NI kills many creatures in legacy and the fact that for 2 mana you can remove chump blockers or power up a knight to lethal is very useful. At best its a one of. The only huge downside is that it does power goyfs up.
Crusader secures your zoo match dodging all their removal and an annoying road block. Like mirran they both bring something to bare. Id suggest a 3/2 spilt of mirran to phyrexian. Ill post my list in a few.
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currently playing:
legacy: Doomsday, Dredge, BUG (shard less and still)
modern: storm, woo dredge, U-tron
EDH: maelstrom wanderer, Gisela, krenko, lazav, sharrum, sheoldred/xiahou dun, norin the wary, Thrax, Mimeoplasm, GW legends
I use honor of the pure in my deck but then again we just play casual magic in multiplayer. Besides my 20 knights in the deck, no knight costing more then 3 mana to play I use the Sun titan that can brign them in one by one.
And to finish the jobb I have the armored ascension to give to any of the knights but preferbly the titan for a XX damadge depending on the number of plaines I have.
Yes I know equipment and Plainswalkers would be good but since the other play with their older decks and dont buy new cards I dont want to make use of to much of the new stuff.
Overall I enjoy my knight deck and they know that it is good and they never let the Exemplar or Mirran live. Its always lightning bolt or sacrifice this and that.
Upon hearing your descriptions, somehow i feel it is more similar to Standard Knights than legacy. I have never been a fan of aura enchantments, but i guess you usually drop armored ascension during the later stages of the game when opponents has exhausted their removals.
As you mention lightning bolts, have you ever thought of using brave the elements to protect your key creatures or a creature enchanted with Armored Ascension?
My meta is very zoo heavy and pretty much everybody play Mental Misstep.
During a tournament this weekend my first drop got to taste the MM in every game i played, so now I play it in my main to as an answer.
The problem I´m facing with the deck is that i contains very little removal.
Can't figure out what to remove to make the space.
Actually i don't quite understand the reason for 2 Mox Diamond, if you really need them for the speed, shouldnt you play 4 ofs? It sucks when you draw them during mid-game or later. And i don't think 20 lands is sufficient especially you need to pitch your land to it. Knights of the White Orchid is not reliable enough for you to 'recover' a plains.
I would take out Kinsbaile Cavalier and Mox Diamond, and go max. on STP & Misstep.
Regarding the matchup against Zoo. My meta is also Zoo heavy but I'm also clueless on how to handle them. Trying to beat them at their own game is really difficult.
Do you think 4x Phyrexian Metamorph will improves our matchup against Zoo? You can morph a gofy to stall them, copy a tombstalker/legend/flyer to trade off. It can make up for your lack of removal to an extent.
Isn't hakkon with nameless inversion powerful enough for us. We also would get vindicate and hymn added to our arsenal of awesome cards. Not to mention arrogant bloodlord and an alternative clock with phyrexian crusader. The green splash seems only good for kotr. Would a rock version be viable?
I'm trying out a Black version of knights, but there isn't good enough black knights creatures at the moment. Nameless inversion is actually quite underwhelming if you have tested it before.
NI kills many creatures in legacy and the fact that for 2 mana you can remove chump blockers or power up a knight to lethal is very useful. At best its a one of. The only huge downside is that it does power goyfs up.
Crusader secures your zoo match dodging all their removal and an annoying road block. Like mirran they both bring something to bare. Id suggest a 3/2 spilt of mirran to phyrexian. Ill post my list in a few.
NI will remove all creatures type thus removing the +1/+1 counter & indestructability, therefore i dont think you can power up a fellow knight other than a Fat KOTR. And yes, one more tribal spell to make gofys even bigger!
I played NI when I started with my WB Knights feat. Haakon (compare my thesource primer). The addition of haakon was strong, but NI was my biggest mistake ever! The card is so incredible useless in legacy. Often I was beaten my big creatures who laughed about my -3. It is a weak removal for cc2. If you find haakon, it is getting better, but that is not enough to deserve a slot in our deck. We need cards that are always a house, not temporarly.
The problem with crusader (I like him) he and his counters does not fit into the damage killplan. Ok he has a solid body and nice protection. If you equip him he is nuts. But without equipment you have to beat 5 times...
Bloodlord can fit into a crusader built. Problem: There are a lot of little critter out there at the moment. Just look at GW-Mav, Goblins, ....
Yeah, i agree with Seraph2k on Nameless Inversion. Both of us have been playing it for the longest time?
Many times i have a NI while facing Gofy, tombstalker etc.
And so many times i wish it was STP or PTE in my hand.
Leaving 2 Mana to kill a Nacatl is also very meh..
I would argue that a deck build including which wants to run Haakon should play Nameless Inversion. My reasoning behind this is that Haakon, Stromgald Scourge is not a splashable knight and should be supported as one of your decks main strategies. Nameless Inversion has lots of synergy with Haakon and Haakon can abuse it. If anything you want to be able to kill your own Haakon or STPS and Path wreck you.
The strategies I have proposed a while ago tried to reflect getting Haakon out of the deck and online as quickly as possible without clogging down the deck. My play style with the BW Haakon build is to use fabian tactics and chip away at the enemy fort while the decks mostly everyone here are posting are using a sword strategy to smite the opponent for victory. If your main goal is going for swords then Haakon would seem to fall second fiddle, which IMO is probably why these cards are feeling underwhelming. Multiple uses of NI is where it shines, two mana isn't asking for a lot and neither is 4 mana for -6 toughness. With that said I would not discount NI all together depending on your build just look at the success of Wall of Omen and Honor of the Pure in that high ranked deck both of those feel underwhelming.
Nabbydian - You must be really unlucky with Mental Mistep. I play in a heavy control enviornment where nearly everyone here has 4 of them and rarely has it been a bane for my friends and I. Not to mention Goyf has never been more than just another big dumb fatty. Has the Extirpate I mentioned a month or so ago not been helping get rid of annoying 4 of's?
I would argue that a deck build including which wants to run Haakon should play Nameless Inversion. My reasoning behind this is that Haakon, Stromgald Scourge is not a splashable knight and should be supported as one of your decks main strategies. Nameless Inversion has lots of synergy with Haakon and Haakon can abuse it. If anything you want to be able to kill your own Haakon or STPS and Path wreck you.
The strategies I have proposed a while ago tried to reflect getting Haakon out of the deck and online as quickly as possible without clogging down the deck. My play style with the BW Haakon build is to use fabian tactics and chip away at the enemy fort while the decks mostly everyone here are posting are using a sword strategy to smite the opponent for victory. If your main goal is going for swords then Haakon would seem to fall second fiddle, which IMO is probably why these cards are feeling underwhelming. Multiple uses of NI is where it shines, two mana isn't asking for a lot and neither is 4 mana for -6 toughness. With that said I would not discount NI all together depending on your build just look at the success of Wall of Omen and Honor of the Pure in that high ranked deck both of those feel underwhelming.
Nabbydian - You must be really unlucky with Mental Mistep. I play in a heavy control enviornment where nearly everyone here has 4 of them and rarely has it been a bane for my friends and I. Not to mention Goyf has never been more than just another big dumb fatty. Has the Extirpate I mentioned a month or so ago not been helping get rid of annoying 4 of's?
Yeah, that is a very tidy deck strategy you had going for Haakon/Nameless Inversion. I agree with most of what you have written. If I recall correctly i did follow your advice while building my BW deck, thanks for the recommendations.
I also feel the Haakon and Swords combination does not work as it is too chunky. I still have reservations over the decklist and probably should remove it from the primer. Maybe this is one of the reason why i was never really keen test it out.
One problem i had with NI is getting sufficient mana to utilise him effectively. There were a few games which i needed to cast Haakon and NI twice in the same turn but didnt have enough mana.
I also think we do not need so many NI, perhaps 3 as a maximum. I didnt play Extirpate as we didnt play with sideboard.
Anyway i just play 10 games with a tier one RG Goblins (he play mistep also, logic behind using it as a counter for removal on his first turn lackey)
I was using my usual Haakon's Confidant decklist with some alterations:
The score was either 8-2 or 7-3 to Knights, My opponent is a competent Goblins pilot btw.
Lets not talk about the usual power cards, but some unsung heroes: Knight of the meadowgrain" target="blank">Knight of the meadowgrain:
1) In most of the games i had to overcome 10-15 goblins attacking with haste while i only have 4-5 blockers. With him I usually end up with only 5-6 damage and my opponent losing half his goblin army.
2) He is usually the first creature i recur with Haakon in play. Partly due to self-inflicted fetches/confidant or early damage from opponent, this guy is key in getting us those additional life to setup Haakon's recuring engine. Leonin Relic-Warder" target="blank">Leonin Relic-Warder
Stops his Vial, slowing goblins considerably.
I actually do not need to worry unduly over first turn vial. Entomb, Vial and STP
I have Eleven 1 drop, finally i do not have to worry about misstep...and i have a turn two leonin to stop his Vial.
I play Mox Diamond for some extra manafix because Savanna usually gets destroyed by Wasteland, but I unsure about playing it to.
In other hand it is nice to be able to play a 2-drop first turn and avoid Mental Misstep. It also has good synergy with Knight of the Reliquary.
I like Phyrexian Metamorph very much. Just because it is useable in so many situations. I used to board it against Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Progenitus,
but I see now that it comes in handy against other decks as well. It might even be mainboard material.
Going to playtest the tweaked deck against Zoo and see if it does better.
Do let us know how it works against Zoo, Zoo is one of the most played decks in my meta so i hope you can find some good answers or conclusions against them with this decklist!
On your revised deck list, personally I would remove the singleton White Knight for another Metamorph or STP/Mistep.
Phyrexian Metamorph is a house. I love this card so much cause he saved my ass so many times! In every situation you see him he is useful.... Ok if the board is empty you have to wait, but that means that your opp is too out of gas;)
Again: NI
I agree with you that the card on paper looks very good in a haakon buit. But the card is still to situative! We need cards which are strong of their own! We never want to overextent. One or two critters must be enough to kill. That means that our removal has to kill every target. NI can't do that. It kills only critters with power less than three. So when you hit haakon and play him, you need 4(!) mana to kill a target... but what if your opp kills haakon in response to the first NI?
You see there are to many "if". Vindicate, StP and PtE will kill the target without any doubt. But if your target is names Emrakul .... hey we play Mr Tentacle He can manage that for us!
Metamorph seems to be your pet card now.
Although NI is situational and underwhelming (is it really so bad? lol), as long as we are playing Haakon we still need him. NI is the card that provides the lock with Haakon. Not the best lock around which is why we have certain misgivings. In my opinion just play 2-3 of them. A playset is too much and paying 4 mana and 2 spells to kill a gofy when Haakon is still hiding in the library is so depressing......
That's right, as versatile as metamorph is, i'm still unable to find space to mainboard it! At least it has managed to creep into my sideboard...
How is your test results on Sword of Feast and Famine? I'm playing against Rock and Treefolk decks recently and my friend is urging me to play it. I'm unconvinced as i already maindeck four equipments and there simply is no space for additional equipment.
As you noted, we already have Mirran Crusader, which gives us protection from BG. Thus I tend to feel SoFF is not so important anymore compared to the other protection the Swords offer.
The discard is not so relevant most of the time wth legacy speed and we cant carry over the mana from our previous phase.
In terms of ranking i'm still unsure if it is better than SoBM. But with Batterskull,SoFI and SoLS, Jitte around it is the 5 ranked equipment...
But for testing purposes maybe you can also consider taking out Jitte, somehow it is not as effective anymore during my games.
Wouldn't you rather have Unmake instead of Crib Swap?
Unmake is perminant, and with no creature to take the place of it. It's only for a B/W deck, or a mono white deck. What's your feeling on it?
How is your Angel & Knights deck going along?
Actually Crib Swap is only there because of its interaction with Haakon, Stromgald Scourge in a BW knights deck. It is a changeling card which combined with Haakon's ability allows it to be cast multiple times.
Card to Card, Unmake is still better than Crib Swap though.
However have you thought of using the likes of Swords to Plowshares & Path to Exile as your removal spells? They are way better due to the 1 mana casting cost.
Due to the extensive work that was undertaken on the primer, I believe it deserves to be stickied for future people who are interested in builds such as these. Developing aficionados, this is the caliber we are looking for in other primers.
I stand behind the sticky-ing of this thread 100%. The effort that's gone into this thread is without a doubt "top notch"
-Warden
Yeah! A million thanks to the Mods(especially Warden & Arnnaria) for their support. It is nice to know my efforts are acknowleged and i hope the primer is beneficial and useful to future players!
Meanwhile, just wish to share a new Mono-white Knight list which i have been testing for the past few weeks, in this thread earlier pages, another forumer(Galimar) has talked briefly about playing this list. I could only try it now because at that time i was still playing with my BW Hakkon's Confidant deck:
Deck Idea & concepts:
Interestingly, with this deck, i always choose to be on the draw.
Some of the consistent scenarios/plays that keep replaying itself for this deck:
1) A first turn Mox Diamond and Tithe always get me 2 Plains with a Knight of the White Orchid coming down on turn two giving an additional untapped land and enough mana to cast Stoneforge Mystic.
2) First turn Mother of Runes, follow up wth Knight Exemplar.
3) First turn Stoneforge Mystic tutoring for Batterskull forcing opponents to kill SFM or face a 4/4 attacking viligance/lifelink creature on the 3rd turn. A Winner against Goblins multiple times.
Matchups:
Vs Zoo (around 50 games, W-L @ 40-60%)
Zoo has too many threats - simply too many. There are some games which they just completely wipe out my board. The games i won were usually an unanswered Batterskull or a MoR protecting Exemplar or Exemplar x2. An interesting fact i realised during the matches - It is more important to save your MoR then Exemplar against Zoo. Basically anything can die against Zoo except MoR & Batterskull.
Vs Vial Goblins (around 20 games W-L @ 80-20%)
A very favourable matchup for us, this decklist owns goblin completely. A stoneforge with batterskull/SoFI defeats the deck handily. Goblin Piledriver always die to one of the first strike knights and the deck is able to handle Goblins' speed. Goblins land disruption package is also unable to work due to Mox Diamond and Tithe providing consistant land drop. The only few games lost was a turn one lackey(backed with removal for against one drop) which i also didnt have Plowshares for.
Vs B/W deadguy (around 10 games W-L @ 100%)
Whenever MoR comes on board the game is as good as over as they do not have enough creature removal spells. Their disruption spells is unable to work as Tithe refill lands and Mox Diamond provides speed and SFM provides CA. StP or PtE on Tidehollow Sculler returning the card it captures usually turn the game around. A very easy matchup for this deck.
Potential changes to the deck:
Wasteland Or Mutavault
I had tested wasteland without much success, but it is also partly due to my matchups. I'm not sure if Mutavault will be better but i realised in many of the games i wished that wasteland was able to turn into an additional creature.
Mirran Crusader or Knight of the Reliquary
The deck lacks a genuine fatty and deck thinning ability which KotR could bring along. Adding KotR does not require drastic changes in the mana base as we already have 4 Mox Diamond, 4 Tithe(can fetch Savannah) & 4 Windswept Heath plus other fetches.
It's loosely based on Haakon with some helping support coming from Sun Titan (after reading every page of all three Knight posts lol). Use Unmake and Wrath until I can abuse Exume with Titan/Norn. Use Exhume on Titan, bring back Haakon, watch while they use removal on Titan and Haakon can slightly remain safe.
Depending on the deck, I sidedeck Mirran for whatever protection Knight I need if it's needed.
It's loosely based on Haakon with some helping support coming from Sun Titan (after reading every page of all three Knight posts lol). Use Unmake and Wrath until I can abuse Exume with Titan/Norn. Use Exhume on Titan, bring back Haakon, watch while they use removal on Titan and Haakon can slightly remain safe.
Depending on the deck, I sidedeck Mirran for whatever protection Knight I need if it's needed.
I saw a large number of 3cc spells in the deck which may effect your mana curve. Personally I'll remove 3 Mirran Crusader for 3 Knights of Meadowgrain, the latter is vey good in helping you to gain some crucial life while you set up Buried alive to maximise your reanimator spells - Exhume or Unearth.
From the deck I guess the concept is :
Part 1 - Aggro with Knights
Part 2 - Buried alive with Haakon to swarm with knights again
Part 3 - Elesh Norn and Titan to add the finishing touch
Preferably you would want to cast a knight in the same turn when Hakkon comes into play. Playing Meadowgrain over Mirran increases your odds of doing so.
Otherwise this is a very interesting reanimator knight deck with a lot of hidden synergies. Buried alive is crucial to the deck strategy with it's tutoring. I might take out one Exemplar or a Titan for Stillmoon Cavalier. I won easily against a few UW Counterbalance and BW deck with him since they have no way to handle him as their StP and Dismember became useless. Unearth is really massive with the Knights lord - Exemplar and Haakon. It is tailor made to bring them back into play!
You hit the nail on the head with the deck strategy, I try to switch Titan up to step two
however. By the time I can play Haakon + another monster from the grave (Turn 4 for Student if I can Turn 3 Buried Alive, or Turn 5 for a 2CC.) I can also play Buried Alive + Exhume to bring out Titan + Haakon, leaving them using removal on either Haakon and dealing with a 6/6 with Vigilance and Haakon coming back next turn or deal with Haakon and more Knights come out next turn with a possible chance to Exhume Titan again.
You hit the nail on the head with the deck strategy, I try to switch Titan up to step two
however. By the time I can play Haakon + another monster from the grave (Turn 4 for Student if I can Turn 3 Buried Alive, or Turn 5 for a 2CC.) I can also play Buried Alive + Exhume to bring out Titan + Haakon, leaving them using removal on either Haakon and dealing with a 6/6 with Vigilance and Haakon coming back next turn or deal with Haakon and more Knights come out next turn with a possible chance to Exhume Titan again.
Yeah, I like the dilemma you are putting on the opponent. Just look out for creature exile spells..
You definitely need more lands than the 18 you have at the moment. Knights of the White Orchid is good for mana fixing, but even with him you need around 22 lands to ensure you can reach 3 or 4 mana for Wrath of God.
I assume your meta is not Wasteland or disruption heavy? One of the key advantage with knights is a stable mana base so playing the 3rd color U for Thirst of Knowledge is risky. I feel it is not worth your while to increase the mana curve and splash an additional color for Thirst. Cabal Therapy and Raven's Crime can also force discard on your opponent or on your own Haakon and also lower your deck overall mana curve.
If you are committed on playing 3 colours, I think you need to play a singleton Hallowed Fountain even if there are budget issues. The Fountain is crucial as you can use KotWO to tutor for it. Also, if you have the fountain you can reduce the number of Shards tapped land. Comes into play tapped land is bad for your tempo - more so if your deck is mana-intensive.
I was mostly trying to find a way to discard cards from my hand while obtaining a card advantage to get through the deck and setup combos faster. The last you mentioned is VERY interesting as I did not see it had Plains in the subtype, but if I can figure out how to get card advantage without Blue I will be very happy.
Fetch, do you mean Bonded Fetch? If I go with a third color, I could try and fit him in. But if I can figure out some card advantage without blue..
also, I have not included much destruction as I like to be as fast as possible but that Wasteland is very interesting. I might add 1 but wow.. 40 bucks <_<;;
And I did not even notice I wrote that wrong, I am actually running 21 mana(3 extra Plains on the 6) but I will probably jump back to 22-23.
It changes from Main White to Main Black, for the most part it abuses the engine the deck above runs off of, but combines it with Reliquary to get Urborg out, then get LOTD out, and use it combined with Urborg to sac other mana for Crusader, while Reliq gets buffed.
I was mostly trying to find a way to discard cards from my hand while obtaining a card advantage to get through the deck and setup combos faster. The last you mentioned is VERY interesting as I did not see it had Plains in the subtype, but if I can figure out how to get card advantage without Blue I will be very happy.
Fetch, do you mean Bonded Fetch? If I go with a third color, I could try and fit him in. But if I can figure out some card advantage without blue..
also, I have not included much destruction as I like to be as fast as possible but that Wasteland is very interesting. I might add 1 but wow.. 40 bucks <_<;;
And I did not even notice I wrote that wrong, I am actually running 21 mana(3 extra Plains on the 6) but I will probably jump back to 22-23.
Sorry for not making myself clear, I was actually referring to whether Wasteland is heavily played in your metagame & not suggesting you should run them. Reason I pointed this out was because your BUW decklist has a vulnerable manabase with 18 lands and many CIP tapped non-basic lands - thus very easily disrupted by any deck running wasteland.
Opps, I'm referring to fetchlands, not Bonded fetch. But amazingly Bonded fetch does have some relevant applications here - I never heard about this card before prior to your post so this is an inadvertent discovery!
Fetchlands - Marsh Flats, Arid Mesa are useful when you are running a few colours as they allow you to search for the land you need. Running fetches also increase the probability of getting the correct land you need, thus reducing your reliance on non-basic lands and subsequently your vulnerability to wasteland.
Are you running 63 cards now? The card choices look fine now, is your new discovery Unhinge? It's 3cc puts it out of contention really. It is always good to have a cantrip spell but we don't want to slow down the deck further with another 3cc (take note there is already 18 3cc spells in the deck and most are sorcery speed). Cabal Therapy is a better choice if you really wish to run a discard spell, it has synergy with Haakon as you can simply cast knights from the graveyard to flashback the spell again. Alternatively Raven's Crime is another choice if you can't get Therapy.
It changes from Main White to Main Black, for the most part it abuses the engine the deck above runs off of, but combines it with Reliquary to get Urborg out, then get LOTD out, and use it combined with Urborg to sac other mana for Crusader, while Reliq gets buffed.
I like the name of your latest list - Knight's of the Stromgald Scourge.
Your idea of abusing Knight of Reliquary is massive. But you should also consider some changes to the manabase, 12 shocklands is overkill - a few fetches will enable you to reduce the number of shocklands but at the same time increase your probability of getting the correct shockland.
On the other hand, I was thinking since you are not running Knight Exemplar, why do you still need to run W? Knight of Reliquary can be cast using Temple garden so you could just convert it to BG knights and remove all W for more consistency. I would rather build my deck around purely abusing Haakon & KotR and forget about Sun Titan.
This is not the most competitive decklist I'll recommend but since you are keen on this route I'll try to form a optimal list:
I have been toying with the idea of a Mono-Black Legacy knights for some time, however it is proving to be a challenge for me as many of the better B knights are high in casting cost. There are no 1 drop knight for B although we have some decent ones at 2cc in Black Knight, Knight of Stromgald, Order of Ebon Hand and Stromgald Crusader. However With Liliana of the Veil looking like a playable card in legacy suddenly a competitive Dark knights deck is viable.
I don't like the idea of an mono-black knight deck. Most of the knights are inferior to the white knights (stat wise), the deck hasn't life gain to survive the early game against agressive decks and the lategame lacks extremly due to no equipment or a gamewinner (even Lilianas Ulti doesn't win you the game).
But I love the combination of Liliana, buried alive and haakon.
With the coming of Liliana from Innistrad, I felt mono-black knights could be worth a try. I'm aware why you don't like the idea of an all black knights deck. I have my reservations too.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be working as well as I have envisioned. Somehow some of the pieces are always missing. I either get too many discards and no creatures, or I fail to get Liliana online to start the engine rolling. I tested against G/W Maverick and NO Bant.
Against G/W Maverick, i lost 7 out of 8 games I played, Mirran Crusader with exalted or swords simply romped to victory in 1 or 2 turns of hits. Only game I won was when i managed to waste his duals and either discard/remove his Hierarchs/Bop to stop his early ramping.
Against NO Bant, it was a 80/20 match to my advantage. My pro-white removal knights easily finished him off in a few turns.
Not the best playtesting considering one was playing Mirran Crusader while the other was a deck with StP as its only removal.
Basically swapped out PtE for StP, and brought in Jitte, Mom, and SFM. Any thoughts? I had looked at Phyrexian Metamorph and Elspeth, but they actually seemed a bit slow here. Should I ditch the SFM package and go balls to the wall aggro with cheaper equipment? I'm also a bit concerned about Affinity, as it's a cheapish aggro deck that I'm sure lots of people run, and Aura of Silence is too slow to deal with it...any good options there?
When is your legacy tournament? I can sleeve a legacy puresteel deck and do some decktesting for you ;).
My meta is Zoo, Team America, RUGTempo, UW stoneforge and Bant.
Anyway i entered my legacy knights deck for my LGS legacy tournament last week and set up it in a way to survive the multiple removals I was expecting with Snapcaster mage and true to form 80% of the decks were playing Snapcaster.
The deck did exactly what i expected, unfortunately I had to bow out of the tournament with a 1-3 record. The deck has a massive advantage if it starts first (isn't that the case for most decks? :rolleyes:) so our Mother of Runes or Aether Vial can go online but I lost the dice rolls for all 3 matches I lost.
To conclude I didnt regret bring Legacy Knights to the tournament. The matches against Team America and UW Stoneblade was definitely winnable. I also playtested against Bant a lot and the deck was able to beat them quite easily.
Skeleton match reports below:
Match One against Team America: First Game: First turn Thoughtseize on my Mother and he always had enough removals from then onwards. Second Game: Mother resolved and a knight equipped with Sword of Light and Shadow and Elspeth eventually swing through for the win. Third Game: First turn thoughtseize on Aether Vial and we played all the way to OT, eventually he killed my Elspeth which has been holding out for several turns and edged me out with a goyf and JTMS on the very last turn.
Match Two against Blue/White Stoneblade: First Game: Dazed my first turn Student followed by Spell snare on second turn stoneforge and it was always a difficult game from there. Second Game: First turn Mother resolved but he had 4x StP and 4x Pte and 4x Snapcaster Mage. It didn't matter as Sword of Light and Shadow and Elsepth, the Knight Errant combined FTW! Third Game: Game went into OT and my opponent topdecked into a wrath of god just before I could finish him off next turn(shockingly i sided out 2 Knight Exemplar as it was too easy a target for removal), he topdecked again into a Stoneforge tutoring Batterskull soon after while I drew lands to eventually lose on the last few turns.
Match Three against Bant First Game: Mother of Runes, Sword of Light and Shadow on a Knight and I managed to beat through his defences FTW. Second Game: Game went into OT again! I had Mom, SoLS again but he had the Clique and Karakas combo which allowed him to block all day long. Knight Exemplar came down shortly after and I managed to beat through his many goyfs and Clique with indestructable knights during the last few turns.
Match Four against TES
By then I was already exhausted and didnt even had the chance to walk around to see what my opponents were playing after going OT in all 3 matches.
First Game: He went off on the second turn.
Second Game: He Duress my Orim's Chant and went off on the second turn again. (Should I mulligan for a Leyline? However it seems too risky to gamble for a 6 cards hand with both Leyline and Chant.)
Match Five - abandoned due to fatigue and no chance for top 8
Mother of Runes & Sword of Light and Shadow is massive in the current meta, and I won most of my games through them. As such, I would recommend a playset of Moms and 2 pieces of the SoLS (if we get the first SoLS countered or destroyed). Playing Elspeth, the Knight Errant will dilute your Equipments theme thus reduce Puresteel effectiveness, so although they are good we can give them a miss. Anyway below is my tournament deck for your reference.
I saw your list and it is already very close to what I would run for a Puresteel Knight deck.
It's past 1am now and I'll try to think of a PureSteel list another time. Knights FTW!!
Basically swapped out PtE for StP, and brought in Jitte, Mom, and SFM. Any thoughts? I had looked at Phyrexian Metamorph and Elspeth, but they actually seemed a bit slow here. Should I ditch the SFM package and go balls to the wall aggro with cheaper equipment? I'm also a bit concerned about Affinity, as it's a cheapish aggro deck that I'm sure lots of people run, and Aura of Silence is too slow to deal with it...any good options there?
My deck is not much different from yours, as I'm also convinced the Vial/Mother/SFM shell is the most effective setup for knights currently. However, I have some slight changes in the choice of equipments.
I'm not sure what you can do about Artifacts as a mono-white, other than adding this narrow artifacts removal cards in your sideboard:
Some explanations for some of the cards included in my list:
Mother of Runes - Critical first turn drop in protecting our creatures so we can utilise Puresteel's CA and Exemplar's indestructability to other knights.
Stoneforge Mystic - Tutor for equipments so we can have the right answers against other decks, I wouldn't leave him out because he is simply too good. Having him probably means -4 equipments but playing equipments which is cheap and doesn't do much won't help us in our game plan either.
Mirran Crusader, Stillmoon Cavalier - Stillmoon has very relevant protections against almost all removals, it's flying can be very relevant also, blocking the likes of a transformed Delver of Secrets etc.
Bone Saw - I would prefer a 0 casting cost equipment over Bonesplitter even though it is less potent. A second turn Puresteel may allow us to draw a card straightaway. For a mana-hungry deck like this it's better to draw additional cards as soon as possible. Drawing the card a turn early is also good for our tempo.
Sword of Light and Shadow - A creature equipped with this sword is literally immune to most of the most popular removal spells in legacy. Gaining additional life and pulling a creature from graveyard back to hand is also great alternative CA.
Sword of Feast and Famine - Like Ignithas mentioned, we already have the Pro-GBMirran Crusader here, therefore I added only one piece for SFM tutorability.
Sideboard:
Manriki-Gusari - It's good against other decks running any equipment, and can also kill Affinity's Cranial Plating. Worth a place in the sideboard due to it's synergy with Puresteel and SFM.
Phyrexian Metamorph - For reanimator decks, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Show and Tell & Natural Order decks. Only included 2 pieces so at least we don't auto-scoop to this combo decks.
Fist of all thank you for this primer. I've never thought that knights could become viable in legacy and I think, I will try to make a knight deck.
@AEIOU
I toyed around with the same idea, but I have always the feeling, that it lacks something.
My thoughts: Knight Exemplar There are simply not enough knights too make profit from the effect. Aether Vial It's risky to play it with 20 creatures. Kemba, Kha Regent Maybe put it in once. Lightning Greaves I like this equipment more than Bonesplitter.
Why only one Umezawa's Jitte Sword of Feast and Famine is my least favorite in this deck, because Mirran Crusader has Protection from Black and from Green. Elspeth, Knight-Errant is quiet good, because it can produce tokens, which can be equipded and she can help you get one atacker through the enemys defence. But I don't know, if the slower Elspeth wouldnt be better, because she can produce 3 tokens in one turn.
Thanks, I hope you find the Primer useful.
Knight Exemplar - True, there is not enough Knights but a Mother protecting Exemplar is a potent combination.
Kemba, Kha Regent - I think Kemba belongs to the Non-knights Puresteel deck. It' really good but if I'm running 4x Exemplar I'll just stick to the Mirran/Stillmoon Knights.
Aether Vial - 20 creatures is barely enough, but cheating the likes of crucial creatures such as Mother/SFM & tricks with Exemplar make it's place worthwhile. It also helps a little in enabling metalcraft.
Lightning Greaves - is not as good as most people think, when people start boarding in Innocent Blood and Diabolic Tutor and with Snapcaster's flashbacking you'll quickly sacrifice till your very last creature including the one Greave is equipped with. At 2 it also doesnt allow us to draw cards quickly. That said, Greaves can also be a massive headache for many matchups with it's shroud so it's an open call here.
@AEIOU
I toyed around with the same idea, but I have always the feeling, that it lacks something.
My thoughts: Knight Exemplar There are simply not enough knights too make profit from the effect. Aether Vial It's risky to play it with 20 creatures. Kemba, Kha Regent Maybe put it in once. Lightning Greaves I like this equipment more than Bonesplitter.
Why only one Umezawa's Jitte Sword of Feast and Famine is my least favorite in this deck, because Mirran Crusader has Protection from Black and from Green. Elspeth, Knight-Errant is quiet good, because it can produce tokens, which can be equipded and she can help you get one atacker through the enemys defence. But I don't know, if the slower Elspeth wouldnt be better, because she can produce 3 tokens in one turn.
Why only 1x Jitte? Because we have SFM, so you don't need more than one...and unlike Swords, you can't play/benefit from multiples. SoFaF is fine for protection, but the real bonus is from its other abilities...getting through for damage and then being able to untap to play more equipment or to have mana open to remove an opponents threat is huge.
I do force the deck a bit into a Knight theme, so maybe that's why I get more use out of Knight Exemplar...plus, just being able to Vial it in as a combat trick, or getting protected by Mother of Runes, and having First Strike on top of that are solid enough reasons for me to run it. I've used Elspeth many times before, and is probably fine in a more midrangey Knight deck, but I'm trying to keep the curve lower here and keeping the focus on Equipment. Mother of Runes and Swords provide enough evasion, and I've really only needed to swing in once or twice to get the win. On turn 4, I want to start crashing in with my guys, not tap out for a Planeswalker, no matter how good she is.
Yeah, the decks looks pretty similar, so I think we're pretty much in agreement. Really, the only difference is Bone Saw vs Bonesplitter -- and that's exactly right: speed vs power with those two equipment, so it's pretty much a meta call, I think.
I thought about the deck at work, but I simply can't find a reason to include Knight Exemplar, because she gets killed too easily. Kemba seems to give you more for the 3 drop slot.
I don't like Bonesaw, because it barely do anything against competitive decks.
I thought a lot about Lightning Greaves, because they don't profit from Puresteel Paladin. But there are many setups without Vial, that seem very strong for me.
1 Turn: Steelshaper's Gift
2 Turn: Lighning Greaves
3 Turn: Kemba, Kha Regent
If Kemba doesn't get countered, the enemy has a problem, because she cant be targeted and you get a 2/2 creature next turn, which can be equiped.
4 Turn: Stoneforge Mystic. With Greaves it gets haste and you can cast the equipment.
I just don't like Lightning Greaves because oftentimes I want to attach multiple equipments to a creature. Between Vialing creatures in (why do you only run 3x Aether Vial?), equipping with protection Swords, and having extra protection with Mother of Runes, they pretty much have Shroud/haste as it is. And obviously Knight Exemplar isn't going to be as effective if you remove several other Knights from the deck...but even if you just run Mirran Crusader and Puresteel Paladin (basically your win-con and engine), it's darn worth it. Plus, Student of Warfare isn't a terrible play either if you are looking for another 1-drop.
Why only 1x Jitte? Because we have SFM, so you don't need more than one...and unlike Swords, you can't play/benefit from multiples. SoFaF is fine for protection, but the real bonus is from its other abilities...getting through for damage and then being able to untap to play more equipment or to have mana open to remove an opponents threat is huge.
I do force the deck a bit into a Knight theme, so maybe that's why I get more use out of Knight Exemplar...plus, just being able to Vial it in as a combat trick, or getting protected by Mother of Runes, and having First Strike on top of that are solid enough reasons for me to run it. I've used Elspeth many times before, and is probably fine in a more midrangey Knight deck, but I'm trying to keep the curve lower here and keeping the focus on Equipment. Mother of Runes and Swords provide enough evasion, and I've really only needed to swing in once or twice to get the win. On turn 4, I want to start crashing in with my guys, not tap out for a Planeswalker, no matter how good she is.
Yeah, the decks looks pretty similar, so I think we're pretty much in agreement. Really, the only difference is Bone Saw vs Bonesplitter -- and that's exactly right: speed vs power with those two equipment, so it's pretty much a meta call, I think.
I just don't like Lightning Greaves because oftentimes I want to attach multiple equipments to a creature. Between Vialing creatures in (why do you only run 3x Aether Vial?), equipping with protection Swords, and having extra protection with Mother of Runes, they pretty much have Shroud/haste as it is. And obviously Knight Exemplar isn't going to be as effective if you remove several other Knights from the deck...but even if you just run Mirran Crusader and Puresteel Paladin (basically your win-con and engine), it's darn worth it. Plus, Student of Warfare isn't a terrible play either if you are looking for another 1-drop.
Have any of you tested Leonin Shikari in the equipment-based builds? It's nuts with Lightning Greaves and goes so well with puresteel, obviously it's not a knight though so doesn't mix with Exemplar. I've been working on a build with it, but haven't had the time to test it thoroughly yet, and I'm having trouble tracking down more shikari's in my area.
Yeah, I saw your decklist from an earlier post, basically AEIOUsometimesY is trying to form a knight-centred Puresteel build which is why we are trying to force as many knights into the list as possible. Contrary to popular belief, the deck might not perform as bad compared to a typical Puresteel build which utilise much more artifacts. I think there is more consistency in AEIOUsometimesY list over traditional Puresteel lists although less explosive.
By the way why are you playing Loyal Sentry? For a one drop creature wouldn't Flayer Husk be more suitable? The deck has 8 equipment tutors but only 7 equipments. Aether Vial should always be a 4-ofs as you really really want it to be in the opening hand. I might drop Ornithopter for something else.
If Kemba is so critical to the deck strategy, you can cheat him into play with Vial. Based on my playtesting, opponents will usually expend all their removals on the Mother, SFM or even Puresteel so they shouldn't have removals by the time Kemba comes by.
I thought about the deck at work, but I simply can't find a reason to include Knight Exemplar, because she gets killed too easily. Kemba seems to give you more for the 3 drop slot.
I don't like Bonesaw, because it barely do anything against competitive decks.
I thought a lot about Lightning Greaves, because they don't profit from Puresteel Paladin. But there are many setups without Vial, that seem very strong for me.
1 Turn: Steelshaper's Gift
2 Turn: Lighning Greaves
3 Turn: Kemba, Kha Regent
If Kemba doesn't get countered, the enemy has a problem, because she cant be targeted and you get a 2/2 creature next turn, which can be equiped.
4 Turn: Stoneforge Mystic. With Greaves it gets haste and you can cast the equipment.
Bonesaw is choosen because some of the knights has first-strike and it allow us to draw cards quickly so we can maintain a good tempo. The equipment is underwhelming but in a deck like this we cannot just put in all the high power equipment which we can't put in play quickly. Having the right mix of equipment is just as vital. You have a keep an eye on the mana curve so the deck can curve out smoothly.
Just take note there are plenty of instant-speed removal in Legacy so they can always remove your Kemba before your greaves can be equipped on him.
Yeah, the decks looks pretty similar, so I think we're pretty much in agreement. Really, the only difference is Bone Saw vs Bonesplitter -- and that's exactly right: speed vs power with those two equipment, so it's pretty much a meta call, I think.
I ever played 4x Bonesplitter in my RW legacy knights in the earlier part of the year (Snapcaster wasn't available obviously) and I could kill Goyf easily with an equipped Student of Warfare/ or White Knight & Blood Knight. With a 5/1 or 4/2 first striker knight I don't really need to bother about it's weak toughness anyway.
With Snapcaster decks mostly flashbacking B or W removals but not both, a deck with both White Knight & Blood Knight would be fun to play against them. I might be tempted to form my RW legacy knights again to disturb my meta LOL.
Have any of you tested Leonin Shikari in the equipment-based builds? It's nuts with Lightning Greaves and goes so well with puresteel, obviously it's not a knight though so doesn't mix with Exemplar. I've been working on a build with it, but haven't had the time to test it thoroughly yet, and I'm having trouble tracking down more shikari's in my area.
Instant equips is massive and I know it is being played in a traditional Puresteel build but over here we really run out of creature slot for him unfortunately.
I'm curious what you think about the matchups with the Green-White Vial and Mono-White Vial Knght deck.
Do you have any deck matchups in mind? For example - Team America, Bant, Zoo, Merfolk, Goblins, NO Bant, UW Stoneforge, GW Maverick, 43 Lands, UGR Tresh, Storm and LEDless dredge are some of the matchups I have play against recently with my GW Vial Knight deck. I can try to write a short description of the matchups against some of them.
Crusader secures your zoo match dodging all their removal and an annoying road block. Like mirran they both bring something to bare. Id suggest a 3/2 spilt of mirran to phyrexian. Ill post my list in a few.
legacy: Doomsday, Dredge, BUG (shard less and still)
modern: storm, woo dredge, U-tron
EDH: maelstrom wanderer, Gisela, krenko, lazav, sharrum, sheoldred/xiahou dun, norin the wary, Thrax, Mimeoplasm, GW legends
Upon hearing your descriptions, somehow i feel it is more similar to Standard Knights than legacy. I have never been a fan of aura enchantments, but i guess you usually drop armored ascension during the later stages of the game when opponents has exhausted their removals.
As you mention lightning bolts, have you ever thought of using brave the elements to protect your key creatures or a creature enchanted with Armored Ascension?
Would like to see your decklist.
Actually i don't quite understand the reason for 2 Mox Diamond, if you really need them for the speed, shouldnt you play 4 ofs? It sucks when you draw them during mid-game or later. And i don't think 20 lands is sufficient especially you need to pitch your land to it. Knights of the White Orchid is not reliable enough for you to 'recover' a plains.
I would take out Kinsbaile Cavalier and Mox Diamond, and go max. on STP & Misstep.
Regarding the matchup against Zoo. My meta is also Zoo heavy but I'm also clueless on how to handle them. Trying to beat them at their own game is really difficult.
Do you think 4x Phyrexian Metamorph will improves our matchup against Zoo? You can morph a gofy to stall them, copy a tombstalker/legend/flyer to trade off. It can make up for your lack of removal to an extent.
I'm trying out a Black version of knights, but there isn't good enough black knights creatures at the moment. Nameless inversion is actually quite underwhelming if you have tested it before.
NI will remove all creatures type thus removing the +1/+1 counter & indestructability, therefore i dont think you can power up a fellow knight other than a Fat KOTR. And yes, one more tribal spell to make gofys even bigger!
Looking forward to your Knights list!
Yeah, i agree with Seraph2k on Nameless Inversion. Both of us have been playing it for the longest time?
Many times i have a NI while facing Gofy, tombstalker etc.
And so many times i wish it was STP or PTE in my hand.
Leaving 2 Mana to kill a Nacatl is also very meh..
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[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
The strategies I have proposed a while ago tried to reflect getting Haakon out of the deck and online as quickly as possible without clogging down the deck. My play style with the BW Haakon build is to use fabian tactics and chip away at the enemy fort while the decks mostly everyone here are posting are using a sword strategy to smite the opponent for victory. If your main goal is going for swords then Haakon would seem to fall second fiddle, which IMO is probably why these cards are feeling underwhelming. Multiple uses of NI is where it shines, two mana isn't asking for a lot and neither is 4 mana for -6 toughness. With that said I would not discount NI all together depending on your build just look at the success of Wall of Omen and Honor of the Pure in that high ranked deck both of those feel underwhelming.
Nabbydian - You must be really unlucky with Mental Mistep. I play in a heavy control enviornment where nearly everyone here has 4 of them and rarely has it been a bane for my friends and I. Not to mention Goyf has never been more than just another big dumb fatty. Has the Extirpate I mentioned a month or so ago not been helping get rid of annoying 4 of's?
Yeah, that is a very tidy deck strategy you had going for Haakon/Nameless Inversion. I agree with most of what you have written. If I recall correctly i did follow your advice while building my BW deck, thanks for the recommendations.
I also feel the Haakon and Swords combination does not work as it is too chunky. I still have reservations over the decklist and probably should remove it from the primer. Maybe this is one of the reason why i was never really keen test it out.
One problem i had with NI is getting sufficient mana to utilise him effectively. There were a few games which i needed to cast Haakon and NI twice in the same turn but didnt have enough mana.
I also think we do not need so many NI, perhaps 3 as a maximum. I didnt play Extirpate as we didnt play with sideboard.
Anyway i just play 10 games with a tier one RG Goblins (he play mistep also, logic behind using it as a counter for removal on his first turn lackey)
I was using my usual Haakon's Confidant decklist with some alterations:
+1 Entomb
-1 Knight Exemplar
2 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
3 Knight Exemplar
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
4 Dark Confidant
2 Mirran Crusader
3 Leonin Relic-Warder
2 Stillmoon Cavalier
4 Student of Warfare
4 AEther Vial
2 Buried Alive
3 Entomb
2 Nameless Inversion
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Crib Swap
2 Arid Mesa
4 Marsh Flats
7 Plains
4 Scrubland
3 Swamp
The score was either 8-2 or 7-3 to Knights, My opponent is a competent Goblins pilot btw.
Lets not talk about the usual power cards, but some unsung heroes:
Knight of the meadowgrain" target="blank">Knight of the meadowgrain:
1) In most of the games i had to overcome 10-15 goblins attacking with haste while i only have 4-5 blockers. With him I usually end up with only 5-6 damage and my opponent losing half his goblin army.
2) He is usually the first creature i recur with Haakon in play. Partly due to self-inflicted fetches/confidant or early damage from opponent, this guy is key in getting us those additional life to setup Haakon's recuring engine.
Leonin Relic-Warder" target="blank">Leonin Relic-Warder
Stops his Vial, slowing goblins considerably.
I actually do not need to worry unduly over first turn vial.
Entomb, Vial and STP
I have Eleven 1 drop, finally i do not have to worry about misstep...and i have a turn two leonin to stop his Vial.
Do let us know how it works against Zoo, Zoo is one of the most played decks in my meta so i hope you can find some good answers or conclusions against them with this decklist!
On your revised deck list, personally I would remove the singleton White Knight for another Metamorph or STP/Mistep.
Metamorph seems to be your pet card now.
Although NI is situational and underwhelming (is it really so bad? lol), as long as we are playing Haakon we still need him. NI is the card that provides the lock with Haakon. Not the best lock around which is why we have certain misgivings. In my opinion just play 2-3 of them. A playset is too much and paying 4 mana and 2 spells to kill a gofy when Haakon is still hiding in the library is so depressing......
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
That's right, as versatile as metamorph is, i'm still unable to find space to mainboard it! At least it has managed to creep into my sideboard...
How is your test results on Sword of Feast and Famine? I'm playing against Rock and Treefolk decks recently and my friend is urging me to play it. I'm unconvinced as i already maindeck four equipments and there simply is no space for additional equipment.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
The discard is not so relevant most of the time wth legacy speed and we cant carry over the mana from our previous phase.
In terms of ranking i'm still unsure if it is better than SoBM. But with Batterskull,SoFI and SoLS, Jitte around it is the 5 ranked equipment...
But for testing purposes maybe you can also consider taking out Jitte, somehow it is not as effective anymore during my games.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
How is your Angel & Knights deck going along?
Actually Crib Swap is only there because of its interaction with Haakon, Stromgald Scourge in a BW knights deck. It is a changeling card which combined with Haakon's ability allows it to be cast multiple times.
Card to Card, Unmake is still better than Crib Swap though.
However have you thought of using the likes of Swords to Plowshares & Path to Exile as your removal spells? They are way better due to the 1 mana casting cost.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
I stand behind the sticky-ing of this thread 100%. The effort that's gone into this thread is without a doubt "top notch"
-Warden
Meanwhile, just wish to share a new Mono-white Knight list which i have been testing for the past few weeks, in this thread earlier pages, another forumer(Galimar) has talked briefly about playing this list. I could only try it now because at that time i was still playing with my BW Hakkon's Confidant deck:
Mono-White Legacy Knights, Mox Knights
2 Arid Mesa
4 Marsh Flats
9 Plains
3 Wasteland
Creatures: [25]
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Knight of the White Orchid
3 Leonin Relic-Warder
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Student of Warfare
4 Path to Exile
4 Tithe
Artifacts: [8]
1 Batterskull
4 Mox Diamond
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Planeswalkers: [2]
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Retribution of the Meek
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Swords to Plowshares
4 Tormod's Crypt
Deck Idea & concepts:
Interestingly, with this deck, i always choose to be on the draw.
Some of the consistent scenarios/plays that keep replaying itself for this deck:
1) A first turn Mox Diamond and Tithe always get me 2 Plains with a Knight of the White Orchid coming down on turn two giving an additional untapped land and enough mana to cast Stoneforge Mystic.
2) First turn Mother of Runes, follow up wth Knight Exemplar.
3) First turn Stoneforge Mystic tutoring for Batterskull forcing opponents to kill SFM or face a 4/4 attacking viligance/lifelink creature on the 3rd turn. A Winner against Goblins multiple times.
Matchups:
Vs Zoo (around 50 games, W-L @ 40-60%)
Zoo has too many threats - simply too many. There are some games which they just completely wipe out my board. The games i won were usually an unanswered Batterskull or a MoR protecting Exemplar or Exemplar x2. An interesting fact i realised during the matches - It is more important to save your MoR then Exemplar against Zoo. Basically anything can die against Zoo except MoR & Batterskull.
Vs Vial Goblins (around 20 games W-L @ 80-20%)
A very favourable matchup for us, this decklist owns goblin completely. A stoneforge with batterskull/SoFI defeats the deck handily. Goblin Piledriver always die to one of the first strike knights and the deck is able to handle Goblins' speed. Goblins land disruption package is also unable to work due to Mox Diamond and Tithe providing consistant land drop. The only few games lost was a turn one lackey(backed with removal for against one drop) which i also didnt have Plowshares for.
Vs B/W deadguy (around 10 games W-L @ 100%)
Whenever MoR comes on board the game is as good as over as they do not have enough creature removal spells. Their disruption spells is unable to work as Tithe refill lands and Mox Diamond provides speed and SFM provides CA. StP or PtE on Tidehollow Sculler returning the card it captures usually turn the game around. A very easy matchup for this deck.
Potential changes to the deck:
Wasteland Or Mutavault
I had tested wasteland without much success, but it is also partly due to my matchups. I'm not sure if Mutavault will be better but i realised in many of the games i wished that wasteland was able to turn into an additional creature.
Mirran Crusader or Knight of the Reliquary
The deck lacks a genuine fatty and deck thinning ability which KotR could bring along. Adding KotR does not require drastic changes in the mana base as we already have 4 Mox Diamond, 4 Tithe(can fetch Savannah) & 4 Windswept Heath plus other fetches.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
11 Plains
4 Fetid Heath
4 Godless Shrine
3 Reflecting Pool
Creatures:
4 Knight Exemplar
2 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
4 Student of Warfare
4 Mirran Crusader
3 Knight of the White Orchid
2 Sun Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Buried Alive
4 Unmake
3 Wrath of God
4 Unearth
3 Exhume
It's loosely based on Haakon with some helping support coming from Sun Titan (after reading every page of all three Knight posts lol). Use Unmake and Wrath until I can abuse Exume with Titan/Norn. Use Exhume on Titan, bring back Haakon, watch while they use removal on Titan and Haakon can slightly remain safe.
Depending on the deck, I sidedeck Mirran for whatever protection Knight I need if it's needed.
I saw a large number of 3cc spells in the deck which may effect your mana curve. Personally I'll remove 3 Mirran Crusader for 3 Knights of Meadowgrain, the latter is vey good in helping you to gain some crucial life while you set up Buried alive to maximise your reanimator spells - Exhume or Unearth.
From the deck I guess the concept is :
Part 1 - Aggro with Knights
Part 2 - Buried alive with Haakon to swarm with knights again
Part 3 - Elesh Norn and Titan to add the finishing touch
Preferably you would want to cast a knight in the same turn when Hakkon comes into play. Playing Meadowgrain over Mirran increases your odds of doing so.
As usual, StP to replace Unmake...
I also like that you can use Unearth on our own Knight of the White Orchid to fix our mana.
Otherwise this is a very interesting reanimator knight deck with a lot of hidden synergies. Buried alive is crucial to the deck strategy with it's tutoring. I might take out one Exemplar or a Titan for Stillmoon Cavalier. I won easily against a few UW Counterbalance and BW deck with him since they have no way to handle him as their StP and Dismember became useless. Unearth is really massive with the Knights lord - Exemplar and Haakon. It is tailor made to bring them back into play!
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
however. By the time I can play Haakon + another monster from the grave (Turn 4 for Student if I can Turn 3 Buried Alive, or Turn 5 for a 2CC.) I can also play Buried Alive + Exhume to bring out Titan + Haakon, leaving them using removal on either Haakon and dealing with a 6/6 with Vigilance and Haakon coming back next turn or deal with Haakon and more Knights come out next turn with a possible chance to Exhume Titan again.
I made some changes...
6 Plains
4 Arcane Sanctum
4 Fetid Heath
4 Mystic Gate
Creatures:
4 Knight Exemplar
2 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
4 Student of Warfare
2 Stillmoon Cavalier/Mirran Crusader/Paladin En-Vec
2 Knight of Meadowgrain
3 Knight of the White Orchid
2 Sun Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Buried Alive
4 Unmake
3 Wrath of God
3 Unearth
3 Exhume
3 Thirst for Knowledge
Yeah, I like the dilemma you are putting on the opponent. Just look out for creature exile spells..
You definitely need more lands than the 18 you have at the moment. Knights of the White Orchid is good for mana fixing, but even with him you need around 22 lands to ensure you can reach 3 or 4 mana for Wrath of God.
I assume your meta is not Wasteland or disruption heavy? One of the key advantage with knights is a stable mana base so playing the 3rd color U for Thirst of Knowledge is risky. I feel it is not worth your while to increase the mana curve and splash an additional color for Thirst. Cabal Therapy and Raven's Crime can also force discard on your opponent or on your own Haakon and also lower your deck overall mana curve.
If you are committed on playing 3 colours, I think you need to play a singleton Hallowed Fountain even if there are budget issues. The Fountain is crucial as you can use KotWO to tutor for it. Also, if you have the fountain you can reduce the number of Shards tapped land. Comes into play tapped land is bad for your tempo - more so if your deck is mana-intensive.
Any chance of adding some fetches in?
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
Fetch, do you mean Bonded Fetch? If I go with a third color, I could try and fit him in. But if I can figure out some card advantage without blue..
also, I have not included much destruction as I like to be as fast as possible but that Wasteland is very interesting. I might add 1 but wow.. 40 bucks <_<;;
And I did not even notice I wrote that wrong, I am actually running 21 mana(3 extra Plains on the 6) but I will probably jump back to 22-23.
hmm I found a black card..
12 Plains
4 Reflecting Shrine
4 Godless Shrine
4 Fetid Heath
Creatures:
4 Student of Warfare
4 Knight Exemplar
3 Knight of the White Orchid
2 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
2 Knight of Meadowgrain
2 Sun Titan
1 Stillmoon Cavalier/Mirran Crusader/Paladin En-Vec
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite Spells:
4 Buried Alive
4 Unmake
3 Wrath of God
3 Unearth
3 Exhume
3 Unhinge
It changes from Main White to Main Black, for the most part it abuses the engine the deck above runs off of, but combines it with Reliquary to get Urborg out, then get LOTD out, and use it combined with Urborg to sac other mana for Crusader, while Reliq gets buffed.
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Lake of the Dead
3 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Godless Shrine
2 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
3 Student of Warfare
2 Sun Titan
4 Stromgald Crusader
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Knight of Stromgald
4 Buried Alive
4 Unmake
3 Wrath of God
3 Unearth
3 Exhume
3 Unhinge
Sorry for not making myself clear, I was actually referring to whether Wasteland is heavily played in your metagame & not suggesting you should run them. Reason I pointed this out was because your BUW decklist has a vulnerable manabase with 18 lands and many CIP tapped non-basic lands - thus very easily disrupted by any deck running wasteland.
Opps, I'm referring to fetchlands, not Bonded fetch. But amazingly Bonded fetch does have some relevant applications here - I never heard about this card before prior to your post so this is an inadvertent discovery!
Fetchlands - Marsh Flats, Arid Mesa are useful when you are running a few colours as they allow you to search for the land you need. Running fetches also increase the probability of getting the correct land you need, thus reducing your reliance on non-basic lands and subsequently your vulnerability to wasteland.
Are you running 63 cards now? The card choices look fine now, is your new discovery Unhinge? It's 3cc puts it out of contention really. It is always good to have a cantrip spell but we don't want to slow down the deck further with another 3cc (take note there is already 18 3cc spells in the deck and most are sorcery speed). Cabal Therapy is a better choice if you really wish to run a discard spell, it has synergy with Haakon as you can simply cast knights from the graveyard to flashback the spell again. Alternatively Raven's Crime is another choice if you can't get Therapy.
I like the name of your latest list - Knight's of the Stromgald Scourge.
Your idea of abusing Knight of Reliquary is massive. But you should also consider some changes to the manabase, 12 shocklands is overkill - a few fetches will enable you to reduce the number of shocklands but at the same time increase your probability of getting the correct shockland.
On the other hand, I was thinking since you are not running Knight Exemplar, why do you still need to run W? Knight of Reliquary can be cast using Temple garden so you could just convert it to BG knights and remove all W for more consistency. I would rather build my deck around purely abusing Haakon & KotR and forget about Sun Titan.
This is not the most competitive decklist I'll recommend but since you are keen on this route I'll try to form a optimal list:
Assumptions: No wastelands in the meta.
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Lake of the Dead
3 Swamps
2 Temple Garden
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Verdant Catabombs
3 Marsh Flats
2 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
3 Black Knight
4 Stromgald Crusader
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Knight of Stromgald
Other Spells 21 :
4 Buried Alive
4 Unmake
3 Damnation
3 Unearth
3 Exhume
4 Cabal Therapy
I'm not sure if this will work either, and I also don't know if you have the cards.
Let me know what you think about this!
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
Reasons for playing Mono-Black Legacy knights:
Basically the concept of the deck is hand devastation follow by Haakon & recurring Knights Kill.
What are you thoughts on this? Preliminary deck list below:
4 Black Knight
3 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
2 Knight of Stromgald
2 Order of Ebon Hand
1 Phyrexian Crusader
3 Stillmoon Cavalier
2 Stromgald Crusader
2 Buried Alive
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
1 Go for the throat
3 Nameless Inversion
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Liliana of the Veil
Lands [22]
3 Marsh Flats
3 Verdant Catacombs
12 Swamp
4 Wasteland
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
With the coming of Liliana from Innistrad, I felt mono-black knights could be worth a try. I'm aware why you don't like the idea of an all black knights deck. I have my reservations too.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be working as well as I have envisioned. Somehow some of the pieces are always missing. I either get too many discards and no creatures, or I fail to get Liliana online to start the engine rolling. I tested against G/W Maverick and NO Bant.
Against G/W Maverick, i lost 7 out of 8 games I played, Mirran Crusader with exalted or swords simply romped to victory in 1 or 2 turns of hits. Only game I won was when i managed to waste his duals and either discard/remove his Hierarchs/Bop to stop his early ramping.
Against NO Bant, it was a 80/20 match to my advantage. My pro-white removal knights easily finished him off in a few turns.
Not the best playtesting considering one was playing Mirran Crusader while the other was a deck with StP as its only removal.
Anyway I guess I was too anxious to tap into the synergies available between Liliana of the Veil, Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and Buried Alive/Entomb.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
4x Student of Warfare
4x Knight of the White Orchid
4x Puresteel Paladin
4x Knight Exemplar
4x Mirran Crusader
1x Sun Titan
Spells (19):
4x Aether Vial
4x Path to Exile
4x Silver-Inlaid Dagger
3x Basilisk Collar
1x O-Naginata
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
20x Plains
4x Relic of Progenitus
3x Aura of Silence
4x Oblivion Ring
4x Leyline of Sanctity
...and here's where I think I'm going in Legacy:
4x Mother of Runes
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Puresteel Paladin
4x Knight Exemplar
4x Mirran Crusader
Spells (20):
4x Aether Vial
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Bonesplitter
1x Basilisk Collar
1x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Sword of Fire and Ice
2x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Batterskull
4x Ancient Den
16x Plains
4x Relic of Progenitus
3x Aura of Silence
4x Mindbreak Trap
4x Leyline of Sanctity
Basically swapped out PtE for StP, and brought in Jitte, Mom, and SFM. Any thoughts? I had looked at Phyrexian Metamorph and Elspeth, but they actually seemed a bit slow here. Should I ditch the SFM package and go balls to the wall aggro with cheaper equipment? I'm also a bit concerned about Affinity, as it's a cheapish aggro deck that I'm sure lots of people run, and Aura of Silence is too slow to deal with it...any good options there?
My meta is Zoo, Team America, RUGTempo, UW stoneforge and Bant.
Anyway i entered my legacy knights deck for my LGS legacy tournament last week and set up it in a way to survive the multiple removals I was expecting with Snapcaster mage and true to form 80% of the decks were playing Snapcaster.
The deck did exactly what i expected, unfortunately I had to bow out of the tournament with a 1-3 record. The deck has a massive advantage if it starts first (isn't that the case for most decks? :rolleyes:) so our Mother of Runes or Aether Vial can go online but I lost the dice rolls for all 3 matches I lost.
To conclude I didnt regret bring Legacy Knights to the tournament. The matches against Team America and UW Stoneblade was definitely winnable. I also playtested against Bant a lot and the deck was able to beat them quite easily.
Skeleton match reports below:
Match One against Team America:
First Game: First turn Thoughtseize on my Mother and he always had enough removals from then onwards.
Second Game: Mother resolved and a knight equipped with Sword of Light and Shadow and Elspeth eventually swing through for the win.
Third Game: First turn thoughtseize on Aether Vial and we played all the way to OT, eventually he killed my Elspeth which has been holding out for several turns and edged me out with a goyf and JTMS on the very last turn.
Match Two against Blue/White Stoneblade:
First Game: Dazed my first turn Student followed by Spell snare on second turn stoneforge and it was always a difficult game from there.
Second Game: First turn Mother resolved but he had 4x StP and 4x Pte and 4x Snapcaster Mage. It didn't matter as Sword of Light and Shadow and Elsepth, the Knight Errant combined FTW!
Third Game: Game went into OT and my opponent topdecked into a wrath of god just before I could finish him off next turn(shockingly i sided out 2 Knight Exemplar as it was too easy a target for removal), he topdecked again into a Stoneforge tutoring Batterskull soon after while I drew lands to eventually lose on the last few turns.
Match Three against Bant
First Game: Mother of Runes, Sword of Light and Shadow on a Knight and I managed to beat through his defences FTW.
Second Game: Game went into OT again! I had Mom, SoLS again but he had the Clique and Karakas combo which allowed him to block all day long. Knight Exemplar came down shortly after and I managed to beat through his many goyfs and Clique with indestructable knights during the last few turns.
Match Four against TES
By then I was already exhausted and didnt even had the chance to walk around to see what my opponents were playing after going OT in all 3 matches.
First Game: He went off on the second turn.
Second Game: He Duress my Orim's Chant and went off on the second turn again. (Should I mulligan for a Leyline? However it seems too risky to gamble for a 6 cards hand with both Leyline and Chant.)
Match Five - abandoned due to fatigue and no chance for top 8
Mother of Runes & Sword of Light and Shadow is massive in the current meta, and I won most of my games through them. As such, I would recommend a playset of Moms and 2 pieces of the SoLS (if we get the first SoLS countered or destroyed). Playing Elspeth, the Knight Errant will dilute your Equipments theme thus reduce Puresteel effectiveness, so although they are good we can give them a miss. Anyway below is my tournament deck for your reference.
I saw your list and it is already very close to what I would run for a Puresteel Knight deck.
It's past 1am now and I'll try to think of a PureSteel list another time. Knights FTW!!
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Mother of Runes
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Student of Warfare
Planeswalkers [2]
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Artifacts [7]
4 AEther Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Swords to Plowshares
Lands [20]
2 Arid Mesa
1 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Marsh Flats
6 Plains
2 Savannah
1 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Orim's Chant
2 Retribution of the Meek
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Sword of Body and Mind
2 Tormod's Crypt
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
As promised, below is my list:
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Puresteel Paladin
4 Knight Exemplar
3 Mirran Crusader
1 Stillmoon Cavalier
Spells [4]:
4 Swords to Plowshares
Artifacts [4]:
4 Aether Vial
4 Bone Saw
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
2 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Batterskull
Land [20]:
4 Ancient Den
16 Plains
1 Manriki-Gusari
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Orim's Chant
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Tormod's Crypt
My deck is not much different from yours, as I'm also convinced the Vial/Mother/SFM shell is the most effective setup for knights currently. However, I have some slight changes in the choice of equipments.
I'm not sure what you can do about Artifacts as a mono-white, other than adding this narrow artifacts removal cards in your sideboard:
Some explanations for some of the cards included in my list:
Mother of Runes - Critical first turn drop in protecting our creatures so we can utilise Puresteel's CA and Exemplar's indestructability to other knights.
Stoneforge Mystic - Tutor for equipments so we can have the right answers against other decks, I wouldn't leave him out because he is simply too good. Having him probably means -4 equipments but playing equipments which is cheap and doesn't do much won't help us in our game plan either.
Puresteel Paladin, Knight Exemplar - That's what makes a Knight deck!
Mirran Crusader, Stillmoon Cavalier - Stillmoon has very relevant protections against almost all removals, it's flying can be very relevant also, blocking the likes of a transformed Delver of Secrets etc.
Bone Saw - I would prefer a 0 casting cost equipment over Bonesplitter even though it is less potent. A second turn Puresteel may allow us to draw a card straightaway. For a mana-hungry deck like this it's better to draw additional cards as soon as possible. Drawing the card a turn early is also good for our tempo.
Sword of Light and Shadow - A creature equipped with this sword is literally immune to most of the most popular removal spells in legacy. Gaining additional life and pulling a creature from graveyard back to hand is also great alternative CA.
Sword of Feast and Famine - Like Ignithas mentioned, we already have the Pro-GBMirran Crusader here, therefore I added only one piece for SFM tutorability.
Sideboard:
Manriki-Gusari - It's good against other decks running any equipment, and can also kill Affinity's Cranial Plating. Worth a place in the sideboard due to it's synergy with Puresteel and SFM.
Phyrexian Metamorph - For reanimator decks, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Show and Tell & Natural Order decks. Only included 2 pieces so at least we don't auto-scoop to this combo decks.
Thanks, I hope you find the Primer useful.
Knight Exemplar - True, there is not enough Knights but a Mother protecting Exemplar is a potent combination.
Kemba, Kha Regent - I think Kemba belongs to the Non-knights Puresteel deck. It' really good but if I'm running 4x Exemplar I'll just stick to the Mirran/Stillmoon Knights.
Aether Vial - 20 creatures is barely enough, but cheating the likes of crucial creatures such as Mother/SFM & tricks with Exemplar make it's place worthwhile. It also helps a little in enabling metalcraft.
Lightning Greaves - is not as good as most people think, when people start boarding in Innocent Blood and Diabolic Tutor and with Snapcaster's flashbacking you'll quickly sacrifice till your very last creature including the one Greave is equipped with. At 2 it also doesnt allow us to draw cards quickly. That said, Greaves can also be a massive headache for many matchups with it's shroud so it's an open call here.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
Why only 1x Jitte? Because we have SFM, so you don't need more than one...and unlike Swords, you can't play/benefit from multiples. SoFaF is fine for protection, but the real bonus is from its other abilities...getting through for damage and then being able to untap to play more equipment or to have mana open to remove an opponents threat is huge.
I do force the deck a bit into a Knight theme, so maybe that's why I get more use out of Knight Exemplar...plus, just being able to Vial it in as a combat trick, or getting protected by Mother of Runes, and having First Strike on top of that are solid enough reasons for me to run it. I've used Elspeth many times before, and is probably fine in a more midrangey Knight deck, but I'm trying to keep the curve lower here and keeping the focus on Equipment. Mother of Runes and Swords provide enough evasion, and I've really only needed to swing in once or twice to get the win. On turn 4, I want to start crashing in with my guys, not tap out for a Planeswalker, no matter how good she is.
Yeah, the decks looks pretty similar, so I think we're pretty much in agreement. Really, the only difference is Bone Saw vs Bonesplitter -- and that's exactly right: speed vs power with those two equipment, so it's pretty much a meta call, I think.
I just don't like Lightning Greaves because oftentimes I want to attach multiple equipments to a creature. Between Vialing creatures in (why do you only run 3x Aether Vial?), equipping with protection Swords, and having extra protection with Mother of Runes, they pretty much have Shroud/haste as it is. And obviously Knight Exemplar isn't going to be as effective if you remove several other Knights from the deck...but even if you just run Mirran Crusader and Puresteel Paladin (basically your win-con and engine), it's darn worth it. Plus, Student of Warfare isn't a terrible play either if you are looking for another 1-drop.
Have any of you tested Leonin Shikari in the equipment-based builds? It's nuts with Lightning Greaves and goes so well with puresteel, obviously it's not a knight though so doesn't mix with Exemplar. I've been working on a build with it, but haven't had the time to test it thoroughly yet, and I'm having trouble tracking down more shikari's in my area.
Yeah, I saw your decklist from an earlier post, basically AEIOUsometimesY is trying to form a knight-centred Puresteel build which is why we are trying to force as many knights into the list as possible. Contrary to popular belief, the deck might not perform as bad compared to a typical Puresteel build which utilise much more artifacts. I think there is more consistency in AEIOUsometimesY list over traditional Puresteel lists although less explosive.
By the way why are you playing Loyal Sentry? For a one drop creature wouldn't Flayer Husk be more suitable? The deck has 8 equipment tutors but only 7 equipments. Aether Vial should always be a 4-ofs as you really really want it to be in the opening hand. I might drop Ornithopter for something else.
If Kemba is so critical to the deck strategy, you can cheat him into play with Vial. Based on my playtesting, opponents will usually expend all their removals on the Mother, SFM or even Puresteel so they shouldn't have removals by the time Kemba comes by.
Bonesaw is choosen because some of the knights has first-strike and it allow us to draw cards quickly so we can maintain a good tempo. The equipment is underwhelming but in a deck like this we cannot just put in all the high power equipment which we can't put in play quickly. Having the right mix of equipment is just as vital. You have a keep an eye on the mana curve so the deck can curve out smoothly.
Just take note there are plenty of instant-speed removal in Legacy so they can always remove your Kemba before your greaves can be equipped on him.
I ever played 4x Bonesplitter in my RW legacy knights in the earlier part of the year (Snapcaster wasn't available obviously) and I could kill Goyf easily with an equipped Student of Warfare/ or White Knight & Blood Knight. With a 5/1 or 4/2 first striker knight I don't really need to bother about it's weak toughness anyway.
With Snapcaster decks mostly flashbacking B or W removals but not both, a deck with both White Knight & Blood Knight would be fun to play against them. I might be tempted to form my RW legacy knights again to disturb my meta LOL.
Instant equips is massive and I know it is being played in a traditional Puresteel build but over here we really run out of creature slot for him unfortunately.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
Do you have any deck matchups in mind? For example - Team America, Bant, Zoo, Merfolk, Goblins, NO Bant, UW Stoneforge, GW Maverick, 43 Lands, UGR Tresh, Storm and LEDless dredge are some of the matchups I have play against recently with my GW Vial Knight deck. I can try to write a short description of the matchups against some of them.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W