Abzan creature-based combo has always been a force in modern, from Birthing Pod to the Melira Company decks and now they have adapted to include a new combo – Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies. This however is just an infinite mana combo, it doesn’t win the game on it’s own. Enter Duskwatch Recruiter. With a Duskwatch Recruiter you can convert all that mana and draw all the creatures in your deck and immediately cast them. That, usually is enough to win the game. Duskwatch Recruiter is also just great at finding all your combo pieces, and this deck is good at stalling out the board so it gives you an advantage in those games.

Notably, combo decks don’t really care about you having a lot of creatures in play so we play a Walking Ballista to be able to kill them the same turn we go off. It’s fine to use Walking Ballista as a removal spell if you have to, since you have 4x Eternal Witness to get it back on your combo turn.

It’s trivial to include both the Kitchen Finks combo and the Devoted Druid combo in the same deck since Vizier of Remedies also replaces Melira, Sylvok Outcast in the first combo.

The play pattern of “Bolt the Bird” helps this deck massively since people will use their one removal spell on your turn one dork and then have no answer to your combo.  This deck kills on turn three surprisingly often, and you have enough grindy elements to battle through removal.

Onto my latest list;

Matchup Guide

Grixis Death’s Shadow

Might as well start with the most popular deck in the format. This matchup is weird because your combos are quite bad but you can do a good impression of a swarm creature deck which Grixis Shadow struggles to deal with. Generally they might have one Death’s Shadow that can attack you, but it will just get chump blocked and then they will take a bunch of damage on the crackback. This leads to board stalls which as I mentioned at the start of the article Abzan Company is very good at between Trackers, Duskwatch’s and Gavony Township. Their best way to beat you is being able to attack you and still have a good defense which requires multiple threats of which they only have 8.

Out

2 Vizier of Remedies

1 Qasali Pridemage

1 Chord of Calling

1 Walking Ballista

In

2 Lingering Souls

2 Path to Exile

1 Big Game Hunter

You board out Viziers over Devoted Druids because your opponent still has to respect the possibility of dying if they let you have a Druid in play. Where if you just have a Vizier they don’t care until you can untap with a Druid.

Affinity

Affinity is faster than you slightly but they don’t play very much interaction and we have a good sideboard for this matchup. Post sideboard they get Ghirapur Aether Grid which will beat you single handedly if it goes unanswered – luckily cards like Qasali Pridemage and Reclamation Sage hit Enchantments as well as Artifacts.

In

2 Lingering Souls

1 Reclamation Sage

1 Orzhov Pontiff

1 Maelstrom Pulse

1 Kataki, War’s Wage

Out

3 Kitchen Finks

2 Tireless Tracker

Eldrazi Tron

Eldrazi Tron doesn’t really have a lot of good interaction for your combo – Chalice does close to nothing, Thought-Knot is quite slow.. In Game One, it’s mainly just Dismembers you need to watch out for. An early tron into a Ballista or All is Dust will probably get you, though that is unlikely to happen in two games. After sideboard it gets slightly worse since they bring in more interaction and you don’t have much to bring in.

Out

1 Selfless Spirit

In

1 Big Game Hunter

UR Gifts Storm

It’s very important to be on the play in this matchup because you are a turn faster than them but if they get to Remand your Devoted Druid that sets you far enough back they can usually use that time to win. If instead your Druid is already in play and you’re casting a Vizier, it’s a different story. After sideboard the games become less about racing to combo because they bring in a lot of interaction – I’ve seen lists with a set of Lightning Bolts and a couple Dismember, as well as their main 4 Remands.

This overall makes it worse for you post board, but you do have an Eidolon of Rhetoric which is great here.

Out

2 Tireless Tracker

1 Qasali Pridemage

1 Chord of Calling

In

1 Eidolon of rhetoric

2 Sin Collector

1 Burrenton forge tender

It might be tempting to board in an Orzhov Pontiff for Empty the Warrens but I think Empty is an awful card against this deck since it doesn’t kill you right away you might just kill them the turn after they’ve comboed off.

If you have any questions about the deck, its matchups, or there is a specific deck you want to know how to sideboard against, please just post in the comments below.