The deck absolutely does not need goyfs in any incarnation; there will never be consensus that they're better than voice (or even Thalia, or some other strong 2-drop) because he's not strictly better than other cards in this archetype (either zoo or bant).
It's not a budget question, it's a preference and meta question. In no way is he core to to any version of the deck except one that tries to run stubborn denial (which I found to be kinda meh overall personally).
Please don't be so quick to shoot down ideas. Without any solid results from anyone, it's just a myopic approach.
Naya Company has been playing goyfs and performing competitively for a long time so there is at least that one possibility that the blue splash for Coralhelm may work in that version.
There may even be a version that plays UBGW and runs mainboard discards/removal and lily's and life from the loam to fuel goyfs.
Really seems to be a vocal minority on this thread and shutting down other people's ideas isn't going to help.
Maybe im missreading it but i dont think Pokken was shutting anyone down, only saying that Goyf wasnt the be all end all and explaining to IslandAreBroken that just cause Goyf are out of the picture doesnt mean that deck cant be built and do well
I don't know..."The deck absolutely does not need goyfs in any incarnation" seems to be quite the shutdown.
edit: Let's move on from this and bring other suggestions to the board.
Potential blue cards for CoCo: Kira, Great Glass-Spinner - Don't think UU is an issue since we are not running GG (except Ewit?) or WW. Good for protection, a bit of a nonbo with Coralhelm but still ok with fetchlands.
Vendilion Clique - Great disruption, evasion. Clear information before proceeding with combo. Nice to have a flash play so CoCo isn't AS telegraphed.
Thassa, God of the Sea - Gives Geists evasion. Scry for combo. Bad because it does nothing and will almost never meet devotion (unless you run the above 2 as well).
Kiora, Master of the Depths - Alternative Win-Con and helps look for Knight and synergises with dorks/knight in play.
Other sideboard cards to consider: Meddling Mage - Two drop replacement for Voice in matchups where voices don't shine.
Unified Will - With 6-8 dorks, may be worth looking at. Brian Kibler used it in his Bant Company list in June IIRC.
Hey, guys, sorry to ask to this, but how's the matchup against RG tron? With the oops, I win combo, it seems like it has potential
In all truth, do a majority of you guys think this deck just seems too cute, or really could be a breakout deck when modern season rolls around in a few months?
Hey All - thanks for all the reply's. I'll continue to test straight bant (no goyfs). Not wanting to buy goyf's aside - I'm drawn to the smoother mana base and definitely understand the upsides of Voice/Qasali (as a predominantly blue player so far). My next question - I'm not really a big fan of Collected Company - i'd rather not leave my 'fate' up to 'pure luck' (argue with me of you like) and additionally have the associated deck building constraints. However, CoCo for sure helps you rebuild after a board wipe and the value can be devastating to many opponents. What is the consensus (if there is one) on CoCo?
A consensus hasn't been reached on any cards that are not Knight of the Reliquary and Retreat to Coralhelm for this archetype.
As for other established tier decks, CoCo is a staple in Abzan Company due to the fact there is a high percentage to yield you a piece of the combo or allow a tempo swing at opponents EOT.
CoCo definitely places alot of restrictions on your deck so you should be asking yourself whether or not you want to play a creature-light(or higher cmc)/spell-heavy deck or low cmc/creature-dense deck. CoCo will then present itself to you as either a favourable or disgusting choice.
Hey All - thanks for all the reply's. I'll continue to test straight bant (no goyfs). Not wanting to buy goyf's aside - I'm drawn to the smoother mana base and definitely understand the upsides of Voice/Qasali (as a predominantly blue player so far). My next question - I'm not really a big fan of Collected Company - i'd rather not leave my 'fate' up to 'pure luck' (argue with me of you like) and additionally have the associated deck building constraints. However, CoCo for sure helps you rebuild after a board wipe and the value can be devastating to many opponents. What is the consensus (if there is one) on CoCo?
Again theres mixed feelings, it seems like its maybe a 70-30 split? Between CoCo and non-CoCo lists. I have the same sentiments in that i dislike playing CoCo and not knowing what im going to get or if im even going to get anything other than a bird. I played it a bunch with the Abzan lists when they came out and got burned by that card a bunch. but more than that i dislike the deck building restictions.
Personally i prefer being able to include more interactive cards, and in order to fight the board wipes or grind with value like you say ive been using kitchen finks and restoration angels. And at this point have had much better feelings with the deck than CoCo.
Potential blue cards for CoCo: Kira, Great Glass-Spinner - Don't think UU is an issue since we are not running GG (except Ewit?) or WW. Good for protection, a bit of a nonbo with Coralhelm but still ok with fetchlands.
Vendilion Clique - Great disruption, evasion. Clear information before proceeding with combo. Nice to have a flash play so CoCo isn't AS telegraphed.
Thassa, God of the Sea - Gives Geists evasion. Scry for combo. Bad because it does nothing and will almost never meet devotion (unless you run the above 2 as well).
Kiora, Master of the Depths - Alternative Win-Con and helps look for Knight and synergises with dorks/knight in play.
Other sideboard cards to consider: Meddling Mage - Two drop replacement for Voice in matchups where voices don't shine.
Unified Will - With 6-8 dorks, may be worth looking at. Brian Kibler used it in his Bant Company list in June IIRC.
Unified will is definitly something to try, I'll be running it over the negates in the SB the next event I go to, can't think of many match ups we'd bring negates in for that we also wouldn't be able to beat in the creature count. I'd be worried about Kira, we can't flash it in like merfolk and it kills retreat interaction. And I'm currently testing clique as well as a 1-of main. It's seemed good
Really liking this deck so far. The combo is pretty cool. I'm trying to use more of an aggro beatdown deck with it though. Combo hate is very prevalent in the meta and as this is contains combo I wanted to run a lot of cards that are hard for discard to deal with.
* Pridemage sticks out over Voice and requires explaining. I put Pridemage in because it gets rid of Relic of Progenitus which is the most common graveyard hate. It's also a mainboard answer for Splinter Twin, can get rid of Vial vs Merfolk, be annoying vs. Affinity and destroy Blood Moon which is a hard counter otherwise.
* Souls is something that Thoughtseize / Liliana do not want to discard and multiple bodies work well with Liege and land pumps. Souls also give you a bit of extra insurance against Wrath spells and Grixis Control hates facing them.
* Sigarda is mostly just there for attrition as a definitive closer. 5/5 flying is no joke with Hexproof and her static ability is great. The curve of Heirarch / Pridemage / Liege / Sigarda has potentially ridiculous damage output as well.
* Remand is useful to protect Knight of the Reliquary the turn it has summoning sickness, if you don't hit a mana guy straight away it's useful as well.
Great to see others testing a Wilt-Leaf Bant version. ;D
I'm on a more aggro-ish plan similar to the "original" (Abzan Liege). My list should be some pages back.
I have some comments regarding your list.
Game plans:
I'm not sure what directions for improovement to suggest to you because there are indicators for 3 different game plans in your list:
23 lands, 8 dorks + Retreats + high curve + delaying interaction --> ramp into haymackers
Each combo piece as 4 of, a lot Exalted, delaying interaction --> some notion to be combo centric
Souls, 2 Gavony in the flex land spots, Noble Hierach, liege --> synergy beatdown with a bit of attrition
Remand:
In general Remand in aggro decks is at it's best if you have a potent T1 threat. In combo-control it is great to delay your opponent if you have an instant speed or 1-card combo (see Twin and Scapeshift), but we need two sorcery speed 3 mana plays (and an uncracked fetch) as long as we play no Chords or CoCos. In my opinion you just cant use it here with it's true potential.
Curve:
You said you are on a beatdown plan but your curve has only Pridemage and Knight as real early pressure. Souls is great for attrition but starting with two 1/1 on T2 (if the dork gets killed T3) is not very aggressive if you cant follow up with much more. You have 8 dorks (and Retreat), but it feels you cant empty your hand very fast to apply pressure (particularly if you want to keep up mana for Remand). 6 mana on T3 with dork into Retreat is fantastic, but with many reactive cards and not many two drops it could be hard to use this effectively.
Also, two 5 mana and eight 4 mana plays (also counting retreat since it needs a land to do something) can get clunky. Moreso you will get run over a lot with so little early interaction/ creatures. If you chump block with the dorks early on you are probably going to loose.
My suggestions would be:
most important: lower your curve!
in this build voice of resurgence is very good due to its token getting double buffed by liege and the synergy with flooding the board with lingering souls.
Another one could be Scavenging Ooze for utility, or the Hangarback Walker + Academy Ruins package in Pokkens list.
My personal feeling on what to cut, every further change would be tweeking.
-At least 2 dorks (birds?)
-All remands unless you get more controllish in general(since you already play black for souls you can try a 1-of Abrupt Decay instead) if you want counters try a single negate, stubburn denial (could be turned on quite often if you add 1-3 Loxodon Smiters, which is also great against the discard you mentioned). If you need them you can side some in, but in general it doesn't fit too well to a beatdown plan.
- At least one Sigarda
-Maybe one Pridemage for a Scavenging Ooze to diversify the MB hate and getting a better mana sink.
-Most likely a land
What to add:
in case you want to stay on a beatdown plan:
Up the creature count: 22 creatures with 8 dorks has high danger of getting all your relevant creatures killed. Souls is great, but it might get hard to win games with them if Liege and Knight into Gavony get disrupted.
Also: Wilt-leaf liege loves to have a full board, with only 18 relevant creatues (counting souls) it stay way behind its potential
I'm not a fan of geist of saint traft in decks with no real reach to make his 3 mana 4 damage chump attack mode worth it, but with retreat (and 7-8 Exalted creatures and Liege!) it gets much better than in normal bolt-less aggro lists. 1-2, maybe even 3 might be good for removal heavy MUs.
For a more attrition/controllish plan look at pockens list with Hangarbar + Ruins as well as Course of Kruphix
I hope there were a few helpful suggestions in there and i - obviously - would like to hear some promissing results from testing soon.
Alright, got a few things to go over here.
Gameplan - I was looking a lot at what Brian Kibler was doing with this sort of deck minus the combo (before it was printed). Pro Tour RTR was packed with Jund. With the way the metagame looks minus Pod + Cruise Jund and Abzan are going to be everywhere. Those decks with a lot of hand hate cause problems for any Combo deck which this is. I figured the answer was to pack it full of anti-sac stuff like Liege and cards like Lingering Souls which is a very solid answer to Liliana who Grixis will be running as well. The aim of the game is attrition with the potential to deal a solid stream of damage to create tempo against more fragile decks. The combo slots in to speed it up and deal with "unfair," decks better. So essentially I'm not trying to run Little Kid Abzan deck. The cards in this deck are designed to pull double duties with synergy and hate elements. The multiple gameplans are entirely intentional to have a rounded shell outside of the combo.
Remand - I'm not sold on Remand entirely. What I like about Remand is if you don't hit a dork turn 1 or once the Knight is down to potentially protect it. While it has proved useful that's a card I could see coming out of the deck for extra hate/disruption. I'm thinking a couple of copies of Meddling Mage could be nice. The meta is fairly predictable and Meddling Mage gets played in older formats for that reason. Less blue, more black I could run Thoughtseize. A lot of what comes in will depend on the sideboard as well. I'll probably take Timely Reinforcements over Lingering Souls in the sideboard due to Burn. I may want some form of maindeck lifegain, Finks screams out but 3 drops are cluttered.
Curve - I feel that the curve is mostly fine. 8 accelerants plus 23 land = 27 land by the old rule of thumb. I could go up one land and run another bomb, I'm not sure I'd go down. 27 land can manage four 4 drops and 2 5 drops. 23 land+8 dorks with Abzan Liege runs 4 Rhino, 4 Liege so 8 4 drops. I may drop one Sigarda but not to lower curve, to avoid having it stuck in my hand since it's Legenday and I lack draw power.
12 three drops is maybe a couple too many, but there is reasoning for it with the combo. With 8 dorks you're ideally you're going from 1 mana to 3 mana as well so while you still run 2 drops in case you don't hit a dork you can shift some of the 2 drops to 3 drops from a regular curve. 2 drops in effect become back up. Outside of the combo With turn 3 6 mana from t2 Retreat I could look at extra 4 drops not 2.
Resurgence would have been in the list but I felt Pridemage was better. Not because of Exalted. If you view it that way you're viewing it entirely wrong. Pridemage is good as I explained as Enchantment/Artifact removal. If someone drops Rest in Peace or Relic of Progenitus you lose your combo and your souls, this deck is susceptible to graveyard hate which is on almost all sideboards largely due to Delve. If someone casts Splinter Twin, you're boned. Pridemage lets you kill that stuff. Blood Moon is another potential hard counter eliminated by Pridemage. Aether Vial vs. Merfolk. Cranial Plating vs Affinity. Really the list goes on and on. Pridemage pulls double duties as a decent Exalted beater that gets double buffed by Liege but the main duty of Pridemage is very essential hate work against a stack of common threats to this deck otherwise you can give up game one. Some stuff you need to answer mainboard not just sideboard.
Overall I think we're just in different minds about Liege + Knightfall. You see more of a Little Kid Abzan type deck focusing on damage output. I see more of a Rock style deck. There's some solid advice in there on a few things though. I'm pretty sure the Remand will be going. I've got a bunch of ideas to stew on for that slot. Mages, Thoughtseize, Explore perhaps. Ooze I feel is sideboard material as you don't have any way outside of combat in this deck to put cards in their graveyard. Path exiles, there's no lightning bolt, no thoughtseize and you don't want to eat your fetchlands due to Knight.
I took it to mean that no incarnation needs goyf to survive rather than no incarnation wants goyf at all.
You took my meaning correctly. Goyfs will be good, but the 2-drop slot is a flex in my opinion - deck does need a solid 2-drop, but there's tons of wiggle room based on meta and personal taste.
I don't know..."The deck absolutely does not need goyfs in any incarnation" seems to be quite the shutdown.
edit: Let's move on from this and bring other suggestions to the board.
Potential blue cards for CoCo: Kira, Great Glass-Spinner - Don't think UU is an issue since we are not running GG (except Ewit?) or WW. Good for protection, a bit of a nonbo with Coralhelm but still ok with fetchlands.
Vendilion Clique - Great disruption, evasion. Clear information before proceeding with combo. Nice to have a flash play so CoCo isn't AS telegraphed.
Thassa, God of the Sea - Gives Geists evasion. Scry for combo. Bad because it does nothing and will almost never meet devotion (unless you run the above 2 as well).
Kiora, Master of the Depths - Alternative Win-Con and helps look for Knight and synergises with dorks/knight in play.
Other sideboard cards to consider: Meddling Mage - Two drop replacement for Voice in matchups where voices don't shine.
Unified Will - With 6-8 dorks, may be worth looking at. Brian Kibler used it in his Bant Company list in June IIRC.
Right now, here is how I think about cards for the archetype:
How good are they when played on curve?
How good are they at winning an empty board topdeck war?
How good are they at putting away a game where I have a threat but no retreat?
How good are they at putting away a game where I have a retreat but no threat?
The key is to get to the cards that are as good at as many phases of the game and as many types of matches as possible.
Kira - UU is a complete nono if running mana dorks in my opinion. It probably necessitates running a hallowed fountain so you can cast both knight and kira without dorks, which reduces your likelihood of having colors for dorks on turn 1. It's a small thing but the deck wants all of its shock lands to produce green in its current build especially if you play courser or e-wit. Her ability is also a huge nonbo as you said. She could be considered as a sideboard card if you play Chord imho.
Clique - Clique is awesome but same thing with UU. There may be a U heavy version of this deck that runs no GG and fetches hallowed fountain+breeding pool instead of temple garden+breeding pool but I think you want to build the deck around that personally. Need to design toward your optimal fetching in my opinion and clique probably isn't strong enough to change my mind on its own.
Thassa - Thassa is very strong, but extremely durdly as a topdeck with no way to turn her on. She's terrible played into an empty board, terrible as a topdeck, but very strong played on curve (either with a coco or without). My opinion: Probably not good enough unless we're playing chords.
Unified Will - sounds like really strong sideboard tech. Good thought. Likely really good at winning combo and tron matchups.
Meddling mage - Probably the straight up strongest 2-drop combo killer we can play (since suppression field is a total no-go). I'm not sure if I like it dying to bolt, but it is definitely worth considering.
Hey All - thanks for all the reply's. I'll continue to test straight bant (no goyfs). Not wanting to buy goyf's aside - I'm drawn to the smoother mana base and definitely understand the upsides of Voice/Qasali (as a predominantly blue player so far). My next question - I'm not really a big fan of Collected Company - i'd rather not leave my 'fate' up to 'pure luck' (argue with me of you like) and additionally have the associated deck building constraints. However, CoCo for sure helps you rebuild after a board wipe and the value can be devastating to many opponents. What is the consensus (if there is one) on CoCo?
Again theres mixed feelings, it seems like its maybe a 70-30 split? Between CoCo and non-CoCo lists. I have the same sentiments in that i dislike playing CoCo and not knowing what im going to get or if im even going to get anything other than a bird. I played it a bunch with the Abzan lists when they came out and got burned by that card a bunch. but more than that i dislike the deck building restictions.
Personally i prefer being able to include more interactive cards, and in order to fight the board wipes or grind with value like you say ive been using kitchen finks and restoration angels. And at this point have had much better feelings with the deck than CoCo.
The biggest thing that steers me away from Coco is, weirdly, sideboard tech.
Playing non-cocoable sideboard tech in a coco deck tends to make you sideboard out coco, which severely weakens your deck. Without chord, you can't play the typical "1-of awesome sideboard hate creature" with any reliability.
If you play a midrange deck without coco, you can just jam the most efficient sideboard hate for your worst matchups.
The best point I can make is probably Stony Silence. This card is not the best as SB in a coco deck but it crushes most affinity draws and improves the Tron matchup. Without chord you probably need to be playing 2+ Kataki, and Kataki is much weaker and narrower.
I took it to mean that no incarnation needs goyf to survive rather than no incarnation wants goyf at all.
You took my meaning correctly. Goyfs will be good, but the 2-drop slot is a flex in my opinion - deck does need a solid 2-drop, but there's tons of wiggle room based on meta and personal taste.
Goyf wouldn't be good in Knighfall, don't kid yourself. Tarmogoyf doesn't have enough support to get big early in the game without Thoughtseize / Lightning Bolt to actually get cards into the graveyard. Even if you Path something it's not going in their graveyard. It's the same with Ooze really. Unless you're using Ooze as a hate card for their graveyard and mana sink the only way you're getting cards into the Graveyard is combat and fetches and Knight means you don't want to gobble fetches. Path wont do it and you have no hand shredders.
I have played him and he's plenty fine, just inferior to other options in my opinion Won a lot of games off of 6/7 and 7/8 goyfs off of hangarback/courser pumping him from the yard. But voice was always better at protecting the combo and screwing with people's tempo (for me).
Goyf is a big dumb beater that applies early pressure. He wins games and is s good late game top deck and CoCo target. He is good here just like he is good in Zoo.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Current Decks
Modern
No idea because my favorite decks keep getting banned or having the rules changed against them
Goyf will always be okay, even here, with what the other person does even if he's small will usually be a 3/4 or 4/5 for 2 mana, that's playable. There's no doubt he's better in a jund build but he's fine here. I think voice is much more impressive though. There's also nothing to say he needs to be a 4-of either. Why not have 2? Goyf actually is a respectable late draw as a threat and is cheap enough that you can still hold mana up or play other things, maybe it's an inexpensive threat you do want to see latter rather than in your opening hand in this deck
He's only growing off of combat. A lot of the time he wont be bigger than 2 /3 or 3 / 4. You're lucky if you get him out of Lightning Bolt range. Plus he's just a body, a very well-priced body but just a body. It's not a bad card, it's just not the right card for this deck.
I am tempted to go heavier into Black. It would require a lot of reworking though. I'd probably need 10 fetchlands so I could run a single Blue Shock for Coralhelm. I may want to drop a copy of Coralhelm and go down to 3 in that case as well. Outside of the Knightfall combo the other issue with doing that is that with over 30 mana sources I can't really run a lot of discard+removal like traditional GB as it makes the deck vulnerable to flooding. I like that Township+Liege can make the dorks somewhat threatening later on however and I love the Dorks for t3 combo or Lords so they'd be hard to cut.
Edit - Skite in, easier casting cost is the deal breaker vs. Meddling Mage
I just don't see how lingering souls fits into the game your deck wants to play. I really like where you're going with wilt-leaf liege (that's such a legitimate way to straight up roflstomp jund), but I do not understand how you can skip playing voice and smiter with 4 wilt-leafs, and try to jam lingering souls.
I would cut Lingering Souls for 2x Smiter and 2x voice (or 4 voice or 4 smiter) and see where that takes you. Voice is just so strong with wilt-leaf it's ridiculous--a 4/4 that leaves behind a 4/4 (if liege is out).
Other than jamming lingering souls I really like it.
Small additional sidenote: I think 2x spellskite is going to be stronger maindeck than meddling mage, even though MM gets a pump skite is just a more versatile hate card.
Souls was a meta call. Lingering Souls is there because of Liliana largely. Souls are a hard counter and I feel she needs countering. She ruins creature builds and Abzan / Jund / Grixis control are all very popular right now. Liliana doesn't want to force you to discard Souls into a cheap flashback. Smiter is good against her sac a creature ability but so is Lord who is also conveniently outside of Abrupt Decay range on top of Bolt. Outside of Liliana the Souls become 2/2s with Liege because they're multiple bodies the benefit is the same as a W/G creature. Yes they're smaller but they fly and one card can = 4 bodies if you have the mana. Later in the game they become extra stupid with Gavony Township which you can tutor with Knight if you're not comboing. Souls are also perfectly expendable blockers to drag the game out buying more time to combo yourself. Oh and Wrath insurance vs W/U control variations. In saying all of that Smiter vs Souls is still a real debate.
Onto Voice. Voice is really good. I would have liked Voice but with 8 dorks I'm largely aiming to skip the 2 drop step. The one card that could come out for Voice is Meddling Mage which I slotted in for Combo/Sweeper disruption. Voice can't compete with Pridemage in this deck which is odd as it's better in most decks but not this deck. Pridemage is control against things that specifically end the game against this. It's control against Blood Moon, it's control against Rest In Peace / Relic Of Progenitus. Those three things will ruin you. It also slows Merfolk down by killing the vial, it gets rid of Cranial Plating against Affinity and kills Splinter Twin. Pridemage is mostly there for it's ability. What's cool though is that it pulls double duties as a 4/4 with Liege and triple duties as swinging for 7 flying turn 3. t1 Heirarch, t2 Pridemage and swing for 3 with Heirarch, t3 Elspeth swing for 7 flying with Pridemage. That's 10 life before they have 3 mana on the play.
Additional stuff - I sort of agree on Spellskite. Meddling Mage is better against some decks and becomes a 3/3 with Liege which is respectable. Meddling Mage can cause more damage to something like Amulet Bloom as well. Against a lot of decks Spellskite might be better, it would definitely be the go to choice against Infect. Another additional thing is that Souls would be a direct 4 for 4 for Timely Reinforcements as this decks Burn answer via sideboard.
Please don't be so quick to shoot down ideas. Without any solid results from anyone, it's just a myopic approach.
Naya Company has been playing goyfs and performing competitively for a long time so there is at least that one possibility that the blue splash for Coralhelm may work in that version.
There may even be a version that plays UBGW and runs mainboard discards/removal and lily's and life from the loam to fuel goyfs.
Really seems to be a vocal minority on this thread and shutting down other people's ideas isn't going to help.
edit: Let's move on from this and bring other suggestions to the board.
Potential blue cards for CoCo:
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner - Don't think UU is an issue since we are not running GG (except Ewit?) or WW. Good for protection, a bit of a nonbo with Coralhelm but still ok with fetchlands.
Vendilion Clique - Great disruption, evasion. Clear information before proceeding with combo. Nice to have a flash play so CoCo isn't AS telegraphed.
Thassa, God of the Sea - Gives Geists evasion. Scry for combo. Bad because it does nothing and will almost never meet devotion (unless you run the above 2 as well).
Kiora, Master of the Depths - Alternative Win-Con and helps look for Knight and synergises with dorks/knight in play.
Other sideboard cards to consider:
Meddling Mage - Two drop replacement for Voice in matchups where voices don't shine.
Unified Will - With 6-8 dorks, may be worth looking at. Brian Kibler used it in his Bant Company list in June IIRC.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
In all truth, do a majority of you guys think this deck just seems too cute, or really could be a breakout deck when modern season rolls around in a few months?
Bant Eldrazi
UW Control
U Merfolk
Legacy
Merfolk
UR Delver
As for other established tier decks, CoCo is a staple in Abzan Company due to the fact there is a high percentage to yield you a piece of the combo or allow a tempo swing at opponents EOT.
CoCo definitely places alot of restrictions on your deck so you should be asking yourself whether or not you want to play a creature-light(or higher cmc)/spell-heavy deck or low cmc/creature-dense deck. CoCo will then present itself to you as either a favourable or disgusting choice.
Again theres mixed feelings, it seems like its maybe a 70-30 split? Between CoCo and non-CoCo lists. I have the same sentiments in that i dislike playing CoCo and not knowing what im going to get or if im even going to get anything other than a bird. I played it a bunch with the Abzan lists when they came out and got burned by that card a bunch. but more than that i dislike the deck building restictions.
Personally i prefer being able to include more interactive cards, and in order to fight the board wipes or grind with value like you say ive been using kitchen finks and restoration angels. And at this point have had much better feelings with the deck than CoCo.
Unified will is definitly something to try, I'll be running it over the negates in the SB the next event I go to, can't think of many match ups we'd bring negates in for that we also wouldn't be able to beat in the creature count. I'd be worried about Kira, we can't flash it in like merfolk and it kills retreat interaction. And I'm currently testing clique as well as a 1-of main. It's seemed good
Alright, got a few things to go over here.
Gameplan - I was looking a lot at what Brian Kibler was doing with this sort of deck minus the combo (before it was printed). Pro Tour RTR was packed with Jund. With the way the metagame looks minus Pod + Cruise Jund and Abzan are going to be everywhere. Those decks with a lot of hand hate cause problems for any Combo deck which this is. I figured the answer was to pack it full of anti-sac stuff like Liege and cards like Lingering Souls which is a very solid answer to Liliana who Grixis will be running as well. The aim of the game is attrition with the potential to deal a solid stream of damage to create tempo against more fragile decks. The combo slots in to speed it up and deal with "unfair," decks better. So essentially I'm not trying to run Little Kid Abzan deck. The cards in this deck are designed to pull double duties with synergy and hate elements. The multiple gameplans are entirely intentional to have a rounded shell outside of the combo.
Remand - I'm not sold on Remand entirely. What I like about Remand is if you don't hit a dork turn 1 or once the Knight is down to potentially protect it. While it has proved useful that's a card I could see coming out of the deck for extra hate/disruption. I'm thinking a couple of copies of Meddling Mage could be nice. The meta is fairly predictable and Meddling Mage gets played in older formats for that reason. Less blue, more black I could run Thoughtseize. A lot of what comes in will depend on the sideboard as well. I'll probably take Timely Reinforcements over Lingering Souls in the sideboard due to Burn. I may want some form of maindeck lifegain, Finks screams out but 3 drops are cluttered.
Curve - I feel that the curve is mostly fine. 8 accelerants plus 23 land = 27 land by the old rule of thumb. I could go up one land and run another bomb, I'm not sure I'd go down. 27 land can manage four 4 drops and 2 5 drops. 23 land+8 dorks with Abzan Liege runs 4 Rhino, 4 Liege so 8 4 drops. I may drop one Sigarda but not to lower curve, to avoid having it stuck in my hand since it's Legenday and I lack draw power.
12 three drops is maybe a couple too many, but there is reasoning for it with the combo. With 8 dorks you're ideally you're going from 1 mana to 3 mana as well so while you still run 2 drops in case you don't hit a dork you can shift some of the 2 drops to 3 drops from a regular curve. 2 drops in effect become back up. Outside of the combo With turn 3 6 mana from t2 Retreat I could look at extra 4 drops not 2.
Resurgence would have been in the list but I felt Pridemage was better. Not because of Exalted. If you view it that way you're viewing it entirely wrong. Pridemage is good as I explained as Enchantment/Artifact removal. If someone drops Rest in Peace or Relic of Progenitus you lose your combo and your souls, this deck is susceptible to graveyard hate which is on almost all sideboards largely due to Delve. If someone casts Splinter Twin, you're boned. Pridemage lets you kill that stuff. Blood Moon is another potential hard counter eliminated by Pridemage. Aether Vial vs. Merfolk. Cranial Plating vs Affinity. Really the list goes on and on. Pridemage pulls double duties as a decent Exalted beater that gets double buffed by Liege but the main duty of Pridemage is very essential hate work against a stack of common threats to this deck otherwise you can give up game one. Some stuff you need to answer mainboard not just sideboard.
Overall I think we're just in different minds about Liege + Knightfall. You see more of a Little Kid Abzan type deck focusing on damage output. I see more of a Rock style deck. There's some solid advice in there on a few things though. I'm pretty sure the Remand will be going. I've got a bunch of ideas to stew on for that slot. Mages, Thoughtseize, Explore perhaps. Ooze I feel is sideboard material as you don't have any way outside of combat in this deck to put cards in their graveyard. Path exiles, there's no lightning bolt, no thoughtseize and you don't want to eat your fetchlands due to Knight.
You took my meaning correctly. Goyfs will be good, but the 2-drop slot is a flex in my opinion - deck does need a solid 2-drop, but there's tons of wiggle room based on meta and personal taste.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Right now, here is how I think about cards for the archetype:
How good are they when played on curve?
How good are they at winning an empty board topdeck war?
How good are they at putting away a game where I have a threat but no retreat?
How good are they at putting away a game where I have a retreat but no threat?
The key is to get to the cards that are as good at as many phases of the game and as many types of matches as possible.
Kira - UU is a complete nono if running mana dorks in my opinion. It probably necessitates running a hallowed fountain so you can cast both knight and kira without dorks, which reduces your likelihood of having colors for dorks on turn 1. It's a small thing but the deck wants all of its shock lands to produce green in its current build especially if you play courser or e-wit. Her ability is also a huge nonbo as you said. She could be considered as a sideboard card if you play Chord imho.
Clique - Clique is awesome but same thing with UU. There may be a U heavy version of this deck that runs no GG and fetches hallowed fountain+breeding pool instead of temple garden+breeding pool but I think you want to build the deck around that personally. Need to design toward your optimal fetching in my opinion and clique probably isn't strong enough to change my mind on its own.
Thassa - Thassa is very strong, but extremely durdly as a topdeck with no way to turn her on. She's terrible played into an empty board, terrible as a topdeck, but very strong played on curve (either with a coco or without). My opinion: Probably not good enough unless we're playing chords.
Unified Will - sounds like really strong sideboard tech. Good thought. Likely really good at winning combo and tron matchups.
Meddling mage - Probably the straight up strongest 2-drop combo killer we can play (since suppression field is a total no-go). I'm not sure if I like it dying to bolt, but it is definitely worth considering.
The biggest thing that steers me away from Coco is, weirdly, sideboard tech.
Playing non-cocoable sideboard tech in a coco deck tends to make you sideboard out coco, which severely weakens your deck. Without chord, you can't play the typical "1-of awesome sideboard hate creature" with any reliability.
If you play a midrange deck without coco, you can just jam the most efficient sideboard hate for your worst matchups.
The best point I can make is probably Stony Silence. This card is not the best as SB in a coco deck but it crushes most affinity draws and improves the Tron matchup. Without chord you probably need to be playing 2+ Kataki, and Kataki is much weaker and narrower.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Goyf wouldn't be good in Knighfall, don't kid yourself. Tarmogoyf doesn't have enough support to get big early in the game without Thoughtseize / Lightning Bolt to actually get cards into the graveyard. Even if you Path something it's not going in their graveyard. It's the same with Ooze really. Unless you're using Ooze as a hate card for their graveyard and mana sink the only way you're getting cards into the Graveyard is combat and fetches and Knight means you don't want to gobble fetches. Path wont do it and you have no hand shredders.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Qasali Pridemage
2x Spellskite
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Wilt-Leaf Liege
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
4x Path to Exile
4x Retreat to Coralhelm
4x Lingering Souls
Planeswalkers (2)
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Land (23)
4x Windswept Heath
2x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
1x Breeding Pool
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Temple Garden
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Godless Shrine
4x Forest
3x Plains
1x Sejiri Steppe
2x Gavony Township
I am tempted to go heavier into Black. It would require a lot of reworking though. I'd probably need 10 fetchlands so I could run a single Blue Shock for Coralhelm. I may want to drop a copy of Coralhelm and go down to 3 in that case as well. Outside of the Knightfall combo the other issue with doing that is that with over 30 mana sources I can't really run a lot of discard+removal like traditional GB as it makes the deck vulnerable to flooding. I like that Township+Liege can make the dorks somewhat threatening later on however and I love the Dorks for t3 combo or Lords so they'd be hard to cut.
Edit - Skite in, easier casting cost is the deal breaker vs. Meddling Mage
I would cut Lingering Souls for 2x Smiter and 2x voice (or 4 voice or 4 smiter) and see where that takes you. Voice is just so strong with wilt-leaf it's ridiculous--a 4/4 that leaves behind a 4/4 (if liege is out).
Other than jamming lingering souls I really like it.
Small additional sidenote: I think 2x spellskite is going to be stronger maindeck than meddling mage, even though MM gets a pump skite is just a more versatile hate card.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Onto Voice. Voice is really good. I would have liked Voice but with 8 dorks I'm largely aiming to skip the 2 drop step. The one card that could come out for Voice is Meddling Mage which I slotted in for Combo/Sweeper disruption. Voice can't compete with Pridemage in this deck which is odd as it's better in most decks but not this deck. Pridemage is control against things that specifically end the game against this. It's control against Blood Moon, it's control against Rest In Peace / Relic Of Progenitus. Those three things will ruin you. It also slows Merfolk down by killing the vial, it gets rid of Cranial Plating against Affinity and kills Splinter Twin. Pridemage is mostly there for it's ability. What's cool though is that it pulls double duties as a 4/4 with Liege and triple duties as swinging for 7 flying turn 3. t1 Heirarch, t2 Pridemage and swing for 3 with Heirarch, t3 Elspeth swing for 7 flying with Pridemage. That's 10 life before they have 3 mana on the play.
Additional stuff - I sort of agree on Spellskite. Meddling Mage is better against some decks and becomes a 3/3 with Liege which is respectable. Meddling Mage can cause more damage to something like Amulet Bloom as well. Against a lot of decks Spellskite might be better, it would definitely be the go to choice against Infect. Another additional thing is that Souls would be a direct 4 for 4 for Timely Reinforcements as this decks Burn answer via sideboard.