I don't like playing 3 drops that I can't slam on turn 2 after a dork. This card loses very hard to remand and mana leak. It might work out as a 1 of where you are not inclined to jam it into open mana, but running too many will result in lots of bad draws against those cards. I have not tested it though, so I could be off. Not seeing it show up much in lists yet.
I've played the deck for a couple more 4 rounders.
8 total rounds saw affinity win, bant eldrazi win, esper mentor win, grixis loss, abzan coco win, affinity win, affinity loss, 5c btl scapeshift win. It's a strange kind of grindy deck - grinds from one combo try to the next while pressuring the board. Lots of fun to play. More consistent than Coco builds, but less explosive and lower variance.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I'm new to this archetype and had intended to run a Knightfall list at FNM. My copies of Knight, unfortunately, didn't arrive in today's mail. So instead, I decided to play Bant Company with no combo: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/12-08-16-bant-company/
I finished with 3 wins (Junk, Bogles, Jund) and 1 loss (Dredge). The deck felt heavily favored in my fair matchups. Playing a T1 dork, T2 Geist, and T3 Tamiyo was outright broken. I mostly used her -2 and beat down. Flickerwisp was great for removing blockers for clean Geist swings, and even better for shenanigans with Reflector Mage, Eternal Witness, and Vendilion Clique. Aside from my thrashing at the hands of Dredge, the straight value plan for Bant Company felt pretty incredible. I might have to hold off on the combo and focus on tuning this list.
Anyone else running Bant sans combo? Got tips and tricks to share?
I would say that Negate makes a better SB card than Mana leak. I have not played comboless since it was released (I was on bant coco from when coco was printed until Retreat was printed), so I've not really tested Reflector mage / flickerwisp tempo plays. That build look pretty explosive and I'd be happy playing it. One thing I found is that with Coco you are really incentivized to play strong answer creatures in the board so that you can find them more consistently with coco. Stuff like running kataki, war's wage instead of stony silence will drastically increase the number of games you see it in play. Similarily, scavenging ooze over rest in peace would see it in play far more often due to coco. That approach to the SB for the deck really helped when I was comboless.
At least IMO, Eli's list from this weekend (he was on stream), including Eldritch Evolution, did not look as potent as his list in his classic win. Dredge looked like a poor matchup, and some of his play didn't seem great. Dredge is another improved matchup for Knightfall Superfriends as Nahiri, the Harbinger can exile all the creatures that matter while drawing conflagrate fire.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Fair points on maximizing synergy between sideboard and Coco. I might just run both Ooze and RIP, as my LGS now has 3 copies of Dredge running around.
One of my favorite interactions that came up with Flickerwisp and Reflector Mage was playing a Wisp when I had a Mage and another Wisp on board, and the opponent had nothing worth bouncing. You target your own Flickerwisp, EOT target your Mage, and then they will know that at their EOT anything they play is getting bounced. I didn't see any Grixis, but I can only imagine how solid various lines of that sort are against Tasigur/Gurmag.
Do you think running 4 Knights in the main for value and keeping the Retreat to Coralhelms in the SB might be worth considering? From the back-reading I've done, it sounds like the combo is best served as a way to outrace uninteractive/unfair decks. My meta is filled with removal-heavy builds like BGx, Grixis, and Jeskai right now. Maybe siding into the combo against Ad Nauseum, Titan Scapeshift, etc. is better than maindecking it?
I usually sideboard out the retreat against jeskai/jund/grixis/abzan as there isn't a great way to keep a knight in play (especially against abrupt decay) which can reduce the value of retreat too much. If your meta is full of those, it is absolutely a reasonable call against that meta. I like them in the main where I see more linear decks like affinity/burn/infect/dredge etc.
Am I missing something in the round 2 game vs dredge where on turn 2 he casts Tormenting Voice discarding a Golgari Grave-troll, then off of his 1st draw he bring back the Troll to dredge 6, then brings back the Stinkweed Imp off of the 2nd draw. Then he shuffles the cards in his hand a bit and puts a Golgari Grave-troll and Bloodghast back into the graveyard from seemingly nowhere....? Perhaps it's just sleep deprived me missing something?
I watched it carefully, and it does look like Eli's opponent put 2 cards back in the yard from his hand to me as well. That being said, he had another GGT down there in the yard so it didn't have an impact on the game as far as I can see.
Do we just accept at this point that Eli Kassis is a genius who just "gets" Knightfall more than anyone else? I mean at this point he's put up results with about 4-5 different lists (Company, Nahiri, Eldritch Evolution, etc.) while the rest of us struggle to make the deck anything more than mediocre Tier 3 territory... *sigh*
I think he just knows the lines all really well. There are many deep lines involving the knight (setting up a westvale abbey flip at the right time for instance). I personally am quite confident with the deck myself - both the Coco and Nahiri builds are great and have been performing. At least for myself, I'd play the deck at large events if I weren't 20hrs+ driving for anything larger than 75 people.
I think he just knows the lines all really well. There are many deep lines involving the knight (setting up a westvale abbey flip at the right time for instance). I personally am quite confident with the deck myself - both the Coco and Nahiri builds are great and have been performing. At least for myself, I'd play the deck at large events if I weren't 20hrs+ driving for anything larger than 75 people.
I think some copies are reasonable. The upside of having access to bullets, turning a dork into a threat, getting value off of finks/voice, etc makes it worth an inclusion. The card has stolen me games and doesn't feel like a dead draw. I'm trying to work it into the coco shell, I've been trying the list Kassis used and I felt pretty lukewarm on it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: GW GW Hatebears |GWB Counters Company | GWU Bant Knightfall GW Value Town
Legacy: GWB Maverick
EDH: GWR Mayael | Rhys | Sisay | Ezuri | Titania
GWIf it doesn't have a toolbox I don't want anything to do with itGW
Terminate and Path are not 2 for 1s. The opponent doesn't have a chance to target the creature being sacrificed because it's part of the cost, not the effect. Sure, it might be a 2 for 1 if they kill the tutored creature, but often that won't be the case if we play it smartly (e.g. tutor for Ewit is card advantage, or Reveillark, if they path it you get creatures back)
If you get knight, as Kassis said is the most common case in his deck tech, then you pay a bird and eldritch evolution to get knight, which can get path'd or terminated. You lost 2 cards in the case of terminate, or path gave you back the land.
Don't get me wrong, you can build in a way to try and make back the 2 for 1s you are setting yourself up for, but that just brings it back to parity. I said earlier in this thread that I could see one or maybe 2 copies of the card, but trying to build around it just seems to lack acknowledgement of the risk inherent to the card.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
If you're playing into the Terminate/Remand it sounds more like a misplay leading yourself into a blowout than an issue with the card. Either anticipating it and opting to not a safer play, or just walking straight into it. It's never that great of a card vs the grindy decks yeah (which is why I think it should be played along side cards that are good against grind like CoCo), but modern is way more about beating linear decks through narrow hate cards which is where this shines.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: GW GW Hatebears |GWB Counters Company | GWU Bant Knightfall GW Value Town
Legacy: GWB Maverick
EDH: GWR Mayael | Rhys | Sisay | Ezuri | Titania
GWIf it doesn't have a toolbox I don't want anything to do with itGW
Also I'm currently wondering if a black splash would be better than a red splash. I'm worried with how little the deck does against dredge which can be easily fixed by playing Anafenza, the Foremost and you then can play cards like Orzhov Pontiff, Sin Collector, Abrupt Decay, Thoughtseize, etc.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: GW GW Hatebears |GWB Counters Company | GWU Bant Knightfall GW Value Town
Legacy: GWB Maverick
EDH: GWR Mayael | Rhys | Sisay | Ezuri | Titania
GWIf it doesn't have a toolbox I don't want anything to do with itGW
Also I'm currently wondering if a black splash would be better than a red splash. I'm worried with how little the deck does against dredge which can be easily fixed by playing Anafenza, the Foremost and you then can play cards like Orzhov Pontiff, Sin Collector, Abrupt Decay, Thoughtseize, etc.
But at that point you just play Kiki Chord or Abzan Company, no?
As you see it's basically the Bant Spirits deck that's been floating around the Internet since ENM came out... with Knight of the Reliquary and Retreat to Coralhelm haphazardly crammed into the deck.
The idea is that the Spirit tribal plan is powerful on its own and synergizes well with Noble Hierarch, which is a key card for Knightfall lists. Not only this but the spirits actually do an excellent job of protecting Knight: Mausoleum Wanderer can counter everything but Abrupt Decay and Supreme Verdict. Kira makes it very difficult to remove Knight with targeted removal. Selfless Spirit can take a removal spell or block a sweeper. Spell Queller can counter virtually everything that would remove Knight.
So suddenly the Knight plan is a lot less fragile, and it's only a plan B to a powerful plan A of beating down with Spirit tribal synergies. Even without Retreat, Knight is just a hard-to-kill roadblock for ground creatures while the Spirits can beat down in the air.
Retreat itself can be rather awful without Knight, but it does have the ability to tap down blockers or attackers to win a race, so it isn't a completely dead card.
Testing is very preliminary on this list, but it has felt powerful thus far. The deck is very disruptive. Mausoleum Wanderer, Spell Queller, Selfless Spirit and Kira are a nightmare for control and combo decks. I could see Jund being a difficult matchup, because Jund is Jund and Abrupt Decay is hard to counter, but even that matchup is likely 45-55 or so.
There's certainly room for improvement here, both in the mainboard and the sideboard, but I'd love to know your thoughts.
I've played the deck for a couple more 4 rounders.
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
1 Gideon Jura
2 Oath of Nissa
2 Path to Exile
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Dromoka's Command
3 Retreat to Coralhelm
4 Windswept Heath
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Westvale Abbey
1 Grafdigger's cage
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Dispel
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Wear // Tear
1 Dromoka's Command
1 Stony Silence
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Creeping Corrosion
2 Crumble to Dust
8 total rounds saw affinity win, bant eldrazi win, esper mentor win, grixis loss, abzan coco win, affinity win, affinity loss, 5c btl scapeshift win. It's a strange kind of grindy deck - grinds from one combo try to the next while pressuring the board. Lots of fun to play. More consistent than Coco builds, but less explosive and lower variance.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I finished with 3 wins (Junk, Bogles, Jund) and 1 loss (Dredge). The deck felt heavily favored in my fair matchups. Playing a T1 dork, T2 Geist, and T3 Tamiyo was outright broken. I mostly used her -2 and beat down. Flickerwisp was great for removing blockers for clean Geist swings, and even better for shenanigans with Reflector Mage, Eternal Witness, and Vendilion Clique. Aside from my thrashing at the hands of Dredge, the straight value plan for Bant Company felt pretty incredible. I might have to hold off on the combo and focus on tuning this list.
Anyone else running Bant sans combo? Got tips and tricks to share?
At least IMO, Eli's list from this weekend (he was on stream), including Eldritch Evolution, did not look as potent as his list in his classic win. Dredge looked like a poor matchup, and some of his play didn't seem great. Dredge is another improved matchup for Knightfall Superfriends as Nahiri, the Harbinger can exile all the creatures that matter while drawing conflagrate fire.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
One of my favorite interactions that came up with Flickerwisp and Reflector Mage was playing a Wisp when I had a Mage and another Wisp on board, and the opponent had nothing worth bouncing. You target your own Flickerwisp, EOT target your Mage, and then they will know that at their EOT anything they play is getting bounced. I didn't see any Grixis, but I can only imagine how solid various lines of that sort are against Tasigur/Gurmag.
Do you think running 4 Knights in the main for value and keeping the Retreat to Coralhelms in the SB might be worth considering? From the back-reading I've done, it sounds like the combo is best served as a way to outrace uninteractive/unfair decks. My meta is filled with removal-heavy builds like BGx, Grixis, and Jeskai right now. Maybe siding into the combo against Ad Nauseum, Titan Scapeshift, etc. is better than maindecking it?
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/bant_retreat_with_eli_kassis.html
Much better version than other past versions
Round 2 (vs Dredge):
https://www.twitch.tv/scglive/v/83380672?t=1h13m
Round 10b (vs Jeskai Nahiri):
https://www.twitch.tv/scglive/v/83567546?t=34m30s
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Do we just accept at this point that Eli Kassis is a genius who just "gets" Knightfall more than anyone else? I mean at this point he's put up results with about 4-5 different lists (Company, Nahiri, Eldritch Evolution, etc.) while the rest of us struggle to make the deck anything more than mediocre Tier 3 territory... *sigh*
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
Edit: His eldritch evolution version looks like a step backwards to me, but then I just think that Eldritch evolution is very poorly positioned considering remand and mana leak are cards. Even just terminate or path to exile turn your eldritch evolution into a 2 for 1.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I think some copies are reasonable. The upside of having access to bullets, turning a dork into a threat, getting value off of finks/voice, etc makes it worth an inclusion. The card has stolen me games and doesn't feel like a dead draw. I'm trying to work it into the coco shell, I've been trying the list Kassis used and I felt pretty lukewarm on it.
GW GW Hatebears |GWB Counters Company | GWU Bant Knightfall GW Value Town
Legacy:
GWB Maverick
EDH:
GWR Mayael | Rhys | Sisay | Ezuri | Titania
GWIf it doesn't have a toolbox I don't want anything to do with itGW
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
Don't get me wrong, you can build in a way to try and make back the 2 for 1s you are setting yourself up for, but that just brings it back to parity. I said earlier in this thread that I could see one or maybe 2 copies of the card, but trying to build around it just seems to lack acknowledgement of the risk inherent to the card.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
GW GW Hatebears |GWB Counters Company | GWU Bant Knightfall GW Value Town
Legacy:
GWB Maverick
EDH:
GWR Mayael | Rhys | Sisay | Ezuri | Titania
GWIf it doesn't have a toolbox I don't want anything to do with itGW
GW GW Hatebears |GWB Counters Company | GWU Bant Knightfall GW Value Town
Legacy:
GWB Maverick
EDH:
GWR Mayael | Rhys | Sisay | Ezuri | Titania
GWIf it doesn't have a toolbox I don't want anything to do with itGW
But at that point you just play Kiki Chord or Abzan Company, no?
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
So recently I had a stroke of genius, or perhaps of madness. It resulted in this:
2 Birds of Paradise
3 Drogskol Captain
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Selfless Spirit
3 Rattlechains
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
2 Spell Queller
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Collected Company
3 Retreat to Coralhelm
4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Temple Garden
1 Forest
2 Plains
1 Island
1 Gavony Township
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Path to Exile
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Kor Firewalker
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
As you see it's basically the Bant Spirits deck that's been floating around the Internet since ENM came out... with Knight of the Reliquary and Retreat to Coralhelm haphazardly crammed into the deck.
The idea is that the Spirit tribal plan is powerful on its own and synergizes well with Noble Hierarch, which is a key card for Knightfall lists. Not only this but the spirits actually do an excellent job of protecting Knight: Mausoleum Wanderer can counter everything but Abrupt Decay and Supreme Verdict. Kira makes it very difficult to remove Knight with targeted removal. Selfless Spirit can take a removal spell or block a sweeper. Spell Queller can counter virtually everything that would remove Knight.
So suddenly the Knight plan is a lot less fragile, and it's only a plan B to a powerful plan A of beating down with Spirit tribal synergies. Even without Retreat, Knight is just a hard-to-kill roadblock for ground creatures while the Spirits can beat down in the air.
Retreat itself can be rather awful without Knight, but it does have the ability to tap down blockers or attackers to win a race, so it isn't a completely dead card.
Testing is very preliminary on this list, but it has felt powerful thus far. The deck is very disruptive. Mausoleum Wanderer, Spell Queller, Selfless Spirit and Kira are a nightmare for control and combo decks. I could see Jund being a difficult matchup, because Jund is Jund and Abrupt Decay is hard to counter, but even that matchup is likely 45-55 or so.
There's certainly room for improvement here, both in the mainboard and the sideboard, but I'd love to know your thoughts.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB