I don't think that shaper's sanctuary is what this deck wants. I like it more in decks like infect, that can chain multiple protection spells and can use the draw trigger to get even more protection.
@blueduck70 congrats on the 5-0! Also, congrats on getting your list published. This new 5-0 policy is awful
2cmc thalia is an okay choice I think. Newer lists were cutting the two drops and in my testing, playing almost any configuration of 2 drops until a total of 8 makes this deck considerably better. It doesn't matter if it's lotus cobra, thalia, selfless, third ooze/qasali/voice, it will be better than any three drop. I'm personally not a fan of thalia in modern but I can see it being good in various matchups (shadow, living end, the synergies with queller...). I also see no problem with playing thalia maindeck.
I would never go below 4 queller though. The number of times I've cast queller to then receive a handshake by my opponent...
Mindcensor should be in the sideboard I think, and in higher numbers, if you want that kind of effect. Mindcensor is at its best turn 2, so I would advice 2-3 copies if that's how you want to fight the valakut matchup.
I'm interested in your reasoning for stony silence/surgical extraction though. Surgical is a pretty narrow card in this deck (no thought scour, only one ghost quarter, our removal exiles, no discard, no snapcaster) and I only played it when I expected facing griselbrand reanimator decks. Stony is a good card but I think gaddock is a better card in this deck.
I'm just not sold on the current SBoards for traditional Knightfall, if you guys could share yours.
I have several posted if you check my post history (one is in this same page). Most of them are pretty similar.
What don't you like about knightfalls SB? I might be able to help more if you share your questions and concerns
Took some ideas from older lists (lotus cobra, 8 2cmc creatures, more vendilion, more tracker). I felt pretty confident about this list, only issues were the ones that this deck always has (sometimes plays a little too fair, manabase is 4 colors with 3 colorless lands and 1 painland so there are games that you lose by not having your colors or because you take a beating just by fetch shocking + horizon canopy). Those two issues made me play lotus cobra, and it was decent actually! Got some free ooze activations, fixed my mana and some opponents were super scared about it so they spent good cards at removing it, which made resolving better creatures easier.
Pairings were:
Jeskai ascendancy (2-0)
Eldrazi tron (1-2)
Living end (2-1)
Burn (2-1)
Jeskai control (1-2)
On another topic: I just bought GW elves, so I'll be able to test games with that deck. I think that it's a better vizier shell than knightfall, but I have yet to test more
Last pptq result with traditional knightfall a dissapointing 1-3 drop.
Bw eldrazi 2-0:a few mistakes of my opponent and cocos gave me the victory.
Grixis ds 0-2:no cocos neither pte. Removal for all my creatures (including two of them for finks), and ds+ds. 3 reflectors didn't help.a
Elves 0-2: one of the worst pairings in my opinion. Both games he win without attacking, with shaman and chord for shaman.
Uw control 1-2: gideon won game 1 for him, Game 2 coco son the game. Game 3 vendilion show me his hand: 2 supreme verdict, 2 path, d-sphere. He won with gideon again.
For the next one I'm trying to decide between traditional again or humans knightfall.
Disappointing result but sometimes it happens. Mind sharing your list?
What reasoning did Mr. Chew have on why regular knightfall is better?
Heres my quick argument for the combo- Having access to infinite mana on turn 3 pretty consistently is pretty awesome IMHO. I'm failing to see why people don't see that getting these instant wins is crazy. Having played with the druid/vizier thing in this shell and in abzan, people get scared and defensive when they see you're on the combo, so much so that sometimes they start giving up on their own plan to try to stop you, which is a true power. They know one company on their end step can end the game, same with chord, or just letting a druid resolve on turn 2 and live. It's insane the power we have and the combo is game breaking if you can sink it into dusk watch, chaining wit to company or chord, ballista, or in the knight version kessig (rhonas if you want). Many ways to get there, and only about like 5% of the time have i had infinite mana with nothing to do with it which are odds I'll take.
I'm guessing one argument is that all these creatures suck on their own, which is true- but with chord, company, ewit you can reassemble pretty easily to be honest, and outside of somebody surgicaling your druid and company in the same game (this happened to me once and I got the win anyways) you can get there eventually.
second argument I'd guess---Spell Queller. The card is great of course, but not good enough for me to give up free wins and I've have trouble in my meta at least having them live to see the light of day.
Regular knightfall is so fun to play and if you like interacting or grinding more than thats great, but if you like winning the combo makes too much sense to deny to me.
He didn't give me any reasons (didn't ask about them, just asked which GWx coco deck he felt was better positioned, since he plays all of them except abzan) but I kind of agree with that. In an unknown metagame, I think that classic knightfall can do better than vizier. It isn't like you are removing the 2 drops and adding the combo - you're changing the whole structure and gameplan (no queller, chord, witness, no path...) and that changes how lots of matchups play out. You get lots of percentage points vs tron and valakut, but you lose them vs burn, shadow and random interactive/grindy decks.
In the end, this is always a meta question. Here in Spain (and in Europe in general, AFAIK) "unknown meta" means lots of interactive and grindy decks. We had a day 1 metagame breakdown of a recent big tournament here and +60% were GBx/UBx decks. In this conditions, I'm much more willing to take something resilient to discard and removal. I know that other places of the world have more tron/valakut/noninteractive decks and I can see how you prefer something that wins fast.
I am actually very unsure about whether Vizier Knightfall is better or not. I haven't had time to play test it yet and since I keep drawing well with Knightfall, I am having a lot of fun with it!
I just talked with Kelvin Chew and he thinks that regular knightfall is better than vizier knightfall right now. I'll continue to play regular knightfall for this pptq season, just trying to guess the best SB configuration.
Nice tournament! How did the control and shadow matchups feel? When I tested abzan vizier they were miserable, but this deck is a whole different story, I might try some games with it.
If you plan on cutting rhonas, what do you plan to do with the infinite mana? just duskwatch to draw a new hand and kessig? Wouldn't you add a ballista at least?
I ran some test games with the GP Sao Paulo winning list, just to gauge how good or bad those interesting card decisions impacted the game. I'll comment my impressions and do a quick report to raise discussion here
Rounds: Lose 1-2 vs titanshift
Lose 1-2 vs titanshift
Both rounds went in a similar fashion. Won one game due to the combo, lost the other ones because I didn't have enough answers. Here I missed gaddock teeg a lot, he's worth 1.5 or 2 counterspells (even though breach has fallen out of favor, new lists include chandra/nahiri/hour of promise so it's still as usefull) Won 2-0 vs burn
Maindeck kitchen finks helped a lot game one. Game two variance hits and my opponent mulligans into oblivion and loses. Won 2-0 vs BG tron
While the other matchups felt the same or even worse than with my list, here I really felt much better. Big Thalia buys at least one turn, ceremonious rejection is as good as expected and three retreats made going for the combo much more likely.
Card choices: Manabase
Sejiri was never useful, and one game it was detrimental because I drew it. I was able to kill without kessig perfectly fine, but kessig is a good magic card and I like running it. Having forest instead of canopy and island instead of botanical lead to some mulligans because I didn't have the right colors, which felt bad. I think that the conventional manabase is strictly better. Two drops
Games played in a really weird way without more two drops (this list only has 3). Games were like "play a dork and hope that it doesn't die, play a 3 drop and hope it doesn't die" and if that didn't happen I would loose lots of tempo. Selfless was decent though, I'm not playing it right now in my list but I would reconsider it if the meta somehow changes. Three drops
Three retreats were amazing vs tron and valakut (as expected) and I was able to combo more frequently than usual. I drew multiples a few times, which wasn't optimal, but the combo kills outweighed the multiple retreat draws. I think that maybe the third retreat could be played in the sideboard... I think that the first two copies of retreat serve a different function than the third and fourth copies, and it wouldn't be crazy to include those latter copies in the sideboard of more stock lists, "defying" the usual "play all retreats maindeck" advice.
Big Thalia was amazing vs tron, and I expect her to be good vs eldrazi too (I'm not sure if I want her vs grixis shadow, I would need to test more). Anyway, Thalia looks like it's replacing reflector mage, and I prefer reflector over Thalia without a doubt. Three trackers is obviously overkill, I have no idea why the pilot thought that he needed so many of them. Path to exile
One path was moved to the sideboard to make room for all those three drops. The consensus is that knightfall needs more removal than 4 path, not less. Anyway, this list looks particularly skewed to fight certain matchups (like tron, eldrazi and valakut) and when thinking about it that way, it makes sense. Anyway, for an open meta I would play 4 path maindeck. Sideboard
Having 3 ceremonious+3 flashfreeze has the same effect as the stock counter suite (2-3 unified will + 2 negate), while being more efficient vs valakut/eldrazi and being worse vs random decks. Revoker is one weird inclusion, and I would love to know what deck he tries to fight on that angle. Same for fracturing gust, was he expecting lots of lantern control or bogles? that card is too slow vs affinity to be worth it.
Hi. I'm brazilian. The deck that won the GP São Paulo have 3 Thalia, Guardiã de Thraben, not 3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar. Wizards just post wrong
Hah that makes much more sense. The GP winning list looks weird at first but when thinking more about it, it's just super prepared to fight certain matchups. I'll try to play it a bit and then give some insight here because there is something to learn there for sure ^^
@PastorCF congrats on the PPTQ finish! I'll watch the vods when I have time. Could you explain how you feel about the lantern matchup? I have played it for a bit but I'm uncertain of what's our plan
Just wanted to thank @RPD for his decklist for Bant Knightfall and let you all know how I did at SCG Syracuse. Scrubbed out in Day 1, played against Jeskai Flash Round 1, then had 3 quick losses against Burn, Tron and Mono White Soul Sisters (was also my friend on the deck, two super slow start and 2 whiffs on
CoCo) it happens, wasnt too worried. The next day I signed up for the Modern Classic.
Round 1- GB Tron 0-2 L
Round 2- BW Eldrazi and Taxes 2-0 W
Round 3- Jund Death's Shadow 2-0 W
Round 4- Mardu Tokens/Planeswalkers 2-0 W
Round 5- Bant Spirits 2-0 W
Round 6- Titanshift 2-0 W
Round 7- Burn 1-2 L
Round 8- Grixis Death's Shadow 2-1 W
Round 9- Titanshift 0-2 L
Overall, ended up outside of the top 32 at the largest Classic ever held by StarCityGames, I believe they said there were around 220 or so players. I haven't had much time since yesterday to get on MTGO and test more. I felt as if the 3rd Izzet Staticastermight have been a slight overkill. Might want just a Stony Silence, second Ghost Quarter, possibly Elspeth, Sun's Champion, or something else entirely. If you're interested in the decklist I used, please check out @RPD to see his latest version. I'll be more active now and in the coming weeks during Modern PPTQ season.
I'm glad that my list and info was useful! That is a really good record. You lost vs the usual suspects (shift and tron), won vs some awkward MUs (like spirits or mardu walkers) and the only thing that stands out weird for me is the two lossea vs burn. How do you see the matchup? Is it worse than I give credit for or wss it just bad luck? I would like to sneak in few coursers but I dont know what to cut, everything else is much more important
I see how the third staticaster might be too much and how you would prefer other cards. Seeing your pairings, staticaster doesn't seem the most crucial card. Do you think that a second burrenton forge-tender is too much? Its additional help vs titanshift and burn.
@TNDS I play 1 eidolon 2 teeg but if you value eidolon highly, maybe 2 eidolon 1 teeg is okay.
Please report on how dusk to dawn performs, and versus which matchups. I initially dismissed it for this deck, but today I was playing jund shadow and got rekt by double dusk (I played around the first one not the second one). I'm skeptical, because it's great in matchups where I think we are already favored but it's definitely a powerful card. Where do you side it in? shadow, eldrazi and something else?
I'll try to explain myself better with another card that has the same problem as eidolon: aven mindcensor. You're on the play with acceleration and cast mindcensor T2, that's a great play vs almost every deck. But that won't happen every time, and when played T3+ mindcensor isn't usually that good. There are a few decks that rely on searching later in the game. Vs those decks mindcensor is a great card, because it's amazing T2 and decent T3+. But those decks are not many, which means that it's a narrow card.
Some statistics. Playing three copies means that 22% of the games will have a T2 eidolon, 6% of the games you will draw multiple eidolons by T3 and the rest you either don't draw it or play it T3+.
This is why cards for this deck need to be useful at all stages of the game - we are playing just a few copies, and the chances that we draw them midgame are really high. That's why no one plays mindcensor, thalia heretic cathar... and I think that eidolon is still played just because it's nice with queller in grindy matchups and because storm is kind of stupid powerful right now. At least that's why I keep playing one copy, if it wasn't for that I would prefer something more versatile.
I would argue that Gaddock teeg is one of the best SB cards for this deck. Comes in vs almost every miserable matchup, locks out of the game the most impactful, difficult to deal cards of our opponents. Yes it dies to removal, but we're a creature deck, almost every sideboard card dies to removal, that shouldn't be a concern. I started playing it since minun73 said this some months ago.
2 Gaddock Teeg: my personal pet sideboard card that has saved my butt time and time again. Comes in against tron, control (to stop wraths and cryptic or at least draw removal spells out), scapeshift, abzan company, and sun and moon. Sometimes he severely hoses our opponents, but at the very least he buys us time to beat down while our opponent deals with him. High ceiling. Our companies being uncastable is an unfortunate side-effect but if you have him out in those matches, you should already be winning. You should not cut company when bringing him in unless you have other reasons to do so as company is still your best cards and helps find Teeg. Besides, you'll still need company if you never see him to have a chance in some matchups.
@foodchaingoblins teeg and burrenton are great vs shift, burrenton obviously great vs burn. Maindeck reflector mage is also good vs burn.
@bentobocx
If he has a T2 Eidolon, the Devoted Vizier combo is never resolving when he has 4 Spell Queller, 4 Reflector Mage, 2 Izzet Staticaster, and 4 Path to Exile.
But this is true for almost every single deck in the format. If we start with a T2 eidolon, we can answer everything they play and win the war. Why don't we maindeck eidolon then? because it's not that great out of turn 2, and it needs to do something by itself to be worth it. Vs decks like burn and company it does nothing by itself, they can play around it perfectly. Vs control, grixis shadow, ad nauseam it's much better. Hope that I explained myself properly
L: Maverick
2cmc thalia is an okay choice I think. Newer lists were cutting the two drops and in my testing, playing almost any configuration of 2 drops until a total of 8 makes this deck considerably better. It doesn't matter if it's lotus cobra, thalia, selfless, third ooze/qasali/voice, it will be better than any three drop. I'm personally not a fan of thalia in modern but I can see it being good in various matchups (shadow, living end, the synergies with queller...). I also see no problem with playing thalia maindeck.
I would never go below 4 queller though. The number of times I've cast queller to then receive a handshake by my opponent...
Mindcensor should be in the sideboard I think, and in higher numbers, if you want that kind of effect. Mindcensor is at its best turn 2, so I would advice 2-3 copies if that's how you want to fight the valakut matchup.
I'm interested in your reasoning for stony silence/surgical extraction though. Surgical is a pretty narrow card in this deck (no thought scour, only one ghost quarter, our removal exiles, no discard, no snapcaster) and I only played it when I expected facing griselbrand reanimator decks. Stony is a good card but I think gaddock is a better card in this deck.
L: Maverick
I have several posted if you check my post history (one is in this same page). Most of them are pretty similar.
What don't you like about knightfalls SB? I might be able to help more if you share your questions and concerns
L: Maverick
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
//Creatures
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Reflector Mage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Lotus cobra
4 Spell Queller
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Voice of Resurgence
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Tireless tracker
3 Unified Will
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Negate
1 Reflector Mage
3 Izzet Staticaster
Took some ideas from older lists (lotus cobra, 8 2cmc creatures, more vendilion, more tracker). I felt pretty confident about this list, only issues were the ones that this deck always has (sometimes plays a little too fair, manabase is 4 colors with 3 colorless lands and 1 painland so there are games that you lose by not having your colors or because you take a beating just by fetch shocking + horizon canopy). Those two issues made me play lotus cobra, and it was decent actually! Got some free ooze activations, fixed my mana and some opponents were super scared about it so they spent good cards at removing it, which made resolving better creatures easier.
Pairings were:
Jeskai ascendancy (2-0)
Eldrazi tron (1-2)
Living end (2-1)
Burn (2-1)
Jeskai control (1-2)
On another topic: I just bought GW elves, so I'll be able to test games with that deck. I think that it's a better vizier shell than knightfall, but I have yet to test more
L: Maverick
Disappointing result but sometimes it happens. Mind sharing your list?
L: Maverick
He didn't give me any reasons (didn't ask about them, just asked which GWx coco deck he felt was better positioned, since he plays all of them except abzan) but I kind of agree with that. In an unknown metagame, I think that classic knightfall can do better than vizier. It isn't like you are removing the 2 drops and adding the combo - you're changing the whole structure and gameplan (no queller, chord, witness, no path...) and that changes how lots of matchups play out. You get lots of percentage points vs tron and valakut, but you lose them vs burn, shadow and random interactive/grindy decks.
In the end, this is always a meta question. Here in Spain (and in Europe in general, AFAIK) "unknown meta" means lots of interactive and grindy decks. We had a day 1 metagame breakdown of a recent big tournament here and +60% were GBx/UBx decks. In this conditions, I'm much more willing to take something resilient to discard and removal. I know that other places of the world have more tron/valakut/noninteractive decks and I can see how you prefer something that wins fast.
L: Maverick
I just talked with Kelvin Chew and he thinks that regular knightfall is better than vizier knightfall right now. I'll continue to play regular knightfall for this pptq season, just trying to guess the best SB configuration.
L: Maverick
If you plan on cutting rhonas, what do you plan to do with the infinite mana? just duskwatch to draw a new hand and kessig? Wouldn't you add a ballista at least?
L: Maverick
Rounds:
Lose 1-2 vs titanshift
Lose 1-2 vs titanshift
Both rounds went in a similar fashion. Won one game due to the combo, lost the other ones because I didn't have enough answers. Here I missed gaddock teeg a lot, he's worth 1.5 or 2 counterspells (even though breach has fallen out of favor, new lists include chandra/nahiri/hour of promise so it's still as usefull)
Won 2-0 vs burn
Maindeck kitchen finks helped a lot game one. Game two variance hits and my opponent mulligans into oblivion and loses.
Won 2-0 vs BG tron
While the other matchups felt the same or even worse than with my list, here I really felt much better. Big Thalia buys at least one turn, ceremonious rejection is as good as expected and three retreats made going for the combo much more likely.
Card choices:
Manabase
Sejiri was never useful, and one game it was detrimental because I drew it. I was able to kill without kessig perfectly fine, but kessig is a good magic card and I like running it. Having forest instead of canopy and island instead of botanical lead to some mulligans because I didn't have the right colors, which felt bad. I think that the conventional manabase is strictly better.
Two drops
Games played in a really weird way without more two drops (this list only has 3). Games were like "play a dork and hope that it doesn't die, play a 3 drop and hope it doesn't die" and if that didn't happen I would loose lots of tempo. Selfless was decent though, I'm not playing it right now in my list but I would reconsider it if the meta somehow changes.
Three drops
Three retreats were amazing vs tron and valakut (as expected) and I was able to combo more frequently than usual. I drew multiples a few times, which wasn't optimal, but the combo kills outweighed the multiple retreat draws. I think that maybe the third retreat could be played in the sideboard... I think that the first two copies of retreat serve a different function than the third and fourth copies, and it wouldn't be crazy to include those latter copies in the sideboard of more stock lists, "defying" the usual "play all retreats maindeck" advice.
Big Thalia was amazing vs tron, and I expect her to be good vs eldrazi too (I'm not sure if I want her vs grixis shadow, I would need to test more). Anyway, Thalia looks like it's replacing reflector mage, and I prefer reflector over Thalia without a doubt. Three trackers is obviously overkill, I have no idea why the pilot thought that he needed so many of them.
Path to exile
One path was moved to the sideboard to make room for all those three drops. The consensus is that knightfall needs more removal than 4 path, not less. Anyway, this list looks particularly skewed to fight certain matchups (like tron, eldrazi and valakut) and when thinking about it that way, it makes sense. Anyway, for an open meta I would play 4 path maindeck.
Sideboard
Having 3 ceremonious+3 flashfreeze has the same effect as the stock counter suite (2-3 unified will + 2 negate), while being more efficient vs valakut/eldrazi and being worse vs random decks. Revoker is one weird inclusion, and I would love to know what deck he tries to fight on that angle. Same for fracturing gust, was he expecting lots of lantern control or bogles? that card is too slow vs affinity to be worth it.
L: Maverick
Hah that makes much more sense. The GP winning list looks weird at first but when thinking more about it, it's just super prepared to fight certain matchups. I'll try to play it a bit and then give some insight here because there is something to learn there for sure ^^
@PastorCF congrats on the PPTQ finish! I'll watch the vods when I have time. Could you explain how you feel about the lantern matchup? I have played it for a bit but I'm uncertain of what's our plan
L: Maverick
I'm glad that my list and info was useful! That is a really good record. You lost vs the usual suspects (shift and tron), won vs some awkward MUs (like spirits or mardu walkers) and the only thing that stands out weird for me is the two lossea vs burn. How do you see the matchup? Is it worse than I give credit for or wss it just bad luck? I would like to sneak in few coursers but I dont know what to cut, everything else is much more important
I see how the third staticaster might be too much and how you would prefer other cards. Seeing your pairings, staticaster doesn't seem the most crucial card. Do you think that a second burrenton forge-tender is too much? Its additional help vs titanshift and burn.
L: Maverick
Please report on how dusk to dawn performs, and versus which matchups. I initially dismissed it for this deck, but today I was playing jund shadow and got rekt by double dusk (I played around the first one not the second one). I'm skeptical, because it's great in matchups where I think we are already favored but it's definitely a powerful card. Where do you side it in? shadow, eldrazi and something else?
L: Maverick
L: Maverick
Some statistics. Playing three copies means that 22% of the games will have a T2 eidolon, 6% of the games you will draw multiple eidolons by T3 and the rest you either don't draw it or play it T3+.
This is why cards for this deck need to be useful at all stages of the game - we are playing just a few copies, and the chances that we draw them midgame are really high. That's why no one plays mindcensor, thalia heretic cathar... and I think that eidolon is still played just because it's nice with queller in grindy matchups and because storm is kind of stupid powerful right now. At least that's why I keep playing one copy, if it wasn't for that I would prefer something more versatile.
I would argue that Gaddock teeg is one of the best SB cards for this deck. Comes in vs almost every miserable matchup, locks out of the game the most impactful, difficult to deal cards of our opponents. Yes it dies to removal, but we're a creature deck, almost every sideboard card dies to removal, that shouldn't be a concern. I started playing it since minun73 said this some months ago.
L: Maverick
@bentobocx
But this is true for almost every single deck in the format. If we start with a T2 eidolon, we can answer everything they play and win the war. Why don't we maindeck eidolon then? because it's not that great out of turn 2, and it needs to do something by itself to be worth it. Vs decks like burn and company it does nothing by itself, they can play around it perfectly. Vs control, grixis shadow, ad nauseam it's much better. Hope that I explained myself properly
L: Maverick