I find myself rarely boarding in Alliance against midrange decks, but it's a hard call. You typically have four easy cuts in Retreat and Pridemage, and then you bring in your Reflector Mages and Finks. Staticaster is good against Abzan and some Grixis builds as well. Negate is also a consideration, but I find myself often not boarding it unless against a control-heavy Grixis list.
Blessed alliance is really good vs many midrange decks (jund, eldrazi, the mirror) and aggro (all kinds of zoo, bogles, burn, infect). It is really versatile, and this deck is one of the few that can use all three modes (other decks run it because it's good, but don't often use the untap mode). Surprise untapping knights is fun.
Negate is super important vs grixis control. Fighting over their ancestral visions is often needed, since the raw card advantage is what beats us. If they don't draw extra and we don't get blown out by anger, they can't keep up with our creatures.
Oh, and don't bring disdainful stroke vs eldrazi (or any counter), otherwise you're going to have a bad time (x4 cavern of souls)
Speaking of the spatial wurms, I have one big question for all of you. Which is our strategy vs bant eldrazi? After playing a lot that matchup, I'm both hopeless and unsure about which should be the go-to sideboard tech to get an edge on the matchup. I'll list here all the available options with their pros and cons (in no particular order)
Reflector mage - It's what kelvin chew has been playing as a 3-4 of in his sideboard, probably for this matchup. Noteworthy interaction: you don't have to discard to bounce a smasher. Anyway, most of their creatures have ETB abilities so if you can't capitalize on that small tempo swing, it's like you did nothing.
Elspeth, sun's champion - It's nice to destroy a board, but it will likely destroy some of our creatures, and crucial cards like displacer and 1/1 tokens slip under the sweeper. I just find it not synergistic with the deck overall
Blessed alliance - This is one of the cards that I like vs eldrazi but aren't too narrow, which is also something to consider
Worship - it's good vs other decks too (merfolk and dredge), but eldrazi has outs to it (sideboard cards like all is dust, displacer+tks combo)
Ghostly prison - Eldrazi is super mana intensive, so taxing their attacks is one effective way of slowing them down several turns. Their temples don't add two for this matter, which is relevant. Good against the same decks as worship (merfolk and dredge) but the lock is softer.
Intrepid hero - Cool card, but it dies to one of the most powerful weapons of eldrazi vs us (engineered explosives, x=3). Good vs death shadow, which might be something to consider now that it's the best deck of the format. My main concern is that it's slow and weak to removal.
Kitchen finks - Is this even good here? It doesn't trade well with almost anything.
About my strategy in the matchup, knight-retreat combo is plan A, regular beatdown + disruption is plan B. There is also lots of awkwardness with our mainboard cards: vendilion can remove problematic creatures and help us plan ahead, but it's bad vs skyspawner. Voice and ooze are good cards in midrange mirrors but displacer makes both horrible cards. Queller stops thought knot seers, but again, displacer.
Tracker has overperformed in this pairing though. Even if they displace it to remove the counters, the card advantage is so important to keep up the rhythm.
Well, that's it. That's what I do. I have yet to win a round vs eldrazi. Am I missing something? It can't be THAT bad of a pairing...
i have won maybe 50% of eldrazi match (bant and colorless)
Game 1 can be won with the combo, a big knight of reliquary and kessig wolf run, or flyer beatdown
Sideboard is usually reflector mage blessed alliance and kitchen finks
Moorland haunt also helped me by recycling creature into another round of chump blocker
The most important thing i think is to keep path to exile or spell squeller if you anticipate a tough knot seer
3 Voice and 3 Finks after sb helps a lot against Grixis. Take out a couple dorks since they are bad top decks and it is gonna be grindy. Take out the combo as you don't want stranded Retreats in play or in hand. Save Path for Tasigur and try to keep Ooze up to stop Snapcaster. The more copies of Selfless Spirit and Negate you have, the better as they'll bring in some Angers.
Also, not playing Ooze or Knight into Bolt is a great way to stretch their removal too thin.
Yes, take out some birds since hierarchs are better topdecks. If you run the second ghost quarter in the SB, side it in to blow manlands. As I said before, I try to save the countermagic to stop their ancestral visions (if they don't draw extra, they can't keep up). Avoid playing ooze early or knight as a 3/3, for both bolt and anger.
If the game has gone super long and you already have enough mana in the table, try to save one-two lands in your hand to avoid draw phase kolaghan's command making you discard, and to make your topdeck tireless tracker better.
With this said, there are some grixis/esper lists that are built so it's almost impossible that they lose to midrange. Don't feel bad if this happens to you.
When Knightfall creates a board stall, it usually ends up winning. Between the fliers, tireless tracker drawing cards, and knight of the reliquary fetching gavony township and other value lands, we can usually break through. The same can't be said for Bant Eldrazi. They have drowner of hope, eldrazi displacer, and not much else (sometimes a post-board walker). Furthermore, it's worth noting that bant eldrazi is a better aggro deck. They will usually beat us if we start racing.
Therefore, in order to beat them, I want to play the role of the control deck because I can win the long game. One way to ensure this is to try to save path to exile for eldrazi displacer (and pridemage on their skite protecting it). Thereby, if you can drop a huge knight and they don't path him, you can usually end up winning by stalling with him (and to lesser extent a giant voice token). Once again, we tend to be favored in the long game if you can get rid of eldrazi displacer.
Tireless tracker helps you get to the late game faster and break board stalls before they find an EE.
Izzet Staticaster is surprisingly good in this matchup. It kills all the scion tokens (making drowner just a big 5/5), kills their hierarchs (stopping them from getting an ever so slightly larger creature to break board stalls), kills eldrazi skyspawner, adds a level of combat math to blocking, is a decent blessed alliance target, and let's us fake a spell queller.
Blessed Alliance is just useful. It gains life making the game go longer, it forces them to sac an attacking creature (which will probably be a real threat given that we can favorably block the little guys). Lastly, it untaps two creatures allowing for surprise blocks or fetching wolfrun (though don't forget spellskite can redirect wolfrun).
I'll admit that it might be wise to bring in Ghost Quarter, but I rarely find myself hitting one of their lands with the main deck GQ so I doubt that I would rather have a second one over a utility land that breaks board stalls.
I have lost many games against bant eldrazi but I rarely lose a match. So, I hope this helps.
When Knightfall creates a board stall, it usually ends up winning. Between the fliers, tireless tracker drawing cards, and knight of the reliquary fetching gavony township and other value lands, we can usually break through. The same can't be said for Bant Eldrazi. They have drowner of hope, eldrazi displacer, and not much else (sometimes a post-board walker). Furthermore, it's worth noting that bant eldrazi is a better aggro deck. They will usually beat us if we start racing.
Therefore, in order to beat them, I want to play the role of the control deck because I can win the long game. One way to ensure this is to try to save path to exile for eldrazi displacer (and pridemage on their skite protecting it). Thereby, if you can drop a huge knight and they don't path him, you can usually end up winning by stalling with him (and to lesser extent a giant voice token). Once again, we tend to be favored in the long game if you can get rid of eldrazi displacer.
Tireless tracker helps you get to the late game faster and break board stalls before they find an EE.
Izzet Staticaster is surprisingly good in this matchup. It kills all the scion tokens (making drowner just a big 5/5), kills their hierarchs (stopping them from getting an ever so slightly larger creature to break board stalls), kills eldrazi skyspawner, adds a level of combat math to blocking, is a decent blessed alliance target, and let's us fake a spell queller.
Blessed Alliance is just useful. It gains life making the game go longer, it forces them to sac an attacking creature (which will probably be a real threat given that we can favorably block the little guys). Lastly, it untaps two creatures allowing for surprise blocks or fetching wolfrun (though don't forget spellskite can redirect wolfrun).
I'll admit that it might be wise to bring in Ghost Quarter, but I rarely find myself hitting one of their lands with the main deck GQ so I doubt that I would rather have a second one over a utility land that breaks board stalls.
I have lost many games against bant eldrazi but I rarely lose a match. So, I hope this helps.
Just want to say that staticaster isn't that good vs the scions, they can sacrifice them to fizzle the staticaster main effect. It might still be fine, it's hard to say. I personally don't like it in that matchup
I have to aggree with MediumBursts about staticaster, it's not really good vs eldrazi.
I've asked kelvin chew about this and he gave me a similar answer, silverironman. He told me that we play the control role and we're favored on the long run. I never cut retreat vs them because I thought the opposite. As both you and kelvin have told me to play control and cut retreats vs them, I'll try that strategy. I'll try to fit 2-3 reflector mages in my sideboard.
One of my friends is very proficient with eldrazi, so I'll test the matchup and I'll report back my finds. Thanks for your help
Retreat is not THAT bad vs them, but I sided one out in order not to draw multiple copies. Reflector mage is cool tech, but it just delays the inevitable, so try to capitalize on that tempo swing. Maindeck cards that overperformed were qasali, vendilion, gavony township and tireless tracker.
I don't know if this thread is for coralhelm version only or not but I am going to post my version of the deck here anyways and you guys can redirect me after if need be.
No combo in the deck just really good synergy with the Knights, Trackers, and Coursers. Pretty good beatdown deck. I've had some recent success with the deck. I didn't like retreat because you can't get it off of Company. Just my personal favorite version of the deck. Hope you guys enjoy.
Got second place at my states in Alabama with my same list run back again. I don't really wanna do another full report on the tourney though. We had 6 rounds. In the Swiss I played against and beat: Tron, Goblins, Living End, And Grixis Delver. I then ID'D the last two rounds to get third seed in top 8. In top 8, I beat some awesome brew playing hideaway lands, emrakul, amulet of vigor, prime time, knight, and spell queller. I then beat ad nauseam in top 4 and lost to living end in the finals. Pretty good day honestly. I absolutely love this deck and glad I proved to everyone around that it's not complete jank. I also had guys from my last time there come up and tell me how they'd told their entire Local groups about my deck cause they thought it was awesome.
I actually believe the deck is as tuned as I can get it for the current meta. I had answers for everything and always had a good balance between lands and creatures in my openers. Spell queller was a beast, I never had an opponent kill him to get their spell back. I also think unified will is the perfect counterspell for our deck. Negate felt too restrictive so I believe unified will is strictly better as if we don't have creatures on the field, something is wrong anyways.
Blessed alliance is really good vs many midrange decks (jund, eldrazi, the mirror) and aggro (all kinds of zoo, bogles, burn, infect). It is really versatile, and this deck is one of the few that can use all three modes (other decks run it because it's good, but don't often use the untap mode). Surprise untapping knights is fun.
So what's your post board plan against, say, Jund? Are you trimming Quellers? I have plenty of cards I could board in, but not as many that I want to board out. Like -2 Retreat, -2 Pridemage, -1-2 Birds of Parades, -1-2 Queller for +2-3 Reflector Mage, +1-2 Finks, +2 Alliance?
Re: Eldrazi I haven't played against Bant at all basically, but I agree with the controlling approach listed. I have played against Colorless a bunch and am still unsure of exact board configuration. Unlike against Bant Eldrazi, I think we need to play an aggro-tempo plan. Negate/Unified will are very good as beating a resolved All is Dust or Ugin is... hopeful at best. Reflector Mage is amazing, letting us out-race their fast draws and delay stuff like Endbringer taking over the game.
i think retreats and pridemages are definitely not where you want to be vs jund so those are easy cuts. I think i like the quellers just as flash threats. Plus it's another way to stop a board wipe. I know they play a ton of removal but the upside is probably there. Reflector mage and kitchen finks seem very good. I'm not certain on blessed alliance. i feel like we just want to be threat dense. A couple birds would be my next choice to side out
Well, queller vs jund (or any removal deck for this matter) is an awkward card. Having flash is nice, as mediumburst said. My experience so far tells me that queller is not horrible in this matchups, but be very careful when exiling removal spells. When you both are empty handed its okay, but it's not when he has more cards in hand. He probably has more removal than you have quellers, so if you tried to queller 2-3 removal spells they are all going to die simultaneously at some point.
I'm a fan of taking out 2-3 birds, I like it even more if you have sideboard lands (like ghost quarter or bojuka). Hierarch is going to die just as birds, but it's a better topdeck. I do think that blessed alliance is good here. It allows you too many things at all stages of the game, and I think that's valuable. We do want to have good collected companies vs jund though, so don't force it if you don't have enoughg bad cards to take out.
For my current list in particular I would do:
-2 retreat -2 pridemage -3 birds
+1 ghost quarter +1 kitchen finks +3 reflector mage +2 blessed alliance
Against Jund, we generally play the role of the aggro deck. While they do have a fair bit of removal, knightfall tends to overlord their removal. Therefore, I would leave in the quellers, not as a 2-1, but as a tempo play with evasion. Additionally, you want to side like you're playing an aggro deck. Taking out a birds is fine, but don't drop too many of them. Turn 1 birds let's aggro. Also, Liliana tends to not be that good against us. Taking out birds makes it suddenly quite good.
Blessed Alliance is ok, but it's generally not where you want to be as it doesn't really fit into the aggro plan. Our goal is essentially to overload their removal. I would never side out path, but killing their threats isn't the goal. We are not the control deck. You can bring one blessed alliance in for their stuff, but, past that, you'll end up with too much removal in hand and no board (personal experience).
Furthermore, I would argue that our top decks are about equal. To oversimplify it, Jund has dead hand disruption while we have dead birds. The difference is that jund rarely brings in land destruction (it's a trap as our threats need to be answered before our lands (once again overloading removal)). Thereby, you can frequently make birds a threat.
That said, there are two threats to keep in mind: 1. Kalitas 2. Scavenging ooze. They are the two greatest threats jund has (Kalitas a little more than scooze). If you can save your paths for them, you will be favored. Kelvin chew said something similar if you read his post.
Lastly, sequencing and mindset are the most important thing. The winner tends to be the one who makes less mistakes (which makes it my favorite matchup).
Decided to write an article addressing questions regarding bant knightfall. If you have any questions you would like me to write or answer, feel free to pm me or comment. Thanks
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
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Blessed alliance is really good vs many midrange decks (jund, eldrazi, the mirror) and aggro (all kinds of zoo, bogles, burn, infect). It is really versatile, and this deck is one of the few that can use all three modes (other decks run it because it's good, but don't often use the untap mode). Surprise untapping knights is fun.
Negate is super important vs grixis control. Fighting over their ancestral visions is often needed, since the raw card advantage is what beats us. If they don't draw extra and we don't get blown out by anger, they can't keep up with our creatures.
Oh, and don't bring disdainful stroke vs eldrazi (or any counter), otherwise you're going to have a bad time (x4 cavern of souls)
Speaking of the spatial wurms, I have one big question for all of you. Which is our strategy vs bant eldrazi? After playing a lot that matchup, I'm both hopeless and unsure about which should be the go-to sideboard tech to get an edge on the matchup. I'll list here all the available options with their pros and cons (in no particular order)
About my strategy in the matchup, knight-retreat combo is plan A, regular beatdown + disruption is plan B. There is also lots of awkwardness with our mainboard cards: vendilion can remove problematic creatures and help us plan ahead, but it's bad vs skyspawner. Voice and ooze are good cards in midrange mirrors but displacer makes both horrible cards. Queller stops thought knot seers, but again, displacer.
Tracker has overperformed in this pairing though. Even if they displace it to remove the counters, the card advantage is so important to keep up the rhythm.
Well, that's it. That's what I do. I have yet to win a round vs eldrazi. Am I missing something? It can't be THAT bad of a pairing...
This is my list:
1 Breeding Pool
2 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
//Instants
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
//Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Voice of Resurgence
2 Izzet Staticaster
2 Negate
2 Unified Will
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Blessed Alliance
L: Maverick
Game 1 can be won with the combo, a big knight of reliquary and kessig wolf run, or flyer beatdown
Sideboard is usually reflector mage blessed alliance and kitchen finks
Moorland haunt also helped me by recycling creature into another round of chump blocker
The most important thing i think is to keep path to exile or spell squeller if you anticipate a tough knot seer
Also, not playing Ooze or Knight into Bolt is a great way to stretch their removal too thin.
If the game has gone super long and you already have enough mana in the table, try to save one-two lands in your hand to avoid draw phase kolaghan's command making you discard, and to make your topdeck tireless tracker better.
With this said, there are some grixis/esper lists that are built so it's almost impossible that they lose to midrange. Don't feel bad if this happens to you.
L: Maverick
When Knightfall creates a board stall, it usually ends up winning. Between the fliers, tireless tracker drawing cards, and knight of the reliquary fetching gavony township and other value lands, we can usually break through. The same can't be said for Bant Eldrazi. They have drowner of hope, eldrazi displacer, and not much else (sometimes a post-board walker). Furthermore, it's worth noting that bant eldrazi is a better aggro deck. They will usually beat us if we start racing.
Therefore, in order to beat them, I want to play the role of the control deck because I can win the long game. One way to ensure this is to try to save path to exile for eldrazi displacer (and pridemage on their skite protecting it). Thereby, if you can drop a huge knight and they don't path him, you can usually end up winning by stalling with him (and to lesser extent a giant voice token). Once again, we tend to be favored in the long game if you can get rid of eldrazi displacer.
In terms of post-board, they tend to bring in all their Engineered Explosives, Rest in Peace, sometimes Worship, sometimes blessed alliance, and any planeswalkers. With that in mind and looking at your current decklist, I would cut 2 scavenging ooze (RIP hits this card hard and it isn't super useful to begin with), 1 Noble Hierarch (Because Izzet Staticaster hits all creatures with the same), and 2 Retreat to Coralhelm (because we don't need to combo if we can create a board stall (plus RIP)) for 2 Izzet Staticaster, Tireless Tracker, 2 Blessed Alliance.
I'll admit that it might be wise to bring in Ghost Quarter, but I rarely find myself hitting one of their lands with the main deck GQ so I doubt that I would rather have a second one over a utility land that breaks board stalls.
I have lost many games against bant eldrazi but I rarely lose a match. So, I hope this helps.
Just want to say that staticaster isn't that good vs the scions, they can sacrifice them to fizzle the staticaster main effect. It might still be fine, it's hard to say. I personally don't like it in that matchup
I've asked kelvin chew about this and he gave me a similar answer, silverironman. He told me that we play the control role and we're favored on the long run. I never cut retreat vs them because I thought the opposite. As both you and kelvin have told me to play control and cut retreats vs them, I'll try that strategy. I'll try to fit 2-3 reflector mages in my sideboard.
One of my friends is very proficient with eldrazi, so I'll test the matchup and I'll report back my finds. Thanks for your help
L: Maverick
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
1 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
//Instants
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
//Creatures
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Voice of Resurgence
2 Izzet Staticaster
2 Negate
2 Unified Will
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Reflector Mage
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Blessed Alliance
Results were:
pre-sideboard (knightfall)1-2(Eldrazi
post-sideboard 2-1
SB plan:
-4 spell queller
-2 scavenging ooze
-1 retreat to coralhelm
+1 ghost quarter
+2 blessed alliance
+3 reflector mage
+1 kitchen finks
Retreat is not THAT bad vs them, but I sided one out in order not to draw multiple copies. Reflector mage is cool tech, but it just delays the inevitable, so try to capitalize on that tempo swing. Maindeck cards that overperformed were qasali, vendilion, gavony township and tireless tracker.
L: Maverick
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Selfless Spirit
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Eternal Witness
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Courser of Kruphix
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Geist of Saint Traft
Instants:
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
1 Chord of Calling
4 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Temple Garden
2 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Lumbering Falls
2 Spellskite
2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Meddling Mage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
No combo in the deck just really good synergy with the Knights, Trackers, and Coursers. Pretty good beatdown deck. I've had some recent success with the deck. I didn't like retreat because you can't get it off of Company. Just my personal favorite version of the deck. Hope you guys enjoy.
So what's your post board plan against, say, Jund? Are you trimming Quellers? I have plenty of cards I could board in, but not as many that I want to board out. Like -2 Retreat, -2 Pridemage, -1-2 Birds of Parades, -1-2 Queller for +2-3 Reflector Mage, +1-2 Finks, +2 Alliance?
Re: Eldrazi I haven't played against Bant at all basically, but I agree with the controlling approach listed. I have played against Colorless a bunch and am still unsure of exact board configuration. Unlike against Bant Eldrazi, I think we need to play an aggro-tempo plan. Negate/Unified will are very good as beating a resolved All is Dust or Ugin is... hopeful at best. Reflector Mage is amazing, letting us out-race their fast draws and delay stuff like Endbringer taking over the game.
I'm a fan of taking out 2-3 birds, I like it even more if you have sideboard lands (like ghost quarter or bojuka). Hierarch is going to die just as birds, but it's a better topdeck. I do think that blessed alliance is good here. It allows you too many things at all stages of the game, and I think that's valuable. We do want to have good collected companies vs jund though, so don't force it if you don't have enoughg bad cards to take out.
For my current list in particular I would do:
-2 retreat -2 pridemage -3 birds
+1 ghost quarter +1 kitchen finks +3 reflector mage +2 blessed alliance
L: Maverick
Blessed Alliance is ok, but it's generally not where you want to be as it doesn't really fit into the aggro plan. Our goal is essentially to overload their removal. I would never side out path, but killing their threats isn't the goal. We are not the control deck. You can bring one blessed alliance in for their stuff, but, past that, you'll end up with too much removal in hand and no board (personal experience).
Furthermore, I would argue that our top decks are about equal. To oversimplify it, Jund has dead hand disruption while we have dead birds. The difference is that jund rarely brings in land destruction (it's a trap as our threats need to be answered before our lands (once again overloading removal)). Thereby, you can frequently make birds a threat.
That said, there are two threats to keep in mind: 1. Kalitas 2. Scavenging ooze. They are the two greatest threats jund has (Kalitas a little more than scooze). If you can save your paths for them, you will be favored. Kelvin chew said something similar if you read his post.
Lastly, sequencing and mindset are the most important thing. The winner tends to be the one who makes less mistakes (which makes it my favorite matchup).