with a lavamancer and 4 wolf runs. Will likely build that again once I get done dicking around with wayward swordtooth and dromoka's command.
I agree with you for sure I just think 2 seems like a suspect number of them to play. I'd playtest 4 before I'd try 2.
I don't think there's really enough sweepers in the format to be running a spirit main, an there's a lot more paths these days and trading spirit 1 for 1 is not really where you want to be. Spellskite or Ooze are both likely to gain you more percentage points right now.
This list seems like it has a lot of really weird numbers of cards. Fauna shaman feels like a 3-4 or a 0 to me mostly, and 3 duskwatch feels like 2 too many in this kinda build. I'd almost give some thought to going 4 fauna shaman, up to 4 eternal witness, and down on a lot of other combo pieces.
With 4 quellers (which I presume you are banking on for Supreme Verdict insurance game 1) I'm not sure I would want to run a selfless spirit as a silver bullet main deck especially with no renegade ralliers, kinda lean toward making that something better (an ooze perhaps would be good).
The number of 3-drops actually seems unusually low (9?) for a 11 dork deck even with 21 lands. I'd be inclined to see closer to 10, or even 11. It definitely feels loose to have a courser in there without the 4th witness, but if you were heavier on Shamans courser gets better (since the repeated shuffling == more land drops).
1) the white sideboard cards are for the most part less mana demanding than black (Since the black cards have two pips, requiring a separate green and black source or white and black source or repeated black mana like Pharika)
2) Of those white cards, almost none of them require more than a token white splash (11 sources)
3) You missed Thoughtseize, which if you had 14-15 black sources would be playable again; the 3-4 thoughtseize plan was one of the best sideboard plans we ever had (though it has been some time since it was popular).
I think for the most part the black cards we could play would be more impactful than a double white splash, and it's worth considering at least.
Additional thoughts--
And yes in this same page I was arguing against black sideboard cards in a super light splash; I think this is hugely different between a full on black splash with chupacabra and potentially thoughtseize + sculler + pharika.
And I don't mean to sound so sure of myself, but I think it is worth trying.
I think there's place for testing a less white intensive build that plays a redcap main and chupacabra side. The black sideboard cards are much better than the white ones for the most part, so I see no issue trying that at least.
Redcap was actually deceptively powerful.
You'd have to shave some canopies probably but I think playing as few as 2 is defensible these days given Burn's resurgence.
I've done a lot of pondering about a company-less version that plays Evolution+Chord but that's another deck.
Burn is the only deck that it is particularly good against. D&T's creatures outclass kitchen finks unless you have a township, and they have plenty of LD to deal with that. D&T also is not really a deck in comparison to the other decks from a results and pervasiveness perspective.
Control decks these days are not really that concerned with kitchen finks. It's an OK card, but it's much worse than Renegade Rallier which gains tempo instead of a 2/1 body. If you just cut finks for rallier you'd be much stronger vs. Control shells (as you get an actual desirable card vs. one that dies to half of Electrolyze).
Kitchen finks is in a place where it is terrible against most of the meta:
Storm
Tron
Eldrazi
Valakut
Affinity
And mediocre against the rest, and good against burn. It's pretty solid against GDS, though less so than you think because their creatures outclass it. Great with township but average otherwise.
The last time I played it I sided out 3 finks in 3 out of 4 matches. I'm pretty confident that without a Jund style deck that really feels threatened by finks playing main deck finks is the wrong place to be right now.
Abzan company being tier 1 is an artifact of the system they're using these days. It isn't putting up any results that I can see. There wasn't even one in the top 32 of the last modern GP was there?
Being the deck that can be constructed to have good matchups all around is not that great when the meta is rapidly shifting and full of different angled proactive decks. We also have way fewer toolbox slots than we used to with the whole dual combo thing.
I think that the defining question of this deck is "Is Kitchen Finks a good magic card right now?" and the answer to that has been "No" for the last 2 years give or take. The druid combo is much stronger in Elves than it is in a separate combo deck shell, and that's pretty much the bottom line to me sadly.
And that's why my collected companies are in the binder atm, sadly. But I still like to think about the deck.
Yes, that was what I was thinking -- 4 ghost quarters (or a mix of field of ruin), 8 fetches,2-4 horizon canopies and 3-4 kotr should make revolt pretty reliable, and kotr + rallier synergize well.
I ran that one night with only 1 witness and the synergy is quite powerful between KOTR and Rallier. I'd look at 1 Rhonas (or entity)/1 witness/4 kotr/4 rallier as the 3-drop package for such a deck as the starting point.
It is definitely a theoretical skeleton you start from before modifying to suit meta and aggressiveness, etc. It could go down a couple lands or down a couple mana dorks, you can go to 3s/2s, etc.
Voice and Recruiter are not comparable except filling the 2 CMC spot really, but in a list heavy on baneslayers it makes a lot of sense to overload on them rather than play value creatures.
I have played Rallier a ton and it is a hugely powerful card. It gets more powerful the more you run and the more you can trigger it. I played this Naya list for quite some time: https://deckbox.org/sets/1686911
Again, not advocating for any of these lists as current meta appropriate. Presenting some ideas for the specific topic of combining Value town with the druid combo.
I do think it is feasible to consider, though a bit iffy because of how tough it is to support both the druid combo and value and land destruction in the same deck. The druid combo has a bunch of pieces that are baneslayers by nature, and the value town deck does as well (courser, tracker, knight) so you're quite vulnerable to getting ground out from a card advantage perspective.
The natural fits from a card perspective to fix some of that problem are Eternal Witness and Renegade Rallier. Both provide some card advantage, and can support the land destruction plan, and both support the combo (witness and rallier acting like extra combo pieces often).
I think that the combination of concepts might just be trying to do too much either with the beatdown creatures or with the land destruction package, but if you consider what makes GW so good it's more the streamlined manabase and the land destruction package that allows it to compete than the value oriented (but ultimately baneslayery) beatdown creatures (trackers/coursers/voices).
In a merging of the lists I think you'll find rallier a much better fit than trackers/coursers, and recruiter than voices/oozes, since they ultimately support what the joint shell is trying to do.
Maybe a tiny red splash for 1 wolf run and 1 stomping ground, because the knights take advantage of that pretty well.
I think your black sideboard cards will kill you over the long term. Blooming marsh is just a terrible land with no maindeck black cards. The black sideboard cards are just not good enough to warrant that. You could pack a couple excavators or the like in the sideboard.
Here's the kind of prototype skeleton I brewed up for any straight GW list with the combo--township is interchangeable with ghost quarter, and you can shave a hierarch, a forest or canopy and a vizier for knights, I just try to work in mostly 4s and 1s when designing a "default" shell. And a pessimistic manabase of course. https://deckbox.org/sets/1720641
I've run pure Naya with Knights before as well and it is quite decent, but there's really no call for Coursers or Voices or anything imho.
That manabase is an absolute disaster, and you're sacrificing all the good parts of value town (the land destruction plan primarily) for the vizier combo. You're trying to do way too much in my opinion.
If you wanna a value town style build you should keep it to GW, run 4 ghost quarters (or potentially field of ruin if you can't get any ramunap excavators in there), 4 renegade ralliers and see what fits from there. Probably shave down on trackers/knights to get all the ralliers in there since they bring your combo pieces back and also work with the land destruction plan.
I've done a ton of thinking on the combined deck and I think you want the playset of duskwatch instead of voices. They're deceptively very powerful when you're running more baneslayers like Knight and Tracker, as they act kind of like a spellskite, and they're great topdecks.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I'd definitely give that a try myself.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Pharika is the grindy midrange card you're looking for for the most part, with rec sages to kill their yard hate.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
There is also a build that is plus by running wooded foothills, which is a list that runs one stomping ground and one kessig wolf run. There's some risk there but also you'll steal games with wolf run. And you can play Crumble in the sideboard if you want.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I think red splash is the best still overall. I did the best by far with a lavamancer and 4 wolf runs. Will likely build that again once I get done dicking around with wayward swordtooth and dromoka's command.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I don't think there's really enough sweepers in the format to be running a spirit main, an there's a lot more paths these days and trading spirit 1 for 1 is not really where you want to be. Spellskite or Ooze are both likely to gain you more percentage points right now.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
With 4 quellers (which I presume you are banking on for Supreme Verdict insurance game 1) I'm not sure I would want to run a selfless spirit as a silver bullet main deck especially with no renegade ralliers, kinda lean toward making that something better (an ooze perhaps would be good).
The number of 3-drops actually seems unusually low (9?) for a 11 dork deck even with 21 lands. I'd be inclined to see closer to 10, or even 11. It definitely feels loose to have a courser in there without the 4th witness, but if you were heavier on Shamans courser gets better (since the repeated shuffling == more land drops).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
1) the white sideboard cards are for the most part less mana demanding than black (Since the black cards have two pips, requiring a separate green and black source or white and black source or repeated black mana like Pharika)
2) Of those white cards, almost none of them require more than a token white splash (11 sources)
3) You missed Thoughtseize, which if you had 14-15 black sources would be playable again; the 3-4 thoughtseize plan was one of the best sideboard plans we ever had (though it has been some time since it was popular).
I think for the most part the black cards we could play would be more impactful than a double white splash, and it's worth considering at least.
Additional thoughts--
And yes in this same page I was arguing against black sideboard cards in a super light splash; I think this is hugely different between a full on black splash with chupacabra and potentially thoughtseize + sculler + pharika.
And I don't mean to sound so sure of myself, but I think it is worth trying.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Redcap was actually deceptively powerful.
You'd have to shave some canopies probably but I think playing as few as 2 is defensible these days given Burn's resurgence.
I've done a lot of pondering about a company-less version that plays Evolution+Chord but that's another deck.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Control decks these days are not really that concerned with kitchen finks. It's an OK card, but it's much worse than Renegade Rallier which gains tempo instead of a 2/1 body. If you just cut finks for rallier you'd be much stronger vs. Control shells (as you get an actual desirable card vs. one that dies to half of Electrolyze).
Kitchen finks is in a place where it is terrible against most of the meta:
Storm
Tron
Eldrazi
Valakut
Affinity
And mediocre against the rest, and good against burn. It's pretty solid against GDS, though less so than you think because their creatures outclass it. Great with township but average otherwise.
The last time I played it I sided out 3 finks in 3 out of 4 matches. I'm pretty confident that without a Jund style deck that really feels threatened by finks playing main deck finks is the wrong place to be right now.
Abzan company being tier 1 is an artifact of the system they're using these days. It isn't putting up any results that I can see. There wasn't even one in the top 32 of the last modern GP was there?
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I think that the defining question of this deck is "Is Kitchen Finks a good magic card right now?" and the answer to that has been "No" for the last 2 years give or take. The druid combo is much stronger in Elves than it is in a separate combo deck shell, and that's pretty much the bottom line to me sadly.
And that's why my collected companies are in the binder atm, sadly. But I still like to think about the deck.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I ran that one night with only 1 witness and the synergy is quite powerful between KOTR and Rallier. I'd look at 1 Rhonas (or entity)/1 witness/4 kotr/4 rallier as the 3-drop package for such a deck as the starting point.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Voice and Recruiter are not comparable except filling the 2 CMC spot really, but in a list heavy on baneslayers it makes a lot of sense to overload on them rather than play value creatures.
I have played Rallier a ton and it is a hugely powerful card. It gets more powerful the more you run and the more you can trigger it. I played this Naya list for quite some time:
https://deckbox.org/sets/1686911
Again, not advocating for any of these lists as current meta appropriate. Presenting some ideas for the specific topic of combining Value town with the druid combo.
I do think it is feasible to consider, though a bit iffy because of how tough it is to support both the druid combo and value and land destruction in the same deck. The druid combo has a bunch of pieces that are baneslayers by nature, and the value town deck does as well (courser, tracker, knight) so you're quite vulnerable to getting ground out from a card advantage perspective.
The natural fits from a card perspective to fix some of that problem are Eternal Witness and Renegade Rallier. Both provide some card advantage, and can support the land destruction plan, and both support the combo (witness and rallier acting like extra combo pieces often).
I think that the combination of concepts might just be trying to do too much either with the beatdown creatures or with the land destruction package, but if you consider what makes GW so good it's more the streamlined manabase and the land destruction package that allows it to compete than the value oriented (but ultimately baneslayery) beatdown creatures (trackers/coursers/voices).
In a merging of the lists I think you'll find rallier a much better fit than trackers/coursers, and recruiter than voices/oozes, since they ultimately support what the joint shell is trying to do.
Maybe a tiny red splash for 1 wolf run and 1 stomping ground, because the knights take advantage of that pretty well.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Here's the kind of prototype skeleton I brewed up for any straight GW list with the combo--township is interchangeable with ghost quarter, and you can shave a hierarch, a forest or canopy and a vizier for knights, I just try to work in mostly 4s and 1s when designing a "default" shell. And a pessimistic manabase of course.
https://deckbox.org/sets/1720641
I've run pure Naya with Knights before as well and it is quite decent, but there's really no call for Coursers or Voices or anything imho.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
If you wanna a value town style build you should keep it to GW, run 4 ghost quarters (or potentially field of ruin if you can't get any ramunap excavators in there), 4 renegade ralliers and see what fits from there. Probably shave down on trackers/knights to get all the ralliers in there since they bring your combo pieces back and also work with the land destruction plan.
I've done a ton of thinking on the combined deck and I think you want the playset of duskwatch instead of voices. They're deceptively very powerful when you're running more baneslayers like Knight and Tracker, as they act kind of like a spellskite, and they're great topdecks.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall