I'm not sure if it's been explored yet, but what about taking a CoCo knight deck and added Retreat to it? Then you can have the plan of beatdown with indestructible knights as well as the reliquary retreat pseudo-combo.
I was looking over at the Knight Primer to see if anyone is doing this, with Rafiq of the Many as my top of the curve card.
I'm not sure if it's been explored yet, but what about taking a CoCo knight deck and added Retreat to it? Then you can have the plan of beatdown with indestructible knights as well as the reliquary retreat pseudo-combo.
I was looking over at the Knight Primer to see if anyone is doing this, with Rafiq of the Many as my top of the curve card.
I dont know if anyone's playing it though.
Way back when, I played around with Rafiq in my Bant brews, and the ultimate reality is that he's just too cute. When he sticks, he does create blowouts, but he never sticks. His 3 toughness (and otherwise lack of durability) just takes him out of serious contention as a curve topper, unfortunately.
I think a trinket mage sideboard is reasonable to argue since we can put him out on turn 2. And it can find EE and Chalice and a bunch of other very strong cards (pithing needle).
But, I think that deck is much stronger as a Tezzerator deck - hangarback taps, so he's pretty good.
One thing I will say, Steel Overseer with Retreat is hilariously strong, so maybe something there
I can see this maybe putting Knights on the map. They were pretty cool before, if fringe. Problem is not enough interaction mostly still if you run Coco.
The issue every coco deck runs into is they add nothing over elves--every single one is slower than elves, and none of them can afford enough interaction to be slower than elves.
I've honestly never lost to an elves deck in modern since it won that GP, I think the deck is meh at best and totally overhyped. It's like a far, far worse affinity in terms of its explosiveness and I do not think other coco decks need to be considering elves a serious threat, especially with engineered explosives available in sideboard, and with removal mainboard beyond just 4 path to exile. So while other coco decks are slower, they don't rely on cute elf interactions and overrun effects that are easily disrupted to win, and instead coco becomes a far more potent value engine, letting creature decks come back from otherwise impossible odds. Even better in a deck that could just combo off by getting a knight of the reliquary in on the end step.
I've honestly never lost to an elves deck in modern since it won that GP, I think the deck is meh at best and totally overhyped. It's like a far, far worse affinity in terms of its explosiveness and I do not think other coco decks need to be considering elves a serious threat, especially with engineered explosives available in sideboard, and with removal mainboard beyond just 4 path to exile. So while other coco decks are slower, they don't rely on cute elf interactions and overrun effects that are easily disrupted to win, and instead coco becomes a far more potent value engine, letting creature decks come back from otherwise impossible odds. Even better in a deck that could just combo off by getting a knight of the reliquary in on the end step.
How many times have you played it? Coco/chord toolbox elves has, in my experience, been a ridiculous performer. My match win rate with it at FNMs (with top tier decks) is about 80% in a meta that has another elf player so people're jamming angers and darkblasts and such. Deck is blisteringly fast and includes tons of card advantage and silver bullets (chord for forge tender, chord for dauntless escort.
The problem with these hypothetical Knight coco decks is they can't generate any card advantage except with coco--elf deck generates cards off of close to 10 maindeck cards (and tons of phantom advantage with Ezuri/Entity/Spellskite shutting off lots of removal). 4 visionaries, 2-4 elites, 1 witness in addition to coco.
If you jam value dudes like voice and finks you can beat jund, but you lose to faster aggro decks and combo decks both. If you don't jam value dudes you can't beat either jund or aggro/combo decks
Like the concept! Done any playtesting vs. combo decks and fast linear decks? 4 paths was, in my experience, far too little interaction to hang with twin, infect, affinity, etc.
Once again, jund is an excellent match up for coco creature builds, especially of the zoo variety, the weakness of the deck has always been GOOD nonlinear combo decks, which coralhelm covers quite well. And for context, there has been 2 elf players in my meta since the GP win, until last week when one of them finally got frustrated with losing and switched to boogles. I question if you've actually given this build a chance, as you keep talking about terrible matchups for the deck that are just entirely the opposite of what multiple people here have been saying. We beat jund, we beat jund, we very often beat jund simply because we mainboard coco and they can't keep up. I honestly don't know what to say past this as your experience has been so entirely the opposite of my own, but essentially the reason this combo is great in coco zoo is that it provides an incredible mainboard patch to the decks that it often loses to game 1. It's as simple as that, a great deck that didn't have a maindeck answer to some nonlinear stuff in the format now has that answer. I wish you luck with what you're trying out but I sincerely can't help you with what I've experienced.
I might cut some counters for more creatures, to increase the CoCo hitting two creatures. I've been doing some messing around with a Naya knights before BfZ and didn't get too hampered down by only having 18-22 creatures for CoCo. With enough fetches you can thin the deck significantly to where CoCo always hits two creatures, I think I had 10 fetches in the Naya version since it was attempting to be budget.
I've honestly never lost to an elves deck in modern since it won that GP, I think the deck is meh at best and totally overhyped. It's like a far, far worse affinity in terms of its explosiveness and I do not think other coco decks need to be considering elves a serious threat, especially with engineered explosives available in sideboard, and with removal mainboard beyond just 4 path to exile. So while other coco decks are slower, they don't rely on cute elf interactions and overrun effects that are easily disrupted to win, and instead coco becomes a far more potent value engine, letting creature decks come back from otherwise impossible odds. Even better in a deck that could just combo off by getting a knight of the reliquary in on the end step.
How many times have you played it? Coco/chord toolbox elves has, in my experience, been a ridiculous performer. My match win rate with it at FNMs (with top tier decks) is about 80% in a meta that has another elf player so people're jamming angers and darkblasts and such. Deck is blisteringly fast and includes tons of card advantage and silver bullets (chord for forge tender, chord for dauntless escort.
The problem with these hypothetical Knight coco decks is they can't generate any card advantage except with coco--elf deck generates cards off of close to 10 maindeck cards (and tons of phantom advantage with Ezuri/Entity/Spellskite shutting off lots of removal). 4 visionaries, 2-4 elites, 1 witness in addition to coco.
If you jam value dudes like voice and finks you can beat jund, but you lose to faster aggro decks and combo decks both. If you don't jam value dudes you can't beat either jund or aggro/combo decks
Like the concept! Done any playtesting vs. combo decks and fast linear decks? 4 paths was, in my experience, far too little interaction to hang with twin, infect, affinity, etc.
Your touching on a few of the issues I've found here.
1. Card Advantage, and protection, is limited.
2. Interaction, is super low.
To get around both issues, you need to try and play fast, leaning us toward the Zoo type builds, and away from any hope of a midrange style. It feels like while we have quality cards in the build, if things dont go quite right, we can get overwhelmed and disrupted quite easily.
Many people have done many statistics, and actually statistics not feelings and hunches, about coco and the number of creatures that should be run. The general rule of thumb is never under 25 creatures and generally closer to 27. 18 is way to low to make coco worth playing
Many people have done many statistics, and actually statistics not feelings and hunches, about coco and the number of creatures that should be run. The general rule of thumb is never under 25 creatures and generally closer to 27. 18 is way to low to make coco worth playing
But that's for a CoCo deck trying to always hit multiple choices for the two creatures. I'm using it more of a dig engine to get the Knight Exemplar or Knight of the Reliquary. I know I'm playing a lot less creatures than a usual CoCo deck, but I can't see much a way to keep the interaction I want and to utilize CoCo to it's fullest extent.
I'm not trying to call in to question the statistic you mentioned about CoCo, but do they factor in deck thinning from fetches? I don't want to start a flame war I just want some clarification.
no no! no flame intended! only trying to help build successful decks. But the first answer is yes they take into account deck thinning, which is actually a fairly negligible factor, Coco decks usually run 8 or 9 fetches. The only reason to be playing CoCo is to be hitting 2 creatures at instant speed. With 19 creatures your going to whiff a significant portion of the time. Either grabbing one creature thats not ideal or nothing at all. Sometimes you will hit what you want and sometimes you'll hit 2 things you want but at 19 creatures that # is going to be too low in my books. If you truly are just using it to dig for either an exemplar of a reliquary than just use chord of calling. Also instant speed, has convoke so can be same or cheaper than CoCo and you will always hit what you want.
Many people have done many statistics, and actually statistics not feelings and hunches, about coco and the number of creatures that should be run. The general rule of thumb is never under 25 creatures and generally closer to 27. 18 is way to low to make coco worth playing
This is a very extreme claim. For all who are interested, you can get exact probilites for the three possibile results using a simple Hypergeometric Probability Calculator. For the linked tool, simply set 'population size' to be your deck size (typically 60), 'number of succeses in population' to be the number of creature cards in your deck that can be played off of a CoCo (for example 25), 'sample size' to 6, and 'number of succeses in sample' to be 1. Click 'Calculate'. The tool will populate the 4 fields beneath the input area, the ones you are interested in are P(X<1), P(X=1), and P(X>1). P(X<1) tells you the odds of whiffing with CoCo given your parameters. P(X=1) tells you the odds of revealing exactly 1 playable creature with CoCo. P(X>1) tells you the odds of putting two creatures into play with CoCo.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Been tinkering with Hooglands Kiki version of the deck. I finally got to a list I like. Its so hard to fit stuff, I want a 24th land, a 4th wall and a 4th voice along with more chord bullets but hey, can't have it all. I like that this deck can play a value plan and then just win out of nowhere many different ways.
Even I was not running a chord list I think Woodland Bellower is Absolutely fantastic. With just a mana dork and a retreat you have 6 mana turn 3, which conveniently casts bellows into knight for the turn 4 combo.
The odds of hitting 2 creatures with coco with 18 in your deck is barely better than flipping a coin (59%). That's miserable. Going up to 25 creatures increases your odds to 80% (which is OK). Going to 28 creatures gets your odds up to 87% which is pretty solid
Coco if it hits one creature is a bad magic card (worse than chord of calling period full stop). If it hits two it's very good.
side note: The impact of coco is highly dependent on how many 3 drops are in your deck, too, as you get a much larger tempo swing for 3 drop creatures than 1s and 2s. So it's important to think about your curve in deck building - much like when you build an Aether vial deck you want to clump around 2, with Coco you want to clump around 3.
Casting two 1 drops off of Coco is actually tempo negative which is pretty crappy, but you get to give them pseudo-haste, which is OK at least.
Rogue's Passage has been probably the worst card in my deck. I have never used it. I tried to use it once when I combo'd out but it was unnecessary - 6 or so free taps from fetchlands did the job.
I have missed Sejiri Steppe a few times. It might go back in for Rogue's Passage.
I have many times felt like I wanted a second breeding pool, and so I may cut the canopy vista or a forest for that - if the UG tangos ever come out I might try that one. It's possible that just swapping wooded foothills to misty rainforests would do the job though--more likelihood of being able to get a basic island if needed. Mainly, I have struggled to cast stubborn denial and my blue sideboard spells on occasion, but I think that is possibly sequencing issues too, so I am gonna let the blue ride for now.
The deck in general-- Courser of Kruphix has been average. He's a necessary evil I think, because he's very strong in so many matchups (burn, any kind of midrange, etc.) that are far from easy, and he helps us dig to cards. If I could think of another good way to dig I would - it's too bad Heliod's Pilgrim doesn't hit enchantments but auras. It is entirely possible 1-2 coursers should be Wargates.
Retreat is just amazing in multiples. The number of times I have fogged for free with a fetchland with two retreats out is pretty crazy. I am not sure but I think going up to 4 might be right. No idea what I'd cut for it though.
Hangarback has been very good all in all. Lots of synergy, and his ability to make huge tarmogoyfs with no card disadvantage is pretty insanely good.
Tarmogoyf is absolutely the nuts in this deck. Because of all the card types (ELSPETH!!) he is almost always 6/7 by the time I am swinging with him, and I've had him 8/9 on a hierarch pump before. He's the only non-value creature but man does he do the work of two other cards.
Academy Ruins has been hilariously good. I am tempted to see if I can squeak any other dumb artifacts in here (if I can find any really solid 2-for-1s). Wurmcoil Engine and Solemn Simulacrum are the only two I can think of offhand.
I am very confident this path is the right one for the combo at this point--the only real struggles I've had are not drawing sideboard tech (e.g. vs. Slivers failing to get an EE) and lacking a little velocity if I can't get a courser out. People really hate that guy--gets terminated like nothing else for some reason.
Edit: I lost one round to a 48/48 primordial hydra tonight. That was new.
Thanks for the write up Pokken! I like where your list is at. I keep on going back to heliods pilgram as well to double check that it actually does only say auras ahah, alas it does every time i know how you feel about courser. I play him as a 3-of in my kiki deck. Great when he sticks around but usually doesnt. At least hes soaking up removal for knight and retreat. I would try running 4 retreats and cycle between either -1 courser, -1 spellskite or -1 hangar back to open up that spot. It looks like if its worth running 4 retreats itll probably come from one of those three slots.
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I was looking over at the Knight Primer to see if anyone is doing this, with Rafiq of the Many as my top of the curve card.
I dont know if anyone's playing it though.
Spirits
Way back when, I played around with Rafiq in my Bant brews, and the ultimate reality is that he's just too cute. When he sticks, he does create blowouts, but he never sticks. His 3 toughness (and otherwise lack of durability) just takes him out of serious contention as a curve topper, unfortunately.
CG
But, I think that deck is much stronger as a Tezzerator deck - hangarback taps, so he's pretty good.
One thing I will say, Steel Overseer with Retreat is hilariously strong, so maybe something there
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
The issue every coco deck runs into is they add nothing over elves--every single one is slower than elves, and none of them can afford enough interaction to be slower than elves.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
4 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
3 Plains
1 Breeding Pool
3 Hallowed Fountain
3 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Sejiri Steppe
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
4 Student of Warfare
3 Knight of the White Orchid
2 Mirran Crusader
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
4 Retreat to Coralhelm
How many times have you played it? Coco/chord toolbox elves has, in my experience, been a ridiculous performer. My match win rate with it at FNMs (with top tier decks) is about 80% in a meta that has another elf player so people're jamming angers and darkblasts and such. Deck is blisteringly fast and includes tons of card advantage and silver bullets (chord for forge tender, chord for dauntless escort.
The problem with these hypothetical Knight coco decks is they can't generate any card advantage except with coco--elf deck generates cards off of close to 10 maindeck cards (and tons of phantom advantage with Ezuri/Entity/Spellskite shutting off lots of removal). 4 visionaries, 2-4 elites, 1 witness in addition to coco.
If you jam value dudes like voice and finks you can beat jund, but you lose to faster aggro decks and combo decks both. If you don't jam value dudes you can't beat either jund or aggro/combo decks
Like the concept! Done any playtesting vs. combo decks and fast linear decks? 4 paths was, in my experience, far too little interaction to hang with twin, infect, affinity, etc.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
One might consider Gideon, Pooper of Knights.
One would probably have to reduce the CoCo count to include Æther Vial.
Frenzy-Affinity-Ghost Quarter-Rock-Tokens- RGWPhyrexian Zoo- WVial KnightsStandard:
BW Knights(Rotated)Pioneer: RW Knights - BW Rally Zombies - UW Heroes
Commander:WUG
Jenara, Asura of War- WGSigarda, Host of HeronsCasualties of economicsLegacy: Good-night, sweet prince. Mono-R Burn
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
2 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
4 Hallowed Fountain
5 Plains
2 Sejiri Steppe
3 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Court Hussar
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Student of Warfare
4 Retreat to Coralhelm
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
3 Remand
3 Spell Snare
I might cut some counters for more creatures, to increase the CoCo hitting two creatures. I've been doing some messing around with a Naya knights before BfZ and didn't get too hampered down by only having 18-22 creatures for CoCo. With enough fetches you can thin the deck significantly to where CoCo always hits two creatures, I think I had 10 fetches in the Naya version since it was attempting to be budget.
Like 14 decks
Knightfall WURG
Your touching on a few of the issues I've found here.
1. Card Advantage, and protection, is limited.
2. Interaction, is super low.
To get around both issues, you need to try and play fast, leaning us toward the Zoo type builds, and away from any hope of a midrange style. It feels like while we have quality cards in the build, if things dont go quite right, we can get overwhelmed and disrupted quite easily.
Spirits
My version of the deck would be something like this:
Yolo420 Reliquary stuff
1 Breeding Pool
1 Canopy Vista
4 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
2 Plains
1 Rogue's Passage
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Courser of Kruphix
3 Hangarback Walker
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Spellskite
3 Geist of the Saint Traft
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 scavenging ooze
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Collected Company
4 Retreat to Coralhelm
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dromoka's Command
2 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Ghostly Prison
1 Kor Firewalker
1 Life from the Loam
1 Negate
3 Spell Snare
But that's for a CoCo deck trying to always hit multiple choices for the two creatures. I'm using it more of a dig engine to get the Knight Exemplar or Knight of the Reliquary. I know I'm playing a lot less creatures than a usual CoCo deck, but I can't see much a way to keep the interaction I want and to utilize CoCo to it's fullest extent.
I'm not trying to call in to question the statistic you mentioned about CoCo, but do they factor in deck thinning from fetches? I don't want to start a flame war I just want some clarification.
Like 14 decks
Knightfall WURG
This is a very extreme claim. For all who are interested, you can get exact probilites for the three possibile results using a simple Hypergeometric Probability Calculator. For the linked tool, simply set 'population size' to be your deck size (typically 60), 'number of succeses in population' to be the number of creature cards in your deck that can be played off of a CoCo (for example 25), 'sample size' to 6, and 'number of succeses in sample' to be 1. Click 'Calculate'. The tool will populate the 4 fields beneath the input area, the ones you are interested in are P(X<1), P(X=1), and P(X>1). P(X<1) tells you the odds of whiffing with CoCo given your parameters. P(X=1) tells you the odds of revealing exactly 1 playable creature with CoCo. P(X>1) tells you the odds of putting two creatures into play with CoCo.
- Manite
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Fire-Lit Thicket
2x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Island
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Plains
1x Sejiri Steppe
1x Stomping Ground
2x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Courser of Kruphix
2x Eternal Witness
1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Qasali Pridemage
3x Restoration Angel
3x Voice of Resurgence
3x Wall of Omens
2x Woodland Bellower
Enchantment (4)
4x Retreat to Coralhelm
Instant (5)
3x Chord of Calling
2x Path to Exile
1x Bojuka Bog
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Ghostly Prison
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Meddling Mage
2x Path to Exile
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Spellskite
3x Stony Silence
Even I was not running a chord list I think Woodland Bellower is Absolutely fantastic. With just a mana dork and a retreat you have 6 mana turn 3, which conveniently casts bellows into knight for the turn 4 combo.
Coco if it hits one creature is a bad magic card (worse than chord of calling period full stop). If it hits two it's very good.
side note: The impact of coco is highly dependent on how many 3 drops are in your deck, too, as you get a much larger tempo swing for 3 drop creatures than 1s and 2s. So it's important to think about your curve in deck building - much like when you build an Aether vial deck you want to clump around 2, with Coco you want to clump around 3.
Casting two 1 drops off of Coco is actually tempo negative which is pretty crappy, but you get to give them pseudo-haste, which is OK at least.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
So some decklist commentary--
Manabase
Rogue's Passage has been probably the worst card in my deck. I have never used it. I tried to use it once when I combo'd out but it was unnecessary - 6 or so free taps from fetchlands did the job.
I have missed Sejiri Steppe a few times. It might go back in for Rogue's Passage.
I have many times felt like I wanted a second breeding pool, and so I may cut the canopy vista or a forest for that - if the UG tangos ever come out I might try that one. It's possible that just swapping wooded foothills to misty rainforests would do the job though--more likelihood of being able to get a basic island if needed. Mainly, I have struggled to cast stubborn denial and my blue sideboard spells on occasion, but I think that is possibly sequencing issues too, so I am gonna let the blue ride for now.
The deck in general--
Courser of Kruphix has been average. He's a necessary evil I think, because he's very strong in so many matchups (burn, any kind of midrange, etc.) that are far from easy, and he helps us dig to cards. If I could think of another good way to dig I would - it's too bad Heliod's Pilgrim doesn't hit enchantments but auras. It is entirely possible 1-2 coursers should be Wargates.
Retreat is just amazing in multiples. The number of times I have fogged for free with a fetchland with two retreats out is pretty crazy. I am not sure but I think going up to 4 might be right. No idea what I'd cut for it though.
Hangarback has been very good all in all. Lots of synergy, and his ability to make huge tarmogoyfs with no card disadvantage is pretty insanely good.
Tarmogoyf is absolutely the nuts in this deck. Because of all the card types (ELSPETH!!) he is almost always 6/7 by the time I am swinging with him, and I've had him 8/9 on a hierarch pump before. He's the only non-value creature but man does he do the work of two other cards.
Academy Ruins has been hilariously good. I am tempted to see if I can squeak any other dumb artifacts in here (if I can find any really solid 2-for-1s). Wurmcoil Engine and Solemn Simulacrum are the only two I can think of offhand.
I am very confident this path is the right one for the combo at this point--the only real struggles I've had are not drawing sideboard tech (e.g. vs. Slivers failing to get an EE) and lacking a little velocity if I can't get a courser out. People really hate that guy--gets terminated like nothing else for some reason.
Edit: I lost one round to a 48/48 primordial hydra tonight. That was new.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall