Ghostly flicker + eternal witness and we can get back ghostly flicker and flicker something else. Flicker can target lands so it can trigger steppe lynx and vinelasher kudzu turning it into a pump spell. It can also target sejiri steppe for value. You can also get instant bonus retreat to coralhelm triggers. Obviously you can go nuts with thragtusk. At the very worst it can save a creature from removal.
I've been playing the deck for a while and i'd like to try something a little bit different. I want to try 2x brimaz, king of oreskos in my wilt-leaf liege version. Craig Wescoe was running one in his wilted hatebears list that got him a top4 at GP Pittsburg. I figured it is a great offensive/defensive creature that has the second fastest clock (after geist).
I'd also like to try 2x chord of calling. In addition to it being a great card it fits really well with brimaz, because you can attack and make a token and chord with all the vigilant creatures before blockers.
Lately i've been siding in rhox war monk a lot, so i've been wondering if the card is worth some space main deck. I face a lot of aggro decks and linear combo deck, Monk would help in the aggro matchup but geist of saint traft is better at clocking combo players. Maybe a 2/2 split of monk and geist, and hope to draw the right one in the right matchup?
Other than that i've been also considering a 2/2 split between doran, the siege tower and geist of saint traft. The splash would be easy, i would swap my temple garden for murmuring bosk and play 10 forest fetchlands. Drawing Doran and geist seems better than drawing 2 geists. Doran is the 3 drop with the second fastest clock (after geist). Doran can also pump all the dorks which is not that relevant but still a nice bonus. This would also open the possibility of playing siege rhino.
Have people here talked about Amaral's Knightfall-Zoo list that top 4'd Porto Allegre?
After giving it a spin, I must say it's really streamlined. I'm impressed. Less reliant on the combo, full on Zoo approach. Tremendous pressure. List can be found here:
The full geist playset feels a bit counter-intuitive, as we usually don't play legends x4. They ARE the best at what they do, and you can win off of one copy so maxing out on them might make sense.
Another thing is maybe we could just swap the nacatls for steppe lynx and keep it bant? The full 12 fetchlands seem more than enough support for them, not counting knight shenanigans. I never played the 4 color zoo version but it seems to me the bant version takes less damage from lands. I usually need only to fetch one shock then i search basics forever. We loose bolt though, but it might be worth it.
Elspeth is interesting, but i've been pleased with wilt-leaf liege in this spot. The turn you cast it it deals one less damage than the +3/+3 if you have geist or any g/w creature, but you get a 4/4 beater the next turn. Liege also works better with multiple creatures, but doesn't provide evasion like elspeth. Lastly multiple liege are a beating and i like to just «get» liliana players with it. Midrange matchups are rough for the combo, having 4x voice and 4x liege feels really good in those games.
Last thought, i agree with people that say goyf doesn't seem that impressive here. It seems like they are the default beatstick but you just rely on the opponent binning stuff... i guess bolt helps binning creatures as opposed to just having path but i'm not sure if people just jam goyf because he's goyf. I've been happy so far with 4x pridemage and 4x voice, if i owned goyf i'd probaly use them in a better goyf deck than this one.
Good points. Instead of splashing red i decided to just put a rogue's passage in the board for when it matters. I'm now on 2 commune and 4 visions, should be enough digging for 3 retreat to be ok.
As much as i like mashing the two combos together, man the mana seems rough! You need g/w for knights, u/w for geists and double red for twin... That could lead to very awkward situations! If you want to go that route i strongly advise you to x4 your birds and cut the dryad arbor and sejiri steppe, you want to minimize single color lands.
Speaking of sejiri steppe, it has been kind of a liability. The card feel very bad to have in your starting hand and most of the times i use it to punch through blockers. I'm considering swapping township for kessig wolf run and turning sejiri steppe into sacred foundry.
Another thing i noticed is drawing multiple retreat to coralhelm is annoying. Fortunately they stack but it still feels like a bad draw when you already have one in play. Do you guys think i could get away with only 3x, considering 4x serum visions? What is your experience with running 3x retreat or running 4x and drawing multiple retreat in a game? I'd probably add a single detention sphere instead of the 4th retreat, i side in that card all the time because it is so great.
Liege is a very powerful card and works with all of my creatures (including geist of saint traft because the angel gets the boost too). With previous versions i was really weak to midrange/liliana decks but voice and liege are a nightmare to liliana players.
Pridemage, paths and my 2x scavenging oozes are often enough interaction vs the unfair decks. Voice is very powerful vs the blue decks and maindeck pridemage is sweet to have against affinity and twin, although i'll admit the cat is a bolt magnet vs twin.
@Henry009dom: maybe you could post your list, there are a lot of ways to build the deck, so i think you could tweak your list according to your meta. I built the little kid one because i don'T have goyf, and even then goyf isn't used to its full potential in this deck in my opinion. Goyf is weak to the same things knight is weak to, graveyard hate and non bolt removal, so diversifying your threats's weaknesses seems like a good idea.
I don't think having serum visions and dorks is awkward at all, if you build your curve well. You can always play turn one dork into turn two visions + 2 drop, or holding remand mana. And like complex pants said visions doesn't need to be played turn one. You can always hold until playing it maximizes your mana. Visions is always a good play when you don't have a better play available. All our one mana play are great turn one and still good later on.
That being said i've decided to try visions instead of commune with the gods. Binning creatures for ooze or lands for knight was sweet but the one mana cantrip leads to better mana maximizing combinations than with commune, and i don't even play goyfs so visions it will be.
Not sure we can make a combo control shell work in bant. I think twin fills that role right now and control knightfall would just be a lesser version of that. I think this deck's identity wants to be aggro control, i think it is that indentity that can make it a unique deck and contribute to the modern metagame as a distinct player.
So what i ended doing is swap ooze and d-sphere, the first now main deck and the second in the board. I like both cards but tend to prioritize threats, especially disruptive ones. I also like to not overload on 3cc because we don't always have dorks/they get bolted often, and i at least want to always have something to do turn 2. And if the dork lives being able to cast and activate ooze turn 2 is randomly useful vs some decks.
I played 3 rounds vs infect (geez...) and one round vs 4 color gifts, losing only in the finals to infect deck number 3 (the 3 deck where indentical blue green versions). Kind of disappointing to not face varied decks but i'll take the 3-1 i guess...
I ended up siding out commune with the gods vs all 3 infect decks because i don't have time to durdle.
By far the most interesting games were vs gifts. First game i combo out late in the game after casting 3 commune during the game. I had a huge board advantage but my opponent had 4 lingering souls tokens and a tasigur. As i proceed to combo out i realize i milled too much fetchlands with my 3 communes, only 2 fetches left in the deck! So i tap 2 souls and swing with my team. On my end step my opponent gifts for 3 removal spells and a lingering souls. On his turn he ults his flipped jace, vryn's prodigy and casts 4 spells and mills me out with jace's emblem I managed to win both following games but it was the first time milling too many fetchlands with commune occured, and i was not very happy... Still those were fun and epic games, and i still like commune.
@Pokken: yeah maybe. I mean i see them as maelstrom pulse in our colors, B/Gx decks still play those but maybe more beef is better, like loxodon smither? I'll probably make the switch before today's tournament.
@Radouf: not only did i consider them but i would 100% play them if i had them, but i still need both my kidneys . A reason to play little kid is you can get away without having goyf and just play g/w good stuff instead, so i built this deck with the intent of being optimal without goyf. Not playing goyf and playing liege and voice has upsides and downsides and is not 100% strictly worse than having goyf so i can live with that. But yes having goyf as your main big threat and commune to support them makes playing liege less necessary.
EDIT: instead of detention sphere, any thoughts on brimaz, king of oreskos in a liege version? It has the same total power as loxodon smither first swing and just keeps getting better if it lives. The downside is it can be discarded and countered. Worth it?
So i've played the deck a bit more than when i last posted here and the list i've had better results with is actually the little kid one. My landfall list with vinelasher kudzu lost so hard to midrange/decks with loads of removal/liliana of the veil that i don't want to ever play it again, even if it had swift turn 4 kills when undisrupted.
So I'm back with wilt-leaf liege but with borrowed tech from complex pants (commune with the gods) and also geist, which is great with liege since both the geist and angel tokens get pumped. Playing liege means the return of voice, which i missed a lot when playing vs anything but combo.
I'm not into Collected Company for this deck. Maybe it is just preference but i believe we can't play an optimal amount of relevant creature because of retreat to coralhelm. 26ish creatures isn't even enough, and i think the correct way to evaluate CoCo is not counting the dorks because by the time we cast CoCo we don't want to hit any of those, which leaves us to 20ish good targets. I think the list posted in the link above with no paths and maxed out hatebears is a good starting point for CoCo lists.
Hopefully this new version can fight midrange and aggro decks better than my previous landfall versions(which still got me ok results):
Dispel is the only thing commune can't get, hence the 3x. It is just waaay too good to pass up.
Seal of primordium seems redundant with qasali pridemage but i like having a non boltable answer that allows me to tap out later on vs twin and affinity.
Dryad militant is for the numerous midrange delve decks in my meta.
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4 noble hierarch
4 steppe lynx
4 qasali pridemage
4 vinelasher kudzu
4 knight of the reliquary
4 eternal witness
2 thragtusk
instants : 8
4 path to exile
4 ghostly flicker
enchantments : 4
4 retreat to coralhelm
lands : 22
4 windswept heath
4 flooded strand
2 wooded foothills
2 breeding pool
1 hallowed fountain
1 sacred foundry
2 temple garden
2 forest
1 plains
1 sejiri steppe
1 kessig wolf run
1 ghost quarter
1 gaddock teeg
2 engineered explosives
2 stony silence
2 aven mindcensor
4 dispel
4 kitchen finks
Ghostly flicker + eternal witness and we can get back ghostly flicker and flicker something else. Flicker can target lands so it can trigger steppe lynx and vinelasher kudzu turning it into a pump spell. It can also target sejiri steppe for value. You can also get instant bonus retreat to coralhelm triggers. Obviously you can go nuts with thragtusk. At the very worst it can save a creature from removal.
I'd also like to try 2x chord of calling. In addition to it being a great card it fits really well with brimaz, because you can attack and make a token and chord with all the vigilant creatures before blockers.
My new list:
4 noble hierarch
2 birds of paradise
4 qasali pridemage
2 voice of resurgence
2 scavenging ooze
4 knight of the reliquary
2 geist of saint traft
2 brimaz, king of oreskos
4 wilt-leaf liege
instants : 8
4 path to exile
2 dromoka's command
2 chord of calling
4 retreat to coralhelm
lands : 22
4 windswept heath
4 flooded strand
2 breeding pool
2 hallowed fountain
2 temple garden
3 forest
3 plains
1 ghost quarter
1 gavony township
2 detention sphere
2 stony silence
2 aven mindcensor
2 dryad militant
1 gaddock teeg
2 dispel
4 rhox war monk
I'd like to hears thoughts before i get the 2x missing brimaz and chord.
Other than that i've been also considering a 2/2 split between doran, the siege tower and geist of saint traft. The splash would be easy, i would swap my temple garden for murmuring bosk and play 10 forest fetchlands. Drawing Doran and geist seems better than drawing 2 geists. Doran is the 3 drop with the second fastest clock (after geist). Doran can also pump all the dorks which is not that relevant but still a nice bonus. This would also open the possibility of playing siege rhino.
Thoughts?
The full geist playset feels a bit counter-intuitive, as we usually don't play legends x4. They ARE the best at what they do, and you can win off of one copy so maxing out on them might make sense.
Another thing is maybe we could just swap the nacatls for steppe lynx and keep it bant? The full 12 fetchlands seem more than enough support for them, not counting knight shenanigans. I never played the 4 color zoo version but it seems to me the bant version takes less damage from lands. I usually need only to fetch one shock then i search basics forever. We loose bolt though, but it might be worth it.
Elspeth is interesting, but i've been pleased with wilt-leaf liege in this spot. The turn you cast it it deals one less damage than the +3/+3 if you have geist or any g/w creature, but you get a 4/4 beater the next turn. Liege also works better with multiple creatures, but doesn't provide evasion like elspeth. Lastly multiple liege are a beating and i like to just «get» liliana players with it. Midrange matchups are rough for the combo, having 4x voice and 4x liege feels really good in those games.
Last thought, i agree with people that say goyf doesn't seem that impressive here. It seems like they are the default beatstick but you just rely on the opponent binning stuff... i guess bolt helps binning creatures as opposed to just having path but i'm not sure if people just jam goyf because he's goyf. I've been happy so far with 4x pridemage and 4x voice, if i owned goyf i'd probaly use them in a better goyf deck than this one.
4 noble hierarch
2 birds of paradise
4 qasali pridemage
4 voice of resurgence
4 knight of the reliquary
2 geist of saint traft
4 wilt-leaf liege
instants 4
4 path to exile
sorceries 6
4 serum visions
2 commune with the gods
enchantments 4
3 retreat to coralhelm
1 detention sphere
4 windswept heath
4 flooded strand
2 breeding pool
2 hallowed fountain
1 temple garden
3 forest
2 plains
2 ghost quarter
1 gavony township
1 sejiri steppe
2 kitchen finks
2 aven mindcensor
2 scavenging ooze
2 dryad militant
2 stony silence
3 dispel
1 rogue's passage
1 detention sphere
Speaking of sejiri steppe, it has been kind of a liability. The card feel very bad to have in your starting hand and most of the times i use it to punch through blockers. I'm considering swapping township for kessig wolf run and turning sejiri steppe into sacred foundry.
Another thing i noticed is drawing multiple retreat to coralhelm is annoying. Fortunately they stack but it still feels like a bad draw when you already have one in play. Do you guys think i could get away with only 3x, considering 4x serum visions? What is your experience with running 3x retreat or running 4x and drawing multiple retreat in a game? I'd probably add a single detention sphere instead of the 4th retreat, i side in that card all the time because it is so great.
Liege is a very powerful card and works with all of my creatures (including geist of saint traft because the angel gets the boost too). With previous versions i was really weak to midrange/liliana decks but voice and liege are a nightmare to liliana players.
Pridemage, paths and my 2x scavenging oozes are often enough interaction vs the unfair decks. Voice is very powerful vs the blue decks and maindeck pridemage is sweet to have against affinity and twin, although i'll admit the cat is a bolt magnet vs twin.
@Henry009dom: maybe you could post your list, there are a lot of ways to build the deck, so i think you could tweak your list according to your meta. I built the little kid one because i don'T have goyf, and even then goyf isn't used to its full potential in this deck in my opinion. Goyf is weak to the same things knight is weak to, graveyard hate and non bolt removal, so diversifying your threats's weaknesses seems like a good idea.
That being said i've decided to try visions instead of commune with the gods. Binning creatures for ooze or lands for knight was sweet but the one mana cantrip leads to better mana maximizing combinations than with commune, and i don't even play goyfs so visions it will be.
I played 3 rounds vs infect (geez...) and one round vs 4 color gifts, losing only in the finals to infect deck number 3 (the 3 deck where indentical blue green versions). Kind of disappointing to not face varied decks but i'll take the 3-1 i guess...
I ended up siding out commune with the gods vs all 3 infect decks because i don't have time to durdle.
By far the most interesting games were vs gifts. First game i combo out late in the game after casting 3 commune during the game. I had a huge board advantage but my opponent had 4 lingering souls tokens and a tasigur. As i proceed to combo out i realize i milled too much fetchlands with my 3 communes, only 2 fetches left in the deck! So i tap 2 souls and swing with my team. On my end step my opponent gifts for 3 removal spells and a lingering souls. On his turn he ults his flipped jace, vryn's prodigy and casts 4 spells and mills me out with jace's emblem I managed to win both following games but it was the first time milling too many fetchlands with commune occured, and i was not very happy... Still those were fun and epic games, and i still like commune.
@Radouf: not only did i consider them but i would 100% play them if i had them, but i still need both my kidneys . A reason to play little kid is you can get away without having goyf and just play g/w good stuff instead, so i built this deck with the intent of being optimal without goyf. Not playing goyf and playing liege and voice has upsides and downsides and is not 100% strictly worse than having goyf so i can live with that. But yes having goyf as your main big threat and commune to support them makes playing liege less necessary.
EDIT: instead of detention sphere, any thoughts on brimaz, king of oreskos in a liege version? It has the same total power as loxodon smither first swing and just keeps getting better if it lives. The downside is it can be discarded and countered. Worth it?
So I'm back with wilt-leaf liege but with borrowed tech from complex pants (commune with the gods) and also geist, which is great with liege since both the geist and angel tokens get pumped. Playing liege means the return of voice, which i missed a lot when playing vs anything but combo.
I'm not into Collected Company for this deck. Maybe it is just preference but i believe we can't play an optimal amount of relevant creature because of retreat to coralhelm. 26ish creatures isn't even enough, and i think the correct way to evaluate CoCo is not counting the dorks because by the time we cast CoCo we don't want to hit any of those, which leaves us to 20ish good targets. I think the list posted in the link above with no paths and maxed out hatebears is a good starting point for CoCo lists.
Hopefully this new version can fight midrange and aggro decks better than my previous landfall versions(which still got me ok results):
4 noble hierarch
2 birds of paradise
4 qasali pridemage
4 voice of resurgence
4 knight of the reliquary
2 geist of saint traft
4 wilt-leaf liege
instants 4
4 path to exile
sorceries 4
4 commune with the gods
enchantments 6
4 retreat to coralhelm
2 detention sphere
4 windswept heath
4 flooded strand
2 breeding pool
2 hallowed fountain
1 temple garden
3 forest
2 plains
2 ghost quarter
1 gavony township
1 sejiri steppe
2 kitchen finks
2 aven mindcensor
2 scavenging ooze
2 dryad militant
2 seal of primordium
2 stony silence
3 dispel
My current sideboard:
3 dispel
2 stony silence
2 seal of primordium
2 aven mindcensor
2 kitchen finks
2 scavenging ooze
2 dryad militant
Dispel is the only thing commune can't get, hence the 3x. It is just waaay too good to pass up.
Seal of primordium seems redundant with qasali pridemage but i like having a non boltable answer that allows me to tap out later on vs twin and affinity.
Dryad militant is for the numerous midrange delve decks in my meta.