Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I personally craze stuff like this TNDS, I'm a huge +1 on this and I'll check it out for sure. Will you archive videos? I'm not always sure I can watch live, but I'll be following for sure.
Also.....You guys talked a lot about teeg and eidolon, great discussion---any love for little thalia? I personally like her a lot and she's better in combat (first strike is underrated) and fills the same sort of role as the others, but obviously not as much of a lock piece. She has played well vs shadow decks, storm, mill, burn, control for me and seems more versatile in general than teeg and EoR.
I know i would want some amount of those three cards in my board as hate creatures, i suppose that meddling mage is also a consideration.
Hey everybody. I mostly just lurk here to try and get ideas, but I went 4-2 in a PPTQ today and barely squeaked out a 16th place out of about 50 players. Here is the list I was running:
It is generally a pretty stock list except for a couple of notable cards. My big question is: do we really need to be playing Retreat to Coralhelm? When I first started playing the deck, I played 2 like normal. Eventually, I just realized that I wasn't comboing with it nearly enough. I was sideing it out in almost every matchup except where the combo potential can steal a game from faster decks or you need to untap a staticaster with it. I eventually went down to one in favor of an extra grindy card like Tireless Tracker or something. For this tournament, I decided to swap out the last Retreat with Whisperwood Elemental, and I don't think I missed it one bit. Whisperwood may not be the right card to fill the slot, but I never felt like I needed a Retreat. The second more odd card choice is the Elspeth in the board. I have been playing her for quite a while and I love her in the grindy games. I would like to try other cards in that slot, perhaps Elspeth, Knight-Errant, but I don't want to spend the money on her just to test her out when she may or may not be good. Any thoughts on the ideas I have raised? And also, if you're wondering why I don't run Horizon Canopy or I split my Fetches so awkwardly, the answer is money. I don't have a Canopy or 4 Misty's and I am not going to spend a lot to marginally improve the mana base.
For the games:
Round one- Paired against Bant ELdrazi, and if you actually want to, you can watch the stream of me playing in the feature match here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/164662393 The first game kinda showed off the power of the Whisperwood Elemental, but I might have won that game regardless. Game two, I had no business winning. I was stuck on mana and couldn't play anything in my hand except for a path until about turn 5 or 6. Fortunately, he had a very slow hand and once I found the mana, the ball started rolling. In the last turn, I also figured he had a Blessed Alliance against my Scooze and Voice so I also attacked with a Bird. He was not happy after that.
Round two and three- I got paired up against burn both rounds and got steamrolled in both matches. Scavenging Ooze is really not that great in this matchup if you aren't trading your creatures to put them in the graveyard.
Round 4- I got paired against some weird mono-blue illusions tribal deck. Let's just say it was really bad and I beat him pretty easily.
Round 5- I got paired against Saffron Olive's mono-black vehicles deck, which you can probably look up somewhere. He didn't seem very experienced in playing against Kessig Wolf Run as I was able to "get him" both games with it. Game one, he could have soaked up enough damage to survive and kill me on the crackback, but he only put one toughness to chump block my knight and activated Kessig for lethal.
Round 6- Paired against Dredge. Game one, I had no business winning. He got off to a blistering fast start and only through 2 Coursers and a Knight gaining me a bunch of life was I able to win at one life in the end. He could have easily won this game but he Conflagrated after block killing both my Coursers and doming me for three when he could have also finished off my Knight. Game two, lost pretty quickly by keeping a shoddy hand and I didn't get there. Game three, he had a bad hand and my Scooze was able to take him off of his graveyard so he had to play stinkweed imps to try and block.
Overall, I don't know how much I would change from the deck. There was a ton of affinity, GBx Midrange, and other good matchups but I didn't get paired against them to get good feedback. Mostly my wins were due to my opponents punting or just playing bad decks in general. As the previous discussions here have suggested, Courser is really good and I don't know why I ever took her out for a while. The other card I don't like is Eidolon of Rhetoric. The only time she is a slam-dunk is against storm and that's only if you have her in your opening hand. I hardly ever bring her in and this spot might just be better spent on something else. Teeg and Thalia have been mentioned, which I like but I am unsure of. I like the deck, but I have been running poorly this past 2 months or so that it's really put me off and I'm trying to find other good CoCo decks that aren't Elves (which I have) and Counters Company (which I also have). I am going to try Bant Spirits (just ordered the cards) and I only need a few cards to put together Todd Stevens' GW Value-Town. Always open to discussion.
@thetechzombie Your games in Round 1 were actually really good lol. Just a block of text before anything relevant discussed:
Game 1 why weren't you attacking with both Qasali Pridemage and Courser after he attacked with Reality Smasher in game 1? It's not like you're going to block, and if it was a hedge towards double Reality Smasher, taking 10 life is much better than losing 2 creatures. It may have put himself in a position to judge wrongly and block with a Noble Hierarch, and potentially trade with a flyer, which is huge. Also, why didn't you play Collected Company on your turn? It paid off because your opponent didn't play his Reality Smasher and Skyspawner, probably because he didn't know that because you cast CoCo into Reflector Mage on his turn, once your following turn is over, he can cast his bounced creatures. He straight up lost at that point not playing his Reality Smasher and Spawner because he didn't play them after your tapped out for Whisperwood knowing full well your hand is a bunch of Quellers.
Game 2 was just great actually lol. The actual turning point where it was just impossible for the Bant Eldrazi player to win was not playing Thought-Knot Seer on turn 3.I was like yelling at the screen "WTF DUDE YOU'RE GONNA LOSE THE GAME WHY DID YOU NOT PLAY TKS" lol xD. Like straight up it lost him the game lol; I watched the game like 3 times to figure out if he could win because after the game he had an interesting conversation with his friend lol. I just spent a little under an hour scrutinizing EVERY SINGLE DAMN DECISION AND MISTAKE (there were a lot) after he didn't play the TKS on T3 WHILE explaining my thoughts about it in this post (I deleted it all because I realized it was a waste of time). Believe me when I say he straight up lost the game because of that and not your top deck Path to Exile lol (it bothers me so much when people talk about losing to TOP DECKS... a lot of the time you lose to top decks because the sequence of decisions way down the line are what put you in the position to losing to that specific top deck--I can attest to that because I just foolishly spent the last hour trying to see if there was ANY possible way he could have won after not playing TKS on t3, AND THEN deciding to play Spawner instead of TKS AGAIN). I actually feel so tilted because I went through every permutation every turn lol FUQQQ. Anyways, YOU GO THERE, WOOO!
NOW, onto important stuff lol.
I think the combo is actually a personal preference at this point lol. So much of the time, ANYONE playing the deck is probably winning through fair grinding and disruption and rarely are you winning through the combo. Especially right now, playing retreat feels so bad when your Knight of the Reliquary dies, and if the Knight lives, she's so powerful that unless your opponent is playing an unfair deck, it will win the game on it's own. The interaction between Knight and Retreat is so damn powerful but it's really unreliable in this particular meta--why not just have an already reliable strategy without putting yourself in a poor situation that has Retreat which does virtually nothing? This discussion could go on and on but the one thing that EVERYONE can agree with is that playing Retreat is a choice and not mandatory; the deck is tempo/aggressive/disruptive midrange deck that plays a combo, not the other way around.
I think Elspeth, Sun's Champion is excellent in certain match-ups. If you resolve it against any midrange or control deck, you almost just straight up win if they can't get her off the board. That being said, she doesn't really synergize with what we're trying to do, and is clunky because she's 6 mana rofl.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant, however, is a card that I can testify that works. At the modern open at GP Toronto,the 6 matches I won were all 2-0 except for 1 (I forgot to ghost quarter myself to make Knight hit for 13 instead of 11, still won the match 2-1) because of Elspeth. The deck isn't as fast at killing your opponent but is REALLY adept at holding board dominance for A LONG TIME while disrupting your opponent. You add an Elspeth to that and suddenly your opponent cannot win on the board and is going to die to an Elspeth unless they rip the sickest top deck. I won a game against a Human Company deck (he had like 23 power on board) because I resolved an Elspeth on t3, held board dominance, and sent a 5/5 Voice in the air 4 times.
Courser is so good in our deck that I main 4. In regards to burn, over a large sample size of games you are favored against burn game 1 because of 4 Spell Queller, 4 Courser, and 2 Ooze. Sideboard becomes a joke lol.
The deck is actually really hard to play well. It's a deck that you need to put in reps in order to really get a grasp of what you should do with all your creatures, when to cast your instant speed stuff, where to cast them (like, before or after attackers, in resp to a spell, EoT). Knight + Courser + Tireless Tracker + Fetchlands + Horizon Canopy + instant speed spells + playing sorcery speed creatures + the MU your in makes the deck a hard deck to play. Even the uses of your creatures are quite extensive.
I'm not gonna tell you to stay on it but I am gonna tell you that if you like it and want to have reasonable success to your eye, then you gotta get the experience by playing AND learning about the deck. This can be applied to any deck that has a myriad of choices but it's certainly one of things that stand out in this deck.
Congrats to your run at PPTQ! Only having been on it for 2 months makes that finish a respectable one.
Game 1 why weren't you attacking with both Qasali Pridemage and Courser after he attacked with Reality Smasher in game 1? It's not like you're going to block, and if it was a hedge towards double Reality Smasher, taking 10 life is much better than losing 2 creatures. It may have put himself in a position to judge wrongly and block with a Noble Hierarch, and potentially trade with a flyer, which is huge. Also, why didn't you play Collected Company on your turn? It paid off because your opponent didn't play his Reality Smasher and Skyspawner, probably because he didn't know that because you cast CoCo into Reflector Mage on his turn, once your following turn is over, he can cast his bounced creatures.
In response to the first part, I tend to play a little conservatively. The slight benefit of a little extra damage now may not be worth it if I need my Courser to block. I know I probably won't be blocking, but if I really need to, I would like to have that option available. For the second question, I had a spell queller on the top of my deck revealed off of Courser. Therefore, even if my CoCo hits nothing else, I know I can counter something with the Queller so I should hold it for his turn.
Game 2 was just great actually lol. The actual turning point where it was just impossible for the Bant Eldrazi player to win was not playing Thought-Knot Seer on turn 3.I was like yelling at the screen "WTF DUDE YOU'RE GONNA LOSE THE GAME WHY DID YOU NOT PLAY TKS" lol xD. Like straight up it lost him the game lol; I watched the game like 3 times to figure out if he could win because after the game he had an interesting conversation with his friend lol. I just spent a little under an hour scrutinizing EVERY SINGLE DAMN DECISION AND MISTAKE (there were a lot) after he didn't play the TKS on T3 WHILE explaining my thoughts about it in this post (I deleted it all because I realized it was a waste of time). Believe me when I say he straight up lost the game because of that and not your top deck Path to Exile lol (it bothers me so much when people talk about losing to TOP DECKS... a lot of the time you lose to top decks because the sequence of decisions way down the line are what put you in the position to losing to that specific top deck--I can attest to that because I just foolishly spent the last hour trying to see if there was ANY possible way he could have won after not playing TKS on t3, AND THEN deciding to play Spawner instead of TKS AGAIN). I actually feel so tilted because I went through every permutation every turn lol FUQQQ. Anyways, YOU GO THERE, WOOO!
I was wondering the whole time why he wasn't playing the TKS. I knew he had it from the Ancient Stirrings and was leaving up path every turn for it. Even when I could have cast a Voice one turn, I didn't because I knew he had a TKS. I don't know if playing it turn three would have changed all that much however. I still had the path and was leaving it up every turn. It would have come out the same in the end.
Courser is so good in our deck that I main 4. In regards to burn, over a large sample size of games you are favored against burn game 1 because of 4 Spell Queller, 4 Courser, and 2 Ooze. Sideboard becomes a joke lol.
I want to try a 4 Courser build but I have no idea what to take out. Maybe 1 Reflector Mage and an Ooze? Then you become slightly worse against the Dredge matchup because Ooze is so important in that game 1.
I'm not gonna tell you to stay on it but I am gonna tell you that if you like it and want to have reasonable success to your eye, then you gotta get the experience by playing AND learning about the deck. This can be applied to any deck that has a myriad of choices but it's certainly one of things that stand out in this deck.
I forgot to mention that I've been playing the deck for maybe a year and a half now, so I am definitely not new. I have a good handle on most of the interactions and matchups, but the fact that I have been playing it for so long might be contributing to me not being as high on the deck as I used to.
I know quoting myself is weird, but I worded why we play retreat well a few pages back.
Quote from SilverIronMan »
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 most modern decks.
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.
Hello everybody, quite new to the forum and have been experimenting with various COCO decks over the last month, which started as humans tribal. Is has recently developed to a knightfall deck and I am seriously considering the deck for my first FNM for its ability to be fairly adaptive. This is contrary to my other deck, Bushwhacker Zoo Aggro.
I'd like your opinion on Voice of Resurgence, or rather the lack thereoff. This is a card I probably won't be able to add in time and the slot is currently occupied by a pair of Selfless Spirit which provide some preasure the air while provide some protection.
The other two drops are 3 Scavenging Ooze and 2 Qasali Pridemage.
Questions:
Would you take a fairly new Knightfall deck over a mastered Bushwhacker Zoo Aggro deck to FNM in the current meta?
I just chipped in a bunch of GAmes with Knightfall, but the only reasonable 2-Drop here is Selfless Spirit.
All the others were quite lackluster, because they have only limited upsides or payoffs in the long run.
That's my biggest problem with the deck, the 2-Mana creatures except Spirit are not that super-great.
They are all 2/x and disrupts the opponent just slightly or nothing at all.
Just wanted to thank @RPD for his decklist for Bant Knightfall and let you all know how I did at SCG Syracuse. Scrubbed out in Day 1, played against Jeskai Flash Round 1, then had 3 quick losses against Burn, Tron and Mono White Soul Sisters (was also my friend on the deck, two super slow start and 2 whiffs on
CoCo) it happens, wasnt too worried. The next day I signed up for the Modern Classic.
Round 1- GB Tron 0-2 L
Round 2- BW Eldrazi and Taxes 2-0 W
Round 3- Jund Death's Shadow 2-0 W
Round 4- Mardu Tokens/Planeswalkers 2-0 W
Round 5- Bant Spirits 2-0 W
Round 6- Titanshift 2-0 W
Round 7- Burn 1-2 L
Round 8- Grixis Death's Shadow 2-1 W
Round 9- Titanshift 0-2 L
Overall, ended up outside of the top 32 at the largest Classic ever held by StarCityGames, I believe they said there were around 220 or so players. I haven't had much time since yesterday to get on MTGO and test more. I felt as if the 3rd Izzet Staticastermight have been a slight overkill. Might want just a Stony Silence, second Ghost Quarter, possibly Elspeth, Sun's Champion, or something else entirely. If you're interested in the decklist I used, please check out @RPD to see his latest version. I'll be more active now and in the coming weeks during Modern PPTQ season.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: Bant Knightfall, Burn
Legacy: Burn, UR Prowess
Hi, all. Returned from a tourney today where I went 2-2, but I felt good about the deck still. I played against UW Control (1-2), Home brew (2-0), Death Shadow (2-0), and Valakut with Hour of Promise (1-2). MVP was Elspeth, Knight-Errant. When played against Death Shadow, they can't surmount the blocking tokens. When resolved against Control, also feels great.
The only matchup I'm having trouble playing against is UW Control. If anyone has play style or sideboard tips, I'd like to hear it. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing in the game. I sometimes wait for 5 mana, so I can back up my Knight with a counterspell, but I just come up against 2 counterspells, etc. Not sure how our deck is supposed to gain any card advantage. Or should I just be very aggressive and forgo siding counterspells?
@Dejadal I do play 3 Voices. They would be great when resolved, although I never drew them in those matches. I've had a day to think about the matchup a bit more, and I've narrowed it down to a couple of questions:
1. What should I Spell Queller? Is any spell worth it? Or should I save it? I think I Quelled a few Think Twice early, partly to get a creature on the board, but I'm not sure it was worth it.
2. How do I maximize the chances of having my planeswalkers resolve (I play Elspeth, and am considering adding Gideon, AoZ to side in)? Wait for opp to tap out? Bait out a few spells first? Wait for 6/7 mana so I can have a counterspell to protect it? Or try to play it asap and just take that chance?
The more general question I have is just what endgame or game state am I trying to play toward? Am I trying to stick creatures aggressively or is it productive to grind against UW Control. They draw so much better and my opp always played Sphinx's Revelation on later turns to renew his life/hand.
I don't know why but I've played a ton of matches vs control decks We could say that I have controlled the matchup? lol
You need to know which are the good cards (ooze, knight, tracker, anything instant speed except path) and the bad cards (everything else). Games usually go like this: (vs most control decks)
turns 1-4
1 for 1 exchanges. Birds, pridemages, voices... You deploy your bad cards into some of their interaction. Remember, this is not the time to play good cards! That will come later once they ran out of removal or you have mana to protect them.
Oh, and unless your opponent is really bad and plays into voice, it's not that good of a card. With this I mean, the best moment to play voice is turn 2, not turn 10. Let them waste removal on it! Voice is not your finisher, it's just a speed bump for them. I have yet to finish a game vs control with the voice token.
turns 5-8
Now their good cards start to come online. Sweepers, big card draw (revelation, vision) and planeswalkers. You should have some bad creatures in the battlefield at this point (it's a bad idea for the control player to kill 1 for 1 literally everything, they save some for the sweepers in order not to run out of cards). You have a tool for each of those things, and if your spells line up correctly with theirs, you will reach the late game in a pretty good position.
Against sweepers, don't overextend. Usually, having 1-2 beaters in the battlefield is enough to chip damage so there's no need to overextend into a wrath. In this matchups, cards are worth more than mana so don't worry about not playing everything you can.
Selfless spirit, in a similar fashion to voice, is just a speed bump. Don't overextend just because you have a selfless in the battlefield: they can EOT kill selfless and wipe the board on their turn.
Against big card draw, counters (negate and unified will). There's no need to fight over a think twice (for obvious reasons) but if you let that sphinx's revelation resolve for x=5, there are no ways for you to win the game. I usually save counters and quellers for this battles. As a side note: countering removal with queller is usually a bad idea, don't do it unless absolutely necessary.
Against planeswalkers, instant speed creatures. Walkers are sorcery speed and weak to creatures on the other side, they're at their best on an empty board. If they play gideon jura and you play EOT collected, you are in a really good position.
turns 9+
Late game has been reached, and if everything went to the plan they have a low life total, their hand has no more than 3 cards, no walkers on the table, you have some cards in hand and some creatures on the battlefield. Now you need to worry about chipping those last points of damage. You try to do that with the "good" creatures of the deck (knight, ooze, vendilion, a tracker from earlier turns...)
All your plan revolves around getting to this point of the game, where you have a creature that dominates the battlefield and they have no answers for it.
Sideboarding is pretty straightforward. Removal goes out, counters, card advantage and land destruction go in.
Of course, there are little nuances that depend on the opposing control deck (don't fetch basics vs path decks, quarter is good vs U tron...), but this are the general lines of thought. Most of the time, control decks need to use all their mana to work properly (their spells are super expensive) so making them play awkwardly + denying their card draw + card draw of your own (tracker, canopy) is the best way to win.
@Dejadal I do play 3 Voices. They would be great when resolved, although I never drew them in those matches. I've had a day to think about the matchup a bit more, and I've narrowed it down to a couple of questions:
1. What should I Spell Queller? Is any spell worth it? Or should I save it? I think I Quelled a few Think Twice early, partly to get a creature on the board, but I'm not sure it was worth it.
2. How do I maximize the chances of having my planeswalkers resolve (I play Elspeth, and am considering adding Gideon, AoZ to side in)? Wait for opp to tap out? Bait out a few spells first? Wait for 6/7 mana so I can have a counterspell to protect it? Or try to play it asap and just take that chance?
The more general question I have is just what endgame or game state am I trying to play toward? Am I trying to stick creatures aggressively or is it productive to grind against UW Control. They draw so much better and my opp always played Sphinx's Revelation on later turns to renew his life/hand.
Thanks for any input!
The link to your deck isn't working for me, but I'll give you some pointers. You always need to be on the watch for Supreme Verdict. A lot of times you want to extend a few creatures, and then make them verdict. The best thing to do is to try and setup a situation where they need to verdict, and have a coco for that moment. They don't play a whole lot of single target removal, so playing out early knights and coursers is fine. If they have to path it early, it gives you a nice resource advantage. Also, holding up queller for a Supreme Verdict is a good play because it buys you a turn of attacking, and you don't really overextend any more because they need another removal spell to kill the queller.
To answer your questions:
1) Supreme Verdict is the big thing you want to use queller on. You want to be careful not to queller a spell that would be fine to cast after a supreme verdict. An example would be a Gideon. If they resolve a verdict, then get the free Gideon cast, it puts you pretty far behind. A spell you want to hit is something like Detention Sphere. If they resolve a Verdict and get the free detention sphere cast, it's really bad because they just resolved a verdict and you won't have any creatures.
2) Goes along with #1. You want to force them to verdict at some point, and afterward is the ideal time to cast a Planeswalker.
In general, I've been able to out grind a UW control player a lot of times with Courser and Tracker. Also saving your counterspells for their big plays like Rev, Elspeth, big Gideon, etc is good because they will have trouble getting ahead without them. Tracker is also really good against them post board. It demands an answer, and if they don't have it, it snowballs quickly.
Here is my current list. I wish I could squeeze in a third Tracker in the sideboard, but I'm already playing very little graveyard hate, IMO. Thanks for the pointers, brosterman!
Here is my current list. I wish I could squeeze in a third Tracker in the sideboard, but I'm already playing very little graveyard hate, IMO. Thanks for the pointers, brosterman!
I think 2 Trackers is the perfect number. 3 seems like too many. Looking at your list, your best strategy against UW would be to extend into a verdict, then slam a Coco or 4-mana planeswalker. If you can set up that situation, you should be in a good spot. Having the flash threats helps too, especially Vendilion Clique. And like I said earlier, saving your counterspells for things like Big Gideon, Elspeth, and Sphinx's Rev will keep your UW opponent from pulling ahead. Your creatures will be able to overcome their sweepers/removal as long as they don't pull ahead.
Just wanted to thank @RPD for his decklist for Bant Knightfall and let you all know how I did at SCG Syracuse. Scrubbed out in Day 1, played against Jeskai Flash Round 1, then had 3 quick losses against Burn, Tron and Mono White Soul Sisters (was also my friend on the deck, two super slow start and 2 whiffs on
CoCo) it happens, wasnt too worried. The next day I signed up for the Modern Classic.
Round 1- GB Tron 0-2 L
Round 2- BW Eldrazi and Taxes 2-0 W
Round 3- Jund Death's Shadow 2-0 W
Round 4- Mardu Tokens/Planeswalkers 2-0 W
Round 5- Bant Spirits 2-0 W
Round 6- Titanshift 2-0 W
Round 7- Burn 1-2 L
Round 8- Grixis Death's Shadow 2-1 W
Round 9- Titanshift 0-2 L
Overall, ended up outside of the top 32 at the largest Classic ever held by StarCityGames, I believe they said there were around 220 or so players. I haven't had much time since yesterday to get on MTGO and test more. I felt as if the 3rd Izzet Staticastermight have been a slight overkill. Might want just a Stony Silence, second Ghost Quarter, possibly Elspeth, Sun's Champion, or something else entirely. If you're interested in the decklist I used, please check out @RPD to see his latest version. I'll be more active now and in the coming weeks during Modern PPTQ season.
I'm glad that my list and info was useful! That is a really good record. You lost vs the usual suspects (shift and tron), won vs some awkward MUs (like spirits or mardu walkers) and the only thing that stands out weird for me is the two lossea vs burn. How do you see the matchup? Is it worse than I give credit for or wss it just bad luck? I would like to sneak in few coursers but I dont know what to cut, everything else is much more important
I see how the third staticaster might be too much and how you would prefer other cards. Seeing your pairings, staticaster doesn't seem the most crucial card. Do you think that a second burrenton forge-tender is too much? Its additional help vs titanshift and burn.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Also.....You guys talked a lot about teeg and eidolon, great discussion---any love for little thalia? I personally like her a lot and she's better in combat (first strike is underrated) and fills the same sort of role as the others, but obviously not as much of a lock piece. She has played well vs shadow decks, storm, mill, burn, control for me and seems more versatile in general than teeg and EoR.
I know i would want some amount of those three cards in my board as hate creatures, i suppose that meddling mage is also a consideration.
3 Forest
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Flooded Strand
2 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Voice of Resurgence
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Spell Queller
4 Reflector Mage
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Courser of Kruphix
1 Whisperwood Elemental
Spells
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Izzet Staticaster
2 Stony Silence
2 Negate
2 Unified Will
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
It is generally a pretty stock list except for a couple of notable cards. My big question is: do we really need to be playing Retreat to Coralhelm? When I first started playing the deck, I played 2 like normal. Eventually, I just realized that I wasn't comboing with it nearly enough. I was sideing it out in almost every matchup except where the combo potential can steal a game from faster decks or you need to untap a staticaster with it. I eventually went down to one in favor of an extra grindy card like Tireless Tracker or something. For this tournament, I decided to swap out the last Retreat with Whisperwood Elemental, and I don't think I missed it one bit. Whisperwood may not be the right card to fill the slot, but I never felt like I needed a Retreat. The second more odd card choice is the Elspeth in the board. I have been playing her for quite a while and I love her in the grindy games. I would like to try other cards in that slot, perhaps Elspeth, Knight-Errant, but I don't want to spend the money on her just to test her out when she may or may not be good. Any thoughts on the ideas I have raised? And also, if you're wondering why I don't run Horizon Canopy or I split my Fetches so awkwardly, the answer is money. I don't have a Canopy or 4 Misty's and I am not going to spend a lot to marginally improve the mana base.
For the games:
Round one- Paired against Bant ELdrazi, and if you actually want to, you can watch the stream of me playing in the feature match here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/164662393 The first game kinda showed off the power of the Whisperwood Elemental, but I might have won that game regardless. Game two, I had no business winning. I was stuck on mana and couldn't play anything in my hand except for a path until about turn 5 or 6. Fortunately, he had a very slow hand and once I found the mana, the ball started rolling. In the last turn, I also figured he had a Blessed Alliance against my Scooze and Voice so I also attacked with a Bird. He was not happy after that.
Round two and three- I got paired up against burn both rounds and got steamrolled in both matches. Scavenging Ooze is really not that great in this matchup if you aren't trading your creatures to put them in the graveyard.
Round 4- I got paired against some weird mono-blue illusions tribal deck. Let's just say it was really bad and I beat him pretty easily.
Round 5- I got paired against Saffron Olive's mono-black vehicles deck, which you can probably look up somewhere. He didn't seem very experienced in playing against Kessig Wolf Run as I was able to "get him" both games with it. Game one, he could have soaked up enough damage to survive and kill me on the crackback, but he only put one toughness to chump block my knight and activated Kessig for lethal.
Round 6- Paired against Dredge. Game one, I had no business winning. He got off to a blistering fast start and only through 2 Coursers and a Knight gaining me a bunch of life was I able to win at one life in the end. He could have easily won this game but he Conflagrated after block killing both my Coursers and doming me for three when he could have also finished off my Knight. Game two, lost pretty quickly by keeping a shoddy hand and I didn't get there. Game three, he had a bad hand and my Scooze was able to take him off of his graveyard so he had to play stinkweed imps to try and block.
Overall, I don't know how much I would change from the deck. There was a ton of affinity, GBx Midrange, and other good matchups but I didn't get paired against them to get good feedback. Mostly my wins were due to my opponents punting or just playing bad decks in general. As the previous discussions here have suggested, Courser is really good and I don't know why I ever took her out for a while. The other card I don't like is Eidolon of Rhetoric. The only time she is a slam-dunk is against storm and that's only if you have her in your opening hand. I hardly ever bring her in and this spot might just be better spent on something else. Teeg and Thalia have been mentioned, which I like but I am unsure of. I like the deck, but I have been running poorly this past 2 months or so that it's really put me off and I'm trying to find other good CoCo decks that aren't Elves (which I have) and Counters Company (which I also have). I am going to try Bant Spirits (just ordered the cards) and I only need a few cards to put together Todd Stevens' GW Value-Town. Always open to discussion.
Game 1 why weren't you attacking with both Qasali Pridemage and Courser after he attacked with Reality Smasher in game 1? It's not like you're going to block, and if it was a hedge towards double Reality Smasher, taking 10 life is much better than losing 2 creatures. It may have put himself in a position to judge wrongly and block with a Noble Hierarch, and potentially trade with a flyer, which is huge. Also, why didn't you play Collected Company on your turn? It paid off because your opponent didn't play his Reality Smasher and Skyspawner, probably because he didn't know that because you cast CoCo into Reflector Mage on his turn, once your following turn is over, he can cast his bounced creatures. He straight up lost at that point not playing his Reality Smasher and Spawner because he didn't play them after your tapped out for Whisperwood knowing full well your hand is a bunch of Quellers.
Game 2 was just great actually lol. The actual turning point where it was just impossible for the Bant Eldrazi player to win was not playing Thought-Knot Seer on turn 3.I was like yelling at the screen "WTF DUDE YOU'RE GONNA LOSE THE GAME WHY DID YOU NOT PLAY TKS" lol xD. Like straight up it lost him the game lol; I watched the game like 3 times to figure out if he could win because after the game he had an interesting conversation with his friend lol. I just spent a little under an hour scrutinizing EVERY SINGLE DAMN DECISION AND MISTAKE (there were a lot) after he didn't play the TKS on T3 WHILE explaining my thoughts about it in this post (I deleted it all because I realized it was a waste of time). Believe me when I say he straight up lost the game because of that and not your top deck Path to Exile lol (it bothers me so much when people talk about losing to TOP DECKS... a lot of the time you lose to top decks because the sequence of decisions way down the line are what put you in the position to losing to that specific top deck--I can attest to that because I just foolishly spent the last hour trying to see if there was ANY possible way he could have won after not playing TKS on t3, AND THEN deciding to play Spawner instead of TKS AGAIN). I actually feel so tilted because I went through every permutation every turn lol FUQQQ. Anyways, YOU GO THERE, WOOO!
NOW, onto important stuff lol.
I think the combo is actually a personal preference at this point lol. So much of the time, ANYONE playing the deck is probably winning through fair grinding and disruption and rarely are you winning through the combo. Especially right now, playing retreat feels so bad when your Knight of the Reliquary dies, and if the Knight lives, she's so powerful that unless your opponent is playing an unfair deck, it will win the game on it's own. The interaction between Knight and Retreat is so damn powerful but it's really unreliable in this particular meta--why not just have an already reliable strategy without putting yourself in a poor situation that has Retreat which does virtually nothing? This discussion could go on and on but the one thing that EVERYONE can agree with is that playing Retreat is a choice and not mandatory; the deck is tempo/aggressive/disruptive midrange deck that plays a combo, not the other way around.
I think Elspeth, Sun's Champion is excellent in certain match-ups. If you resolve it against any midrange or control deck, you almost just straight up win if they can't get her off the board. That being said, she doesn't really synergize with what we're trying to do, and is clunky because she's 6 mana rofl.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant, however, is a card that I can testify that works. At the modern open at GP Toronto,the 6 matches I won were all 2-0 except for 1 (I forgot to ghost quarter myself to make Knight hit for 13 instead of 11, still won the match 2-1) because of Elspeth. The deck isn't as fast at killing your opponent but is REALLY adept at holding board dominance for A LONG TIME while disrupting your opponent. You add an Elspeth to that and suddenly your opponent cannot win on the board and is going to die to an Elspeth unless they rip the sickest top deck. I won a game against a Human Company deck (he had like 23 power on board) because I resolved an Elspeth on t3, held board dominance, and sent a 5/5 Voice in the air 4 times.
Courser is so good in our deck that I main 4. In regards to burn, over a large sample size of games you are favored against burn game 1 because of 4 Spell Queller, 4 Courser, and 2 Ooze. Sideboard becomes a joke lol.
The deck is actually really hard to play well. It's a deck that you need to put in reps in order to really get a grasp of what you should do with all your creatures, when to cast your instant speed stuff, where to cast them (like, before or after attackers, in resp to a spell, EoT). Knight + Courser + Tireless Tracker + Fetchlands + Horizon Canopy + instant speed spells + playing sorcery speed creatures + the MU your in makes the deck a hard deck to play. Even the uses of your creatures are quite extensive.
I'm not gonna tell you to stay on it but I am gonna tell you that if you like it and want to have reasonable success to your eye, then you gotta get the experience by playing AND learning about the deck. This can be applied to any deck that has a myriad of choices but it's certainly one of things that stand out in this deck.
Congrats to your run at PPTQ! Only having been on it for 2 months makes that finish a respectable one.
In response to the first part, I tend to play a little conservatively. The slight benefit of a little extra damage now may not be worth it if I need my Courser to block. I know I probably won't be blocking, but if I really need to, I would like to have that option available. For the second question, I had a spell queller on the top of my deck revealed off of Courser. Therefore, even if my CoCo hits nothing else, I know I can counter something with the Queller so I should hold it for his turn.
I was wondering the whole time why he wasn't playing the TKS. I knew he had it from the Ancient Stirrings and was leaving up path every turn for it. Even when I could have cast a Voice one turn, I didn't because I knew he had a TKS. I don't know if playing it turn three would have changed all that much however. I still had the path and was leaving it up every turn. It would have come out the same in the end.
I want to try a 4 Courser build but I have no idea what to take out. Maybe 1 Reflector Mage and an Ooze? Then you become slightly worse against the Dredge matchup because Ooze is so important in that game 1.
I forgot to mention that I've been playing the deck for maybe a year and a half now, so I am definitely not new. I have a good handle on most of the interactions and matchups, but the fact that I have been playing it for so long might be contributing to me not being as high on the deck as I used to.
I'd like your opinion on Voice of Resurgence, or rather the lack thereoff. This is a card I probably won't be able to add in time and the slot is currently occupied by a pair of Selfless Spirit which provide some preasure the air while provide some protection.
The other two drops are 3 Scavenging Ooze and 2 Qasali Pridemage.
Questions:
4 Windswept Heath
2 Flooded Strand
1 Breeding Pool
1 Temple Garden
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Stomping Ground
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Gavony Township
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Selfless Spirit
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Reflector Mage
4 Spell Queller
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Courser of Kruphix
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Negate
2 Stony Silence
2 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Izzet Staticaster
2 Kitchen Finks
Thank you for your help!
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
All the others were quite lackluster, because they have only limited upsides or payoffs in the long run.
That's my biggest problem with the deck, the 2-Mana creatures except Spirit are not that super-great.
They are all 2/x and disrupts the opponent just slightly or nothing at all.
I'd love to slam Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, but i feel that she dampers Knightfall too.
Green @ it's best
CoCo) it happens, wasnt too worried. The next day I signed up for the Modern Classic.
Round 1- GB Tron 0-2 L
Round 2- BW Eldrazi and Taxes 2-0 W
Round 3- Jund Death's Shadow 2-0 W
Round 4- Mardu Tokens/Planeswalkers 2-0 W
Round 5- Bant Spirits 2-0 W
Round 6- Titanshift 2-0 W
Round 7- Burn 1-2 L
Round 8- Grixis Death's Shadow 2-1 W
Round 9- Titanshift 0-2 L
Overall, ended up outside of the top 32 at the largest Classic ever held by StarCityGames, I believe they said there were around 220 or so players. I haven't had much time since yesterday to get on MTGO and test more. I felt as if the 3rd Izzet Staticastermight have been a slight overkill. Might want just a Stony Silence, second Ghost Quarter, possibly Elspeth, Sun's Champion, or something else entirely. If you're interested in the decklist I used, please check out @RPD to see his latest version. I'll be more active now and in the coming weeks during Modern PPTQ season.
Legacy: Burn, UR Prowess
The only matchup I'm having trouble playing against is UW Control. If anyone has play style or sideboard tips, I'd like to hear it. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing in the game. I sometimes wait for 5 mana, so I can back up my Knight with a counterspell, but I just come up against 2 counterspells, etc. Not sure how our deck is supposed to gain any card advantage. Or should I just be very aggressive and forgo siding counterspells?
1. What should I Spell Queller? Is any spell worth it? Or should I save it? I think I Quelled a few Think Twice early, partly to get a creature on the board, but I'm not sure it was worth it.
2. How do I maximize the chances of having my planeswalkers resolve (I play Elspeth, and am considering adding Gideon, AoZ to side in)? Wait for opp to tap out? Bait out a few spells first? Wait for 6/7 mana so I can have a counterspell to protect it? Or try to play it asap and just take that chance?
The more general question I have is just what endgame or game state am I trying to play toward? Am I trying to stick creatures aggressively or is it productive to grind against UW Control. They draw so much better and my opp always played Sphinx's Revelation on later turns to renew his life/hand.
Thanks for any input!
The link to your deck isn't working for me, but I'll give you some pointers. You always need to be on the watch for Supreme Verdict. A lot of times you want to extend a few creatures, and then make them verdict. The best thing to do is to try and setup a situation where they need to verdict, and have a coco for that moment. They don't play a whole lot of single target removal, so playing out early knights and coursers is fine. If they have to path it early, it gives you a nice resource advantage. Also, holding up queller for a Supreme Verdict is a good play because it buys you a turn of attacking, and you don't really overextend any more because they need another removal spell to kill the queller.
To answer your questions:
1) Supreme Verdict is the big thing you want to use queller on. You want to be careful not to queller a spell that would be fine to cast after a supreme verdict. An example would be a Gideon. If they resolve a verdict, then get the free Gideon cast, it puts you pretty far behind. A spell you want to hit is something like Detention Sphere. If they resolve a Verdict and get the free detention sphere cast, it's really bad because they just resolved a verdict and you won't have any creatures.
2) Goes along with #1. You want to force them to verdict at some point, and afterward is the ideal time to cast a Planeswalker.
In general, I've been able to out grind a UW control player a lot of times with Courser and Tracker. Also saving your counterspells for their big plays like Rev, Elspeth, big Gideon, etc is good because they will have trouble getting ahead without them. Tracker is also really good against them post board. It demands an answer, and if they don't have it, it snowballs quickly.
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Forest
1x Plains
1x Gavony Township
1x Ghost Quarter
4x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Kessig Wolf Run
1x Stomping Ground
2x Temple Garden
4x Birds of Paradise
3x Noble Hierarch
2x Courser of Kruphix
4x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Qasali Pridemage
4x Reflector Mage
1x Scavenging Ooze
4x Spell Queller
2x Tireless Tracker
3x Voice of Resurgence
3x Path to Exile
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Negate
2x Aven Mindcensor
1x Bojuka Bog
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
1x Spellskite
1x Stony Silence
1x Unified Will
1x Negate
1x Vendilion Clique
I think 2 Trackers is the perfect number. 3 seems like too many. Looking at your list, your best strategy against UW would be to extend into a verdict, then slam a Coco or 4-mana planeswalker. If you can set up that situation, you should be in a good spot. Having the flash threats helps too, especially Vendilion Clique. And like I said earlier, saving your counterspells for things like Big Gideon, Elspeth, and Sphinx's Rev will keep your UW opponent from pulling ahead. Your creatures will be able to overcome their sweepers/removal as long as they don't pull ahead.
I'm glad that my list and info was useful! That is a really good record. You lost vs the usual suspects (shift and tron), won vs some awkward MUs (like spirits or mardu walkers) and the only thing that stands out weird for me is the two lossea vs burn. How do you see the matchup? Is it worse than I give credit for or wss it just bad luck? I would like to sneak in few coursers but I dont know what to cut, everything else is much more important
I see how the third staticaster might be too much and how you would prefer other cards. Seeing your pairings, staticaster doesn't seem the most crucial card. Do you think that a second burrenton forge-tender is too much? Its additional help vs titanshift and burn.
L: Maverick