Hi Folks,

5-0d last night with Prime Speaker Vannifar, list is below. I didn't drop a game, which is a first for me!

Decklist

I've spoken about it a bit on Discord, but thought i'd share my "findings" here. I'll share some brief match info, then post about some of the individual cards, and then ask for help!

Match-up wise, its quite simple for this league. I faced the Simic Titan Field deck 3 times. That deck is a cake-walk, because you have 2 very easy lines to victory. A turn 3 Prime Speaker (or even turn 4) is actually hard for them to race, since they don't present lethal until turns 5-6. And a Magus of the Moon can be anything from an instant win (after they pact for titan) to a virtual win (they've not gotten a basic yet) to a "buy enough time to eventually win" - if they can cast titans but dont get zombies / blast zone, it'll win you the game anyway.

In this match-up, you only care about Oko and blast zone, and the latter is pretty beatable. Oko is tough, but resto angel resets stuff, which is particularly nice on Feast & Famine. F&F is a mini wincon in that it takes up resources from the opp and gives you ramp to cast 2 spells a turn. This is particularly important when playing chord chains.

In my other matches in the league, I played a bant goodstuff deck, but never saw any walkers (so saw SFM, KotR and Queller, as well as paths, hierarchs and a winds of abandon). I dropped very low in game 2, and had been chatting to my opp. I was hellbent with a small board, but an opposing Knight F&F was killing me very quickly. I had seen 2 path 1 overloaded winds, so was well behind. I typed to my opp "well i have 2 outs" - i had spent the previous turn playing corridor monitor out (i had other options but this looked my best line) so that i had mana for kiki if i drew it. I did. I was both lucky and good!

And in an earlier match i faced E-tron, which feels semi favourable. Since reducing my 1-drops, challice hurts less. SFM is pretty good against them. Most of my creatures give value, so a card like TKS isn't a big issue, realistically leaving me with a hard-to-interact with combo and only really Karn that I care about. Magus is anything from average to irrelevant in this MU, depending how early you get it - but i had a turn 2 magus in Game 1. This is less favourable than field, but still favourable, since postboard you get extra removal for critters.

Gilded Goose vs Noble Hierarch - I just wanted to test the goose. 1 of the issues kiki decks have is that they need ramp to get going, but suck when in topdeck mode thanks to all the mana sources. In my very first match, Goose gained me 6, in a game where i went to 1 before killing the opponent. It's also worth noting that this deck does not attack well, at all, so exalted is missed slightly less. On top of that, when there's no food, Goose still taps for mana under chord and sacs to Vannifar to start the combo, so it's downside is negated somewhat.

Help me time:

1. The 4th Chord is questionable. It's clunky when you have a hand with 2 (or with 1 and a kiki, for example), but you have a number of games where you are waiting for some action. I think it wants dropping... but what should I add?
2. Is Voice good enough? Since I'm a chord deck at heart, i like cards that almost guarentee a mana for chord (voice will either be in play, leave a token I can tap, or get pathed and give me a land i can tap). It's also a decent chump blocker, and obviously great vs UW. The issue is, as a 1-of, I don't see it when i need it, and when I don't need it, it's very below par (think vs unfair decks). Should I be committing to the card more or less? (another option I have is another SFM and perhaps another sword).
3. The sideboard... i spent a lot of time looking at the MUs I expect on Modo, and coming up with a plan for them. However, I'm really quite low on bullets now, and that makes my chords weaker (again, I have less creatures Game 2 in almost every MU). Has anyone any thoughts? I need a certain amount of removal and interaction, but if there's some good creature-based options, I should maybe give them a go!
4. Scooze was both irrelevant and didn't show up in my 5 matches above. Is Scooze well placed or not right now?
5. Dredge is an awful MU, but I have 2 pieces of GY hate in the board. Do i just ignore the MU and remove my GY interaction? Its unlikely I beat dredge with the GY hate, but I might want it elsewhere.

Happy to hear any feedback etc. Still love modern <3