Hmm. I wonder if there is something to be gained by taking the retreats out and making the deck even more threat dense than it already is. Potentially putting in Geist of St. Traft as a replacement. I love the combo, but it has definitely burned me before when I put too much stock into it.
I also played basically the same list (-2 mage, -1 retreat, +1 Rallier, +1 BoP, +1 vizier) on tuesday with a 3-1 finish, losing to thing ascension.
Last night's matches were as such:
R1 - bye. Ezpz match, opponent was scrub
R2 - Living End. I played t1 dork > t2 druid, and he casts Living end on his t3 bringing back 3 street wraiths and an Archfiend of Ilfnir. On my next turn I fetch and cast renegade rallier, get back druid and pass. He swings in and knocks me down to 4 life, but doesn't have two cyclers and my druid survives, so I'm able to untap and combo off. G2 he gets in an early Living end and kills my board with archfiend before I can combo off. G3 I am able to drop an early Scooby and eat his archfiend from gy, then spend the rest of the game holding up chord for Eidolon of Rhetoric in response to a cascade spell. We spend at least 6 or so turns passing back and forth, and both times I get enough mana on board to swing with scooby or eat something from his gy eot, he plays a fulminator to blow up a nonbasic. Eventually he plays out his hand (suspend Living end. play land, hardcast simian spirit guide), and reveals that he just never found a cascade spell despite cycling 10+ creatures, so I EoT chord for druid and untap and combo kill him. Fun mind games lol.
R3 - Burn. Game one I play a bunch of mana dorks, and assemble the vizier combo, but never see a payoff spell or anything other than mana dorks and lands before he kills me. G2 I'm able to combo kill on t3. G3 I'm on the draw and keep a shaky hand of path, vizier, coco, and lands after he mulls to 6, which gets much less shaky when he ends up actually mulliganing to 4 after not having lands in the other hands. He doesn't find enough gas and I'm able to combo off before he puts me to 0.
R4 - RG Tron. Very quick match. G1 I combo off on t3 on the play, he didn't have time to do anything before it was over. G2 my hand was pretty slow, but I had negate and unified will in hand, which was enough to prevent him from doing anything relevant while I chained 3 back to back CoCos off of eWitt (t3, 4, and 5) and killed him w/ combat damage.
I'm still pretty hyped on this deck, and really enjoying the variety of lines of play the deck has available with CoCo + Chord. I played a game against ETron on tuesday and had a sequence of turns that was extremely fun for me. I played a t1 + 2 dork, t3 play nissa on 1 and +2 her, then unified will his reality smasher, untap and put a druid into play w/ nissa and play ewitt to get back will, which I use to counter his ballista on 2. My following turn I activate nissa to put another dork into play and pass turn with chord and path in hand. He casts endbringer, which I plan to path EoT. He then plays TKS (active tron at this point), which I respond to by chording for ewitt, getting back will, and countering. EoT I path his endbringer, and untap and draw CoCo for the combo kill.
Look at the card. Now back to Jace. Now back to that card, now back to Jace! Sadly, it isn't Jace, but if it stopped being a junk rare and became relevant, it could act like it's Jace. Crack some Worldwake. What do you have? You have a Jace, the card you wish this card could be like. Look again. THE CARD IS NOW A $75 BILL. Anything possible when you play Magic with Jace and not junk rares. This is probably spam.
Took some ideas from older lists (lotus cobra, 8 2cmc creatures, more vendilion, more tracker). I felt pretty confident about this list, only issues were the ones that this deck always has (sometimes plays a little too fair, manabase is 4 colors with 3 colorless lands and 1 painland so there are games that you lose by not having your colors or because you take a beating just by fetch shocking + horizon canopy). Those two issues made me play lotus cobra, and it was decent actually! Got some free ooze activations, fixed my mana and some opponents were super scared about it so they spent good cards at removing it, which made resolving better creatures easier.
Pairings were:
Jeskai ascendancy (2-0)
Eldrazi tron (1-2)
Living end (2-1)
Burn (2-1)
Jeskai control (1-2)
On another topic: I just bought GW elves, so I'll be able to test games with that deck. I think that it's a better vizier shell than knightfall, but I have yet to test more
I'm just not sold on the current SBoards for traditional Knightfall, if you guys could share yours.
I have several posted if you check my post history (one is in this same page). Most of them are pretty similar.
What don't you like about knightfalls SB? I might be able to help more if you share your questions and concerns
I rarely use Gavony Township as well, but I've seen it being useful against cards like Orzov Pontiff or Izzet Staticaster that kill your weenies and mana dorks. Being able to search with KotR and pump them out of -1/-1 range is useful.
Another instance is when I faced a Abzan match up recently, and it got grindy. I was able to make my Birds of Paradise into threats with Township. So as long as you play 7-8 dorks, I feel it's worth including.
You pointed out that all the creatures on the combo side of the VizierKnightfall deck suck, but you also guarantee that you always get the combo eventually, be it by Chord, Company, Ewit ... I somewhat disagree with you.
I think the vizier version is much more vulnerable to hate (like Cage for example) and doesn't play another game besides the combos.
Playing against good opponents is much harder since they know what to target and kill and from my experience you just end up putting too many resources into trying to combo ...
I'm not a big fan of Abzan/GW CountersCompany but if I had to play a vizier deck I don't see the advantage of VizierKnightfall over just pure CountersCompany.
Regular knightfall is so fun to play and if you like interacting or grinding more than thats great, but if you like winning the combo makes too much sense to deny to me.
That also doesn't make much sense. Look, CountersCompany is proven to be better than VizierKnightfall, so if you value winning you should just pick it by your reasoning. Kidding aside, even Kelvin said that currently traditional Knighfall is probably better, and I agree with him.
VizierKnighfall always seems to be too fragile or not having the focus it needs to succeed in Modern. Reflector Mage is the only card I really enjoy and you can play it on the Knighfall also, while Spell Queller that vizier lists don't run is just a powerhouse for the current meta.
I'm just not sold on the current SBoards for traditional Knightfall, if you guys could share yours.
How is the vizier version more vulnerable to hate? Cage doesn't stop the combo, and chord often gets sided out against decks that bring it in. The advantage is that knight is a better card in the meta than Kitchen finks (being large enough to trade or outgrow eldrazis and delve threats, while also being able to find gavony or kessig), and the blue sb options are a HUGE deal in our otherwise problematic matchups. Staticaster, Unified Will, and Nissa are all very powerful in the matchups they're used in (not that this is new information considering they're cards from tKnightfall).
I keep getting the feeling that those that criticize deck for being "fragile" and lacking in focus haven't actually played it. Playing 2x Voice and Renegade rallier in the mb have completely changed the interactive matchups for me, and the deck feels very resilient to removal when you overload the deck with 2 for 1s (rallier, ewitt, voice, recruiter, coco = 14 cards) and 'must kill' threats (druid, knight, voice token = 10 cards). I've played traditional knightfall, and all too often felt like I had a deck full of 2/3's that couldn't close the game out quick enough when I had a window.
Additionally, counters company is only proven to be a more popular deck, not necessarily better. Vizier Knightfall is lesser known, and if one is better than the other, it's by a very small margin, though they're both extremely viable options (see the 2nd place vizier list I posted earlier https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/757005#paper).
Look at the card. Now back to Jace. Now back to that card, now back to Jace! Sadly, it isn't Jace, but if it stopped being a junk rare and became relevant, it could act like it's Jace. Crack some Worldwake. What do you have? You have a Jace, the card you wish this card could be like. Look again. THE CARD IS NOW A $75 BILL. Anything possible when you play Magic with Jace and not junk rares. This is probably spam.
What do you guys think about this list? I decided to remove the retreats and fill the deck with more threats. I attempted to make the deck as resilient as possible. I also wanted to play Kira in some form and this seems like a fun build to try out. Kira plays well with our spell quellers and also makes our collected companies able to say no to a removal spell in a different way. Im all in on the tempo aspect of the deck and I want to find a way to play with Fairgrounds Warden, because I feel like it is perfect for the deck, I just dont know what the 'right' list would look like. Anyway, let me know what you guys think!
What do you guys think about this list? I decided to remove the retreats and fill the deck with more threats. I attempted to make the deck as resilient as possible. I also wanted to play Kira in some form and this seems like a fun build to try out. Kira plays well with our spell quellers and also makes our collected companies able to say no to a removal spell in a different way. Im all in on the tempo aspect of the deck and I want to find a way to play with Fairgrounds Warden, because I feel like it is perfect for the deck, I just dont know what the 'right' list would look like. Anyway, let me know what you guys think!
Sort the deck by type instead of name and you'll have a higher chance of getting feedback.
Look at the card. Now back to Jace. Now back to that card, now back to Jace! Sadly, it isn't Jace, but if it stopped being a junk rare and became relevant, it could act like it's Jace. Crack some Worldwake. What do you have? You have a Jace, the card you wish this card could be like. Look again. THE CARD IS NOW A $75 BILL. Anything possible when you play Magic with Jace and not junk rares. This is probably spam.
The reason I would play knightfall vizier company over counters company is exactly why you are arguing for trad knightfall- with knight and reflector mage it plays a better midrange game if the combo fails. With abzan, it's really hard to win that way. So I very much disagree that combo is the 'only' game you play in knightfall counters company, you can switch to midrange admirably.
I agree with pizz0wn3d on both fronts of 1) traditional knightfall can't always close out games and 2) abzan is more popular, but not necessarily better. It's better at combing without interaction on the other side, but modern has become interactive, hence why the power of knight, mage and counter spells has much more power.
Have you actually tried the deck? You don't mention any testing in your post though you sort of allude to it. Spell queller by the way, is quite good, but not great all the time. It dies often in my experience. That card, as I said earlier, is not enough reason to give up more free wins that you can achieve on turn 3 (without interaction) or a sweet company/chord that resolves end of turn into it.
I respect Kelvin, and would love to see his reasoning for traditional knightfall. For now, I choose to be unfair in an unfair world.
I read this thread every once in a while, but never have posted. I've been playing collective company variants for a while (abzan/naya counters company, 4 color humans, knightfall humans, classic knightfall). After playing a bunch of devoted druid decks for a while, Ive recently come back to knightfall.
I thought classic knightfall was a great metagame choice for a while when Grixis Shadow and UW control were big. However, I haven't liked it as much lately and have been turning to human / combo variants lately. Extra disruption in thalia (and sin collector in 4c), along with more aggression / quicker clock, seemed to give it a better chance at closing out games against decks like valakut and storm. I really like the pro-active plan rather than reacting with spell queller.
Currently, I've been trying to combine the high card quality of classic knightfall with more proactive disruption. Specifically, I've been very impressed with thalia's performance in the humans deck. It's been very good against death shadow, jeskai, ad nausuem, storm, valakut, burn, and even counters company. Furthermore, Thalia has lots of synergy with Spell Queller. Voice hasn't been a great choice for a while, and generally the match-ups it's good in are already good, so subbing in thalia for voice seems fine.
@blueduck70 congrats on the 5-0! Also, congrats on getting your list published. This new 5-0 policy is awful
2cmc thalia is an okay choice I think. Newer lists were cutting the two drops and in my testing, playing almost any configuration of 2 drops until a total of 8 makes this deck considerably better. It doesn't matter if it's lotus cobra, thalia, selfless, third ooze/qasali/voice, it will be better than any three drop. I'm personally not a fan of thalia in modern but I can see it being good in various matchups (shadow, living end, the synergies with queller...). I also see no problem with playing thalia maindeck.
I would never go below 4 queller though. The number of times I've cast queller to then receive a handshake by my opponent...
Mindcensor should be in the sideboard I think, and in higher numbers, if you want that kind of effect. Mindcensor is at its best turn 2, so I would advice 2-3 copies if that's how you want to fight the valakut matchup.
I'm interested in your reasoning for stony silence/surgical extraction though. Surgical is a pretty narrow card in this deck (no thought scour, only one ghost quarter, our removal exiles, no discard, no snapcaster) and I only played it when I expected facing griselbrand reanimator decks. Stony is a good card but I think gaddock is a better card in this deck.
How is the vizier version more vulnerable to hate? Cage doesn't stop the combo, and chord often gets sided out against decks that bring it in. The advantage is that knight is a better card in the meta than Kitchen finks (being large enough to trade or outgrow eldrazis and delve threats, while also being able to find gavony or kessig), and the blue sb options are a HUGE deal in our otherwise problematic matchups. Staticaster, Unified Will, and Nissa are all very powerful in the match-ups they're used in (not that this is new information considering they're cards from tKnightfall).
Well, Cage doesn't stop the combo, but unless you have the duskwatch/ballista/rhonas in hand it doesn't allow you to search for them with CoCo/Chord. Plus, this deck relies on CoCoing and eWitnessing CoCos/Chords so much that cage is a beating.
Are we comparing CounterCompany to VizierKnightfall ? I was comparing Knightfall to VizierKnightfall.
It's almost unarguable that CountersCompany is a more sucessfull deck than VizierKnightfall from results ....
Cage also doesn't stop me from activating knight to find kessig for the kill, and once I board out chord it stops, what, 4 cards in the entire deck? eWitt is still a 2 for 1 in the grindy matchups, and getting back voice/knight/rallier+friend/etc is still very good. Not running kitchen finks means it doesn't actually interact with any of my creatures, and they usually have to see it before t3-4 if they want it to blank CoCo. Sure it stops the ewitt chains, but the deck is still less weak to cage than counters company, which you consider to be the 'better deck'. I was only following the comparisons you made when you said counters company was the better deck. I never argued against counters company's success in a vacuum, just against it's power level in regards to vizier knightfall. In regards to cage and vizier vs traditional knightfall, the only card it affects in vK that it doesn't in tK is chord, which gets boarded so... I'm not worried here.
I keep getting the feeling that those that criticize deck for being "fragile" and lacking in focus haven't actually played it. Playing 2x Voice and Renegade rallier in the mb have completely changed the interactive matchups for me, and the deck feels very resilient to removal when you overload the deck with 2 for 1s (rallier, ewitt, voice, recruiter, coco = 14 cards) and 'must kill' threats (druid, knight, voice token = 10 cards). I've played traditional knightfall, and all too often felt like I had a deck full of 2/3's that couldn't close the game out quick enough when I had a window.
I've played with the deck before and besides the week after the GP where Kelvin played it where I would get my opponents unprepared, I found it very disappointing... Every time I pick it up and play a couple of matches I find myself thinking why ain't I playing Knightfall or CountCompany ... Playing a deck with close to none interaction with the opponent (1 fairgrounds, 1 ballista ?) that tries to do several different combos is just not cutting it for me.
The creature package is just not very diverse and I don't think they pull enough weight on their own...
What do you consider to be your good matchups / bad matchups with VizierKnightfall ?
So keep in mind that my version doesn't run mb reflector mage, since I don't like having a card that feels either great or terrible depending on my MU, and I can't get the same tempo plays tKnightfall does w/ mage > path. That being said, I'm currently on 1 mb fairgrounds warden, and 2 sb reflector mage for the MU where they shine (eTron, BGx, merfolk, company matchups, etc..)
Honestly I can't think of any MU where vizier is worse off than traditional off of the top of my head, though the deck is still pretty weak to burn (searing blaze is a beating). I definitely feel more confident in the noninteractive matchups, where there are very few decks that can race a potential t3 kill (outright killing valakut, etron, affinity, living end, and storm instead of crossing your fingers and hoping to win the race/dodge all is dust). And yes, I realize the decks I listed have interaction in their 75, but that doesn't mean it's the gameplan they want to rely on. Chord also allows you to run silver bullets (hellooo eidolon of rhetoric vs storm and living end) in the sb.
Even in the interactive matchups, I feel much more confident. Playing the combo means they have to hold up removal instead of progressing their board when we have a druid in play or 4 mana up. They also HAVE to save removal for druid/knight, or risk getting combo'd or letting me tutor up gavony/kessig. On top of this they have to deal w/ the coco+ewitt gameplan and not let me untap with voice if they want to interact on my turn. The deck has a lot of lines to it and doesn't give up a lot of consistency considering the number of 4-ofs in the core.
Additionally, counters company is only proven to be a more popular deck, not necessarily better. Vizier Knightfall is lesser known, and if one is better than the other, it's by a very small margin, though they're both extremely viable options (see the 2nd place vizier list I posted earlier https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/757005#paper).
By a very small margin ? By what indicators are we considering it ? Kelvin and Kuo ended up nicely on the GP but that's just about it. Placing 2nd @ an IQ is not a result I'd consider for our metrics...
Related to closing out games, I never really felt that way. On the contrary, I feel that I can push damage with the creatures from traditional knightfall (which are better / more flying threats ) than just having to pray out for a combo. Because even though CoCoing eWitness and value cards is all good, unless you're playing grindfests I doubt the other deck can't kill you over that.
Spell Queller sure dies a lot, but it's one of the few ways you have to critically threaten your opponents plans (be it the scapeshift, the TKS, etc) plus with Selfless Spirit + Sejiri Steppe there are some blowouts possible ..
Again, I'm referring to the power level of the decks from my experience, having played with and against all 3 decks (I'm not even the only vizier knightfall player in the area, the deck is well known and doesn't have much surprise value at this point locally). I played my list tonight at a weekly event and took it to another 3-0 finish in an 8 man event. The event itself isn't impressive, but considering my matchups were UWR, Grixis Control, and Valakut, I'd say my vizier list performed *much* better than knightfall would've in those matchups.
finally, all things considered, I'm not saying that everyone should swap off of bant knightfall. What I am saying, is that more people should consider playing vizier knightfall, and that the list is much more powerful than even a lot of people in this thread give it credit for.
Look at the card. Now back to Jace. Now back to that card, now back to Jace! Sadly, it isn't Jace, but if it stopped being a junk rare and became relevant, it could act like it's Jace. Crack some Worldwake. What do you have? You have a Jace, the card you wish this card could be like. Look again. THE CARD IS NOW A $75 BILL. Anything possible when you play Magic with Jace and not junk rares. This is probably spam.
@blueduck70 congrats on the 5-0! Also, congrats on getting your list published. This new 5-0 policy is awful
2cmc thalia is an okay choice I think. Newer lists were cutting the two drops and in my testing, playing almost any configuration of 2 drops until a total of 8 makes this deck considerably better. It doesn't matter if it's lotus cobra, thalia, selfless, third ooze/qasali/voice, it will be better than any three drop. I'm personally not a fan of thalia in modern but I can see it being good in various matchups (shadow, living end, the synergies with queller...). I also see no problem with playing thalia maindeck.
I would never go below 4 queller though. The number of times I've cast queller to then receive a handshake by my opponent...
Mindcensor should be in the sideboard I think, and in higher numbers, if you want that kind of effect. Mindcensor is at its best turn 2, so I would advice 2-3 copies if that's how you want to fight the valakut matchup.
I'm interested in your reasoning for stony silence/surgical extraction though. Surgical is a pretty narrow card in this deck (no thought scour, only one ghost quarter, our removal exiles, no discard, no snapcaster) and I only played it when I expected facing griselbrand reanimator decks. Stony is a good card but I think gaddock is a better card in this deck.
I think mindcensor probably isn't impactful enough. Never really cast it, just wanted to try out more disruption over value spots. Definitely would put the 4th queller back in.
Stony Silence is necessary to make games 2 and 3 more favorable against affinity. Affinity is big now; Often I play against it twice in a league, and bringing in the stony silences and staticasters have been great. Also good against tron and eldrazi tron, since ballista is so hard to deal with, along with lantern. But mainly for affinity.
Surgicals are probably just a relic of Dredge being everywhere a few months ago, but is still ok against reanimator and some other decks. Probably should be removed for the 3rd scooze in the board and an extra slot.
By gaddock do you mean gaddock teeg? I'm not sure I understand what gaddock teeg is good against. Storm and Valakut have bolts out of the board. I can only think of it as good against Company/Chord decks and Normal Tron. What match-ups is it good in?
@blueduck70 I saw your list and it kept me thinking on the thalias. Don't you think that making the company cost 5 and PtE 2 is punishing? I played a league now with 2x 3 mana Thalia maindeck instead of the Aven Mindcensors but I couldn't take any conclusions... Need more testing.
[/list]
Thalia is punishing for the non-creature spells, but if you have an early company you can just not play thalia. And if you do play thalia early, it's usually so good against the opponent that they have to remove it, or be slowed down against a tempo deck. Playing thalia is a real cost, as why I'm playing 2, but I really feel like they're better than voice or the 3rd scooze in this meta. I really think theres merit in disruption that plays to the board. Often it lets you tap out where otherwise you'd be forced to hold up spell queller for interaction vs storm or valakut.
I like 3 mana thalia, but the competition for 3 drops is so high.
List tags are malformed.
@blueduck70 I saw your list and it kept me thinking on the thalias. Don't you think that making the company cost 5 and PtE 2 is punishing? I played a league now with 2x 3 mana Thalia maindeck instead of the Aven Mindcensors but I couldn't take any conclusions... Need more testing.
[/list]
Thalia is punishing for the non-creature spells, but if you have an early company you can just not play thalia. And if you do play thalia early, it's usually so good against the opponent that they have to remove it, or be slowed down against a tempo deck. Playing thalia is a real cost, as why I'm playing 2, but I really feel like they're better than voice or the 3rd scooze in this meta. I really think theres merit in disruption that plays to the board. Often it lets you tap out where otherwise you'd be forced to hold up spell queller for interaction vs storm or valakut.
I like 3 mana thalia, but the competition for 3 drops is so high.
If Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is good in the current meta (and I do believe she is), why not play the humans version of Knightfall with 2-3 Thalia? I believe it has the most raw power of any version of the deck, and if Thalia is the disruption we need right now, humans can support her better than any other, given the synergy with other humans. Personally I've been on a tear with Humans Knightfall. I haven't lost a match of paper magic with it yet (though admittedly no competitive events, just friendly games and FNM). From my experience with all three versions, this one seems the most powerful right now and Thalia might be the card to push it over the top against Titanshift and Storm.
Also, I've mentioned this before but Unified Will is just absurd out of the sideboard when a deck plays 11-12 1 drops. Gideon's Intervention is also an excellent piece of sideboard tech that needs to be explored further. Unlike Runed Halo it actually stops damage dealt to permanents you control, so it can actually blank Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Our humans and Knights can then get so huge they make Primeval Titan look puny, and lock the Titanshift deck out of the game.
I read this thread every once in a while, but never have posted. I've been playing collective company variants for a while (abzan/naya counters company, 4 color humans, knightfall humans, classic knightfall). After playing a bunch of devoted druid decks for a while, Ive recently come back to knightfall.
I thought classic knightfall was a great metagame choice for a while when Grixis Shadow and UW control were big. However, I haven't liked it as much lately and have been turning to human / combo variants lately. Extra disruption in thalia (and sin collector in 4c), along with more aggression / quicker clock, seemed to give it a better chance at closing out games against decks like valakut and storm. I really like the pro-active plan rather than reacting with spell queller.
Currently, I've been trying to combine the high card quality of classic knightfall with more proactive disruption. Specifically, I've been very impressed with thalia's performance in the humans deck. It's been very good against death shadow, jeskai, ad nausuem, storm, valakut, burn, and even counters company. Furthermore, Thalia has lots of synergy with Spell Queller. Voice hasn't been a great choice for a while, and generally the match-ups it's good in are already good, so subbing in thalia for voice seems fine.
playing the one of mindcensor since valakut is so popular online. The 4th queller should probably be in over the mindcensor or the 3rd reflector mage.
Any thoughts on the list / thalia main deck?
I just want to say "thank you" for your work with Knightfall. (I should also express a thanks to everyone else in here as well who has been a big Knightfall fan.) Your list was the list I found on mtggoldfish.com and I've pretty much been running the 75 for quite a bit now, although I have also been playing Humans, Titanshift mostly at PPTQs, and Affinity as well. I fell in love with Knightfall and have come to just love Tireless Tracker. I know it's not the key part of Knightfall per se, but I truly believe because of land filtering (into the graveyard), this is the best Collected Company. They are so likely to hit and I can often nearly count on hitting a Spell Queller once out of 2 Companies. It's probably just been sheer luck.
I will pay attention to the changes that you've done, but I am currently running Human Company instead because I feel safer in the Burn matchup and it has better game against Titanshift IMO.
I just want to clarify something as well. On mtggoldfish, I had written your screenname as "Blueduck700." Is it 700 or 70? A few players asked about "my list" since it has been crushing and I told them it's Blueduck700's list. They can look it up on MTGO, a tool that I have personally never used yet.
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 am on Humans Knightfall as well currently. Whats your main deck/SB configuration to make the match up more favorable against burn FoodChainGoblins? I am running the list that top 8ed GP Birmingham with 2 thalias GOT / 1 mayor in the main and a slightly different SB: 3 U.Will, 2 Gideon AOZ, 2 Burrenton Forge Tender and the rest is the same as the GP list without the Thalia GOT (moved to maindeck).
I bring the 3 U.will and the Forge Tenders against Burn but overall the match up feels very Play/Draw dependent...i miss spell queller here.
But overall Humans Knightfall has more raw power than traditional knightfall indeed. You win a lot of games against Titanshift/Storm and other random unfair decks just by having a quick clock and some minor disruptions. And the match up against Grixis Death Shadow and Eldrazi tron is favorable IMO.
Like 14 decks
Knightfall WURG
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Eternal Witness
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Vizier of Remedies
4 Devoted Druid
2 Duskwatch Recruiter
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Walking Ballista
2 Reflector Mage
Spells
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
3 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Windswept Heath
1 Temple Garden
1 Plains
3 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Gavony Township
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Izzet Staticaster
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Worship
3 Path to Exile
2 Unified Will
1 Negate
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Nissa, Steward of Elements
I also played basically the same list (-2 mage, -1 retreat, +1 Rallier, +1 BoP, +1 vizier) on tuesday with a 3-1 finish, losing to thing ascension.
Last night's matches were as such:
R1 - bye. Ezpz match, opponent was scrub
R2 - Living End. I played t1 dork > t2 druid, and he casts Living end on his t3 bringing back 3 street wraiths and an Archfiend of Ilfnir. On my next turn I fetch and cast renegade rallier, get back druid and pass. He swings in and knocks me down to 4 life, but doesn't have two cyclers and my druid survives, so I'm able to untap and combo off. G2 he gets in an early Living end and kills my board with archfiend before I can combo off. G3 I am able to drop an early Scooby and eat his archfiend from gy, then spend the rest of the game holding up chord for Eidolon of Rhetoric in response to a cascade spell. We spend at least 6 or so turns passing back and forth, and both times I get enough mana on board to swing with scooby or eat something from his gy eot, he plays a fulminator to blow up a nonbasic. Eventually he plays out his hand (suspend Living end. play land, hardcast simian spirit guide), and reveals that he just never found a cascade spell despite cycling 10+ creatures, so I EoT chord for druid and untap and combo kill him. Fun mind games lol.
R3 - Burn. Game one I play a bunch of mana dorks, and assemble the vizier combo, but never see a payoff spell or anything other than mana dorks and lands before he kills me. G2 I'm able to combo kill on t3. G3 I'm on the draw and keep a shaky hand of path, vizier, coco, and lands after he mulls to 6, which gets much less shaky when he ends up actually mulliganing to 4 after not having lands in the other hands. He doesn't find enough gas and I'm able to combo off before he puts me to 0.
R4 - RG Tron. Very quick match. G1 I combo off on t3 on the play, he didn't have time to do anything before it was over. G2 my hand was pretty slow, but I had negate and unified will in hand, which was enough to prevent him from doing anything relevant while I chained 3 back to back CoCos off of eWitt (t3, 4, and 5) and killed him w/ combat damage.
I'm still pretty hyped on this deck, and really enjoying the variety of lines of play the deck has available with CoCo + Chord. I played a game against ETron on tuesday and had a sequence of turns that was extremely fun for me. I played a t1 + 2 dork, t3 play nissa on 1 and +2 her, then unified will his reality smasher, untap and put a druid into play w/ nissa and play ewitt to get back will, which I use to counter his ballista on 2. My following turn I activate nissa to put another dork into play and pass turn with chord and path in hand. He casts endbringer, which I plan to path EoT. He then plays TKS (active tron at this point), which I respond to by chording for ewitt, getting back will, and countering. EoT I path his endbringer, and untap and draw CoCo for the combo kill.
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1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
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
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
//Creatures
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Reflector Mage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Lotus cobra
4 Spell Queller
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Voice of Resurgence
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Tireless tracker
3 Unified Will
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Negate
1 Reflector Mage
3 Izzet Staticaster
Took some ideas from older lists (lotus cobra, 8 2cmc creatures, more vendilion, more tracker). I felt pretty confident about this list, only issues were the ones that this deck always has (sometimes plays a little too fair, manabase is 4 colors with 3 colorless lands and 1 painland so there are games that you lose by not having your colors or because you take a beating just by fetch shocking + horizon canopy). Those two issues made me play lotus cobra, and it was decent actually! Got some free ooze activations, fixed my mana and some opponents were super scared about it so they spent good cards at removing it, which made resolving better creatures easier.
Pairings were:
Jeskai ascendancy (2-0)
Eldrazi tron (1-2)
Living end (2-1)
Burn (2-1)
Jeskai control (1-2)
On another topic: I just bought GW elves, so I'll be able to test games with that deck. I think that it's a better vizier shell than knightfall, but I have yet to test more
L: Maverick
I have several posted if you check my post history (one is in this same page). Most of them are pretty similar.
What don't you like about knightfalls SB? I might be able to help more if you share your questions and concerns
L: Maverick
Another instance is when I faced a Abzan match up recently, and it got grindy. I was able to make my Birds of Paradise into threats with Township. So as long as you play 7-8 dorks, I feel it's worth including.
How is the vizier version more vulnerable to hate? Cage doesn't stop the combo, and chord often gets sided out against decks that bring it in. The advantage is that knight is a better card in the meta than Kitchen finks (being large enough to trade or outgrow eldrazis and delve threats, while also being able to find gavony or kessig), and the blue sb options are a HUGE deal in our otherwise problematic matchups. Staticaster, Unified Will, and Nissa are all very powerful in the matchups they're used in (not that this is new information considering they're cards from tKnightfall).
I keep getting the feeling that those that criticize deck for being "fragile" and lacking in focus haven't actually played it. Playing 2x Voice and Renegade rallier in the mb have completely changed the interactive matchups for me, and the deck feels very resilient to removal when you overload the deck with 2 for 1s (rallier, ewitt, voice, recruiter, coco = 14 cards) and 'must kill' threats (druid, knight, voice token = 10 cards). I've played traditional knightfall, and all too often felt like I had a deck full of 2/3's that couldn't close the game out quick enough when I had a window.
Additionally, counters company is only proven to be a more popular deck, not necessarily better. Vizier Knightfall is lesser known, and if one is better than the other, it's by a very small margin, though they're both extremely viable options (see the 2nd place vizier list I posted earlier https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/757005#paper).
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1 Breeding Pool
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Flooded Strand
1 Stomping Ground
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Temple Garden
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
4 Reflector Mage
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Izzet Staticaster
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Nissa, Steward of Elements
2 Stony Silence
3 Unified Will
What do you guys think about this list? I decided to remove the retreats and fill the deck with more threats. I attempted to make the deck as resilient as possible. I also wanted to play Kira in some form and this seems like a fun build to try out. Kira plays well with our spell quellers and also makes our collected companies able to say no to a removal spell in a different way. Im all in on the tempo aspect of the deck and I want to find a way to play with Fairgrounds Warden, because I feel like it is perfect for the deck, I just dont know what the 'right' list would look like. Anyway, let me know what you guys think!
Sort the deck by type instead of name and you'll have a higher chance of getting feedback.
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The reason I would play knightfall vizier company over counters company is exactly why you are arguing for trad knightfall- with knight and reflector mage it plays a better midrange game if the combo fails. With abzan, it's really hard to win that way. So I very much disagree that combo is the 'only' game you play in knightfall counters company, you can switch to midrange admirably.
I agree with pizz0wn3d on both fronts of 1) traditional knightfall can't always close out games and 2) abzan is more popular, but not necessarily better. It's better at combing without interaction on the other side, but modern has become interactive, hence why the power of knight, mage and counter spells has much more power.
Have you actually tried the deck? You don't mention any testing in your post though you sort of allude to it. Spell queller by the way, is quite good, but not great all the time. It dies often in my experience. That card, as I said earlier, is not enough reason to give up more free wins that you can achieve on turn 3 (without interaction) or a sweet company/chord that resolves end of turn into it.
I respect Kelvin, and would love to see his reasoning for traditional knightfall. For now, I choose to be unfair in an unfair world.
I thought classic knightfall was a great metagame choice for a while when Grixis Shadow and UW control were big. However, I haven't liked it as much lately and have been turning to human / combo variants lately. Extra disruption in thalia (and sin collector in 4c), along with more aggression / quicker clock, seemed to give it a better chance at closing out games against decks like valakut and storm. I really like the pro-active plan rather than reacting with spell queller.
Currently, I've been trying to combine the high card quality of classic knightfall with more proactive disruption. Specifically, I've been very impressed with thalia's performance in the humans deck. It's been very good against death shadow, jeskai, ad nausuem, storm, valakut, burn, and even counters company. Furthermore, Thalia has lots of synergy with Spell Queller. Voice hasn't been a great choice for a while, and generally the match-ups it's good in are already good, so subbing in thalia for voice seems fine.
Here is my recent list I 5-0ed with yesterday:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-modern-constructed-league-2017-09-19
playing the one of mindcensor since valakut is so popular online. The 4th queller should probably be in over the mindcensor or the 3rd reflector mage.
Any thoughts on the list / thalia main deck?
2cmc thalia is an okay choice I think. Newer lists were cutting the two drops and in my testing, playing almost any configuration of 2 drops until a total of 8 makes this deck considerably better. It doesn't matter if it's lotus cobra, thalia, selfless, third ooze/qasali/voice, it will be better than any three drop. I'm personally not a fan of thalia in modern but I can see it being good in various matchups (shadow, living end, the synergies with queller...). I also see no problem with playing thalia maindeck.
I would never go below 4 queller though. The number of times I've cast queller to then receive a handshake by my opponent...
Mindcensor should be in the sideboard I think, and in higher numbers, if you want that kind of effect. Mindcensor is at its best turn 2, so I would advice 2-3 copies if that's how you want to fight the valakut matchup.
I'm interested in your reasoning for stony silence/surgical extraction though. Surgical is a pretty narrow card in this deck (no thought scour, only one ghost quarter, our removal exiles, no discard, no snapcaster) and I only played it when I expected facing griselbrand reanimator decks. Stony is a good card but I think gaddock is a better card in this deck.
L: Maverick
Cage also doesn't stop me from activating knight to find kessig for the kill, and once I board out chord it stops, what, 4 cards in the entire deck? eWitt is still a 2 for 1 in the grindy matchups, and getting back voice/knight/rallier+friend/etc is still very good. Not running kitchen finks means it doesn't actually interact with any of my creatures, and they usually have to see it before t3-4 if they want it to blank CoCo. Sure it stops the ewitt chains, but the deck is still less weak to cage than counters company, which you consider to be the 'better deck'. I was only following the comparisons you made when you said counters company was the better deck. I never argued against counters company's success in a vacuum, just against it's power level in regards to vizier knightfall. In regards to cage and vizier vs traditional knightfall, the only card it affects in vK that it doesn't in tK is chord, which gets boarded so... I'm not worried here.
So keep in mind that my version doesn't run mb reflector mage, since I don't like having a card that feels either great or terrible depending on my MU, and I can't get the same tempo plays tKnightfall does w/ mage > path. That being said, I'm currently on 1 mb fairgrounds warden, and 2 sb reflector mage for the MU where they shine (eTron, BGx, merfolk, company matchups, etc..)
Honestly I can't think of any MU where vizier is worse off than traditional off of the top of my head, though the deck is still pretty weak to burn (searing blaze is a beating). I definitely feel more confident in the noninteractive matchups, where there are very few decks that can race a potential t3 kill (outright killing valakut, etron, affinity, living end, and storm instead of crossing your fingers and hoping to win the race/dodge all is dust). And yes, I realize the decks I listed have interaction in their 75, but that doesn't mean it's the gameplan they want to rely on. Chord also allows you to run silver bullets (hellooo eidolon of rhetoric vs storm and living end) in the sb.
Even in the interactive matchups, I feel much more confident. Playing the combo means they have to hold up removal instead of progressing their board when we have a druid in play or 4 mana up. They also HAVE to save removal for druid/knight, or risk getting combo'd or letting me tutor up gavony/kessig. On top of this they have to deal w/ the coco+ewitt gameplan and not let me untap with voice if they want to interact on my turn. The deck has a lot of lines to it and doesn't give up a lot of consistency considering the number of 4-ofs in the core.
Again, I'm referring to the power level of the decks from my experience, having played with and against all 3 decks (I'm not even the only vizier knightfall player in the area, the deck is well known and doesn't have much surprise value at this point locally). I played my list tonight at a weekly event and took it to another 3-0 finish in an 8 man event. The event itself isn't impressive, but considering my matchups were UWR, Grixis Control, and Valakut, I'd say my vizier list performed *much* better than knightfall would've in those matchups.
finally, all things considered, I'm not saying that everyone should swap off of bant knightfall. What I am saying, is that more people should consider playing vizier knightfall, and that the list is much more powerful than even a lot of people in this thread give it credit for.
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I think mindcensor probably isn't impactful enough. Never really cast it, just wanted to try out more disruption over value spots. Definitely would put the 4th queller back in.
Stony Silence is necessary to make games 2 and 3 more favorable against affinity. Affinity is big now; Often I play against it twice in a league, and bringing in the stony silences and staticasters have been great. Also good against tron and eldrazi tron, since ballista is so hard to deal with, along with lantern. But mainly for affinity.
Surgicals are probably just a relic of Dredge being everywhere a few months ago, but is still ok against reanimator and some other decks. Probably should be removed for the 3rd scooze in the board and an extra slot.
By gaddock do you mean gaddock teeg? I'm not sure I understand what gaddock teeg is good against. Storm and Valakut have bolts out of the board. I can only think of it as good against Company/Chord decks and Normal Tron. What match-ups is it good in?
Thalia is punishing for the non-creature spells, but if you have an early company you can just not play thalia. And if you do play thalia early, it's usually so good against the opponent that they have to remove it, or be slowed down against a tempo deck. Playing thalia is a real cost, as why I'm playing 2, but I really feel like they're better than voice or the 3rd scooze in this meta. I really think theres merit in disruption that plays to the board. Often it lets you tap out where otherwise you'd be forced to hold up spell queller for interaction vs storm or valakut.
I like 3 mana thalia, but the competition for 3 drops is so high.
List tags are malformed.
If Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is good in the current meta (and I do believe she is), why not play the humans version of Knightfall with 2-3 Thalia? I believe it has the most raw power of any version of the deck, and if Thalia is the disruption we need right now, humans can support her better than any other, given the synergy with other humans. Personally I've been on a tear with Humans Knightfall. I haven't lost a match of paper magic with it yet (though admittedly no competitive events, just friendly games and FNM). From my experience with all three versions, this one seems the most powerful right now and Thalia might be the card to push it over the top against Titanshift and Storm.
Also, I've mentioned this before but Unified Will is just absurd out of the sideboard when a deck plays 11-12 1 drops. Gideon's Intervention is also an excellent piece of sideboard tech that needs to be explored further. Unlike Runed Halo it actually stops damage dealt to permanents you control, so it can actually blank Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Our humans and Knights can then get so huge they make Primeval Titan look puny, and lock the Titanshift deck out of the game.
List tags are malformed.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
I just want to say "thank you" for your work with Knightfall. (I should also express a thanks to everyone else in here as well who has been a big Knightfall fan.) Your list was the list I found on mtggoldfish.com and I've pretty much been running the 75 for quite a bit now, although I have also been playing Humans, Titanshift mostly at PPTQs, and Affinity as well. I fell in love with Knightfall and have come to just love Tireless Tracker. I know it's not the key part of Knightfall per se, but I truly believe because of land filtering (into the graveyard), this is the best Collected Company. They are so likely to hit and I can often nearly count on hitting a Spell Queller once out of 2 Companies. It's probably just been sheer luck.
I will pay attention to the changes that you've done, but I am currently running Human Company instead because I feel safer in the Burn matchup and it has better game against Titanshift IMO.
I just want to clarify something as well. On mtggoldfish, I had written your screenname as "Blueduck700." Is it 700 or 70? A few players asked about "my list" since it has been crushing and I told them it's Blueduck700's list. They can look it up on MTGO, a tool that I have personally never used yet.
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 bring the 3 U.will and the Forge Tenders against Burn but overall the match up feels very Play/Draw dependent...i miss spell queller here.
But overall Humans Knightfall has more raw power than traditional knightfall indeed. You win a lot of games against Titanshift/Storm and other random unfair decks just by having a quick clock and some minor disruptions. And the match up against Grixis Death Shadow and Eldrazi tron is favorable IMO.