Hey, what do you all think about Fiend Slayer? It provides instant speed removal with CoCo. And if you scry with retreat, you can be sure to cast it with a CoCo, same goes with quellers
Do you mean Fiend Hunter? Some lists will play Fairgrounds Warden as creature removal. Fairgrounds because it isn't double white and we can't sac it at instant speed anyway. That said, we usually go over the top of most other decks and thereby don't really need more removal.
I'm toying around with the idea of either building Bant or Abzan Company and want to ask how well this deck is positioned against Tron/EldraTron and Bant Eldrazi?
Abzan Company's worse matchup by far is Tron. I was tempted to add a Stomping Ground for a sideboard Crumble to Dust to have a chance. The deck does much better against Eldrazi-Tron and Bant Eldrazi, but they're still not particularly easy matchups.
Bant Company, on the other hand, has a winnable matchup against Tron. It's mostly reliant on an early Knight of the Reliquary fetching up Ghost Quarter, but that goes a surprisingly long way. Beating Bant Eldrazi requires a solid understanding of the deck, but I usually end up winning. I've never faced Eldrazi-Tron with Bant Company to have any idea what that matchup looks like.
I'm toying around with the idea of either building Bant or Abzan Company and want to ask how well this deck is positioned against Tron/EldraTron and Bant Eldrazi?
Greetings
In theory, all midrange decks have a poor matchup against tron. However, bant seems to be much better than abzan in my experience. I've played abzan company to several decent finishes and tron has always been a thorn (of amethyst) in my side, since you just have to get lucky there really. Whenever I play against tron with Bant however, I have a mainboard ghost quarter to help me stabilize while I beat their face in, and spell quellers to stop their maps/scryings/stirrings as well. It takes a little luck but you MUST interact with them and disrupt their plan. After sideboard, the matchup can seem trivial of you draw right. I have unified wills, Gaddock Teeg, and stony silence in my board. These cards are all stars against tron, unified will counters everything they have so I consider it better than negate since if you don't have creatures you're already losing. Gaddock Teeg has won me so many games since they bank on their Karns and ugins to win the game, protect him at all costs! Stony silence shuts off o-stone, maps and eggs, but also turns off your clues so plan accordingly. Selfless spirit is also great aginst o-stone and Pyroclasm effects (if those are still played). In short, tron is an okay matchup if you can interact with them. So choose bant to beat tron, but not abzan though I enjoy both decks immensely so don't let tron be your only decider.
I think that having access to blue makes the Tron match-up so much easier to handle. Unsurprisingly, the biggest issue with midrange decks, regardless of the type you play, is having the single issue of "drawing the wrong half of your deck". But just the principle of having an out to any match-up and corner case is a benefit to playing a midrange deck (Bant in particular).
I have some friends that play Abzan Company and they say that they dont even try to win against Tron. Its a 85-15 matchup for them. For Knightfall is hard, but not that hard as we have several threats that can help us stabilize. Now against a turn 3 natural Tron there's little we can do.
If you're really dedicated to hating out Tron, you can always run a few extra Ghost Quarters and some Renegade Ralliers. They're both very useful in a range of scenarios outside Tron, although IMO that version of the deck isn't quite as good vs. the field.
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WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
I figure that counterspells and Gaddock Teeg out of the sideboard should sway the post-board numbers considerably in our favor. Does anyone have testing data for this?
I haven't tested enough to provide a numerical win% against tron, but I have won some games. I've had more success vs them when I was running a more aggresive version of this deck (like 4c company with nacatl/goyf, versions with geist, versions with eldritch evolution) but I think that the stock knightfall list can win too (and is better than all those other versions vs most other decks). The combo, counters, stony and gaddock teeg are all great.
And for eldrazi tron, I haven't played vs it yet, so no idea.
I figure that counterspells and Gaddock Teeg out of the sideboard should sway the post-board numbers considerably in our favor. Does anyone have testing data for this?
Gaddock Teeg and countermagic are great against tron, they have single-handedly won me games. I survived an emrakul swing once and swung lethal next turn because I didn't sac my Teeg that was stopping his karn coming down to hit my lethal knight.
I was curious in how we actually beat grixis delver? Specifically, when they are tempo playing us out?
Play Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and just play in a way to force them to have particular tempo spells like snare and such and eventually, you can stabilize with Spell Queller, Courser, Izzet Staticasters and Blessed Alliance. Your 2-1 is much more oppressive then their tempo if you're able to put the pressure on them to have whatever they need to answer your spells.
Hey Bento- I'm trying out 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in the board as it's versatile against many spell based decks including storm as a great 2 drop to fill in when pridemage/selfless or any of your other two drops aren't cutting it but if storm is really infesting your meta you can certainly try out eidolon of rhetoric, which is hosetown for storm.
I love this thread btw, I'm always looking to keep innovating my deck and I love reading what you guys have been trying. I'm bringing Knightfall to some upcoming IQ's, this is my list as of now: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/07-03-17-Eul-bant-knightfall/
Lands:
Windswept Heath x 4
Wooded Foothills x 4
Flooded Strand x 2
Breeding Pool x 1
Hallowed Fountain x 1
Temple Garden x 1
Stomping Ground x 1
Horizon Canopy x 1
Gavony Township x 1
Kessig Wolf Run x 1
Ghost Quarter x 1
Plains x 1
Forest x 3
Creatures:
Noble Hierarch x 4
Birds of Paradise x 4
Knight of the Reliquary x 4
Spell Queller x 4
Vendilion Clique x 1
Tireless Tracker x 3
Courser of Kruphix x 2
Selfless Spirit x 2
Voice of Resurgence x 2
Scavenging Ooze x 2
Qasali Pridemage x 2
Spells:
Elspeth, Knight-Errant x 1
Path to Exile x 4
Collected Company x 4
Sideboard:
Izzet Staticaster x 2
Reflector Mage x 2
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben x 2
Gaddock Teeg x 1
Blessed Alliance x 2
Negate x 1
Unified Will x 3
Stony Silence x 2
The list originally was two Elspeth, Knight-Errant and two Geist of Saint Traft. Killing on T4 with a fair deck that's really hard to interact with had some success but when I found minun73's list I changed my list almost immediately. The problem with the Coralhelm combo is that it isn't a win condition that can consistently win you games. I found that I was winning with "Knightfalling" (Knight, Tireless Tracker, and Courser) people than actually combo-ing people. Also, I ran 61 cards because I felt that playing the Vendilion Clique was worth the "inconsistency" of 61 cards; the probabilities are almost negligible at 61 (62, however, is a different story). The Thalia was an innovation to target a large portion of a variety of combo decks, burn (because of its potency against Death's Shadow Jund), and control decks. The one negate was the sideboard for Elspeth when she isn't particularly fantastic. If you have questions please ask!
I joined the facetoface 3k tournament here in Toronto and was able to go 5-0 then met an ultimate defeat against scapeshift, Tron, and Death's Shadow, which I believe to be much closer to something between 40-60% winrate. Unfortunately the top decks were not in my favour, alongside the misplays (knightfall is an incredibly hard deck to play) and so I finished 5-3, where if I won my round 8 game, I would be in top 8 (I had the best tie breakers in the entire tournament).
One of the most powerful things about this deck is its ability to cover such a wide range of decks without ever truly folding to them. Obviously as a midrange deck you can draw the wrong portion of your deck but for the most part you always have game against decks. It's incredible that a deck like this can cover so many corner cases as well as have game against most tier 1 decks. The lines you have available are predicated on how well verse you are with the deck and the match-ups. Information is key and if you have that, it's all up to how clear you can visualize what needs to be done. The deck is very hard to play but this deck has potential to take up meta share with the right pilot behind it!
What cards overperformed and underperformed for you Bento? I'm definitely curious how thalia felt in the board, how clique did and elspeth over coralhelm, along with the rest of your creatures.
Call me old fashioned, but I'm still scared of taking out retreat as it's nice to have a combo against unfair decks- but at the same time it really doesn't happen that often against most of the field and you are right that extra trackers or clique or elspeth might just be better.
What cards overperformed and underperformed for you Bento? I'm definitely curious how thalia felt in the board, how clique did and elspeth over coralhelm, along with the rest of your creatures.
Call me old fashioned, but I'm still scared of taking out retreat as it's nice to have a combo against unfair decks- but at the same time it really doesn't happen that often against most of the field and you are right that extra trackers or clique or elspeth might just be better.
I'm also in favor of the combo, why did u take it out Bento?
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I think storm is supposed to be a decent matchup. Spell queller is really good. Our postboard counters are good. Eidolon of rhetoric is also great if you are playing it. Or Thalia. And i don't really want to the combo in my deck either. Too many grindy decks packing a bunch of removal. I'd rather just play a value deck
What cards overperformed and underperformed for you Bento? I'm definitely curious how thalia felt in the board, how clique did and elspeth over coralhelm, along with the rest of your creatures.
Call me old fashioned, but I'm still scared of taking out retreat as it's nice to have a combo against unfair decks- but at the same time it really doesn't happen that often against most of the field and you are right that extra trackers or clique or elspeth might just be better.
*DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A LONG POST!!!*
There were so many cards that outperformed because so many of your cards are so versatile and can impact the game in a variety of match ups.
In the mainboard, both before and after sideboard, cards that I found to be amazing even though I thought they would be bad were Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Courser of Kruphix, Qasali Pridemage, Vendilion Clique, Kessig Wolf Run, and Horizon canopy.
The cards that were expected to do well were Knight of the Reliquary (oh man, I could talk about this card for hours but you guys don't have that much time to read rambling so I'll make it short a bit later), both Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise, Spell Queller, Tireless Tracker, Path to Exile, and Collected Company.
The cards that underperformed in the mainboard, both before and after sideboard, were Selfless Spirit, Voice of Resurgence (only because I NEVER got to play it in all my matches), Scavenging Ooze, and Gavony Township.
The cards that outperformed in the sideboard were Izzet Staticaster, Blessed Alliance, Unified Will and Negate, and Reflector Mage. The other spells were lack luster, probably due the fact that I didn't play a single storm/combo oriented deck (other than Ad Nauseam) or control deck, and the match ups I brought in Gaddock Teeg I never drew. Stony Silence is narrow, but when you play it turn 2 against an affinity player, you tell yourself inside that you're great at magic, lol. I think Thalia is excellent because of it's application to all the heavy non-creature decks. Unfortunately I didn't play against burn decks and non-creature spell decks alike.
The Clique and Elspeth over Coralhelm felt so much more coherent than playing 2-3 Retreat to Coralhelm. The thing about Retreat to Coralhelm is that you have no FEASIBLE method of killing someone with this interaction. You are literally at the mercy of the top of your deck. If the Knight of the Reliquary + Retreat to Coralhelm interaction is the method you rely on when trying to beat the unfair match-ups as well as TRON/big mana decks, you're going to lose more often over a large sample-size of games. In modern, the most punishing thing you can do to yourself is trying to play a deck that doesn't have a robust and consistent strategy to win.
The Elspeth was really important because it allowed you to play defense AND offense at the same time and sometimes, it just takes over the game. You're usually caught trying to disrupt your opponent and trying to establish an indomitable board state, but with Elspeth, opponents board states as well as your opponents spells don't matter as much. You can just kill them with ANY creature she creates or you play while holding up mana. You can sit there hitting them for 4 with a Noble Hierarch while you sit on mana for CoCo EoT or Spell Queller, Path, Knight of the Reliquary shenanigans, and hold the board with ANY creature (Courser and Voice of Resurgence often than not). It really changes the dynamic of the deck and makes it more aggressive. Trying to stay low to the ground by infesting your deck with more 2-drops to be aggressive ruins the strength of the deck, a FAST splurge of POWERFUL 3-drops + disruption and flexibility. With Elspeth, you can do both at the same time a bit more reasonably. The only reason someone might frown upon Elspeth is that she's a double white spell that costs 4 and isn't winning you the game or disrupting your opponent on the spot; if you've looked at the list, you'll notice that I'm geared towards beating fair decks while having a fair amount of interaction against various linear unfair strategies.
As for my choices of my creature line-up, majority of it is pretty mainstay until new, better creatures come and take slots away.
Noble Hierarch x 4 & Birds of Paradise x 4:
A lot of people at my LGS and friends always told me that I should play 7 dorks. Even some pros remain at 7. I think that is a mistake to some degree when playing Knight of the Reliquary. Your entire strategy is reliant on how explosive you can be as well as how well you can recover from heavy removal decks. There is an argument that you should play 7 dorks because you don't want to top deck a Birds of Paradise in the later stages of the game. You aren't a deck like Abzan Company that has inevitability. You are a FAIR deck regardless of whether or not you play Retreat to Coralhelm, and so you need the best possible chances at facilitating your game plan. Also, the abilities on them are important. Noble Hierarch is, for all things fair, an unfair card. It turns Turn-2 into Turn-3, can make more than 1 color, and gives exalted. What? It changes your clock into something unimaginably faster where if you had no exalted, would lose because you're short damage or you can't punch through blockers. Flying on birds is really good late game because you play Knight of the Reliquary. Other decks that play birds can't take advantage of that stat even if they have Gavony Township. You, however, have Kessig Wolf Run; killing someone with a 0/1 flying mana dork becomes an ACTUAL line you can consider. That's nuts. Lol.
Knight of the Reliquary x 4:
She's probably the best card in the deck. She blocks like a Champ, the biggest creature on the field (4/4, 6/6, 9/9, 12/12? lol), has like a gajilion abilities stapled onto it, and is a color fixing mana-rock play maker that enables lines you otherwise wouldn't have. All of this at 3 mana that can be played off a dork or at instant speed with CoCo once you have 4 mana available. However, she is a bit slow and can be hampered by graveyard hate but with love and care, she rewards you when built around correctly and played optimally. She is the Queen of midrange. Can also combo kill with Retreat to Coralhelm, not a trivial fact!
Spell Queller x 4:
Probably the second best card in the deck. Spell Queller is among the best 3 drop creatures in modern in my opinion because of its stats (Flash, Flying, Exile spell 4cmc or less? KEK) as well as it's ability to interact with EVERY SINGLE DECK IN THE FORMAT. It's balanced because it dies to bolt and most prominent removal but imagine this--Spell Queller, 1U1W1Colorless, Flash Flying, Exile spell 4CMC or less, 3/4. Thank God that's not real.
Courser of Kruphix x 2 & Tireless Tracker x 3:
The Tireless Trackers were an innovation made popular by Steve Rubin and his leading success with the deck. These 2 cards are what make Knightfall a consistent deck. CoCo is powerful but relying on it to win games all the time isn't a successful plan. The deck needs to win with ALL of it's cards, not just a playset of 1 or 2 cards. The card advantage is SO real that against fair decks that, a lot of the time it's almost impossible for them to grind because you just draw way more cards than they can answer, while at the same time you're making a creature that can 1 shot them. Also, revealing the top card of your deck in conjunction with clues as well as Knight of the Reliquary and Fetch lands allow you play out games without being at the mercy of the top of your deck.
Vendilion Clique x 1:
In retrospect, I wish I played at least 2. Spell Queller is an unbelievably POWERFUL magic card, but you only have 4 copies, and while CoCo is amazing at finding your creatures, often times it's not enough and you lose because you can't answer their spells (either the Spell Queller is untimely, or you can't exile it because it's 5+ CMC). With Clique however, you can just strip them of that card (so long as it's not an instant and have the mana available) and play around their hand. I can't reiterate enough the semi-obvious point; modern is a wide format. Being able to have cards that are POTENT interaction, like Spell Queller or Vendilion Clique, in EVERY match is very powerful. Planning, understanding the format, and great deck building are important parts of a great player, but cards that offer information, like Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and the recently banned Gitaxian Probe, and rip some form of advantage should just be played. G/B/x variants are the most popular and powerful midrange decks in the format. I mean look at Death's Shadow Jund, it has like 8+ discard spells! It's fuqn NUTS. The fact you can disrupt your opponents game plan while advancing your board state AS WELL as clocking your opponent in the air for 3 is pretty good. With as many mana dorks as this, 10 fetch lands, and the power of the Knight of the Reliquary, getting access to blue is not hard; it's casting cost is only expensive when you have to fetch shock twice for it.
Selfless Spirit x 2:
It fell short on my expectations of it. The only important stat on it is it's flying and being able to clock your opponent unimpeded, or chump block. It's ability to make combat math difficult and give your team indestructible is great, but does not happen as often as I'd like. It has it's place post-board against fair interactive decks, but other than that the only reason as to why you'd want it in your deck is for interesting lines and outs to particular scenarios, or it's ability to fly.
Voice of Resurgence x 2:
What can I say? I didn't get to even cast it. lol. I think that voice is excellent, and if you were to cut a bird I would suggest you add a 3rd Voice in it's place. It's just so good at disrupting fair blue-based decks as well as giving your G/B/x opens a hard time by making them wonder why they're playing G/B/x midrange. It's an incredible chump blocker on the ground as well!
Scavenging Ooze x 2:
I feel like I dodged a bullet at the tournament because I didn't have to stress about graveyard decks. Unfortunately, the Scavenging Ooze was either a 1 or a 10 because of its narrow interaction completely predicated on the graveyard. Other than that, it is a 2/2 bear that hits for 5+ with an Elspeth. I guess that's fine? lol
Qasali Pridemage x 2:
In an open metagame, this card is just unbelievable. It covers all your bases, beats in for 3+, or makes your other creatures get through blockers and improves your clock. All that, and it's a great CoCo hit. Against Ad Nauseam I had 2 of these on the field and I shut my opponent out of his win condition. Ad Nauseam is a deck that relies on Angel's Grace or Phyrexian Unlife to win the game. If you have a Qasali Pridemage on the board, they are literally relying on their other win condition to win. In my round 6, I might have won my game 3 against scapeshift had I not foolishly sideboarded out Qasali Pridemage and not Scavenging Ooze which would have locked me into top 8, with presumably 6-0-2 (2 ID at worse case), and the best tiebreakers in the entire tournament.
What cards overperformed and underperformed for you Bento? I'm definitely curious how thalia felt in the board, how clique did and elspeth over coralhelm, along with the rest of your creatures.
Call me old fashioned, but I'm still scared of taking out retreat as it's nice to have a combo against unfair decks- but at the same time it really doesn't happen that often against most of the field and you are right that extra trackers or clique or elspeth might just be better.
I'm also in favor of the combo, why did u take it out Bento?
As for my reason to take out the combo, if you pay attention to how you're winning most of your games, you're probably winning through straight up disruption and beat down by an indomitable board state. I'm very well versed with the combo because I goldfish it like, every day (lol), I just wanted to capitalize on the decks value-town play alongside its disruption. I honestly don't believe playing with or without it is wrong at all. There were some cases, however, that I wish I had it but looking back to those games, being a better player and not playing poorly could have easily won me those games as well. I think if you're playing with the combo you need to make sacrifices in mainboard deck building that just adds another level of complexity to building a CoCo deck (which is already a limitation). That constraint may be insurmountable for some people to overcome (in my case, I decided to play at the tournament the night before registration), but with a good chunk of time and comfort, it may be entirely correct to play Retreat to Coralhelm. I mean, if you just take the Retreat out, you can afford to play more Trackers, planeswalkers, and other goodies that ease the pain of deck building a CoCo deck whose combo isn't a creature combo. With Retreat, you have to consider playing Spellskite and other stuff if you want to play the combo. Not that either of the two is more favorable than the other, rather a preference of what you think you will do well with given your mind state and meta (area you're playing at).
TL;DR I just felt, at that current time, that playing without the combo would do me justice as opposed to playing with the combo. Maybe I might feel the same way a couple of Monday Night Modern(s), or FNM(s) later, or I might entirely switch back to combo. I just thought that I would do better without it for this particular event than I would with it.
I think storm is supposed to be a decent matchup. Spell queller is really good. Our postboard counters are good. Eidolon of rhetoric is also great if you are playing it. Or Thalia. And i don't really want to the combo in my deck either. Too many grindy decks packing a bunch of removal. I'd rather just play a value deck
Spell Queller is fuqn beast. lol. The combo can be put in the sideboard in the 75 so you can bring the combo in against the blazing fast combo decks.
Wow great insights. Elspeth does seem like a house and you've convinced me to test without the combo for sure, though I haven't decided what feels right yet. Thanks, and I'll post my own IQ report after this Sunday.
Recently, I’ve gone 12-1-1 despite being a bit out of practice. I bring this up because I have some hopefully useful observations.
Notes: I tried a three of Tireless Tracker and I quickly cut this down to a two of. My reasoning is that Tracker doesn’t really help dig for answers all too well due to how expensive clue tokens are. While Tracker is probably our best wincon, he’s slow. Against most of the meta, we already tend to be favored the longer the game goes. Thereby, I think that we don’t need that many slow cards. Thereby, I’ve started to replace tracker with Courser of Kruphix as it helps us block and helps us grind. That said, I’m still leaving in a Tireless Tracker as, once again, it generates so much card advantage that it’s almost impossible to lose if he sticks and we’re not too far behind.
I want to try a main board Blessed Alliance. Bant Eldrazi sometimes runs it main and we can better utilize the card. I feel like I run into the problem of not enough removal or too little life when I finally stabilize a little too often. Blessed Alliance helps solve that problem.
Lastly, I finally noticed something rather obvious recently. For awhile, I’ve noticed that I tend to win games 2-3 but lose game 1. I just ignored this fact, but there is a reason for it. Knightfall is first and foremost a tempo, borderline control deck. This means that we try our best to win game 1, but, frequently enough, we have to rely on winning games two and three with our about 8ish sideboard cards. Thereby, against most linear decks, we are not favored game 1. Now, enter Retreat to Coralhelm. This card is by far my least favorite in the entire deck as it is a major tempo loss. However, the combo provides us with a way to be a linear deck game 1. Post-board, we side into the eight-ish cards that let us play a nice fair game of magic, but, pre-board, frequently enough, we need a way to goldfish or we will be goldfished.
Bant Company, on the other hand, has a winnable matchup against Tron. It's mostly reliant on an early Knight of the Reliquary fetching up Ghost Quarter, but that goes a surprisingly long way. Beating Bant Eldrazi requires a solid understanding of the deck, but I usually end up winning. I've never faced Eldrazi-Tron with Bant Company to have any idea what that matchup looks like.
In theory, all midrange decks have a poor matchup against tron. However, bant seems to be much better than abzan in my experience. I've played abzan company to several decent finishes and tron has always been a thorn (of amethyst) in my side, since you just have to get lucky there really. Whenever I play against tron with Bant however, I have a mainboard ghost quarter to help me stabilize while I beat their face in, and spell quellers to stop their maps/scryings/stirrings as well. It takes a little luck but you MUST interact with them and disrupt their plan. After sideboard, the matchup can seem trivial of you draw right. I have unified wills, Gaddock Teeg, and stony silence in my board. These cards are all stars against tron, unified will counters everything they have so I consider it better than negate since if you don't have creatures you're already losing. Gaddock Teeg has won me so many games since they bank on their Karns and ugins to win the game, protect him at all costs! Stony silence shuts off o-stone, maps and eggs, but also turns off your clues so plan accordingly. Selfless spirit is also great aginst o-stone and Pyroclasm effects (if those are still played). In short, tron is an okay matchup if you can interact with them. So choose bant to beat tron, but not abzan though I enjoy both decks immensely so don't let tron be your only decider.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
Legacy: Strawberry Shortcake, Aggro Loam, DnT+b
Modern: Devoted Karn
Vintage: Survival
And for eldrazi tron, I haven't played vs it yet, so no idea.
L: Maverick
Gaddock Teeg and countermagic are great against tron, they have single-handedly won me games. I survived an emrakul swing once and swung lethal next turn because I didn't sac my Teeg that was stopping his karn coming down to hit my lethal knight.
I was curious in how we actually beat grixis delver? Specifically, when they are tempo playing us out?
Play Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and just play in a way to force them to have particular tempo spells like snare and such and eventually, you can stabilize with Spell Queller, Courser, Izzet Staticasters and Blessed Alliance. Your 2-1 is much more oppressive then their tempo if you're able to put the pressure on them to have whatever they need to answer your spells.
I love this thread btw, I'm always looking to keep innovating my deck and I love reading what you guys have been trying. I'm bringing Knightfall to some upcoming IQ's, this is my list as of now: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/07-03-17-Eul-bant-knightfall/
Lands:
Windswept Heath x 4
Wooded Foothills x 4
Flooded Strand x 2
Breeding Pool x 1
Hallowed Fountain x 1
Temple Garden x 1
Stomping Ground x 1
Horizon Canopy x 1
Gavony Township x 1
Kessig Wolf Run x 1
Ghost Quarter x 1
Plains x 1
Forest x 3
Creatures:
Noble Hierarch x 4
Birds of Paradise x 4
Knight of the Reliquary x 4
Spell Queller x 4
Vendilion Clique x 1
Tireless Tracker x 3
Courser of Kruphix x 2
Selfless Spirit x 2
Voice of Resurgence x 2
Scavenging Ooze x 2
Qasali Pridemage x 2
Spells:
Elspeth, Knight-Errant x 1
Path to Exile x 4
Collected Company x 4
Sideboard:
Izzet Staticaster x 2
Reflector Mage x 2
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben x 2
Gaddock Teeg x 1
Blessed Alliance x 2
Negate x 1
Unified Will x 3
Stony Silence x 2
The list originally was two Elspeth, Knight-Errant and two Geist of Saint Traft. Killing on T4 with a fair deck that's really hard to interact with had some success but when I found minun73's list I changed my list almost immediately. The problem with the Coralhelm combo is that it isn't a win condition that can consistently win you games. I found that I was winning with "Knightfalling" (Knight, Tireless Tracker, and Courser) people than actually combo-ing people. Also, I ran 61 cards because I felt that playing the Vendilion Clique was worth the "inconsistency" of 61 cards; the probabilities are almost negligible at 61 (62, however, is a different story). The Thalia was an innovation to target a large portion of a variety of combo decks, burn (because of its potency against Death's Shadow Jund), and control decks. The one negate was the sideboard for Elspeth when she isn't particularly fantastic. If you have questions please ask!
I joined the facetoface 3k tournament here in Toronto and was able to go 5-0 then met an ultimate defeat against scapeshift, Tron, and Death's Shadow, which I believe to be much closer to something between 40-60% winrate. Unfortunately the top decks were not in my favour, alongside the misplays (knightfall is an incredibly hard deck to play) and so I finished 5-3, where if I won my round 8 game, I would be in top 8 (I had the best tie breakers in the entire tournament).
One of the most powerful things about this deck is its ability to cover such a wide range of decks without ever truly folding to them. Obviously as a midrange deck you can draw the wrong portion of your deck but for the most part you always have game against decks. It's incredible that a deck like this can cover so many corner cases as well as have game against most tier 1 decks. The lines you have available are predicated on how well verse you are with the deck and the match-ups. Information is key and if you have that, it's all up to how clear you can visualize what needs to be done. The deck is very hard to play but this deck has potential to take up meta share with the right pilot behind it!
Call me old fashioned, but I'm still scared of taking out retreat as it's nice to have a combo against unfair decks- but at the same time it really doesn't happen that often against most of the field and you are right that extra trackers or clique or elspeth might just be better.
I'm also in favor of the combo, why did u take it out Bento?
*DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A LONG POST!!!*
There were so many cards that outperformed because so many of your cards are so versatile and can impact the game in a variety of match ups.
In the mainboard, both before and after sideboard, cards that I found to be amazing even though I thought they would be bad were Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Courser of Kruphix, Qasali Pridemage, Vendilion Clique, Kessig Wolf Run, and Horizon canopy.
The cards that were expected to do well were Knight of the Reliquary (oh man, I could talk about this card for hours but you guys don't have that much time to read rambling so I'll make it short a bit later), both Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise, Spell Queller, Tireless Tracker, Path to Exile, and Collected Company.
The cards that underperformed in the mainboard, both before and after sideboard, were Selfless Spirit, Voice of Resurgence (only because I NEVER got to play it in all my matches), Scavenging Ooze, and Gavony Township.
The cards that outperformed in the sideboard were Izzet Staticaster, Blessed Alliance, Unified Will and Negate, and Reflector Mage. The other spells were lack luster, probably due the fact that I didn't play a single storm/combo oriented deck (other than Ad Nauseam) or control deck, and the match ups I brought in Gaddock Teeg I never drew. Stony Silence is narrow, but when you play it turn 2 against an affinity player, you tell yourself inside that you're great at magic, lol. I think Thalia is excellent because of it's application to all the heavy non-creature decks. Unfortunately I didn't play against burn decks and non-creature spell decks alike.
The Clique and Elspeth over Coralhelm felt so much more coherent than playing 2-3 Retreat to Coralhelm. The thing about Retreat to Coralhelm is that you have no FEASIBLE method of killing someone with this interaction. You are literally at the mercy of the top of your deck. If the Knight of the Reliquary + Retreat to Coralhelm interaction is the method you rely on when trying to beat the unfair match-ups as well as TRON/big mana decks, you're going to lose more often over a large sample-size of games. In modern, the most punishing thing you can do to yourself is trying to play a deck that doesn't have a robust and consistent strategy to win.
The Elspeth was really important because it allowed you to play defense AND offense at the same time and sometimes, it just takes over the game. You're usually caught trying to disrupt your opponent and trying to establish an indomitable board state, but with Elspeth, opponents board states as well as your opponents spells don't matter as much. You can just kill them with ANY creature she creates or you play while holding up mana. You can sit there hitting them for 4 with a Noble Hierarch while you sit on mana for CoCo EoT or Spell Queller, Path, Knight of the Reliquary shenanigans, and hold the board with ANY creature (Courser and Voice of Resurgence often than not). It really changes the dynamic of the deck and makes it more aggressive. Trying to stay low to the ground by infesting your deck with more 2-drops to be aggressive ruins the strength of the deck, a FAST splurge of POWERFUL 3-drops + disruption and flexibility. With Elspeth, you can do both at the same time a bit more reasonably. The only reason someone might frown upon Elspeth is that she's a double white spell that costs 4 and isn't winning you the game or disrupting your opponent on the spot; if you've looked at the list, you'll notice that I'm geared towards beating fair decks while having a fair amount of interaction against various linear unfair strategies.
As for my choices of my creature line-up, majority of it is pretty mainstay until new, better creatures come and take slots away.
Noble Hierarch x 4 & Birds of Paradise x 4:
A lot of people at my LGS and friends always told me that I should play 7 dorks. Even some pros remain at 7. I think that is a mistake to some degree when playing Knight of the Reliquary. Your entire strategy is reliant on how explosive you can be as well as how well you can recover from heavy removal decks. There is an argument that you should play 7 dorks because you don't want to top deck a Birds of Paradise in the later stages of the game. You aren't a deck like Abzan Company that has inevitability. You are a FAIR deck regardless of whether or not you play Retreat to Coralhelm, and so you need the best possible chances at facilitating your game plan. Also, the abilities on them are important. Noble Hierarch is, for all things fair, an unfair card. It turns Turn-2 into Turn-3, can make more than 1 color, and gives exalted. What? It changes your clock into something unimaginably faster where if you had no exalted, would lose because you're short damage or you can't punch through blockers. Flying on birds is really good late game because you play Knight of the Reliquary. Other decks that play birds can't take advantage of that stat even if they have Gavony Township. You, however, have Kessig Wolf Run; killing someone with a 0/1 flying mana dork becomes an ACTUAL line you can consider. That's nuts. Lol.
Knight of the Reliquary x 4:
She's probably the best card in the deck. She blocks like a Champ, the biggest creature on the field (4/4, 6/6, 9/9, 12/12? lol), has like a gajilion abilities stapled onto it, and is a color fixing mana-rock play maker that enables lines you otherwise wouldn't have. All of this at 3 mana that can be played off a dork or at instant speed with CoCo once you have 4 mana available. However, she is a bit slow and can be hampered by graveyard hate but with love and care, she rewards you when built around correctly and played optimally. She is the Queen of midrange. Can also combo kill with Retreat to Coralhelm, not a trivial fact!
Spell Queller x 4:
Probably the second best card in the deck. Spell Queller is among the best 3 drop creatures in modern in my opinion because of its stats (Flash, Flying, Exile spell 4cmc or less? KEK) as well as it's ability to interact with EVERY SINGLE DECK IN THE FORMAT. It's balanced because it dies to bolt and most prominent removal but imagine this--Spell Queller, 1U1W1Colorless, Flash Flying, Exile spell 4CMC or less, 3/4. Thank God that's not real.
Courser of Kruphix x 2 & Tireless Tracker x 3:
The Tireless Trackers were an innovation made popular by Steve Rubin and his leading success with the deck. These 2 cards are what make Knightfall a consistent deck. CoCo is powerful but relying on it to win games all the time isn't a successful plan. The deck needs to win with ALL of it's cards, not just a playset of 1 or 2 cards. The card advantage is SO real that against fair decks that, a lot of the time it's almost impossible for them to grind because you just draw way more cards than they can answer, while at the same time you're making a creature that can 1 shot them. Also, revealing the top card of your deck in conjunction with clues as well as Knight of the Reliquary and Fetch lands allow you play out games without being at the mercy of the top of your deck.
Vendilion Clique x 1:
In retrospect, I wish I played at least 2. Spell Queller is an unbelievably POWERFUL magic card, but you only have 4 copies, and while CoCo is amazing at finding your creatures, often times it's not enough and you lose because you can't answer their spells (either the Spell Queller is untimely, or you can't exile it because it's 5+ CMC). With Clique however, you can just strip them of that card (so long as it's not an instant and have the mana available) and play around their hand. I can't reiterate enough the semi-obvious point; modern is a wide format. Being able to have cards that are POTENT interaction, like Spell Queller or Vendilion Clique, in EVERY match is very powerful. Planning, understanding the format, and great deck building are important parts of a great player, but cards that offer information, like Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and the recently banned Gitaxian Probe, and rip some form of advantage should just be played. G/B/x variants are the most popular and powerful midrange decks in the format. I mean look at Death's Shadow Jund, it has like 8+ discard spells! It's fuqn NUTS. The fact you can disrupt your opponents game plan while advancing your board state AS WELL as clocking your opponent in the air for 3 is pretty good. With as many mana dorks as this, 10 fetch lands, and the power of the Knight of the Reliquary, getting access to blue is not hard; it's casting cost is only expensive when you have to fetch shock twice for it.
Selfless Spirit x 2:
It fell short on my expectations of it. The only important stat on it is it's flying and being able to clock your opponent unimpeded, or chump block. It's ability to make combat math difficult and give your team indestructible is great, but does not happen as often as I'd like. It has it's place post-board against fair interactive decks, but other than that the only reason as to why you'd want it in your deck is for interesting lines and outs to particular scenarios, or it's ability to fly.
Voice of Resurgence x 2:
What can I say? I didn't get to even cast it. lol. I think that voice is excellent, and if you were to cut a bird I would suggest you add a 3rd Voice in it's place. It's just so good at disrupting fair blue-based decks as well as giving your G/B/x opens a hard time by making them wonder why they're playing G/B/x midrange. It's an incredible chump blocker on the ground as well!
Scavenging Ooze x 2:
I feel like I dodged a bullet at the tournament because I didn't have to stress about graveyard decks. Unfortunately, the Scavenging Ooze was either a 1 or a 10 because of its narrow interaction completely predicated on the graveyard. Other than that, it is a 2/2 bear that hits for 5+ with an Elspeth. I guess that's fine? lol
Qasali Pridemage x 2:
In an open metagame, this card is just unbelievable. It covers all your bases, beats in for 3+, or makes your other creatures get through blockers and improves your clock. All that, and it's a great CoCo hit. Against Ad Nauseam I had 2 of these on the field and I shut my opponent out of his win condition. Ad Nauseam is a deck that relies on Angel's Grace or Phyrexian Unlife to win the game. If you have a Qasali Pridemage on the board, they are literally relying on their other win condition to win. In my round 6, I might have won my game 3 against scapeshift had I not foolishly sideboarded out Qasali Pridemage and not Scavenging Ooze which would have locked me into top 8, with presumably 6-0-2 (2 ID at worse case), and the best tiebreakers in the entire tournament.
As for my reason to take out the combo, if you pay attention to how you're winning most of your games, you're probably winning through straight up disruption and beat down by an indomitable board state. I'm very well versed with the combo because I goldfish it like, every day (lol), I just wanted to capitalize on the decks value-town play alongside its disruption. I honestly don't believe playing with or without it is wrong at all. There were some cases, however, that I wish I had it but looking back to those games, being a better player and not playing poorly could have easily won me those games as well. I think if you're playing with the combo you need to make sacrifices in mainboard deck building that just adds another level of complexity to building a CoCo deck (which is already a limitation). That constraint may be insurmountable for some people to overcome (in my case, I decided to play at the tournament the night before registration), but with a good chunk of time and comfort, it may be entirely correct to play Retreat to Coralhelm. I mean, if you just take the Retreat out, you can afford to play more Trackers, planeswalkers, and other goodies that ease the pain of deck building a CoCo deck whose combo isn't a creature combo. With Retreat, you have to consider playing Spellskite and other stuff if you want to play the combo. Not that either of the two is more favorable than the other, rather a preference of what you think you will do well with given your mind state and meta (area you're playing at).
TL;DR I just felt, at that current time, that playing without the combo would do me justice as opposed to playing with the combo. Maybe I might feel the same way a couple of Monday Night Modern(s), or FNM(s) later, or I might entirely switch back to combo. I just thought that I would do better without it for this particular event than I would with it.
Spell Queller is fuqn beast. lol. The combo can be put in the sideboard in the 75 so you can bring the combo in against the blazing fast combo decks.
Notes: I tried a three of Tireless Tracker and I quickly cut this down to a two of. My reasoning is that Tracker doesn’t really help dig for answers all too well due to how expensive clue tokens are. While Tracker is probably our best wincon, he’s slow. Against most of the meta, we already tend to be favored the longer the game goes. Thereby, I think that we don’t need that many slow cards. Thereby, I’ve started to replace tracker with Courser of Kruphix as it helps us block and helps us grind. That said, I’m still leaving in a Tireless Tracker as, once again, it generates so much card advantage that it’s almost impossible to lose if he sticks and we’re not too far behind.
I want to try a main board Blessed Alliance. Bant Eldrazi sometimes runs it main and we can better utilize the card. I feel like I run into the problem of not enough removal or too little life when I finally stabilize a little too often. Blessed Alliance helps solve that problem.
Lastly, I finally noticed something rather obvious recently. For awhile, I’ve noticed that I tend to win games 2-3 but lose game 1. I just ignored this fact, but there is a reason for it. Knightfall is first and foremost a tempo, borderline control deck. This means that we try our best to win game 1, but, frequently enough, we have to rely on winning games two and three with our about 8ish sideboard cards. Thereby, against most linear decks, we are not favored game 1. Now, enter Retreat to Coralhelm. This card is by far my least favorite in the entire deck as it is a major tempo loss. However, the combo provides us with a way to be a linear deck game 1. Post-board, we side into the eight-ish cards that let us play a nice fair game of magic, but, pre-board, frequently enough, we need a way to goldfish or we will be goldfished.