I don't know how valuable 3-0s are but I've been winning with this list week after week so here it is:
Creatures:
Noble Hierarch x 4
Birds of Paradise x 4
Knight of the Reliquary x 4
Spell Queller x 4
Tireless Tracker x 3
Voice of Resurgence x 3
Selfless Spirit x 2
Spellskite x 1
Scavenging Ooze x 2
Qasali Pridemage x 2
Spells:
Path to Exile x 4
Collected Company x 4
Retreat to Coralhelm x 2
Lands:
Windswept Heath x 4
Misty Rainforest x 4
Flooded Strand x 2
Breeding Pool x 2
Temple Garden x 1
Sacred Foundry x 1
Horizon Canopy x 1
Gavony Township x 1
Kessig Wolf Run x 1
Ghost Quarter x 1
Plains x 1
Forest x 3
Sideboard:
Reflector mage x 2
Kitchen Finks x 2
Izzet Staticaster x 1
Vendilion Clique x 1
Gaddock Teeg x 1
Eldritch evolution x 1
Blessed Alliance x 1
Unified Will x 2
Negate x 2
Worship x 2
This deck and all it's Variants is FUQN awesome lol.
Am I reading it wrong or do you play 61 cards? If so why? Either way, my list is pretty similar and I agree, the deck feels great. Spellskite is underrated IMO. Sure it's bad against Kolaghan's command but really great at protecting our must-kill threats.
I have some basic questions for the combo lists. How many creatures should we have post board for optimal collected company hits? 26? Are we taking retreats out vs affinity and burn? I know burn will probably bring in revelry's so i could see cutting them there. I assume most lists are playing 28 creatures so i'm finding it hard to sideboard without taking the retreats out. Specifically against things like affinity where i'm bringing in 10 cards. 5 of them are creatures but my creature count falls to 24
You ONLY leave retreat in against hard to interact with combo decks (IE ad nauseam, tron, sometimes elves, etc). Thereby, you definitely cut retreat against burn and affinity.
The basic idea of retreat is that it enables you to get "lucky." Essentially, knightfall is a tempo, midrange deck. So, when we draw "bad" cards (like scavenging ooze vs tron), we can lose tempo. The combo let's us win even when we have lost tempo. However, post-board it should be cut as the greatest loss of tempo is drawing retreat without knight. Post-board, we side out the "bad" cards for good ones. We should only have live draws. The thing is, decks like tron are hard to interact with even post-board. In those matchups, the combo stays in.
As to creature count, the more the better. Rarely can you whiff on company and still win. Also, we're running 7-8 mana dorks which usually aren't "real" huts. That said, the lowest I'm willing to ever go is 24.
Well the deck is now a T1 deck on MTG Salvation thanks to all the good results lately. That being said, there's like 12 decks in the T1 so that doesn't say much on our deck but it means Modern is very healthy. One thing I love is that our deck is going so Wide in game 1.
Ktken left and he was our data guy. Were still figuring our new cut offs without him. If I went by what I think "probably is" tier 1, theres only 3 decks that fit that %.
Basically, where our cut offs are, how long we track data, and where do we get that data... were gunna be working on that for a while.
These are still great visuals that I would highly recommend y'all save. With that said, I will only play CoCo if I have at least 27 creatures in my deck. I'm definitely on the conservative side of this question.
Edit: The third picture has a creature curve of 9 one-drops, 10 two-drops, and 8 three-drops. Our mana advantage would actually be higher, but its in the ballpark and would require coding to fix.
I have some basic questions for the combo lists. How many creatures should we have post board for optimal collected company hits? 26? Are we taking retreats out vs affinity and burn? I know burn will probably bring in revelry's so i could see cutting them there. I assume most lists are playing 28 creatures so i'm finding it hard to sideboard without taking the retreats out. Specifically against things like affinity where i'm bringing in 10 cards. 5 of them are creatures but my creature count falls to 24
You ONLY leave retreat in against hard to interact with combo decks (IE ad nauseam, tron, sometimes elves, etc). Thereby, you definitely cut retreat against burn and affinity.
The basic idea of retreat is that it enables you to get "lucky." Essentially, knightfall is a tempo, midrange deck. So, when we draw "bad" cards (like scavenging ooze vs tron), we can lose tempo. The combo let's us win even when we have lost tempo. However, post-board it should be cut as the greatest loss of tempo is drawing retreat without knight. Post-board, we side out the "bad" cards for good ones. We should only have live draws. The thing is, decks like tron are hard to interact with even post-board. In those matchups, the combo stays in.
As to creature count, the more the better. Rarely can you whiff on company and still win. Also, we're running 7-8 mana dorks which usually aren't "real" huts. That said, the lowest I'm willing to ever go is 24.
Thanks for the reply, it helps a lot and makes a lot of sense!
These are still great visuals that I would highly recommend y'all save. With that said, I will only play CoCo if I have at least 27 creatures in my deck. I'm definitely on the conservative side of this question.
Edit: The third picture has a creature curve of 9 one-drops, 10 two-drops, and 8 three-drops. Our mana advantage would actually be higher, but its in the ballpark and would require coding to fix.
These are great charts! Thank you for posting them.
@CalebCalhoun Graphics 2 and 3 are okay, but I feel like graphic 1 is being quoted and misused everywhere. I think I should clarify this topic.
If you check that graphic, you see no maximum, probability grows all the time. And that makes sense, if your deck is 4 coco and 56 hits your companies are going to be great! but that's not what we want: we are searching for the number of hits that yields the best result without going overkill - and that can't be told just by looking at that picture.
Now look at this one. In blue it's the probability of exactly 2 hits, in orange the probability of 2 or more hits (which is what's represented in figure 1). Here we can see that 20 is the most optimal number of hits in a 60 card deck. This tells us that our deck should consist of, at least, 20 real hits. Birds and hierarchs, as everyone has already said, are not really what you want to see. Since we usually play x7 1cmc dorks, 27 is the optimal number of creatures for the deck.
The basic idea of retreat is that it enables you to get "lucky." Essentially, knightfall is a tempo, midrange deck. So, when we draw "bad" cards (like scavenging ooze vs tron), we can lose tempo. The combo let's us win even when we have lost tempo. However, post-board it should be cut as the greatest loss of tempo is drawing retreat without knight. Post-board, we side out the "bad" cards for good ones. We should only have live draws. The thing is, decks like tron are hard to interact with even post-board. In those matchups, the combo stays in.
This is really well explained and should be in the primer.
In all honesty, the biggest reason as to why I'm playing 61 cards is that I don't know what I want to take out lol. But alongside this is that there's virtually no noticeable difference among a large sample size of games for that extra card to matter. I'd argue even further, based on this knowledge, that there's greater impact for that extra card across many match-ups because you're playing Knight of the Reliquary and Collected Company. Being able to get to that Spellskite or whatever you're playing (or simply having it as an out in your deck) against many decks is just monumental. I've never felt the addition of that extra card to negatively impact the consistency of the deck, thereby validating my reasoning for playing 61 cards.
This whisperwood idea is amazing, i tested it a bit and it's just great. You nailed it that it's basically the planes walker spot, but it ups our clock so hard, just a great card. Thank you for this idea.
Whisperwood is good but in my recent games I've noticed a serious antisynergy with our deck. When you manifest cards like queller, reflector mage or eternal witness, the ETB trigger is missed. Even considering that, it has won me lots of games so I'm confused. I will continue testing it.
I'm 6-0 in rated xmage matches (I don't have MTGO) vs Death Shadow jund (2-1) abzan midrange (2-0) merfolk (2-1) bant eldrazi (2-0) jeskai flash (2-1) 4c saheeli (2-1). It would be nice to have this kind of streaks in IRL magic
Has anyone in here streamed with their deck/have videos piloting it? I feel like most videos out there are ppl just streaming it to show the deck that are not that well versed in it. Would be helpful to see somebody from in here who really knows it piloting just to see what lines you take etc. I believe it helps all of us to learn from each other this way. I don't have MTGO unfortunately, but I feel like I'm still not good enough to stream anyways....
Has anyone in here streamed with their deck/have videos piloting it? I feel like most videos out there are ppl just streaming it to show the deck that are not that well versed in it. Would be helpful to see somebody from in here who really knows it piloting just to see what lines you take etc. I believe it helps all of us to learn from each other this way. I don't have MTGO unfortunately, but I feel like I'm still not good enough to stream anyways....
I asked Kelvin Chew about streaming with knightfall and he told me that he had no plans for doing so. I agree that there are not that many good videos out there for learning this deck. And about MTGO, just use xmage. Its not as relevant as MTGO competitive leagues but it's not too bad either. And it's free!
I've thought about making some videos but they would be in Spanish with English subtitles (my pronunciation is really bad). It might be a fun project for my summer. I love watching MTG videos so if anyone here in the thread wants to make some content, I'll watch it for sure
Yeah I think some of the people who drop by in here every once and while do really well online, it would be amazing to watch skuttlespike on a stream for example, lot's of 5-0 finishes.
Yeah, everyone i've seen stream the deck miss subtle lines of play. The deck is far more complex than it seems. I'd love it if one of you mtgo players did some videos!!
my recent finishes have been with lots of random cards for testing. Lotus cobra will be staying, most of the other things like vizier are just too cute and will stay for my LGS games.
I stream (not as much as i would like) over at https://www.twitch.tv/jetpack_blues
I've had 4x 5-0 finishes in the last 2 weeks. I put alot of time into familiarising myself with the deck. Although ive always played tricky creature decks, Dnt, elves and maverick in legacy and made my name in paper magic playing DNT in modern.
IF i get chance this week ill throw up some video content on twitch.
Anyone have any requests for cards to be tested? If you give me a good enough reason ill buy them on mtgo and test on stream for people.
I read this forum for a while and I thought it was time to give my contribution. I have been playing Knightfall for 2 months online and paper. I love the deck.
I had a 5-0 result few weeks ago, the list can be found on mtgtop8:
Lantern Control: Win 2-1. lost G1 then won G2 thanks to an early stony silence and G3 with the 0/1 dorks...best cards for this match-up!
Burn: Win 2-1. i dont like playing Burn, we are not favored but here I managed to win G1 on the play with a turn 2 courser and G3 my opponent mana-flooded.
Death Shadow Jund. Win 2-0. I LOVE versing any kind of death shadow decks...I feel like knightfall his really favored in that match-up and that probably explains why the deck has been performing good recently. they have issues against decks that swarm the board like we do. Discard spells are not a big deal because we have many creature/spells that cause them issues, we grind really well then its just a matter of playing creatures like voice/finks/scooze/knight to stabilize and finish them off in the air with queller or a kessig kill. CoCo is stellar as usual. Just beware of temur battle rage if playing the Jund version.
Storm. Win 2-1. Storm on the other hand.....disgusting match-up IMO, they are so consistent at killing you turn 4/5. Scooze is good but often dies before doing anything, queller/counters on their key spells is good too but they easily play around that with remands/bolts for queller...really hard. Here i honestly dont know what happened. My opponent comboed G1, then G2 and 3 was unable to find some of his combo pieces before i won. This is really rare but i happily took that win! I have a really bad record of losses against storm so if you guys have any tips for the match-up, please share!
Jund. Win 2-1. I enjoy playing midrange decks, it's always a close match-up that reward skills. Once again, Knightfall is really good at grinding so i think we are slightly favored but it ain't easy. I won G1 with a good hand on the play, turn 2 Kotr turn 3 CoCo. G3 was a really close game where i killed him just on time with a Queller pumped by gavony township.
Since that league i have made the following changes to the deck:
- 1 selfless spirit
+ 1 bird of paradise
I think that we do so much better when we have a turn 1 dork...it's worth going up to 8 and risking a dork flooding once in a while. It is hard to cut something for it because all the creatures in the deck serve a purpose but i think selfless spirit as a one-of is fine.
In the Sideboard:
- 1 blessed alliance
+ 1 tireless tracker
I haven't needed blessed allaince much. against burn i side in 4 counters and 2 finks now. against death shadow i win without it thanks to 2 reflector mages/2 finks/1 bog. Only place where it was good was affinity for etched champion but I already have 2 reflector mage/2 izzet staticaster and 1 stony silence for that match-up so I am fine. Tireless tracker is an awesome card and I felt sad only having one copy in the 75. it comes in against any midrange/bant eldrazi and of course control decks.
I have been copying the manabase with the 1 botanical sanctum but can someone explain why we are not running the second flooded strand instead? 10 fecthes seem great for Kotr and trackers. kotr as a 4/4 on turn 2 or 3 is so important sometimes.
Thanks guys and let's continue the good work of representing that awesome Knightfall
Yeah man congrats on all your success...I think cards I want to see tried are new nissa (I know you run one), whisperwood elemental (I've been testing this for midrange and control matches), and seeing eldritch evolution in action more. Honestly though it'll be cool to just see how you pilot. Do you have a schedule for streaming?
I'm a recent convert to Knightfall, and I'm wondering what people are doing about go-wide tribal decks like Merfolk and Elves. I've had some trouble with those matchups because their threats are either pumped (via Ezuri) or evasive. Any advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated?
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Am I reading it wrong or do you play 61 cards? If so why? Either way, my list is pretty similar and I agree, the deck feels great. Spellskite is underrated IMO. Sure it's bad against Kolaghan's command but really great at protecting our must-kill threats.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
The basic idea of retreat is that it enables you to get "lucky." Essentially, knightfall is a tempo, midrange deck. So, when we draw "bad" cards (like scavenging ooze vs tron), we can lose tempo. The combo let's us win even when we have lost tempo. However, post-board it should be cut as the greatest loss of tempo is drawing retreat without knight. Post-board, we side out the "bad" cards for good ones. We should only have live draws. The thing is, decks like tron are hard to interact with even post-board. In those matchups, the combo stays in.
As to creature count, the more the better. Rarely can you whiff on company and still win. Also, we're running 7-8 mana dorks which usually aren't "real" huts. That said, the lowest I'm willing to ever go is 24.
Basically, where our cut offs are, how long we track data, and where do we get that data... were gunna be working on that for a while.
Edit: The third picture has a creature curve of 9 one-drops, 10 two-drops, and 8 three-drops. Our mana advantage would actually be higher, but its in the ballpark and would require coding to fix.
Thanks for the reply, it helps a lot and makes a lot of sense!
These are great charts! Thank you for posting them.
This tells us that our deck should consist of, at least, 20 real hits. Birds and hierarchs, as everyone has already said, are not really what you want to see. Since we usually play x7 1cmc dorks, 27 is the optimal number of creatures for the deck.
This is really well explained and should be in the primer.
L: Maverick
In all honesty, the biggest reason as to why I'm playing 61 cards is that I don't know what I want to take out lol. But alongside this is that there's virtually no noticeable difference among a large sample size of games for that extra card to matter. I'd argue even further, based on this knowledge, that there's greater impact for that extra card across many match-ups because you're playing Knight of the Reliquary and Collected Company. Being able to get to that Spellskite or whatever you're playing (or simply having it as an out in your deck) against many decks is just monumental. I've never felt the addition of that extra card to negatively impact the consistency of the deck, thereby validating my reasoning for playing 61 cards.
I'm 6-0 in rated xmage matches (I don't have MTGO) vs Death Shadow jund (2-1) abzan midrange (2-0) merfolk (2-1) bant eldrazi (2-0) jeskai flash (2-1) 4c saheeli (2-1). It would be nice to have this kind of streaks in IRL magic
L: Maverick
Same that I posted earlier
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
1 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
//Instants
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
//Creatures
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Courser of Kruphix
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
1 Tireless Tracker
3 Voice of Resurgence
1 Eternal Witness
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Negate
2 Unified Will
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Reflector Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Eldritch Evolution
1 Whisperwood Elemental
L: Maverick
I asked Kelvin Chew about streaming with knightfall and he told me that he had no plans for doing so. I agree that there are not that many good videos out there for learning this deck. And about MTGO, just use xmage. Its not as relevant as MTGO competitive leagues but it's not too bad either. And it's free!
I've thought about making some videos but they would be in Spanish with English subtitles (my pronunciation is really bad). It might be a fun project for my summer. I love watching MTG videos so if anyone here in the thread wants to make some content, I'll watch it for sure
L: Maverick
my recent finishes have been with lots of random cards for testing. Lotus cobra will be staying, most of the other things like vizier are just too cute and will stay for my LGS games.
I stream (not as much as i would like) over at https://www.twitch.tv/jetpack_blues
I've had 4x 5-0 finishes in the last 2 weeks. I put alot of time into familiarising myself with the deck. Although ive always played tricky creature decks, Dnt, elves and maverick in legacy and made my name in paper magic playing DNT in modern.
IF i get chance this week ill throw up some video content on twitch.
Anyone have any requests for cards to be tested? If you give me a good enough reason ill buy them on mtgo and test on stream for people.
I read this forum for a while and I thought it was time to give my contribution. I have been playing Knightfall for 2 months online and paper. I love the deck.
I had a 5-0 result few weeks ago, the list can be found on mtgtop8:
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15256&d=292679&f=MO
In that league i had the following matches:
Lantern Control: Win 2-1. lost G1 then won G2 thanks to an early stony silence and G3 with the 0/1 dorks...best cards for this match-up!
Burn: Win 2-1. i dont like playing Burn, we are not favored but here I managed to win G1 on the play with a turn 2 courser and G3 my opponent mana-flooded.
Death Shadow Jund. Win 2-0. I LOVE versing any kind of death shadow decks...I feel like knightfall his really favored in that match-up and that probably explains why the deck has been performing good recently. they have issues against decks that swarm the board like we do. Discard spells are not a big deal because we have many creature/spells that cause them issues, we grind really well then its just a matter of playing creatures like voice/finks/scooze/knight to stabilize and finish them off in the air with queller or a kessig kill. CoCo is stellar as usual. Just beware of temur battle rage if playing the Jund version.
Storm. Win 2-1. Storm on the other hand.....disgusting match-up IMO, they are so consistent at killing you turn 4/5. Scooze is good but often dies before doing anything, queller/counters on their key spells is good too but they easily play around that with remands/bolts for queller...really hard. Here i honestly dont know what happened. My opponent comboed G1, then G2 and 3 was unable to find some of his combo pieces before i won. This is really rare but i happily took that win! I have a really bad record of losses against storm so if you guys have any tips for the match-up, please share!
Jund. Win 2-1. I enjoy playing midrange decks, it's always a close match-up that reward skills. Once again, Knightfall is really good at grinding so i think we are slightly favored but it ain't easy. I won G1 with a good hand on the play, turn 2 Kotr turn 3 CoCo. G3 was a really close game where i killed him just on time with a Queller pumped by gavony township.
Since that league i have made the following changes to the deck:
- 1 selfless spirit
+ 1 bird of paradise
I think that we do so much better when we have a turn 1 dork...it's worth going up to 8 and risking a dork flooding once in a while. It is hard to cut something for it because all the creatures in the deck serve a purpose but i think selfless spirit as a one-of is fine.
In the Sideboard:
- 1 blessed alliance
+ 1 tireless tracker
I haven't needed blessed allaince much. against burn i side in 4 counters and 2 finks now. against death shadow i win without it thanks to 2 reflector mages/2 finks/1 bog. Only place where it was good was affinity for etched champion but I already have 2 reflector mage/2 izzet staticaster and 1 stony silence for that match-up so I am fine. Tireless tracker is an awesome card and I felt sad only having one copy in the 75. it comes in against any midrange/bant eldrazi and of course control decks.
I have been copying the manabase with the 1 botanical sanctum but can someone explain why we are not running the second flooded strand instead? 10 fecthes seem great for Kotr and trackers. kotr as a 4/4 on turn 2 or 3 is so important sometimes.
Thanks guys and let's continue the good work of representing that awesome Knightfall
I'm a recent convert to Knightfall, and I'm wondering what people are doing about go-wide tribal decks like Merfolk and Elves. I've had some trouble with those matchups because their threats are either pumped (via Ezuri) or evasive. Any advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated?