Detention Sphere is a great card and powerful removal that should not be overlooked. It is Maelstrom Pulse in our colors. The fact that you can tutor it on turn 5 and play it is a big deal. In addition it is an additional enchantment we can pitch if you are playing goyfs. It is a catch-all IMO and deals with unexpected threats and planeswalkers, something Bant colors has difficulty dealing with.
I do like that 5-color list. It looks spicy. I am not a fan of the magus in the main though. I think that is a SB card through and through. That is there to mess-up tron and amulet, but I feel that it will do so much damage to us because bolt, anger and pyroclasm are not uncommon spells and make short work of our dorks and then we are mana screwed. That being said, 5 color deck should experiment with Woodland Wanderer. Unopposed it just wins, sadly it doesn't not play nice with Chord. Also with 5 colors, consider Bring to Light. It can find anything in the deck, which may be great after boarding in hate cards.
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I use it as a 1-of in my UW Midrange deck and it's been very good. People have poo-pooed it a lot, but I haven't found anything better as a 5th removal spell--the number of deceiver exarchs I've reality shifted is very high
I could see Knightfall supporting two because of the lifegain and extreme bear defense. But really what's missing from Knightfall midrange (in my experience) was abrupt decay.
Abrupt Decay sounds so good, wish this deck had access to that card. I'll give Reality Shift a try.
Can't we make WGbu work?
I was debating the whole idea of BUGw at one point. Whipping (Whip of Erebos) back a knight would be kind of a cool trick. I guess this would be more of a control build and makes me wish deathrite shaman was still in modern. He would be gross with Retreat lol. Yet another direction to think about.
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it DOES not protect the combo if your opponent is competent. That is my point. Dispel ALWAYS workds. Steppe works 1/100 times if your opponent plays proerly.
A card is not good if it only works if people missplay.
So, basically taking it out makes the deck more forgiving on our opponents. If they don't realize they must kill the knight on the spot, then we are safe? But if we don't keep it in, they are free to kill our knight at any point?
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You guys have lost your way if you don't use this often or think it needs to be cut. Whether helping chump primeval titan for an extra turn to get enough time to grow knight bigger than primetime, or just protecting the combo in the face of slaughter pact, Sejiri steppe is an integral part of the knight toolbox. Seriously.
Seriously.
edit: And for realz Collected Company "sucks in our deck"? Are we even playing the same game?
Truth. Sejiri Steppe has won me multiple games. It is like asking Twin would they cut dispel because protecting the combo isn't needed and people will always kill the exarch/pestermite/krasis on sight. The number of times I have saved my twin combo with a counter is small, but it happens and it lets me end the game. Sure it sucks when it is in our hand and I wish we had brainstorm to shuffle in back into the deck, but hey bad draws happen.
Also, if you are running 27ish 3cmc creatures, Collected Company is an amazing card. That being said, if you are running fewer creatures it isn't as good (see the primer). I stopped playing it because I dropped my creature count. As far as Commune goes, if I could run Green sun's zenith I would run that. But Commune does a lot of good things for us similar to Green Sun's. It doesn't fetch the exact creature you need, but you generally get a good selection, it essentially costs 1 more than green sun's and it can help find our combo. At the same time, I am running 8 creatures that run of healthy GY, so being able to fuel them is only a bonus.
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To the people saying flash creatures/manlands are giving them problems:
Flash creatures and manlands are just like any other creature-u just tap them down before they block. If you combo correctly then they do nothing special at all. They key is to complete your combo AFTER blockers have been declared, not during your mainphase.
Rogues passage is merely cute and it competes with ghost quarter and township, and you can only run so many colorless lands. Passage only matters in the affinity mu and boggles. Against affinity, the combo isnt that good anyways since we are life-sensitive and they may have spellskite, plus we have a lot of powerful sb options. And boggles i like 2% of the meta, and we cant combo them anyways if they have a lifelink enchantment.
Ghost quarter is the best colorless land imo because it is good-to-strong in about 70% of matchups in modern (as well as adding 2 more lands to the gy to help combo). Township is fine against jund and grixis sometimes, but can be a little superfluous. The games you lose u tend to get outclassed by a powerful creature (bob, jace, olivia, tasagur) and tapping 5 mana every turn doesnt always solve this problem. The tempo loss from townshipping 3 times can be just as bad (like Pokken said).
Other ideas:
1) commune with the gods. Way to slow for modern. You can't get by in modern my spending 2 mana for a filtering effect without a huge upside (sylvan scrying).
2) 4x voice is absolutely a must for this deck. Yeah a grizzly bear sucks against about half the field, but against the other half, voice is the 2nd best card in our deck besides Path. It makes your opponent make weird plays, and you can punish them for it with chord. Its also the best 2 drop we can play (sorry goyf), and we need a good 2 drop for when we dont have the dork draw.
3) As a lot of people have said, I think company sucks in our deck.
4) A big one: I think sejeri steppe is godawful. Its a very 'magical christmasland' card, and is just too punishing for modern when drawn, and hurts our dmg output when we combo. Cut it, its real bad. If it ever has saved an attacking knight when you combo by holding a fetch, then it is only because your opponent misplayed. It will NOT work once people become savvy. Plus, bonus, our opponent may think we are (incorrectly) on sejeri steppe, so they will usually (correctly) play like we have one in our deck.
I've been passionately working on this deck for a few weeks now, and have had great results (though small sample size is hard to predict. Ive only played probably 20 irl tournament rounds total, though I am like 17-3). Lets keep up the tuning guys!
Commune has actually been a useful card for me. It may not be the best card, but it does a job not a lot of other cards can do.
With the number of creature you are running that have <4 power (knight is variable) I would suggest unified will instead of spell pierce. I run two out of my board, but I think I want to up that to 3. It is such a great surprise to hard counter a creature with 2 mana up. It has won me multiple games. I would say 80% of the time we have more creatures than out opponents, so it is a hard counter.
Other removal you may consider is valorous stance and detention sphere has been a life saver a few times.
I will say geist is an absolute power house in this deck. With 7 exalted creatures, he rarely swings into bad blocking situations. For some decks he is really hard to answer and will just win you the game.
Has any one figured out a good way to deal with sweepers? Any time I face a UWx deck, Verdict just hoses me and there isn't much I can do about it. Valorous stance to save 1 guys is about all I got.
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His shell is very interesting. Very much control, which is do able with all his "free" counters. I am not sure if the same is possible with modern, but his mana base is very close to what we are doing. I am curious if tango lands might be useful.
On a totally random aside, Sun Titan finally did his thing and oh boy did he wonders. He came out in 2 games. In the first game he recurred 3 goyfs, second game he got me back a Geist and a Smiter. He brought me back from a loss both times. Debating if a second copy is a good idea. He was such a power house when combined with Commune. Of the 3 games I played today, I won 2. Hair of my teeth win against Abzan Aristocrats and a win against UW Sun Titan. I lost 1-2 to Tarmo Twin, thanks to double Thragtusk draws in the 3rd. The deck feels great though. Maybe some fine tuning still.
Knight Retreat in Legacy is being played right now on Twitch at the St.Louis SCG Open. 10-3 so far.
Its not Modern of course but looks to be played similarly. Check it out if you have a chance.
I wish we had access to green-sun's.
Comes into play tapped isn't great in the opener, and it isn't a card I want in my starting 7, but the fact it is easy to find is a big deal IMO and doesn't break up the combo. Not sure if it is worth it or not, but could be a great main deck solution to burn and aggressive decks. Again I think it adds to the decks toolbox, which is important.
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What do you guys think of sapseep forest? I was just looking through all the modern lands and I found this. Actually pretty cool imo, it is fetchable, sackable with KotR and is a decent mana sink that can gain some extra life throughout a game. Might be worth replacing a forest with it.
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I am sort of wondering the same thing too actually. When com king off I have tapped down around 6 blockers. However, the problem comes against boggles, man lands and other creatures that are hard to tap down. Rogues becomes useful here and I think that is why I still have it in my list. We need a way to give evasion to the knight to seal the deal. I wish I had a better option. Gavony is great in the grind, but also not as good as Kessig for sealing the deal.
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So far the deck feels very smooth. The mulligans have all felt good. It has a good amount of hate and ways of dealing with all sorts of threats between Path, Detention Sphere and Qasali. So a few pieces of tech in the deck. I included commune with the gods, which has been pretty bonkers so far. Unless I really have nothing better to do, I almost never play it turn 2, but it is a bonkers play when you have 5 mana up. Grab your Retreat and combo off, or find your detention sphere and land your answer. I have also lived the dream of playing a 1/2 goyf, passing and then next turn commune, dump a creature, enchantment, instant and land, grab a detention sphere to clear the way for a 5/6 goyf. I have dumped 4 lands before, sadly no knight in play. It breaks parity nicely late in the game and can find our game winners.
I dropped Retreat to 3 because I can dig for it, and because I wanted to include Sun Titan. He has yet to see play, but seems like a great way to grind out a long game and he synergizes well with commune as well. I went up to 23 lands and it makes the draws feel better. It also protects from dumping too many in the yard. Without the kessig I was able to do a turn 3 kill, but cap out at 23 dmg, but I feel like I kind of want kessig back instead of rogues to make sure I can end the game in the face of life gain, but not sure. A sweeper would also be nice, but not sure what that would be besides a wrath (planar outburst ;))
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Valorous Stance. Just re-stumbled across this card. I think this might be useful in this deck, particularly in the SB. Kills, big scary things like Prime Time and protects our combo if needed, and helps geist stick around when needed. Thoughts?
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Legacy
GBDark DepthsBG
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I do like that 5-color list. It looks spicy. I am not a fan of the magus in the main though. I think that is a SB card through and through. That is there to mess-up tron and amulet, but I feel that it will do so much damage to us because bolt, anger and pyroclasm are not uncommon spells and make short work of our dorks and then we are mana screwed. That being said, 5 color deck should experiment with Woodland Wanderer. Unopposed it just wins, sadly it doesn't not play nice with Chord. Also with 5 colors, consider Bring to Light. It can find anything in the deck, which may be great after boarding in hate cards.
I was debating the whole idea of BUGw at one point. Whipping (Whip of Erebos) back a knight would be kind of a cool trick. I guess this would be more of a control build and makes me wish deathrite shaman was still in modern. He would be gross with Retreat lol. Yet another direction to think about.
So, basically taking it out makes the deck more forgiving on our opponents. If they don't realize they must kill the knight on the spot, then we are safe? But if we don't keep it in, they are free to kill our knight at any point?
Truth. Sejiri Steppe has won me multiple games. It is like asking Twin would they cut dispel because protecting the combo isn't needed and people will always kill the exarch/pestermite/krasis on sight. The number of times I have saved my twin combo with a counter is small, but it happens and it lets me end the game. Sure it sucks when it is in our hand and I wish we had brainstorm to shuffle in back into the deck, but hey bad draws happen.
Also, if you are running 27ish 3cmc creatures, Collected Company is an amazing card. That being said, if you are running fewer creatures it isn't as good (see the primer). I stopped playing it because I dropped my creature count. As far as Commune goes, if I could run Green sun's zenith I would run that. But Commune does a lot of good things for us similar to Green Sun's. It doesn't fetch the exact creature you need, but you generally get a good selection, it essentially costs 1 more than green sun's and it can help find our combo. At the same time, I am running 8 creatures that run of healthy GY, so being able to fuel them is only a bonus.
Commune has actually been a useful card for me. It may not be the best card, but it does a job not a lot of other cards can do.
Here is a link on how to use tags: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/community-forums/community-discussion/576824-card-and-deck-tag-explanation#c1
Other removal you may consider is valorous stance and detention sphere has been a life saver a few times.
I will say geist is an absolute power house in this deck. With 7 exalted creatures, he rarely swings into bad blocking situations. For some decks he is really hard to answer and will just win you the game.
Has any one figured out a good way to deal with sweepers? Any time I face a UWx deck, Verdict just hoses me and there isn't much I can do about it. Valorous stance to save 1 guys is about all I got.
I think he got 4th overall. http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/deckshow.php?event_ID=20&t[T3]=3&start_date=2015-10-24&end_date=2015-10-24&state=MO&city=St.%20Louis&order_1=finish&limit=8&t_num=1&action=Show+Decks
His shell is very interesting. Very much control, which is do able with all his "free" counters. I am not sure if the same is possible with modern, but his mana base is very close to what we are doing. I am curious if tango lands might be useful.
On a totally random aside, Sun Titan finally did his thing and oh boy did he wonders. He came out in 2 games. In the first game he recurred 3 goyfs, second game he got me back a Geist and a Smiter. He brought me back from a loss both times. Debating if a second copy is a good idea. He was such a power house when combined with Commune. Of the 3 games I played today, I won 2. Hair of my teeth win against Abzan Aristocrats and a win against UW Sun Titan. I lost 1-2 to Tarmo Twin, thanks to double Thragtusk draws in the 3rd. The deck feels great though. Maybe some fine tuning still.
I wish we had access to green-sun's.
Comes into play tapped isn't great in the opener, and it isn't a card I want in my starting 7, but the fact it is easy to find is a big deal IMO and doesn't break up the combo. Not sure if it is worth it or not, but could be a great main deck solution to burn and aggressive decks. Again I think it adds to the decks toolbox, which is important.
I am sort of wondering the same thing too actually. When com king off I have tapped down around 6 blockers. However, the problem comes against boggles, man lands and other creatures that are hard to tap down. Rogues becomes useful here and I think that is why I still have it in my list. We need a way to give evasion to the knight to seal the deal. I wish I had a better option. Gavony is great in the grind, but also not as good as Kessig for sealing the deal.
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Loxodon Smiter
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Sun Titan
Spells (13)
4 Path to Exile
4 Commune with the Gods
2 Detention Sphere
3 Retreat to Coralhelm
1 Gavony Township
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Rogue's Passage
1 Sejiri Steppe
2 Breeding Pool
2 Forest
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Plains
2 Temple Garden
4 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
1 Dromoka's Command
1 Valorous Stance
2 Stony Silence
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Unified Will
2 Voice of Resurgence
2 Aven Mindcensor
3 Kitchen Finks
So far the deck feels very smooth. The mulligans have all felt good. It has a good amount of hate and ways of dealing with all sorts of threats between Path, Detention Sphere and Qasali. So a few pieces of tech in the deck. I included commune with the gods, which has been pretty bonkers so far. Unless I really have nothing better to do, I almost never play it turn 2, but it is a bonkers play when you have 5 mana up. Grab your Retreat and combo off, or find your detention sphere and land your answer. I have also lived the dream of playing a 1/2 goyf, passing and then next turn commune, dump a creature, enchantment, instant and land, grab a detention sphere to clear the way for a 5/6 goyf. I have dumped 4 lands before, sadly no knight in play. It breaks parity nicely late in the game and can find our game winners.
I dropped Retreat to 3 because I can dig for it, and because I wanted to include Sun Titan. He has yet to see play, but seems like a great way to grind out a long game and he synergizes well with commune as well. I went up to 23 lands and it makes the draws feel better. It also protects from dumping too many in the yard. Without the kessig I was able to do a turn 3 kill, but cap out at 23 dmg, but I feel like I kind of want kessig back instead of rogues to make sure I can end the game in the face of life gain, but not sure. A sweeper would also be nice, but not sure what that would be besides a wrath (planar outburst ;))