Hangarback Walker was the best 2-drop I ever tried. The retreat synergy is absurdly funny--with some regularity I would make 5/5 or bigger walkers. Being a miss on company is the obvious problem, but I wasn't runnin coco
Alternative worth considering is Satyr Wayfinder. Was pretty good curved into Knight.
Spellskite is pretty well positioned right now also.
Courser was one of the best cards in the deck for me and his only bad matchup was twin, really. I played 4 when I was working on this deck. It's very easy to take over a game with multiple coursers--just need a township really.
The problem is playing courser commits you to a midrange strategy not an aggro strategy, so just keep that in mind.
Courser was also fantastic with dromoka's command (since he's great at wrestling with his big fat butt), which is also really solid with all the critters Knightfall plays.
As your virtual 1 drops, and then trying to play solid curve with 2 drop creatures like voice and thalia (and possibly goyf), topping out at 2x elspeth and 1x sigarda or the like.
Ramping with dorks is really iffy in a deck with counterspells in my opinion.
Blade splicer's a 3-drop, but I'd play Thalia (4), Voice (4), and Scooze (2-3), or hangarback walker.. I'd just skip worrying about exalted and play Gavony Township.
If you opt for the 8 cantrips 1-drop slot, you shouldn't be playing any dorks. Just filter and dig and try to combo off on turn 4.
There's a lot of incentive to play hangarback walker and goyf with nissa's as well, as you could get some pretty huge goyfs and just win that way sometimes.
Pridemage is also not too bad.
Note: More than likely this deck loses to Twin pretty hard, especially on the draw, so you need to be playing quite a bit of twin hate in the side, and probably dromoka's command + path main.
You probably want to look at Jund and pretty much straight up copy their curve.
Oath of Nissa is really solid if you play a conventionally curved deck with serum visions -- 4 oaths and 4 serum visions with say, a singleton colonnade or something, presents a really solid pool of 1-drops that are not as vulnerable to removal. The nice part of that is that you can avoid playing mana dorks entirely and play more 2-drops -- the cluster at 3 with mana dorks has always been my least favorite part of the deck, since if you didn't draw a dork or it got bolted it really hurt.
Being able to dig for Elspeth if you choose to play her is also insanely good.
Not sure it's ideal, but it's a neat angle for sure. Most likely best with the Thalia+voice+ooze model.
I think the biggest problem with Zur, is that you need to attack with it to get retreat, meaning that even if you have the knight you can't combo off until the next turn, which seems slow to me. Have you tested with it at all?
I've been using Commune with the Gods as a way to look for both pieces and stock the yard, and it's been pretty good.
While I am not on board with the Zur idea, you can save an uncracked fetch, swing with both Knight and Zur, crack the fetch after retreat comes in to go off
Jund plays discard and bolt. Twin plays visions and bolt. Grixis twin plays bolt, visions and discard.
That is not how proactive curves work.
You place the things you would always like to play on turn 1 in the "on curve" one drop spot. Cards like lightning bolt and path to exile do not count as 1 drops.
The turn 1 play slot for Jund is typically (or close, sometimes different numbers of manlands and sometimes 3 TS).
3 x raging ravine
2 x treetop village
2 x thoughtseize
4 x inquisition of kozilek
Jund will almost never bolt to the face turn 1, and almost never bolt a creature turn 1 unless they are on the draw or they're playing against burn in game 2 or something. Very rare jund taps a land for bolt on turn 1, so it's not really a 1 drop. It's a spell that costs 1 mana, so that factors into how many lands you play, but it doesn't talk about your curve gameplan.
I've definitely come around to the hierarch build after trying it out a bit, the thing i like about it, is that they actually adds something to each of our game plans. In terms of tempo, we get bigger attacks, in terms of control, we get to cast cryptic a turn earlier, and in terms of combo we get to go off a turn earlier. What's not to like? I disagree with the idea that we cant run it with serum visions. Having options is always helpful.
Keep on trucking with it, but watch for how often you have awkward games because of the awkward curve (and even more clunky manabase). Watch how often you would like to just fetch a basic to keep from getting burnt out but you can't, for example, because you're counting on your hierarch for blue.
Running lots of 1 mana counterspells does help the t2/t3 curve, but hierarchs also conflict with that. A lot of times you're going to have to debate: Do I run out a hierarch or do I keep up spell snare/pierce?
I seriously wish you guys luck, just also lots of caution There has never been a successful modern deck that had that much conflict at 1 that I can think of. The only deck that I can think of that's played hierarchs and visions is Infect (and you know why that is...most of their spells cost 0-1 mana, and hierarch's exalted is twice as good in infect).
I would not play a deck with 4 hierarchs and no other one drops but serum visions. If you want dorks to accelerate out turn 3 stuff, much like playing Aether Vial it comes with curve design restrictions. Curving around four dorks is inevitably going to end up in an awkward inconsistent deck where you get a hand clogged with the wrong number of 2 or 3 or 1 drops. Playing dorks and serum visions is just...madly awkward. It's tough to get the right number of blue and green sources to ensure having turn 1 G and turn 1 U.
My conclusions after tons of playtesting is: 6-8 dorks and a higher top end (ideally chord, but Elspeth and Sigarda were both pretty good) or 0 dorks and control shell. Or, if you must play only 4 hierarchs, play Nacatls not serum visions - they go together like PB&J
It's possible I am wrong but I seriously doubt it at this point.
The philosophical problem with dorks is that, in modern there are a very limited number of 1-drops you can play that're good - usually that glue is serum visions+thought scour+manlands, or inquisition+Thoughtseize+manlands.
Playing dorks means you can't really play manlands as the rest of your glue since manlands realllly conflict with dorks (they ETB tapped, preventing you from keeping hands like wildwood, wildwood, hierarch).
Also, from a manabase perspective it is ideal for all of your turn 1 plays to use the same mana. So nacatls with hierarchs and birds, but not serum visions or thoughtseize or whatever. You'll see this theme repeated in most top decks over and over again.
I tore it apart already, but it was very similar to yours in feel. Main difference was goyfs and no maindeck pridemages. In the games I played against Tron I don't think any of these things would have mattered. They went like this:
1) mull to 5, turn 3 natural tron into karn, exile your hangarback walker, exile hand stuff, exile stuff, get karn up to 11 or so, stirrings for another karn, blah blah, cast ulamog.
2) turn 1 map, turn 2 double relic (when I have the combo in hand) + second tron piece, game's functionally over.
In retrospect I think that pridemage is core to putting pressure on tron, since he accelerates the beats clock significantly. But in my games it would not have mattered. He tronned up too fast and hated out the combo.
Spell pierces and lots of them might be the ticket as well, but again you've got to be putting a lot of pressure on them, and goyf might be the key there. HBW is probably just too slow.
I couldn't quite get happy with the control shell, but I cheaped out and didn't play as many counterspells as I shoulda (tried 4 remands, 2 snares, 2 cryptics) I think. Also added Academy ruins.
HBW with academy was very, very good - got me there one game with Township and about 8 casts of Hangarback walker.
My meta is strange though, and I ran into an ensaring bridge tezzerator deck which annihilated me - I probably was a bit light on pridemages though.
Then, Tron. The control shell just cannot really beat tron. It's absolutely miserable. Your hope is that you spell pierce Karn and then combo out and they don't do any more stuff. It was really horrific, probably scared me off of the deck given how many tron decks there are in my meta (UW tron, 2x RG tron, and 1x weird mono white tron with secure the wastes).
Supreme Verdict might be the right answer, but that's all I can think of. Jund gets fat goyfs from running 8-10 sorceries or so and 6 of them being discard and there's just not the right stuff in our colors to support that.
You could try out Search for Tomorrow potentially, but all in all I think I would recommend swapping Voice or Hangarback in that slot and see if it performs better.
Krosan grip is a sweet piece of tech. It does a kind of poor man's abrupt decay imitation, stopping numerous combos cold (storm, twin, bloom, and I am sure some others I'm not thinking of--maybe half of ad nauseam?:). Being able to Krosan Grip an oblivion stone or expedition map might be worth the price of admission too haha.
I'd love to see how that list plays with hangarback walkers instead of goyfs. I really like it, but I think the sorcery count is too low for goyf to be quite the right beater of choice. It's possible that Voice is better, too, but I see that you want the potential for 4+ power to present a fast clock.
I think the CA from HBW's (and possibility of winning with Gavony Township + Thopter beats) might be the right call.
That said, I really like the list and will almost surely be sleeving something very similar up on Friday
Alternative worth considering is Satyr Wayfinder. Was pretty good curved into Knight.
Spellskite is pretty well positioned right now also.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
The problem is playing courser commits you to a midrange strategy not an aggro strategy, so just keep that in mind.
Courser was also fantastic with dromoka's command (since he's great at wrestling with his big fat butt), which is also really solid with all the critters Knightfall plays.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Something like:
As your virtual 1 drops, and then trying to play solid curve with 2 drop creatures like voice and thalia (and possibly goyf), topping out at 2x elspeth and 1x sigarda or the like.
Ramping with dorks is really iffy in a deck with counterspells in my opinion.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
If you opt for the 8 cantrips 1-drop slot, you shouldn't be playing any dorks. Just filter and dig and try to combo off on turn 4.
There's a lot of incentive to play hangarback walker and goyf with nissa's as well, as you could get some pretty huge goyfs and just win that way sometimes.
Pridemage is also not too bad.
Note: More than likely this deck loses to Twin pretty hard, especially on the draw, so you need to be playing quite a bit of twin hate in the side, and probably dromoka's command + path main.
You probably want to look at Jund and pretty much straight up copy their curve.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Being able to dig for Elspeth if you choose to play her is also insanely good.
Not sure it's ideal, but it's a neat angle for sure. Most likely best with the Thalia+voice+ooze model.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
While I am not on board with the Zur idea, you can save an uncracked fetch, swing with both Knight and Zur, crack the fetch after retreat comes in to go off
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
That is not how proactive curves work.
You place the things you would always like to play on turn 1 in the "on curve" one drop spot. Cards like lightning bolt and path to exile do not count as 1 drops.
The turn 1 play slot for Jund is typically (or close, sometimes different numbers of manlands and sometimes 3 TS).
3 x raging ravine
2 x treetop village
2 x thoughtseize
4 x inquisition of kozilek
Jund will almost never bolt to the face turn 1, and almost never bolt a creature turn 1 unless they are on the draw or they're playing against burn in game 2 or something. Very rare jund taps a land for bolt on turn 1, so it's not really a 1 drop. It's a spell that costs 1 mana, so that factors into how many lands you play, but it doesn't talk about your curve gameplan.
Keep on trucking with it, but watch for how often you have awkward games because of the awkward curve (and even more clunky manabase). Watch how often you would like to just fetch a basic to keep from getting burnt out but you can't, for example, because you're counting on your hierarch for blue.
Running lots of 1 mana counterspells does help the t2/t3 curve, but hierarchs also conflict with that. A lot of times you're going to have to debate: Do I run out a hierarch or do I keep up spell snare/pierce?
I seriously wish you guys luck, just also lots of caution There has never been a successful modern deck that had that much conflict at 1 that I can think of. The only deck that I can think of that's played hierarchs and visions is Infect (and you know why that is...most of their spells cost 0-1 mana, and hierarch's exalted is twice as good in infect).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
My conclusions after tons of playtesting is: 6-8 dorks and a higher top end (ideally chord, but Elspeth and Sigarda were both pretty good) or 0 dorks and control shell. Or, if you must play only 4 hierarchs, play Nacatls not serum visions - they go together like PB&J
It's possible I am wrong but I seriously doubt it at this point.
The philosophical problem with dorks is that, in modern there are a very limited number of 1-drops you can play that're good - usually that glue is serum visions+thought scour+manlands, or inquisition+Thoughtseize+manlands.
Playing dorks means you can't really play manlands as the rest of your glue since manlands realllly conflict with dorks (they ETB tapped, preventing you from keeping hands like wildwood, wildwood, hierarch).
Also, from a manabase perspective it is ideal for all of your turn 1 plays to use the same mana. So nacatls with hierarchs and birds, but not serum visions or thoughtseize or whatever. You'll see this theme repeated in most top decks over and over again.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
1) mull to 5, turn 3 natural tron into karn, exile your hangarback walker, exile hand stuff, exile stuff, get karn up to 11 or so, stirrings for another karn, blah blah, cast ulamog.
2) turn 1 map, turn 2 double relic (when I have the combo in hand) + second tron piece, game's functionally over.
In retrospect I think that pridemage is core to putting pressure on tron, since he accelerates the beats clock significantly. But in my games it would not have mattered. He tronned up too fast and hated out the combo.
Spell pierces and lots of them might be the ticket as well, but again you've got to be putting a lot of pressure on them, and goyf might be the key there. HBW is probably just too slow.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
HBW with academy was very, very good - got me there one game with Township and about 8 casts of Hangarback walker.
My meta is strange though, and I ran into an ensaring bridge tezzerator deck which annihilated me - I probably was a bit light on pridemages though.
Then, Tron. The control shell just cannot really beat tron. It's absolutely miserable. Your hope is that you spell pierce Karn and then combo out and they don't do any more stuff. It was really horrific, probably scared me off of the deck given how many tron decks there are in my meta (UW tron, 2x RG tron, and 1x weird mono white tron with secure the wastes).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
You could try out Search for Tomorrow potentially, but all in all I think I would recommend swapping Voice or Hangarback in that slot and see if it performs better.
Krosan grip is a sweet piece of tech. It does a kind of poor man's abrupt decay imitation, stopping numerous combos cold (storm, twin, bloom, and I am sure some others I'm not thinking of--maybe half of ad nauseam?:). Being able to Krosan Grip an oblivion stone or expedition map might be worth the price of admission too haha.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I think the CA from HBW's (and possibility of winning with Gavony Township + Thopter beats) might be the right call.
That said, I really like the list and will almost surely be sleeving something very similar up on Friday
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall