Help with Standard Life Drain Allies deck

[gracelikeleaves]

Life Drain Allies, in progress

I've only been playing for 3 weeks. Anyone want to help me with my deck? This is what I've got for now! I don't know if you can see the different versions of the deck, but I've been playing with it to see what works.

[deaddman9]

Kalitas is a great card, but he's a bit out of place in this deck. I would suggest taking him out in place of 2 swamps (your mana curve is fairly high, so I would definitely play 24 lands at a minimum).

I would take out the 4-drop exile target creature, 4-drop discard 2 and lose 2, and 6 drop white angel. You're going to want cheaper instants/sorceries in place of those.

As far as what you should replace them with that's a bit up to you. If you want hand control you could add in duress or transgress the mind. If you want creature control you could add in silkwrap, murderous cut, or visions of brutality.

This is a great start to a deck, especially considering how long you've been playing!

[Nekikami]

One thing that kinda concerns me is the number of higher CMC creatures/spells. Most of the games I play in rarely go beyond turn 5-6, so I try to avoid such creatures/spells. I have an Ally deck that I originally built around ally Vampires with life gain/life drain, but it has since evolved a bit to be able to deal with multiple deck styles. Here is mine:

http://deckstats.net/decks/43397/419779-rebel-alliance?lng=en

I am not going to say its perfect. Its definitely a work in progress. This is also my first tri-color deck, and my first deck that has exceeded 60 cards. It has been working VERY well to my surprise. I must give credit to G.Moto for helping me with mana balance.

One of the biggest issues is that our Allies abilities are not usually active on the opponent's turn. Look at Join the Ranks or Momentary Blink as possible Instant spell options in place of Allied Reinforcements and/or March from the Tomb to trigger the Ally abilities on the opponent's turn and throw them off balance. Or maybe Aether Vials.

For life gain, I like the 2 CMC Kalastria Healer, Drana's Emissary, and  Ondu Cleric. Kalastria Healer and Drana's Emissary also help with the life drain. But Hagra Diabolist just keeps bringing the pain. Especially if you drop that Join the Ranks. That triggers 2 instances of his ability. It would also trigger Ondu Cleric twice. Meanwhile, Bloodbond Vampire is loving life, growing fast and gaining first/double strike, indestructible, protections, lifeline, vigilance, etc...

I agree with Deaddman9 on dropping the exile creature spells and the angel, and I'd remove the Nirkana's Assassin too. I tried him in my deck, but given that most allies give benefits to all the other allies on the battlefield, this guy was a bit too greedy and not helping the team. Maybe keep the Allied reinforcements and replace the exiles with one of the instants.

All this said, I know what its like to have cards that you REALLY want to use in your deck. If you are dead set on Kalitas, I can understand that. I have multiple copies of all the Liliana planes walkers and cannot seem to get them to work well in a deck. Highly frustrating...

[matothias]

I have a VERY nice standard allies deck that runs TONS of lose life gain life stuff. Hope its helpful:)

http://deckstats.net/decks/44516/377835-b-w-ally-deck-?saved=1&lng=en


This is the semi-revised decklist, I will be updating it later to try to improve its reliability.