I'd also say the card I'm most curious about is the new Nissa. It's a high bar for non-creatures in our deck not called Path/CoCo/Retreat, but potentially hitting a 3-drop or a utility land each turn seems like it could be good enough.
I don't know how valuable 3-0s are but I've been winning with this list week after week so here it is:
Creatures:
Noble Hierarch x 4
Birds of Paradise x 4
Knight of the Reliquary x 4
Spell Queller x 4
Tireless Tracker x 3
Voice of Resurgence x 3
Selfless Spirit x 2
Spellskite x 1
Scavenging Ooze x 2
Qasali Pridemage x 2
Spells:
Path to Exile x 4
Collected Company x 4
Retreat to Coralhelm x 2
Lands:
Windswept Heath x 4
Misty Rainforest x 4
Flooded Strand x 2
Breeding Pool x 2
Temple Garden x 1
Sacred Foundry x 1
Horizon Canopy x 1
Gavony Township x 1
Kessig Wolf Run x 1
Ghost Quarter x 1
Plains x 1
Forest x 3
Sideboard:
Reflector mage x 2
Kitchen Finks x 2
Izzet Staticaster x 1
Vendilion Clique x 1
Gaddock Teeg x 1
Eldritch evolution x 1
Blessed Alliance x 1
Unified Will x 2
Negate x 2
Worship x 2
This deck and all it's Variants is FUQN awesome lol.
Am I reading it wrong or do you play 61 cards? If so why? Either way, my list is pretty similar and I agree, the deck feels great. Spellskite is underrated IMO. Sure it's bad against Kolaghan's command but really great at protecting our must-kill threats.
How has unified will performed for you vs elder tron? I've always felt weird about bringing it in, seems pretty rough if they land their creatures early and often, but i understand how its huge when they try to land the big big stuff. I've really struggled vs eldrazi tron myself honestly, maybe just need more reps.
It's been a bomb for me every time. Even on their most creature-heavy draws we tend to have more than them, and it's a life-saver against Ugin and All is Dust while still having the flexibility to work against a TKS or Reality Smasher. Besides with only two copies we're not overloading on them.
Agreed, I don't think Rhonas is where we want to be in the current builds. I think it's possible to come up with a build that takes full advantage of Rhonas, though. I think such a build would have 4 Goyf and maybe some number of Stubborn Denial, possibly a Dromoka's Command. I don't know if it would be any good, but I do think it's possible.
On a sidenote, after playing against Grixis Shadow last night (got wrecked by mana-flooding both games, but managed to beat him after that in a game for fun), I've decided to up my Voice count from 2 to 3, and considering going to 4. Voice is great against them. Also, Reflector Mage is a beast.
Good points. I assumed there would be a valid reason for it, I just wasn't sure what it was. Thanks!
I should add that in spite of what I said, Dispel IS reasonable, I used to run 1 copy myself but I've opted for 2 Negate instead.
On a different note, your article (nice article, by the way) notes that Knightfall has a favorable matchup against Death's Shadow, and I've seen that suggestion elsewhere as well. However aside from speculation (my own speculation included), I've never really heard concrete arguments as to why.
Our deck doesn't fear removal (i.e. The majority of instants) because it's built to grind through it. Virtually every creature is must-kill, and we have built-in protection in Spell Queller and Selfless Spirit. We also have numerous card and tempo advantage engines. Eventually something sticks and we end up ahead on board.
As you allude to in that article, combo is a bit of a problem for us, and Negate is the solution to that problem since Dispel doesn't hit the majority of problematic combo cards.
That being said, in a lot of matchups (Valakut, Tron), Unified Will is superior to Negate because it hits creatures.
I personally run 2-2 but I could see myself going up to 3 Will - 1 Negate.
I've been playing bant company without the retreats but i'm thinking about giving them another go, what is the consensus number of 3 drops in the deck? I'm currently at 12 (with reflector mage instead of retreat), is that a normal number or are a lot of lists playing 13-14? I was thinking of playing 4 spell queller, 4 knight, 2 retreat, 2 tracker and a courser. I assume we have to up our mana dork count to 8 if i add in more 3 drops.
I think you can get away with 7 dorks and 13 3-drops. That's what I'm running currently and it seems to work, probably because Modern isn't as fast right now as it has been in the past. If you're playing 14+ 3-drops I would go up to 8 dorks, but I also wouldn't recommend doing that. 7 dorks seems to be the sweet-spot and the point of diminishing returns IMO. Birds are not nearly as good as Hierarchs and adding an extra bird increases the number of hands without action, bad topdecks and makes Coco less consistent.
I think I'm going to drop my fourth Path to Exile for one of the removal creatures just to get my creature count up a tad. does anyone have opinions on Reflector Mage versus Fiend Hunter versus Fairgrounds Warden? I have personally never been a big fan of Reflector Mage as a card, but I see a ton of people running it in knightfall.
On the issue of fetches, it's a much bigger deal to not have misty if you run basic island. Most lists don't and so it doesn't matter, but if you do then misty is far superior to foothills. I don't think you can cover the difference with any other combination of fetches either, since fetching forests is just so important.
I really, REALLY don't recommend it. If any criticism of our deck is valid it's that we run little removal. Replacing path, one of the most useful removal spells in Modern and one that is extremely well-positioned in this meta full of Tasigur, Eldrazi and Death's Shadows, with Reflector Mage isn't going to fix that. Path is a lifesaver so often that it isn't even worth making a list of situations where it's good. It's one of the premier removal spells for a reason. That said, Reflector Mage is great out of the board. I like running 2 mages and 2 Blessed Alliance to basically go from 4 to 8 removal spells where needed. Most lists are not currently running Reflector in the main, but it wouldn't be crazy to run 1-2 main to effectively up our removal count.
Hey gents, my thread search didn't give me any hard result on this:
How bad does one hurt himself by running a playset of Wooded Foothills instead of Misty Rainforests in this deck? Obviously due to card availability and/or unlimited money having not happened yet.
Thank you!
You can run 3 Foothills and 2 Flooded Strand, and Sacred Foundry instead of Stomping Ground so all your fetches can get red mana.
It's not ideal but I did it before getting my playset of Mistys. It works fine and I don't think I ever dropped a game because of it, albeit in a small sample size. It definitely has an impact on your win%, but we're talking maybe 2% or so at most.
So Devoted Druid + Vizier of Remedies makes infinite mana. Some smart people have already come up with deck ideas involving that combo with CoCo, Trinket Mage and Walking Ballista.
Is there any way we can work that into our deck? We would need some way to take advantage of infinite mana. Thoughts?
Regarding dredge, you're making a poor point if you are claiming finks/blessed alliance are better.
I stated upfront that I don't think Kitchen Finks is good either. It's marginally better against Abzan, Jund, Living End and any control deck, but worse against Burn (debatable), Revolt Zoo and Dredge. Still not great overall. I'd still choose Finks over War Monk most of the time, though, if I had to play one of them (I don't play either).
Blessed Alliance is not there for Dredge at all; I don't think anyone is making that claim. It has way more versatility than either Finks of War Monk though. It's excellent against Death's Shadow, Burn, Zoo, Infect and Bogles just to name a few.
If you feel you need extra slots against Burn or Revolt Zoo, sure, play Rhox War Monk. I don't think it's good enough to be a staple, but it has its niche in the right meta so, I suppose calling it flat out bad might be too harsh.
"Grasping Dunes
Land - Desert
T: Add <> to your mana pool.
1, T, Sacrifice Grasping Dunes: Put a -1/-1 counter on target creature. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery."
Let me state right off the bat that I don't think this is good enough to play even in the sideboard currently. It's too narrow and less useful than any of our other utility lands.
...that being said, imagine if this had been legal during the meta where Infect was the top deck. An Knight of the Reliquary could then tap to kill any infect creature (except for Nexi, for which Knight can fetch Ghost Quarter). Pump spells not named Vines of Vastwood or Blossoming Defense, wouldn't save them, nor would Spell Pierce
Point is, this is a nice option to have with Knight, even if the time isn't right currently.
War monk > kitchen finks with knightfall due to kessig (and exalted) synergy. If you don't have kessig, finks is better. Rhox War Monk is a fine card in the proper matchup. Ever had a dredge player try to win through a rhox war monk? Abzan/jund needs multiple threats to race it. Call it bad all you want, but the card wins games.
To be clear, I don't think Kitchen Finks is good either. Against Burn I just run Blessed Alliance, Courser and Scavenging Ooze along with 1 Spellskite. I've never had too much trouble with that matchup.
Rhox War Monk is not the answer to Dredge. At most it can slow them down but it won't beat an overwhelming board position, not to mention they can conflagrate it with relative ease.
As for Kessig with War Monk, sure the lifelink is nice, but you're talking about activating your one-of colorless land using red mana with your green/white/blue creature. That's magical Christmasland in a fast matchup like Burn where life total conservation is imperative. You can tutor for it with Knight but if you're doing that you're probably already winning.
War Monk is just unimpressive. A vanilla 3/4 for 3 with lifelink just doesn't cut it. The threshold for a 3-drop that doesn't give immediate value is very high (Knight is pretty much the only one I can think of that sees consistent play).
I'm mostly trying to find some room for ulvenwald tracker and eidolon of rhetoric but I'm at a loss on what to cut. I usually have a fairly hard time agains aggro and burn, elves, melira and living end.
Worth noting that I'm running 2x Reflectos on my MB until I get to buy a tireless tracker and a voice.
Cut War Monk (that card is just bad) and either Negate or Kitchen Finks. I suppose you could cut Izzet Staticaster since it serves a similar purpose to Tracker, but that card has won me too many games for me to advise that.
There is a rare matchup that i really struggle (like i'm 2-8 gamewise 0 match win)
8 rack.
I normally sideboard in thalia finks and courser and adding a ghost quarter removing the path to exile and the retreat to coralhelm
But i just can't seem to survive as he strip all my card and smallpox the only thing i have managed to put on the battlefield
...
Is he just lucky or is it really a bad matchup?
Honestly I've found it to be an easy matchup. It can be tricky to get off a Collected Company if they Smallpox your dork, but if you do and if you hit 2 reasonable creatures, they just have no way to compete with the value. In general, we just have ways to deal with them. A lot of our creatures are good here: Knight beats down and tutors Quarters to kill Mutavaults, Pridemage kills Racks, Scooze can get huge thanks to all the discard, Voice makes Liliana and Smallpox look silly, Spell Queller stops almost anything and they don't play that much removal.
The Rack effects really change the dynamic of the game: you need to really evaluate whether playing that card you have in hand is worth it or it's better to keep it in hand to reduce the damage you take.
--
On a different note, the new green god is very interesting. I don't know that it belongs in the current stock shell, but I can't help but notice that it enables Stubborn Denial really well... I wonder if there's an idea there, maybe with 4 Knight 4 Goyf and 2-3 of this god? Who knows. Either way, the god is definitely a great Collected Company hit.
As for Nissa, I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss her. She is grindy as hell and she seems made for this deck. The +2 improves our draws, digging for answers and the combo, and at 3 loyalty the 0 hits about 85% of our deck. The synergy with Courser of Kruphix is real. Later on when we get mana-flooded, she scales very well, threatening to end the game with her ultimate (admittedly, a weak ultimate, but probably still sufficient to end the game in the later stages).
I've generally been critical of planeswalkers, but I'm excited to try this one out, albeit probably as a 1-of.
The Nahiri-based, non-Company build of Knightfall was discussed here so I think it's probably fair game. It's an interesting list. 0 Path is certainly ambitious though. I might drop Emrakul (Sun Titan is big enough), 1 Retreat, 1 Gideon and 1 Birds for 4 Path and go from there. It's certainly crazy but intriguing as well.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
Am I reading it wrong or do you play 61 cards? If so why? Either way, my list is pretty similar and I agree, the deck feels great. Spellskite is underrated IMO. Sure it's bad against Kolaghan's command but really great at protecting our must-kill threats.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
It's been a bomb for me every time. Even on their most creature-heavy draws we tend to have more than them, and it's a life-saver against Ugin and All is Dust while still having the flexibility to work against a TKS or Reality Smasher. Besides with only two copies we're not overloading on them.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
On a sidenote, after playing against Grixis Shadow last night (got wrecked by mana-flooding both games, but managed to beat him after that in a game for fun), I've decided to up my Voice count from 2 to 3, and considering going to 4. Voice is great against them. Also, Reflector Mage is a beast.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
I should add that in spite of what I said, Dispel IS reasonable, I used to run 1 copy myself but I've opted for 2 Negate instead.
On a different note, your article (nice article, by the way) notes that Knightfall has a favorable matchup against Death's Shadow, and I've seen that suggestion elsewhere as well. However aside from speculation (my own speculation included), I've never really heard concrete arguments as to why.
Anyone care to comment on this point?
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
As you allude to in that article, combo is a bit of a problem for us, and Negate is the solution to that problem since Dispel doesn't hit the majority of problematic combo cards.
That being said, in a lot of matchups (Valakut, Tron), Unified Will is superior to Negate because it hits creatures.
I personally run 2-2 but I could see myself going up to 3 Will - 1 Negate.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
I think you can get away with 7 dorks and 13 3-drops. That's what I'm running currently and it seems to work, probably because Modern isn't as fast right now as it has been in the past. If you're playing 14+ 3-drops I would go up to 8 dorks, but I also wouldn't recommend doing that. 7 dorks seems to be the sweet-spot and the point of diminishing returns IMO. Birds are not nearly as good as Hierarchs and adding an extra bird increases the number of hands without action, bad topdecks and makes Coco less consistent.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
I really, REALLY don't recommend it. If any criticism of our deck is valid it's that we run little removal. Replacing path, one of the most useful removal spells in Modern and one that is extremely well-positioned in this meta full of Tasigur, Eldrazi and Death's Shadows, with Reflector Mage isn't going to fix that. Path is a lifesaver so often that it isn't even worth making a list of situations where it's good. It's one of the premier removal spells for a reason. That said, Reflector Mage is great out of the board. I like running 2 mages and 2 Blessed Alliance to basically go from 4 to 8 removal spells where needed. Most lists are not currently running Reflector in the main, but it wouldn't be crazy to run 1-2 main to effectively up our removal count.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
You can run 3 Foothills and 2 Flooded Strand, and Sacred Foundry instead of Stomping Ground so all your fetches can get red mana.
It's not ideal but I did it before getting my playset of Mistys. It works fine and I don't think I ever dropped a game because of it, albeit in a small sample size. It definitely has an impact on your win%, but we're talking maybe 2% or so at most.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
Is there any way we can work that into our deck? We would need some way to take advantage of infinite mana. Thoughts?
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
I stated upfront that I don't think Kitchen Finks is good either. It's marginally better against Abzan, Jund, Living End and any control deck, but worse against Burn (debatable), Revolt Zoo and Dredge. Still not great overall. I'd still choose Finks over War Monk most of the time, though, if I had to play one of them (I don't play either).
Blessed Alliance is not there for Dredge at all; I don't think anyone is making that claim. It has way more versatility than either Finks of War Monk though. It's excellent against Death's Shadow, Burn, Zoo, Infect and Bogles just to name a few.
If you feel you need extra slots against Burn or Revolt Zoo, sure, play Rhox War Monk. I don't think it's good enough to be a staple, but it has its niche in the right meta so, I suppose calling it flat out bad might be too harsh.
Let's talk about Grasping Dunes for a moment:
"Grasping Dunes
Land - Desert
T: Add <> to your mana pool.
1, T, Sacrifice Grasping Dunes: Put a -1/-1 counter on target creature. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery."
Let me state right off the bat that I don't think this is good enough to play even in the sideboard currently. It's too narrow and less useful than any of our other utility lands.
...that being said, imagine if this had been legal during the meta where Infect was the top deck. An Knight of the Reliquary could then tap to kill any infect creature (except for Nexi, for which Knight can fetch Ghost Quarter). Pump spells not named Vines of Vastwood or Blossoming Defense, wouldn't save them, nor would Spell Pierce
Point is, this is a nice option to have with Knight, even if the time isn't right currently.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
To be clear, I don't think Kitchen Finks is good either. Against Burn I just run Blessed Alliance, Courser and Scavenging Ooze along with 1 Spellskite. I've never had too much trouble with that matchup.
Rhox War Monk is not the answer to Dredge. At most it can slow them down but it won't beat an overwhelming board position, not to mention they can conflagrate it with relative ease.
As for Kessig with War Monk, sure the lifelink is nice, but you're talking about activating your one-of colorless land using red mana with your green/white/blue creature. That's magical Christmasland in a fast matchup like Burn where life total conservation is imperative. You can tutor for it with Knight but if you're doing that you're probably already winning.
War Monk is just unimpressive. A vanilla 3/4 for 3 with lifelink just doesn't cut it. The threshold for a 3-drop that doesn't give immediate value is very high (Knight is pretty much the only one I can think of that sees consistent play).
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
Cut War Monk (that card is just bad) and either Negate or Kitchen Finks. I suppose you could cut Izzet Staticaster since it serves a similar purpose to Tracker, but that card has won me too many games for me to advise that.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
Honestly I've found it to be an easy matchup. It can be tricky to get off a Collected Company if they Smallpox your dork, but if you do and if you hit 2 reasonable creatures, they just have no way to compete with the value. In general, we just have ways to deal with them. A lot of our creatures are good here: Knight beats down and tutors Quarters to kill Mutavaults, Pridemage kills Racks, Scooze can get huge thanks to all the discard, Voice makes Liliana and Smallpox look silly, Spell Queller stops almost anything and they don't play that much removal.
The Rack effects really change the dynamic of the game: you need to really evaluate whether playing that card you have in hand is worth it or it's better to keep it in hand to reduce the damage you take.
--
On a different note, the new green god is very interesting. I don't know that it belongs in the current stock shell, but I can't help but notice that it enables Stubborn Denial really well... I wonder if there's an idea there, maybe with 4 Knight 4 Goyf and 2-3 of this god? Who knows. Either way, the god is definitely a great Collected Company hit.
As for Nissa, I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss her. She is grindy as hell and she seems made for this deck. The +2 improves our draws, digging for answers and the combo, and at 3 loyalty the 0 hits about 85% of our deck. The synergy with Courser of Kruphix is real. Later on when we get mana-flooded, she scales very well, threatening to end the game with her ultimate (admittedly, a weak ultimate, but probably still sufficient to end the game in the later stages).
I've generally been critical of planeswalkers, but I'm excited to try this one out, albeit probably as a 1-of.
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB
GWU Knightfall Spirit Company GWU
GWB Abzan Evolution GWB