I have two decks meant to play with each other fairly, but one has evolved into a face smasher. The knight deck is just outclassing my soldier deck 3/1 and I don't want to flat out remove cards from the knight deck I simply want to add to my soldier deck.
First, I want to explain some of the major advantages the Knights deck has over the Soldier deck and how the Soldier deck is playing at a handicap (IMO). Then it might be more clear what you can add to the Soldier deck to help it.
For one, it's not fair that the Knights deck gets 4 Brave the Elements and the Soldier deck doesn't. In 2 mono-white tribal decks where spells are otherwise equal, that gives one a HUGE advantage. Knights are already better at playing defense, with first strike and indestructibility and double strike. The Knight deck can just hold on defense until it has a big army, then cast Brave to be unblockable and swing for 20 damage in one turn. The Soldier deck has 0 tools to interact with that plan and will lose to that strategy unless it can get lucky with a faster start or draw a lot of kill spells early. It also has 0 tools to give itself protection to pull off the same kind of trick. That's a big strategic imbalance.
Knights have a trick to 1-sided Wrath. By giving them indestructible and then casting Day of Judgment, you kill all the Soldiers and leave the Knights around uncontested, letting them all alpha strike for the win immediately. Even bigger blowout compared to casting Brave the Elements!
Elspeth is also pulling more weight in the Knight deck than in the Soldier deck. In the Soldier deck she makes synergistic 1/1 Soldiers and can occasionally make an attacker fly over the Knights. In the Knight deck she gives double strikers like Mirran Crusader +3/+3 and flying (10 damage unblockable on turn 4). That's explosive and kind of overpowered compared to the kind of plays the Soldier deck can make.
To make the matchup more fair without taking any tools away from the Knights deck, I think the Soldiers need more ways to:
-outnumber the Knights
-grow bigger
-also remove blockers or grant evasion
-control some of the dangerous Knights
A few suggestions:
1) Add 4 Enlistment Officer. Officer helps you outnumber the Knights and/or regain some card advantage.
2) Remove Preeminent Captain. It is best when it is cheating out expensive Soldier creatures that cost 4-7 mana. When you don't have much that costs more than the Captain, he is really not doing anything that spectacular. Rather than add in more expensive Soldiers, I think you just need to cut the Captain.
3) Consider adding some (not necessarily all) of these cards:
-Brimaz, King of Oreskos helps you outnumber the Knights, if you can afford them.
-Odric, Master Tactician or your own Brave the Elements give you the chance to also alpha strike without facing blockers, letting you do the same attack trick the Knights can do
-Archetype of Courage removes First Strike from their Knights, helping to even the score a bit.
-Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit helps grow your army. Probably better than Kazandu, which has narrow synergy for you.
-Gideon's Lawkeeper lets you control the Knights a bit. You can either remove a problematic blocker or tap a double striker after Elspeth gives it +3/+3 and flying, giving you more of a chance of actually interacting with that powerful strategy.
-Cenn's Tactician lets your little soldier army grow as the game progresses.
Personally, I would diversify the decks by making Knights WB or GW and Soldiers RW; that grants you access to more tools for each side like Knight of the Reliquary (if Knights is GW) and Assemble the Legion.
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MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Like FTW1986 said, the Knights deck far outclasses the Soldiers deck in terms of removal.
Gideon Jura survives wraths and can out-wrestle most Knights. Elspeth, Sun's Champion provides more fuel for the Soldiers and is better for recovering from a wrath. Kytheon's Irregulars is great at tapping down Knights, keeping them from attacking or blocking. Gideon's Avenger grows fast when facing an aggressive deck or when abusing tapdown like with the Lawkeeper or Irregulars.
These suggestions lean towards making Soldiers focus on tapdown control in the early game. If you're willing to commit to that strategy, swap the Precinct Captain out for Goldmeadow Harrier to give yourself the consistency of eight Lawkeepers.
Two Honor of the Pure are not going to make a consistent difference. Remove them. And considering the primary threats on the Knights deck are the creatures, you can safely swap those O-Rings out for a couple more Swords and Paths each.
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Like FTW1986 said, the Knights deck far outclasses the Soldiers deck in terms of removal.
Gideon Jura survives wraths and can out-wrestle most Knights. Elspeth, Sun's Champion provides more fuel for the Soldiers and is better for recovering from a wrath. Kytheon's Irregulars is great at tapping down Knights, keeping them from attacking or blocking. Gideon's Avenger grows fast when facing an aggressive deck or when abusing tapdown like with the Lawkeeper or Irregulars.
These suggestions lean towards making Soldiers focus on tapdown control in the early game. If you're willing to commit to that strategy, swap the Precinct Captain out for Goldmeadow Harrier to give yourself the consistency of eight Lawkeepers.
Two Honor of the Pure are not going to make a consistent difference. Remove them. And considering the primary threats on the Knights deck are the creatures, you can safely swap those O-Rings out for a couple more Swords and Paths each.
The current build focuses on aggro, and unfortunately Knights has Soldiers beat in that category, though Brave the Elements and 2 Exemplars + DoJ gives them a big edge as well.
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
I currently have the following cards with the exact number I have so if you could help me create a deck, using the cards I have in the best combination to battle FAIRLY against the knight deck, not overwhelm that would be awesome possum.
Adding Brave the Elements into the Soldier deck would be a solid place to start. Many of the Knights start off with higher base power in a deck that runs slightly more removal and a lot more evasion (Brave + Day of Judgment).
I think Brimaz, King of Oreskos is an excellent suggestion, since his base power and toughness is so high he can block anything that's not Mirran Crusader. I think the largest thing is that the Knights can expend its removal on the Soldier Lords and then not care about much else (because many of the ones you're running don't first strike natively), while the Soldier deck *has* to remove Mirran Crusader and Knight Exemplar in order to have any semblance of a chance. Couple this with Knights having a way to say, "You don't block me this turn" while Soldiers has no way to actually get through, and you have an issue.
Running Anafenza Kin-Tree Spirit over Kazandu Blademaster would help in the, "Creatures with low base P/T" department. Anafenza would most likely spread more counters around than Kazandu would, since the Blademaster would require multiples and you're not always going to get those. Losing the native first strike sucks, but actually making your guys large enough to make a difference in combat is important.
I'd suggest Militia's Pride, but with the Knight deck being able to consistently eat your tokens by removing your lords I'm unsure how much weight it could actually pull. Archetype of Courage is actually a good meta game suggestion against this one particular deck (I'd remove it against anything and everything else, but every single creature in the Knight deck has or gains First Strike by paying 1 mana). I guess Elspeth Tirel may help the Soldier deck some, but 5 mana is a lot of weight to swing around, especially on only 20 lands.
That's the best I've got without splashing into severe hate cards or Umezawa's Jitte, which is definitely out of budget.
I actually really like Archetype of Courage. So if I were to get those and add them to my above list of available cards, what would the best incarnation of a deck to combat the knight deck?
I made a couple changes to it, but the essential is there. I also tested things like Kjeldoran Outpost, which was actually pretty good.
I think the Vial would make a huge difference in the games. The Jötun Grunt would also be a pretty sweet addition as a late-game card (it gets big with Honor the Pure and Marshal).
Javelineers don't seem like they're be very good against the Knights, so they could easily be something else.
An interesting thing you could also do is scrap all your buff spells and run Meekstone. This would make the Knights player hesitate to play its own pump spells (like Knight Exemplar), forcing it to either attack with simple 2/2s, or save up and alpha-strike. Either way, this would give the soldier player more leverage.
Javelineers are a terrible card. There's a reason this was Legacy 2008 and not Legacy 2011 or later. THE single DTB of Legacy back then was Goblins. A 1/1 pinger for 1 and a 2cc 2/1 that can immediately tap (with a 1-drop) to ping for 2 are extremely good against turn 1 Goblin Lackey. When you're plan A isn't to stop a turn 1 Goblin Lackey, card choices change. Soldiers in Legacy today looks very different now.
Javelineers are a terrible card. There's a reason this was Legacy 2008 and not Legacy 2011 or later. THE single DTB of Legacy back then was Goblins. A 1/1 pinger for 1 and a 2cc 2/1 that can immediately tap (with a 1-drop) to ping for 2 are extremely good against turn 1 Goblin Lackey. When you're plan A isn't to stop a turn 1 Goblin Lackey, card choices change. Soldiers in Legacy today looks very different now.
What can I build that best combats the knight deck based off what I currently have?
What can help out my soldiers most? Raise the Alarm? Champion of the Parish?
4 Deftblade Elite
4 Catapult Squad
4 Precinct Captain
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Preeminent Captain
4 Field Marshal
4 Daru Warchief
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Path to Exile
2 Honor of the Pure
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Land
20 Plains
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
4 Knight of the Holy Nimbus
2 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Mirran Crusader
4 Student of Warfare
4 Brave the Elements
2 Day of Judgment
2 Honor of the Pure
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Path to Exile
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Land
20 Plains
W White Weenie
First, I want to explain some of the major advantages the Knights deck has over the Soldier deck and how the Soldier deck is playing at a handicap (IMO). Then it might be more clear what you can add to the Soldier deck to help it.
For one, it's not fair that the Knights deck gets 4 Brave the Elements and the Soldier deck doesn't. In 2 mono-white tribal decks where spells are otherwise equal, that gives one a HUGE advantage. Knights are already better at playing defense, with first strike and indestructibility and double strike. The Knight deck can just hold on defense until it has a big army, then cast Brave to be unblockable and swing for 20 damage in one turn. The Soldier deck has 0 tools to interact with that plan and will lose to that strategy unless it can get lucky with a faster start or draw a lot of kill spells early. It also has 0 tools to give itself protection to pull off the same kind of trick. That's a big strategic imbalance.
Knights have a trick to 1-sided Wrath. By giving them indestructible and then casting Day of Judgment, you kill all the Soldiers and leave the Knights around uncontested, letting them all alpha strike for the win immediately. Even bigger blowout compared to casting Brave the Elements!
Elspeth is also pulling more weight in the Knight deck than in the Soldier deck. In the Soldier deck she makes synergistic 1/1 Soldiers and can occasionally make an attacker fly over the Knights. In the Knight deck she gives double strikers like Mirran Crusader +3/+3 and flying (10 damage unblockable on turn 4). That's explosive and kind of overpowered compared to the kind of plays the Soldier deck can make.
To make the matchup more fair without taking any tools away from the Knights deck, I think the Soldiers need more ways to:
-outnumber the Knights
-grow bigger
-also remove blockers or grant evasion
-control some of the dangerous Knights
A few suggestions:
1) Add 4 Enlistment Officer. Officer helps you outnumber the Knights and/or regain some card advantage.
2) Remove Preeminent Captain. It is best when it is cheating out expensive Soldier creatures that cost 4-7 mana. When you don't have much that costs more than the Captain, he is really not doing anything that spectacular. Rather than add in more expensive Soldiers, I think you just need to cut the Captain.
3) Consider adding some (not necessarily all) of these cards:
-Brimaz, King of Oreskos helps you outnumber the Knights, if you can afford them.
-Odric, Master Tactician or your own Brave the Elements give you the chance to also alpha strike without facing blockers, letting you do the same attack trick the Knights can do
-Archetype of Courage removes First Strike from their Knights, helping to even the score a bit.
-Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit helps grow your army. Probably better than Kazandu, which has narrow synergy for you.
-Gideon's Lawkeeper lets you control the Knights a bit. You can either remove a problematic blocker or tap a double striker after Elspeth gives it +3/+3 and flying, giving you more of a chance of actually interacting with that powerful strategy.
-Cenn's Tactician lets your little soldier army grow as the game progresses.
Personally, I would diversify the decks by making Knights WB or GW and Soldiers RW; that grants you access to more tools for each side like Knight of the Reliquary (if Knights is GW) and Assemble the Legion.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
W White Weenie
Gideon Jura survives wraths and can out-wrestle most Knights.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion provides more fuel for the Soldiers and is better for recovering from a wrath.
Kytheon's Irregulars is great at tapping down Knights, keeping them from attacking or blocking.
Gideon's Avenger grows fast when facing an aggressive deck or when abusing tapdown like with the Lawkeeper or Irregulars.
These suggestions lean towards making Soldiers focus on tapdown control in the early game. If you're willing to commit to that strategy, swap the Precinct Captain out for Goldmeadow Harrier to give yourself the consistency of eight Lawkeepers.
Two Honor of the Pure are not going to make a consistent difference. Remove them. And considering the primary threats on the Knights deck are the creatures, you can safely swap those O-Rings out for a couple more Swords and Paths each.
4 Gideon's Lawkeeper
4 Goldmeadow Harrier
4 Gideon's Avenger
3 Kytheon's Irregulars
2 Catapult Master
2 Captain of the Watch
4 Brave the Elements
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Path to Exile
Planeswalker
2 Gideon Jura
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
21 Plains
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
I appreciate the help and deck list, but I really didn't want to completely change my deck around..
W White Weenie
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
I currently have the following cards with the exact number I have so if you could help me create a deck, using the cards I have in the best combination to battle FAIRLY against the knight deck, not overwhelm that would be awesome possum.
W White Weenie
I think Brimaz, King of Oreskos is an excellent suggestion, since his base power and toughness is so high he can block anything that's not Mirran Crusader. I think the largest thing is that the Knights can expend its removal on the Soldier Lords and then not care about much else (because many of the ones you're running don't first strike natively), while the Soldier deck *has* to remove Mirran Crusader and Knight Exemplar in order to have any semblance of a chance. Couple this with Knights having a way to say, "You don't block me this turn" while Soldiers has no way to actually get through, and you have an issue.
Running Anafenza Kin-Tree Spirit over Kazandu Blademaster would help in the, "Creatures with low base P/T" department. Anafenza would most likely spread more counters around than Kazandu would, since the Blademaster would require multiples and you're not always going to get those. Losing the native first strike sucks, but actually making your guys large enough to make a difference in combat is important.
I'd suggest Militia's Pride, but with the Knight deck being able to consistently eat your tokens by removing your lords I'm unsure how much weight it could actually pull. Archetype of Courage is actually a good meta game suggestion against this one particular deck (I'd remove it against anything and everything else, but every single creature in the Knight deck has or gains First Strike by paying 1 mana). I guess Elspeth Tirel may help the Soldier deck some, but 5 mana is a lot of weight to swing around, especially on only 20 lands.
That's the best I've got without splashing into severe hate cards or Umezawa's Jitte, which is definitely out of budget.
Sig and Avatar drawn by me.
W White Weenie
4 Deftblade Elite
4 Icatian Javelineers
4 Field Marshal
4 Catapult Squad
4 Longbow Archer
3 Jötun Grunt
4 Raise the Alarm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Honor of the Pure
3 Æther Vial
Lands (21)
4 Wasteland
3 Mutavault
14 Plains
1 Jötun Grunt
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Disenchant
3 Armageddon
3 Tivadar's Crusade
I made a couple changes to it, but the essential is there. I also tested things like Kjeldoran Outpost, which was actually pretty good.
I think the Vial would make a huge difference in the games. The Jötun Grunt would also be a pretty sweet addition as a late-game card (it gets big with Honor the Pure and Marshal).
Javelineers don't seem like they're be very good against the Knights, so they could easily be something else.
An interesting thing you could also do is scrap all your buff spells and run Meekstone. This would make the Knights player hesitate to play its own pump spells (like Knight Exemplar), forcing it to either attack with simple 2/2s, or save up and alpha-strike. Either way, this would give the soldier player more leverage.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
What can I build that best combats the knight deck based off what I currently have?
W White Weenie
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Elite Inquisitor
4 Precinct Captain
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Enlistment Officer
4 Archetype of Courage
4 Daru Warchief
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brave the Elements
2 Oblivion Ring
Plainswalker
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
21 Plains
What I dropped and why:
I dropped the Deftblade Elite/Catapult Squad combo in favor Champion of the Parish and Elite Inquistor. CotP just gets bigger faster and EQ doesn't tap so he can still block.
I dropped both Preeminent Captain and Field Marshal for Enlistment Officer and Archetype of Courage. EO replenishes my soldiers and AoC gives me first strike and drops the enemy players first strike. I still have pump from Daru Warchief.
I dropped Path to Exile in favor of Brave the Elements for total protect and walk through.
I decreased Oblivion Ring down to 2 and upper Swords to Plowshares to 4.
Thoughts?
W White Weenie