The deck that I have been playing for a while now is very similar to the vikram list. However I am running paths instead of jaces. My list combines vizier knightfall and normal knightfall. Im taking it to a 1k pretty soon and want to know if ya'll have any last minute tune ups for me. I can't really afford more hierarchs right now so at the moment I only have 1. I'm working on that.
I'd like to maybe include a Renegade Rallier because i have the promo one but if its not good let me know. Let me know what you all think and what I should change
Thanks
EDIT: Also, what does it mean when a tournment requires a decklist? Does it have to be paper or could it be a google keep note?
Generally there are "decklist" sheets at the event that you grab when you walk in. The staff will tell you where to bring them. Make sure you know your DCI number and spell everything right!
I would caution you away from rallier. I love the card but it just hasn't ever been consist enough for me in knightfall. I do think you should run a couple more pilgrims if you can't find nobles. You still want 7-8 dorks
I took everyone's advice and replaced a 3rd Blessed Alliance with a single Worship. The logic made sense to me. Here are my rounds:
R1: Bye R2: Burn (0-2)
G1 He went 1-drop, searing blaze, searing blaze on the play. Mega dead.
G2 He went 1-drop, searing blood, searing blood, searing blaze. I didn't draw any fetches so my knight couldn't survive the onslaught. great draw from burn. Kind of impossible for a deck like Knightfall to beat. R3: RG Eldrazi (0-2)
G1 I mull to 6 but keep a solid hand of dork, V-Clique, CoCo, 3 land. He's on the play. He goes t-1 Noble, t-2 matter reshaper. I pass on T-2 to V-Clique on his draw step because it was his TKS turn and the only gas in my hand was my lonesome coco. He has more matter reshapers, Stirrings, a smasher, and no TKS.I decide to Clique his smasher because I have no answer to it in hand, barring the possibility to hit a TKS on the CLique draw to strip my only action in hand. He did. Took Coco, and I draw land dork land dork and lose.
G2: Mull to 6 again but keep triple dork, reflector mage, 2 lands on play. I reflector Mage his t-1 noble. Then I draw 3 more dorks and lose. Rough R4: Burn (2-1)
G1: I lose the dice roll and lose to natural burn stuff.
G2: I keep a solid hand with Dork, Knight with fetches, Queller, Scooze, and stuff. Drew into some blessed Alliances and a Worship. I was very far ahead, within a turn of winning, and I made a calculated decision of playing out Worship before my final winning turn. The reason I did this is to scare him into siding in some Destructive Revelries for G3, a card that is basically dead against my deck unless I draw into exactly Worship or my single Courser of Kruphix. Guess what? It worked.
G3: He fetches a Stomping Ground on t1, and plays mountain on t2. I have a solid creature hand, which outsizes his quickly. He never draws another land and I get there. He reveals his hand at the end and it's a bunch of white cards and a restructive revelery. He made the mistake of fetching stomping ground t1 to make sure he has green for Revelery. Mistake by him, although I believe that my Worship play in G2 scared him enough to make that mistake. R5: Jeskai Control (2-0)
Up against a young guy, probably about 14 or so, with a foiled out Jeskai Control deck.
G1: He flashed an electrolyze to me while he was shuffling, so I knew it was some sort of blue control deck. I kept a solid hand with a dork, Jace, 3 lands, and double coco. We trade resources on everything until the last card in hand is Jace. I land him with opponent on like 1 card. jace gets there.
G2: V-Clique, CoCOs, Tireless Trackers, Negates. He can't keep up. I feel like Bant CoCo is ehavily favored in these matchups if played correctly. R6: Affinity (1-2)
get matchup up against a buddy of mine. At this point we are still both alive for day 2 at 3-2.
G1: He does affinity stuff on the play, and I lose. I really think G1 against affinity is almost impossible to win, especially without the combo in my deck anymore.
G2: We trade a lot of resources, he plays a bloodmoon into my basics and birds board. I have 4 mana dorks, but I draw like 3 paths so I hang in there for a few turns until I draw a Coco and get there.
G3: I keep a 6-card hand of bird bird V-cique 3 lands on the draw. Only drew lands and dorks. Out of day 2 contention.
At this point I'm out of day 2 contention and my friend offers me some rum to drown my sorrows with him. I happily oblige and toss some into my Pepsi. Gotta enjoy my last two rounds, right?
R7: Storm (0-2)
Get matchup up against the guy I drove up with. Of course. I know he's on Storm. We are both dead for day 2 and I'm a bit tipsy so we talk a lot of *****, and joke around with each other.
G1: I just get crushed. G1 is almost impossible.
G2: I Clique him, take his win con and leave him with a bunch of rituals. Then he passes. I draw a Unifed Will (thank the lord). I play courser leave up unified Will. He tries to go off, and I counter his gifts after a few rituals so he fizzles and passes. He sees me draw a Queller. I get him down to 2, and he topdecks a gifts. He casts it. I quell it. Then he casts the last card in hand, a Past In Flames. That top-decking bastard. In retrospect, I potentially should have casted the Queller the turn before at his end step to lethal him in combat. But I was drinking. and we were ******* around. it was fun though.
R8: Jund (0-2)
At this point my care level is VERY low. Just having fun.
G1: He's on the play, and goes discard my noble, t-2 Dark Confidant. I have mono 3-drops in hand. Good start for him. he gets some rough flips on Dark Confidant and gets down to 1, but is able to take me out. Bob probably did about 10-2 damage to him.
G2: I keep a hand of 2 lands, double VoR, path, Courser and Knight. Never draw 3rd land. Oh well.
Overall, I ended 3-5, although I don't really count the last 2 rounds because I was drinking. I drew A LOT of mana dorks all day. I think I was pretty unlucky in that regard. Especially against RG eldrazi, which seems like a good matchup, especially with 3 Reflector Mages and 2 Kitchen Finks post board. But that happens sometimes with the deck. I'm not a big proponent of the deck going forward. It just doesn't have good matchups. I think control is favorable, Humans is favorable, and Jund is too, but every linear deck is good against you and winning game 1 is hard. Bringing Retreat back helps though.
That being said, I tried Vikram's Devoted Combo list in two comp leagues and went 10-0 in games in the first league. It felt really good, although I think I got pretty lucky in drawing the combo in a lot of those games. I did another league and went 3-2, and I felt like I got pretty unlucky in a lot of those games. For example, against RG valakut I assembled the infinite mana combo with a Selfless Spirit to defend it, a Unified will to stop titan, and a queller to stop Scapeshift/other shenanigans. I even drew another Queller. All I needed was the final combo piece (Wolfrun, Coco, chord, ballista, buskwatch) to finish him off. I bricked for about 5 turns and lost. Seems like just the way the deck plays though.
I've been playtesting it since yesterday and it is absurd how much value this deck has. Not having spell quellers makes the linear matchups feel a bit more scary, but BBE > Queller feels pretty bad so it's understandable. Likely bringing this pile to FNM this week.
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.
I've been playtesting it since yesterday and it is absurd how much value this deck has. Not having spell quellers makes the linear matchups feel a bit more scary, but BBE > Queller feels pretty bad so it's understandable. Likely bringing this pile to FNM this week.
Looks pretty interesting, but I'm super hesitant to run a deck with no removal that can't assemble a combo fast. Jund is very popular in my local meta and showing up with a deck that can't answer Bob is playing a dangerous game. We all can't win by Bob flipping a BBE off the top.
Also I've been playing some games of the GP deck. I've been having fun, it's definitely more of a Vizier combo deck that coincidentally has a Retreat that you can win off of, not that there's anything wrong with that. Super pissed I can't find my copy of Worship though. I don't know how necessary it is to run Jace, but the one time I was able to play him I won off of it.
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Modern: GW GW Hatebears |GWB Counters Company | GWU Bant Knightfall GW Value Town
Legacy: GWB Maverick
EDH: GWR Mayael | Rhys | Sisay | Ezuri | Titania
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Thanks for the write-up! Your report really resonated with me, as I've had the same experience playing Bant Company since the unbannings as you had during the GP. I played around 400 mtgo matches with Knightfall last year and was happy with it - it used to outgrind and outvalue all other midrange (old Abzan/Jund lists, Death's Shadow decks) and control decks like no ones business, but that is not true to the same degree anymore since new midrange decks have BBE to go over the top. Combo and Tron were always non-ideal matchups, and I feel like there are so many more linear decks nowadays to go under Jund/UW Control. Just look at your matchup list from the GP - Burn x2, Affinity, Storm. Not exactly dream matchups for Jace and KOTR. So, if we can't beat linear aggro, combo OR midrange anymore - what are we doing?
To me, it is super important to have speed. I don't want to durdle around with Voices and Coursers in this meta... unless you join team Jund, it is so important to kill them dead. I've had success in the last month with Vikrams list (12-3 record), normal Counters Company (38-10 record) and 5C Humans (79-26 record), and it feels much better to have a coherent, proactive gameplan instead of playing Jace value or casting Spell Quellers against 12-piece removal decks. I was thinking that a good halfway solution would be Vizier Bant without Knights/retreats a'la Kyle Boggemes' latest lists, but I ran that back to a 4-6 record yesterday and it felt so clunky.
I really want Bant Company to be good, and I'll probably keep at it now and again, but it just feels awful to me at the moment.
Honestly, I really liked Vikram's Devoted Druid combo list. But I didn't like the failrate. I also really like the Counters Company combo right now, but it sucks that the Finks/Seer combo is hard to execute on mtgo. I've had some previous 5-0 comp league success with an all-in devoted druid combo deck on mtgo last year when GDS was huge, so I'm going to try that again. And now that Stubborn Denial isn't as big, it might even be better! Here's the list:
I'm not sure on the split between Chord and Evolution. Chord is usually better overall, but with only 20 lands, it's often hard to make chord live. Aether vial is surprisingly good here. It let's you play around sorcery speed removal. It turns your eternal witnesses and Duskwatch Recruiters into card advantage engines. And then Commune With nature is there to give you more T3 wins by fishing for Devoted Druid on T1.
Again, this isn't just theory crafting. I've played this similar list to multiple comp league 5-0s last year. I think the meta could be ripe for it, especially with Jeskai control, grixis control, and grixis Death's Shadow performing poorly right now.
I've been playtesting it since yesterday and it is absurd how much value this deck has. Not having spell quellers makes the linear matchups feel a bit more scary, but BBE > Queller feels pretty bad so it's understandable. Likely bringing this pile to FNM this week.
Looks pretty interesting, but I'm super hesitant to run a deck with no removal that can't assemble a combo fast. Jund is very popular in my local meta and showing up with a deck that can't answer Bob is playing a dangerous game. We all can't win by Bob flipping a BBE off the top.
Also I've been playing some games of the GP deck. I've been having fun, it's definitely more of a Vizier combo deck that coincidentally has a Retreat that you can win off of, not that there's anything wrong with that. Super pissed I can't find my copy of Worship though. I don't know how necessary it is to run Jace, but the one time I was able to play him I won off of it.
That list outgrinds jund so hard it's not a matchup I'd ever worry about. If they play a Bob, you just ignore it and continue vomiting value all over the board. You have 4x CoCo, 4x BBE, 2 Tracker, 2 Courser, 1 EWitt, 4 VoR, Gavony, etc that all come together to make the matchup near unwinnable for Jund. Reflector Mage is also huge in this matchup. Your clock is fast enough that the tempo swing from it is brutal for them. If you ever BBE into RMage, the game is just over almost on the spot.
The matchups that are difficult are the linear ones. Storm is too fast for you to race, infect is unwinnable, and tron is still blegh. This is why the sb runs 2 Eidolons of Rhetoric and 3 Crumble (BoP into t3 Crumble is probably good enough though).
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.
Round 1: Merfolk (2-0)
Game 1 he's on the play and he drops a vial turn one. I drop a dork and then pass. I quickly assemble the vizier-druid combo and he scoops.
Game 2 he doesn't get a vial and I close him out on turn 3 with the vizier-druid combo because I had the nut play of dork, druid, vizier, rhonas, win. 1-0
Round 2: Mono-Black Devotion (2-1)
Game 1 I keep a risky hand that was super susceptible to removal and mana screwing but I thought I would be fine because I had a hierarch, a forest and a breeding pool along with a druid and a vizier. I was feeling confident until turn 1 he inquisitions me taking the druid, and then turn 2 he fatal pushes the hierarch. I have no white mana so I can do nothing but flounder helplessly while he drops two Phyrexian Obliterators and my only blocker is a devoted druid and my hand is full of knights. I have a path that I can't use. Ugh.
Game 2 goes really long but all I can remember was that it was going really well when he cast damnation. I thought I was smart and cast queller only to have him cast Go For the Throat on it. Both of our boards are clean so I drop a knight and a dork. He drops an obliterator but I can cast path this time so that wasn't a problem. I beat him down with an ever growing knight. He cast a Gray Merchant of Asphodel thinking he had me in the bag but reflector mage came through to let me get in lethal with knight.
Game 3 we went to turns because we only had 5 minutes left in the round but I combo'd off during my first turn after time expired. 2-0
Round 3: Jund (1-1-1)
Game 1: I can't get any combos up and running but the beatdown plan was going pretty well. He drew a Scavenging Ooze and raised his life total from 1 to 4 thinking that it would be enough to survive his bob trigger. It wasn't, he flipped Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet He would have had me the next turn or so because he had a big goyf to swing with which was bigger than my knight at the time.
Game 2: I mull to 6 and keep a solid hand comprised of forest, bird, knight, retreat, botanical sanctum and an island. I scry to reveal a fetch and I send it to the bottom because I wanted more gas, I already 3 lands and a bird. That cost me the game. I never drew another land and he bolted my bird. It left me on no white mana when I had knights, quellers and reflector mages in my hand.
Game 3: A back and forth match up that led to us both getting into topdeck mode. I was up 15 to 3 life but was only drawing lands. He also only drew lands. We went to turns and he drew a scooze, the very card he needed. He had the last turn, so he swung at me, I blocked. Draw 2-0-1
Round 4: Burn
Game 1 I get Nissa going and things are going well. I wind up with the Vizier Combo and win.
Game 2 I get Nissa again and things are looking up until he double boros charms me. He's out of gas and only has a Goblin Guide and a Monastery Swiftspear I'm low on life but my scry with nissa revealed a Kitchen Finks from my sideboard. I thought I was saved. At the end of his turn I cracked a fetch. Shuffled and then realized that my finks was gone. He killed me the next turn
Game 3 I assemble the vizier combo really quick and get a turn 3 win. 3-0-1
It was a solid performance by the deck and the one time that I got geist it performed very well. Eternal Witness wasn't good to me and I never got anything good off of it even though I got it a lot. My prize was a Vendilion Clique and I will be putting it in for E-wit. I've played traditional knightfall and in this meta that's full of linear decks I think that this list is one of the best ways to go. It's fast and has multiple combos, while still having the beatdown plan as an option. It has some interaction which is good enough to beat the super linear decks like merfolk. I was very pleased with the deck.
Let me know about any thoughts ya'll have
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Ewit is more important to the Vizier build than you think. Sometimes it lets you win games you otherwise wouldn't have (infinite mana but only CoCo in hand. CoCo into Ewit to chain into another CoCo, a chord you played previously, win con that ended up in the GY previously, etc.)
UU for V clique might be tough on the Vizier mana base. You mentioned a few times in your report that you were kept off white mana with cards trapped in your hand. I don't think straining your color requirements with double blue is a good call. But then again people have had success running Jace, so I could be wrong. My meta has a pretty fair amount of Blood Moon and LD so I tend to shy away from those types of deckbuilding choices.
I'm not sure how I feel about MB Geist. Imo you should replace him with a Walking Ballista. It's really hard to keep the board clear enough to swing with him against Midrange. you're better off trying to combo first against combo decks. He's great out of the SB against control through.
I'm not sure if MB Path and Nissa are where you want to be either. It really waters down your CoCo to have that many non creature spells (especially in a deck with this many forks) I'm a HUGE fan of Nissa (run 2 in my 75 for traditional Knightfall) but I think she's a SB card for this deck. I tried testing her in the main but realized every time I drew her I would've rather had a chord or creature instead.
I don't remember if it was you who asked about renegade rallier for this deck, but I've been testing him as a 1-of and really pleased with the results. Revolt is relatively easy to trigger with all our Fetches + Knight.
Overall though, congrats on the strong finish! Wishing you the 4-0 next time
Oh also personal choice, I like to run Gavony over GQ for my 2nd colorless land. Gavony is great when you need too switch to beat down mode. Turns those 0/X and 2/1's into some serious beaters!
I don´t know if we are so soft against linear aggro, combo and midrange as it was said. Worship is a great card in a lot of those linear aggro matchups. Against storm, spell queller/unified will and bojuka bog are our tools. Regarding midrange we have a ton of value. I'm not saying they're all great matchups, but maybe not that bad.
I used to play Abzan Company. When I switched to counters company it became easier to combo on turn 3 for lethal, what improved my chances against tron (it was literraly unwinnable before) and some other decks, while the ability to combo on instant speed and the inclusion of some more "bad" creatures (vizier and druid) brought down some of the value we had before (anafenza is a better card in a vacuum than these two).
Today I'm not comfortable in running the druid/vizier combo. Too easily disrupted, and after disruption all we get is a couple of non-impactful guys on the table. I'm much more into having the midrange/value package of bant company.
Every deck nowadays is running 4 bolt effects mainboard. Valakut decks, Affinity (Galv blast), RB Hollow One, Burn, Ponza, GR Eldrazi etc. It makes the devoted Druid combo plan hard to pull off (in my experience on mtgo over the past two days).
It's still sort of all-in on the infinite mana combo plan, but you can recharge pretty easily with Trackers, as well as have large Knights. I would look at add an eternal witness or two in there though. Maybe +2 Eternal Witness +1 Duskwatch, -1 Vizier -2 Courser.
I like the way it is set up, although that manabase looks rough. kessig Wolf run and a stomping ground should be in there as a combo piece.
Every deck nowadays is running 4 bolt effects mainboard. Valakut decks, Affinity (Galv blast), RB Hollow One, Burn, Ponza, GR Eldrazi etc. It makes the devoted Druid combo plan hard to pull off (in my experience on mtgo over the past two days).
It's still sort of all-in on the infinite mana combo plan, but you can recharge pretty easily with Trackers, as well as have large Knights. I would look at add an eternal witness or two in there though. Maybe +2 Eternal Witness +1 Duskwatch, -1 Vizier -2 Courser.
I like the way it is set up, although that manabase looks rough. kessig Wolf run and a stomping ground should be in there as a combo piece.
This list is really similar if not identical to the list that won Hareruya's last God of Modern event (300+ people).
Ewit is more important to the Vizier build than you think. Sometimes it lets you win games you otherwise wouldn't have (infinite mana but only CoCo in hand. CoCo into Ewit to chain into another CoCo, a chord you played previously, win con that ended up in the GY previously, etc.)
UU for V clique might be tough on the Vizier mana base. You mentioned a few times in your report that you were kept off white mana with cards trapped in your hand. I don't think straining your color requirements with double blue is a good call. But then again people have had success running Jace, so I could be wrong. My meta has a pretty fair amount of Blood Moon and LD so I tend to shy away from those types of deckbuilding choices.
I'm not sure how I feel about MB Geist. Imo you should replace him with a Walking Ballista. It's really hard to keep the board clear enough to swing with him against Midrange. you're better off trying to combo first against combo decks. He's great out of the SB against control through.
I'm not sure if MB Path and Nissa are where you want to be either. It really waters down your CoCo to have that many non creature spells (especially in a deck with this many forks) I'm a HUGE fan of Nissa (run 2 in my 75 for traditional Knightfall) but I think she's a SB card for this deck. I tried testing her in the main but realized every time I drew her I would've rather had a chord or creature instead.
I don't remember if it was you who asked about renegade rallier for this deck, but I've been testing him as a 1-of and really pleased with the results. Revolt is relatively easy to trigger with all our Fetches + Knight.
Overall though, congrats on the strong finish! Wishing you the 4-0 next time
Oh also personal choice, I like to run Gavony over GQ for my 2nd colorless land. Gavony is great when you need too switch to beat down mode. Turns those 0/X and 2/1's into some serious beaters!
Thanks for the comments! i have put in e-wit for geist and put in a rallier over the ghost quarter. This deck only needs 20 lands.
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I've been alternating between vizier knightfall and the 4c bloodbraid pile online. I've been beginning to favor vizier, simply because there are so many matchups where you just think "thank God I'm not fighting fair"
I actually wanted to make an argument for reflector mage in vizier. After playing that GP list for a while, that was the card that impressed me the most, and I've been really happy with it over KotR.
Like someone else mentioned, everybody is interacting these days. With the knight/tracker lists I found I could rebuild... But those cards are slow and don't catch you up from behind. I lost a lot of games to a bolt or path on my combo turn, and then never getting enough traction to overcome a gurmag angler, leonin arbiter, or steel overseer.
Reflector has been so good for me because it just instantly takes pressure off. In the games where you get your druid killed, it stabilizes the board enough for you to properly utilize cards like chord and EWit.
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Devoted Druid
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Eternal Witness
2 Reflector Mage
2 Duskwatch Recruiter
3 Spell Queller
3 Vizier of Remedies
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
Enchantment
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
Land
2 Temple Garden
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Breeding Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
1 Botanical Sanctum
3 Path to Exile
2 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
Planeswalker
1 Nissa, Steward of Elements
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Selfless Spirit
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Voice of Resurgence
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Worship
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Unified Will
1 Blessed Alliance
I'd like to maybe include a Renegade Rallier because i have the promo one but if its not good let me know. Let me know what you all think and what I should change
Thanks
EDIT: Also, what does it mean when a tournment requires a decklist? Does it have to be paper or could it be a google keep note?
I would caution you away from rallier. I love the card but it just hasn't ever been consist enough for me in knightfall. I do think you should run a couple more pilgrims if you can't find nobles. You still want 7-8 dorks
The deck that just top 8'd a GP Played a 3/3 Split with 4 Druid....
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
3x Voice of Resurgence
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Spell Queller
2x Tireless Tracker
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Courser of Kruphix
4x Path to Exile
4x Collected Company
2x Jace. the Mind Scultor
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Flooded Strand
1x Temple Garden
1x Breeding Pool
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Gavony Township
2x Forest
1x Plains
1x Island
2x Botanical Sanctum
1x Stirring Wildwood
2x Negate
3x Unified Will
3x Reflector Mage
2x Blessed Alliance
1x Worship
2x Kitchen Finks
2x Stony Silence
Spoiler Alert: It sucked.
I took everyone's advice and replaced a 3rd Blessed Alliance with a single Worship. The logic made sense to me. Here are my rounds:
R1: Bye
R2: Burn (0-2)
G1 He went 1-drop, searing blaze, searing blaze on the play. Mega dead.
G2 He went 1-drop, searing blood, searing blood, searing blaze. I didn't draw any fetches so my knight couldn't survive the onslaught. great draw from burn. Kind of impossible for a deck like Knightfall to beat.
R3: RG Eldrazi (0-2)
G1 I mull to 6 but keep a solid hand of dork, V-Clique, CoCo, 3 land. He's on the play. He goes t-1 Noble, t-2 matter reshaper. I pass on T-2 to V-Clique on his draw step because it was his TKS turn and the only gas in my hand was my lonesome coco. He has more matter reshapers, Stirrings, a smasher, and no TKS.I decide to Clique his smasher because I have no answer to it in hand, barring the possibility to hit a TKS on the CLique draw to strip my only action in hand. He did. Took Coco, and I draw land dork land dork and lose.
G2: Mull to 6 again but keep triple dork, reflector mage, 2 lands on play. I reflector Mage his t-1 noble. Then I draw 3 more dorks and lose. Rough
R4: Burn (2-1)
G1: I lose the dice roll and lose to natural burn stuff.
G2: I keep a solid hand with Dork, Knight with fetches, Queller, Scooze, and stuff. Drew into some blessed Alliances and a Worship. I was very far ahead, within a turn of winning, and I made a calculated decision of playing out Worship before my final winning turn. The reason I did this is to scare him into siding in some Destructive Revelries for G3, a card that is basically dead against my deck unless I draw into exactly Worship or my single Courser of Kruphix. Guess what? It worked.
G3: He fetches a Stomping Ground on t1, and plays mountain on t2. I have a solid creature hand, which outsizes his quickly. He never draws another land and I get there. He reveals his hand at the end and it's a bunch of white cards and a restructive revelery. He made the mistake of fetching stomping ground t1 to make sure he has green for Revelery. Mistake by him, although I believe that my Worship play in G2 scared him enough to make that mistake.
R5: Jeskai Control (2-0)
Up against a young guy, probably about 14 or so, with a foiled out Jeskai Control deck.
G1: He flashed an electrolyze to me while he was shuffling, so I knew it was some sort of blue control deck. I kept a solid hand with a dork, Jace, 3 lands, and double coco. We trade resources on everything until the last card in hand is Jace. I land him with opponent on like 1 card. jace gets there.
G2: V-Clique, CoCOs, Tireless Trackers, Negates. He can't keep up. I feel like Bant CoCo is ehavily favored in these matchups if played correctly.
R6: Affinity (1-2)
get matchup up against a buddy of mine. At this point we are still both alive for day 2 at 3-2.
G1: He does affinity stuff on the play, and I lose. I really think G1 against affinity is almost impossible to win, especially without the combo in my deck anymore.
G2: We trade a lot of resources, he plays a bloodmoon into my basics and birds board. I have 4 mana dorks, but I draw like 3 paths so I hang in there for a few turns until I draw a Coco and get there.
G3: I keep a 6-card hand of bird bird V-cique 3 lands on the draw. Only drew lands and dorks. Out of day 2 contention.
At this point I'm out of day 2 contention and my friend offers me some rum to drown my sorrows with him. I happily oblige and toss some into my Pepsi. Gotta enjoy my last two rounds, right?
R7: Storm (0-2)
Get matchup up against the guy I drove up with. Of course. I know he's on Storm. We are both dead for day 2 and I'm a bit tipsy so we talk a lot of *****, and joke around with each other.
G1: I just get crushed. G1 is almost impossible.
G2: I Clique him, take his win con and leave him with a bunch of rituals. Then he passes. I draw a Unifed Will (thank the lord). I play courser leave up unified Will. He tries to go off, and I counter his gifts after a few rituals so he fizzles and passes. He sees me draw a Queller. I get him down to 2, and he topdecks a gifts. He casts it. I quell it. Then he casts the last card in hand, a Past In Flames. That top-decking bastard. In retrospect, I potentially should have casted the Queller the turn before at his end step to lethal him in combat. But I was drinking. and we were ******* around. it was fun though.
R8: Jund (0-2)
At this point my care level is VERY low. Just having fun.
G1: He's on the play, and goes discard my noble, t-2 Dark Confidant. I have mono 3-drops in hand. Good start for him. he gets some rough flips on Dark Confidant and gets down to 1, but is able to take me out. Bob probably did about 10-2 damage to him.
G2: I keep a hand of 2 lands, double VoR, path, Courser and Knight. Never draw 3rd land. Oh well.
Overall, I ended 3-5, although I don't really count the last 2 rounds because I was drinking. I drew A LOT of mana dorks all day. I think I was pretty unlucky in that regard. Especially against RG eldrazi, which seems like a good matchup, especially with 3 Reflector Mages and 2 Kitchen Finks post board. But that happens sometimes with the deck. I'm not a big proponent of the deck going forward. It just doesn't have good matchups. I think control is favorable, Humans is favorable, and Jund is too, but every linear deck is good against you and winning game 1 is hard. Bringing Retreat back helps though.
That being said, I tried Vikram's Devoted Combo list in two comp leagues and went 10-0 in games in the first league. It felt really good, although I think I got pretty lucky in drawing the combo in a lot of those games. I did another league and went 3-2, and I felt like I got pretty unlucky in a lot of those games. For example, against RG valakut I assembled the infinite mana combo with a Selfless Spirit to defend it, a Unified will to stop titan, and a queller to stop Scapeshift/other shenanigans. I even drew another Queller. All I needed was the final combo piece (Wolfrun, Coco, chord, ballista, buskwatch) to finish him off. I bricked for about 5 turns and lost. Seems like just the way the deck plays though.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/996341#paper
I've been playtesting it since yesterday and it is absurd how much value this deck has. Not having spell quellers makes the linear matchups feel a bit more scary, but BBE > Queller feels pretty bad so it's understandable. Likely bringing this pile to FNM this week.
URURxUR
UWUWxUW
Looks pretty interesting, but I'm super hesitant to run a deck with no removal that can't assemble a combo fast. Jund is very popular in my local meta and showing up with a deck that can't answer Bob is playing a dangerous game. We all can't win by Bob flipping a BBE off the top.
Also I've been playing some games of the GP deck. I've been having fun, it's definitely more of a Vizier combo deck that coincidentally has a Retreat that you can win off of, not that there's anything wrong with that. Super pissed I can't find my copy of Worship though. I don't know how necessary it is to run Jace, but the one time I was able to play him I won off of it.
GW GW Hatebears |GWB Counters Company | GWU Bant Knightfall GW Value Town
Legacy:
GWB Maverick
EDH:
GWR Mayael | Rhys | Sisay | Ezuri | Titania
GWIf it doesn't have a toolbox I don't want anything to do with itGW
Honestly, I really liked Vikram's Devoted Druid combo list. But I didn't like the failrate. I also really like the Counters Company combo right now, but it sucks that the Finks/Seer combo is hard to execute on mtgo. I've had some previous 5-0 comp league success with an all-in devoted druid combo deck on mtgo last year when GDS was huge, so I'm going to try that again. And now that Stubborn Denial isn't as big, it might even be better! Here's the list:
4x Commune With Nature
3x Chord of Calling
2x Eldritch Evolution
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Devoted Druid
4x Duskwatch
3x Vizier of Remedies
1x Selfless Spirit
2x Voice of Resurgence
2x Fauna Shaman
4x Eternal Witness
2x Renegade Rallier
1x Walking ballista
3x misty Rainforest
2x Temple garden
3x Forest
1x plains
2x Horizon Canopy
2x RazorVerge Thicket
1x Stomping Ground
1x Kessig Wolfrun
1x Dryad Arbor
2x Voice of Resurgence
2x Path
2x Fiery Justice
1x Kataki
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Selfless Spirit
1x Sigarda, Host of herons
2x Lone missionary
1x Burrenton Forge Tender
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
I'm not sure on the split between Chord and Evolution. Chord is usually better overall, but with only 20 lands, it's often hard to make chord live. Aether vial is surprisingly good here. It let's you play around sorcery speed removal. It turns your eternal witnesses and Duskwatch Recruiters into card advantage engines. And then Commune With nature is there to give you more T3 wins by fishing for Devoted Druid on T1.
Again, this isn't just theory crafting. I've played this similar list to multiple comp league 5-0s last year. I think the meta could be ripe for it, especially with Jeskai control, grixis control, and grixis Death's Shadow performing poorly right now.
That list outgrinds jund so hard it's not a matchup I'd ever worry about. If they play a Bob, you just ignore it and continue vomiting value all over the board. You have 4x CoCo, 4x BBE, 2 Tracker, 2 Courser, 1 EWitt, 4 VoR, Gavony, etc that all come together to make the matchup near unwinnable for Jund. Reflector Mage is also huge in this matchup. Your clock is fast enough that the tempo swing from it is brutal for them. If you ever BBE into RMage, the game is just over almost on the spot.
The matchups that are difficult are the linear ones. Storm is too fast for you to race, infect is unwinnable, and tron is still blegh. This is why the sb runs 2 Eidolons of Rhetoric and 3 Crumble (BoP into t3 Crumble is probably good enough though).
URURxUR
UWUWxUW
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Devoted Druid
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Eternal Witness
2 Reflector Mage
2 Duskwatch Recruiter
3 Spell Queller
3 Vizier of Remedies
1 Renegade Rallier
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
Enchantment
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
Land
2 Temple Garden
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Breeding Pool
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
1 Botanical Sanctum
3 Path to Exile
2 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
Planeswalker
1 Nissa, Steward of Elements
2 Izzet Staticaster
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Selfless Spirit
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Voice of Resurgence
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Unified Will
1 Blessed Alliance
Round 1: Merfolk (2-0)
Game 1 he's on the play and he drops a vial turn one. I drop a dork and then pass. I quickly assemble the vizier-druid combo and he scoops.
Game 2 he doesn't get a vial and I close him out on turn 3 with the vizier-druid combo because I had the nut play of dork, druid, vizier, rhonas, win.
1-0
Round 2: Mono-Black Devotion (2-1)
Game 1 I keep a risky hand that was super susceptible to removal and mana screwing but I thought I would be fine because I had a hierarch, a forest and a breeding pool along with a druid and a vizier. I was feeling confident until turn 1 he inquisitions me taking the druid, and then turn 2 he fatal pushes the hierarch. I have no white mana so I can do nothing but flounder helplessly while he drops two Phyrexian Obliterators and my only blocker is a devoted druid and my hand is full of knights. I have a path that I can't use. Ugh.
Game 2 goes really long but all I can remember was that it was going really well when he cast damnation. I thought I was smart and cast queller only to have him cast Go For the Throat on it. Both of our boards are clean so I drop a knight and a dork. He drops an obliterator but I can cast path this time so that wasn't a problem. I beat him down with an ever growing knight. He cast a Gray Merchant of Asphodel thinking he had me in the bag but reflector mage came through to let me get in lethal with knight.
Game 3 we went to turns because we only had 5 minutes left in the round but I combo'd off during my first turn after time expired.
2-0
Round 3: Jund (1-1-1)
Game 1: I can't get any combos up and running but the beatdown plan was going pretty well. He drew a Scavenging Ooze and raised his life total from 1 to 4 thinking that it would be enough to survive his bob trigger. It wasn't, he flipped Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet He would have had me the next turn or so because he had a big goyf to swing with which was bigger than my knight at the time.
Game 2: I mull to 6 and keep a solid hand comprised of forest, bird, knight, retreat, botanical sanctum and an island. I scry to reveal a fetch and I send it to the bottom because I wanted more gas, I already 3 lands and a bird. That cost me the game. I never drew another land and he bolted my bird. It left me on no white mana when I had knights, quellers and reflector mages in my hand.
Game 3: A back and forth match up that led to us both getting into topdeck mode. I was up 15 to 3 life but was only drawing lands. He also only drew lands. We went to turns and he drew a scooze, the very card he needed. He had the last turn, so he swung at me, I blocked. Draw
2-0-1
Round 4: Burn
Game 1 I get Nissa going and things are going well. I wind up with the Vizier Combo and win.
Game 2 I get Nissa again and things are looking up until he double boros charms me. He's out of gas and only has a Goblin Guide and a Monastery Swiftspear I'm low on life but my scry with nissa revealed a Kitchen Finks from my sideboard. I thought I was saved. At the end of his turn I cracked a fetch. Shuffled and then realized that my finks was gone. He killed me the next turn
Game 3 I assemble the vizier combo really quick and get a turn 3 win.
3-0-1
It was a solid performance by the deck and the one time that I got geist it performed very well. Eternal Witness wasn't good to me and I never got anything good off of it even though I got it a lot. My prize was a Vendilion Clique and I will be putting it in for E-wit. I've played traditional knightfall and in this meta that's full of linear decks I think that this list is one of the best ways to go. It's fast and has multiple combos, while still having the beatdown plan as an option. It has some interaction which is good enough to beat the super linear decks like merfolk. I was very pleased with the deck.
Let me know about any thoughts ya'll have
UU for V clique might be tough on the Vizier mana base. You mentioned a few times in your report that you were kept off white mana with cards trapped in your hand. I don't think straining your color requirements with double blue is a good call. But then again people have had success running Jace, so I could be wrong. My meta has a pretty fair amount of Blood Moon and LD so I tend to shy away from those types of deckbuilding choices.
I'm not sure how I feel about MB Geist. Imo you should replace him with a Walking Ballista. It's really hard to keep the board clear enough to swing with him against Midrange. you're better off trying to combo first against combo decks. He's great out of the SB against control through.
I'm not sure if MB Path and Nissa are where you want to be either. It really waters down your CoCo to have that many non creature spells (especially in a deck with this many forks) I'm a HUGE fan of Nissa (run 2 in my 75 for traditional Knightfall) but I think she's a SB card for this deck. I tried testing her in the main but realized every time I drew her I would've rather had a chord or creature instead.
I don't remember if it was you who asked about renegade rallier for this deck, but I've been testing him as a 1-of and really pleased with the results. Revolt is relatively easy to trigger with all our Fetches + Knight.
Overall though, congrats on the strong finish! Wishing you the 4-0 next time
Oh also personal choice, I like to run Gavony over GQ for my 2nd colorless land. Gavony is great when you need too switch to beat down mode. Turns those 0/X and 2/1's into some serious beaters!
I used to play Abzan Company. When I switched to counters company it became easier to combo on turn 3 for lethal, what improved my chances against tron (it was literraly unwinnable before) and some other decks, while the ability to combo on instant speed and the inclusion of some more "bad" creatures (vizier and druid) brought down some of the value we had before (anafenza is a better card in a vacuum than these two).
Today I'm not comfortable in running the druid/vizier combo. Too easily disrupted, and after disruption all we get is a couple of non-impactful guys on the table. I'm much more into having the midrange/value package of bant company.
I saw this deck in the 5-0 lists today:
3 Birds of Paradise
2 Courser of Kruphix
4 Devoted Druid
1 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Selfless Spirit
4 Tireless Tracker
4 Vizier of Remedies
1 Walking Ballista
4 Collected Company
3 Field of Ruin
6 Forest
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Plains
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
60 Cards
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Stony Silence
1 Worship
It's still sort of all-in on the infinite mana combo plan, but you can recharge pretty easily with Trackers, as well as have large Knights. I would look at add an eternal witness or two in there though. Maybe +2 Eternal Witness +1 Duskwatch, -1 Vizier -2 Courser.
I like the way it is set up, although that manabase looks rough. kessig Wolf run and a stomping ground should be in there as a combo piece.
This list is really similar if not identical to the list that won Hareruya's last God of Modern event (300+ people).
Thanks for the comments! i have put in e-wit for geist and put in a rallier over the ghost quarter. This deck only needs 20 lands.
I actually wanted to make an argument for reflector mage in vizier. After playing that GP list for a while, that was the card that impressed me the most, and I've been really happy with it over KotR.
Like someone else mentioned, everybody is interacting these days. With the knight/tracker lists I found I could rebuild... But those cards are slow and don't catch you up from behind. I lost a lot of games to a bolt or path on my combo turn, and then never getting enough traction to overcome a gurmag angler, leonin arbiter, or steel overseer.
Reflector has been so good for me because it just instantly takes pressure off. In the games where you get your druid killed, it stabilizes the board enough for you to properly utilize cards like chord and EWit.