MTG Salvation

The deck looks good. I wouldn't play reflector mage main but I know some people do, and when he's good, he's great. The deck is very weak to GY stuff like you said, so I don't mind the bojuka bog in the board. I could also see playing 1 more scooze main to help against GY decks. Scooze is rarely great in this deck, but it's usually serviceable.

I played a 1-of stirring wildwood in my manabase last friday, and it was pretty solid. Sometimes you get in a situation with Knight where you don't want your colorless utility lands because you don't have many colored sources, and you don't want to sac a shockland since you only run 1 of each, so you're not really sure what to get. Stirring Wildwood was great in that situation, which comes up often. I replaced the botanical sanctum since you don't need much blue in the deck. Having it as your only colored source on t1 sucks though. I haven't hit that situation yet.

My last two FNMs with this deck has been 4-0 and 4-0. This deck is great, and so much fun.

So... I'm gonna cut Retreats for Jace. Card is obviously nuts and is likely gonna be the best card in the format. The race is on to find the best Jace deck out there. We might as well throw ourselves in with the rest of them.

Played Knightfall last weekend in GP Toronto going 5-3. Sadly picked up my 3rd loss in the last round of day 1, eliminating me from playing day 2, but I felt that overall the deck was performing well, though I think I let my list become a little too weak to burn (2 of my 3 losses).

Here is the list I played. I've been on 6 dorks for a long time and feel that it works well. Thalia H.C. was a great maindeck addition in quite a few matchups, I usually run Mindcensor or Ramunap Excavator that slot, but felt that Thalia would be e benefit in slowing down some decks I was worried about such as Humans (which I didn't even play against in the end). It ended up being a pretty powerful card vs. BGx and Pyromancer decks even when it only stuck for a turn or two. I ended up playing Moorland Haunt over the traditional Gavony due to expecting some grindy matchups like BG and Mardu, it definitely payed off in my grindy games, where gavony would have been pretty dead because of the removal I was facing.

I ended up taking for granted my burn matchup because of the strength some previous builds of mine had in the matchup, slowly my changes over time have made the burn matchup weaker and I wasn't adequately prepared for it or at least didn't draw my good cards vs. my two burn opponents. I'm reassessing the sideboard now to help have better answers to fast aggro, as I felt E.E. was a little slow, often needing me to take a turn off when using it and held me back from advancing my own plan.

I had no byes, so my 8 matchups were as follows:

Burn - Loss 0-2 (0-1)
UR Pyro/Thing - Win 2-0 (1-1)
BG - Win 2-0 (2-1)
Temur Moon - Win 2-1 (3-1)
Abzan - Win 2-0 (4-1)
Eldrazi Tron - Loss 0-2 (4-2)
Ad Nauseam - Win 2-1 (5-2)
Burn - Loss 0-2 (5-3)



With unbanning of Jace, I'm considering trying a build with no Company and more tempo oriented plan with 3-4 Jace(focus on flash creatures, light countermagic w/ knight and retreat), or even a trying to fit both 4 drops (maybe just fitting 2 Jace over a couple creatures in this case for the late game grind)

That's bad luck, man. I think Knightfall is favoured against Burn, with Spell Queller and Scavenging Ooze, and you board in counterspell and Kitchen Finks, too. Congrats on your overall results, though!

I don't think Jace is too scary against our strategy, honestly. And although he isn't a bad addition, I don't think Jace fits great with Knightfall. But that's just my opinion. Time will tell. I'll be playing with maybe more Elspeth Knight-Errants to fly over and snipe Jaces. I'm more worried about Bloodbraid Elf.

I think it's time to say "RIP in Peace" Knightfall </3

The unbanning made me really sad... first of all from a financial position after investing in Knightfall and on the other hand I'm afraid you have to play Jund or get some Jace to compete with the new meta that will evolve. My biggest fear is that the meta will change to stock archetypes like "Midrange=Jund/Jace", "UXx Control", "SuperAggro that loose to anything else".

I feel forced to abandon Bant (or sell my kidneys for JtMS) and play something else. I have a playset Bloodbraid Elf at home and started to build Naya Big Zoo... sadly I only have two kidneys and have to sell some other organs for a playset Tarmogoyf

Sunday I will carry my new beloved deck to the grave... it lived short but was awesome!

Best regards
Some sad dude

I don't believe that Knightfall will die soon.

Jace is just another 4-Mana Planeswalker against which Knightfall was soft to already - either it was Liliana, Gideon Jura or Jace, AoT.
Just the power-level increased, so i'm worried about nothing.

Surely players will run hot on Elf and Jace, but i don't believe it'll warp the meta as heavy as everbody expects - think of Death's Shadow.
Half a year everyone and his mother slammed Shadow's, but after then the Format adapted and nowadays it's not nearly as high presented as before.

I don't think we're dead because it's too early to tell whether or not the META that's evolving to the unbannings will kill us. Jace won't be the actual reason we may or may not die, rather the meta, that is responding to Jace and BBE, is what decides.

One of the hallmarks of this deck is how flexible we are and to be frank, finally Voice of Resurgence is a good card and has strong evidence to be relevant in the meta, at least during the early stages of development of this new meta. We finally have a 2 drop we can reliably have as a 3 or 4 of because Jace decks, BBE (synonymous with Liliana) decks, and Death Shadow decks will be so prominent and have a foothold on the meta. Also, Jace is now giving life to Elspeth, Knight-Errant as an option as well as Geist of Saint Traft to combat these POWERFUL fair decks. They may have Jace, but Elspeth is THE BEST planeswalker killer. We can now embrace the stronger midrange options that Bant has to offer to combat these unbannings; because there will be an uproar of aggro decks we can build our main and SB accordingly. Worship, Voice of Resurgence, Reflector Mage, Courser of Kruphix (having 4 toughness is huge vs. Jace decks that are capitalizing on efficiency by playing Lightning Bolt alongside Path/Push), Kitchen Finks, and the like are ACTUALLY relevant. We can build solid decks opposed to approaching the format with a ragtag group of creatures praying for good match ups in hopes of day 2'ing a GP with CONFIDENCE.

We can also just play Jace ourselves if the circumstances allow us too. Can you imagine manipulating the top of your deck in order to guarantee a solid CoCo? --Lemme just put these 2 Knights on top and... WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT, MY COCO HIT 2 6/6 KNIGHTS WOW lol.

Instead of suggesting that our deck is dead, look towards the opportunities now available for our deck BECAUSE our color combination.

I think we're going to need to adapt, and the best way to do that may be just playing 2-3 Jace ourselves. Turn 3 Jace from us will make it pretty rough for any midrange/combo deck. If that's the case, I think we go straight Bant, drop red entirely, add a basic Island (and enough basics to get Knight to 20/20 naturally). I'd probably also play 1-2 Vendillion Clique since we'd need double blue anyway and Clique is just a great card.

I know many of you are intrigued by the mindsculpter unban, but it's honestly a great thing for this deck.

I have no idea how this will impact the meta. I'm hopeful that it will slow down just a tad which will be incredibly beneficial for us.

Also, we WILL be running Jace The Wallet Sculpter. Feel free to wait till the reprint to get your (at least two) copies, but know now that it WILL be happening. So, let's talk about why.

Remember when Nahiri was everywhere and Eli Kassis can a Knightfall Nahiri list? One of the strengths of that list was that it could turn a late game bird into a relevant card. Jace the Wallet Sculpter plays a similar role.

One of my favorite things about Knightfall is that it basically has an out to everything. The problem, however, is that you don't always draw it. Jacestorm doesn't quite solve this problem, but it does assist a lot with finding the less-ofs in our deck.

We have been playing Reflector mage as a 0-4 of for the past bit. As great as reflector mage (it's won me quite a few matches), I can't help but to feel it's a little underwhelming. Jace plays a somewhat similar role which leaves us more impactful three drops.

Many of us have adopted playing Nissa in the sideboard for slower matchups. I cannot stress enough how much better Jace is. This is an easy switch.

Lastly, Jace is going to be played the most "fairly" when he's played in control as he will be harder to defend and whatnot. Honestly, our deck can abuse him incredibly well. Playing him on turn three after a voice, knight, or courser almost garuntees we untap with him.

In conclusion, I was very furious with wizards for messing up my favorite format, but I actually think they made blue a playable color. As we already found blue a decent, albeit, slightly weak color, we stand to gain a lot from this unban. Therefore, this is a good, albeit wallet sculpting thing.

I know it sounds crazy, but what if we just drop CoCo altogether for Jace? HEAR ME OUT!

What's good against Jace? 3 cmc flash creatures like Spell Queller and Vendilion Clique.

What's good with 4 mana planeswalkers? 3 CMC creatures like Spell Queller, Vendilion Clique, and Reflector mage.

So if we just cut the CoCos for some 4 cmc walkers, we could have one of the best Jace decks in the format because out setup is so great (mana dorks and 3cmc flash creatues). Here's a potential list:

4 Noble
3 Birds
2 Scooze
3 VoR
4 Knight
4 Spell Queller
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Courser of Kruphix

3 JtMS
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant

4 Path
2 retreat
2 Remand
1 D-Sphere

23 Lands

Having Jace in the deck makes our combo potential must better IMO. It searches deeper for a retreat, and shuffles them away when we don't need them. Also, we can probably run like 10 fetches along with Knight activations to optimize jace brainstorms. And we still have courser for maximum Jace value. There are a few flex spots like the remands and D-sphere. Remands fit the curve well when you don't have a mana dork, and D-sphere is a catch-all. I also think fitting more flash threats int here like Aven mindcensor or Resto Angel could be good.

I know cutting Coco is heresy, but let's be real: Coco DOES have a failrate, and an active Jace will generate more value in two turns then your best possible coco hits. So I think Jace's floor is higher than coco, and his ceiling.

Because CoCo whiffs so much, I've seriously considered dropping it for something more consistent (Vizier of the Menagerie, Uncage the Menagerie, more planeswalkers like Gideon, etc.). So this isn't such an unheard of idea. However, even in your post, you yourself are mentioning the reason why CoCo is so good: it gives creatures Flash. I take it for granted, but playing CoCo to go six-deep in search for the Spell Queller is my go-to move. So, I don't think the deck necessarily gets better without CoCo; it might be worse. In the new era of Jace, you can CoCo in 2 creatures on his turn 4, then swing and kill Jace.

The concept of more Flash creatures in Knightfall is something I've played with a lot as well (I used to like playing with 2 Aven Mindcensors for this reason, so I could hold 3 mana to threaten Spell Queller, but if opponent passes, I can play something like Mindcensor or Clique on their turn). I think Bant Company is well positioned against planeswalkers, honestly. However, it's likely the control player won't play their Jace until they can defend it with Paths, etc.

In a vacuum, of course Jace is great in any deck. He can brainstorm and bounce. However, I'm not sure in a matchup against someone with a Jace who has more instants and sweepers, I don't think our Jace is better utilized. Brainstorming for a Retreat and a Knight is not as good as brainstorming for instants and kill spells. That's my 2 cents.

Yes, i assume this deck does want to run 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor in the sideboard.
It's the best possible grind-tool ever available to Bant, so why not run it?

Another note: If the meta shifts towards Jund, Grixis, Jeskai etc. Geist of Saint Traft will become more important to our arsenal - dodging removal, racing combo and control becomes more relevant than flexible answers and value-monsters.

So I've been testing out a Bant Company deck with 2x JTMS and it's so far been working out fantastic. List:

2 Birds
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Scooze
4 Voice
4 Spell Queller
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Courser of Kruphix
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Eternal Witness
1 Geist of Saint Traft

4 Path to Exile
1 Dromoka's Command
4 Collected Company

2 JTMS

23 land

I cut a Bird for Dromoka's Command since I anticipate the format slowing down to where I want to lower my dorks by a hair to make topdecks better. Decks are probably going to lean more towards red-based removal spells so Dromoka's Command will serve as both a counterspell, creature removal, and I also expect an uptick in Blue Moon and Ponza so it can take care of blood moons. I added in 2x Spirit of the Labyrinth in my sideboard which has resulted in instascoops for people who got nailed with coco into Spirit in response to the Brainstorm.

The people I've been playing with so far have been people wanting to play the grindy decks using Jace/BBE, which so far this deck has breezed past them. The core card advantage engines are already extremely powerful, the addition of Jace has put it over the edge. Against BBE decks Collected Company outpaces their removal, the creatures provide more card advantage, and Knight can grab GQ for their manlands. Against Jace decks Spell Queller provides massive tempo swings, CoCo goes under Jace easily, and our creatures are better at defending Jace. A proactive gameplan means Jace is better at closing out games than Jace trying to play catchup in their decks.

I'm going to fiddle with the numbers to run Jace and Retreat together, see how it goes. If people want to start bringing in Jund and UWx control in droves, this deck is going to be very greatly positioned.

@TNDS I don't think you can afford to not play 4 Path to Exile because of the aggressive response the meta will have to the unbannings. You want the most efficient way to combat these decks and Reflector Mage, while very good, won't be able to hold. Also, because of these aggro/combo decks that presumably will run rampant in response to Jace/BBE decks is that Tron and Scapeshift will likely die down because they're quite slow and don't interact at all to these faster decks.

I don't think Retreat is as important as gearing your deck towards pummeling all the fair match ups and being resilient to aggro decks. That said, Retreat is just a freebie so if you want it, keep it in.

@Trasno I don't think Tron will be as prominent as you think it will be because of the early aggressive response the format will have towards the unbannings.

The reason why our deck exists is because of Spell Queller. Playing less Mana dorks decreases our chances of turn 3 Jace, which is complete asinine bull***** lol. Also, Queller + BBE is a non-bo.

@brosterman Playing a traditional Midrange deck in Bant or playing something close to the Bant Stoneforge decks in Legacy of yesteryear won't work because our color combination is still not as strong as the other combinations. We're literally playing 2 of the weakest colors in modern. Also, we don't have Green Sun's Zenith, which is HUGE.

I think Jace is great with CoCo in all honesty (Brainstorm + CoCo? lol ok), so I don't think cutting CoCo for more planeswalkers is worth it UNLESS you change the creature line-up drastically.

@unsterblich856 I don't think you can afford to cut a mana dork because a turn 3 Jace is too powerful to not give yourself the highest opportunity to do so.

Tireless Tracker will always be played with Knight no matter what the meta is. That interaction is so powerful that I can't imagine why you wouldn't include AT LEAST 2. Voice of Resurgence is the truth not the elephant my friend.

I am having success with Bant Company with Jace on cockatrice. Here is my list.

22 Lands
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 island
2 Temple Garden
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Breeding Pool
4 Windswept Heath
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Ghost quarter
1 Gavony Township

28 Creatures
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Voice of Resurgence
1 Qasali pridemage
1 Scavenging ooze
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Reflector Mage
2 Tireless Tracker

Spells
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile

SB
2 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Ethersworn Cannonist
4 Kitchen Finks
1 Worship
2 Negate
2 Unified Will
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant


I like the curve progression of the deck. Mana dork turn 1. Turn 2 have mana for spell queller. If I have no spell queller, I just ramp or cast knight. Turn 3 have company mana up or cast Jace if they have nothing to pressure it. It is just insane value. Love this deck already.

Good work on the Jace lists, everyone. I will be testing some this weekend.

To everyone else dismissing Jace in this deck: The best midrange card ever printed was just unbanned, and is in the colors of our midrange deck. It would be very ignorant to just dismiss him without proper testing. And testing doesn't just include testing vs U/x jace control decks and BBE Jund, there are still other decks out there.

Finally, I think Vendilion Clique should see an uptick in play. It has good play patterns with and against Jace, and if you are including Jace in your lists, I assume you are slightly tweaking your manabase to make double blue easier, thus making Vendilion Clique easier to cast. I know one of the reasons I cut it before was because it's relatively hard to cast without manadorks.

Somebody help me out with this. Because of the unbanning I'm switching from the 4 color version to run Kesing and Statacaster to pure Bant, cutting a bird and adding a Jace main to see how it goes. For those of you running the pure Bant, is it possible for KOTR to do a full 20 pts. of damage on turn 3 given this manna-base while still holding up a land incase you need to protect him with Sejuri Steppe? I've tried again and again and haven't been able to do it, even Ghost Quartering the Island early.
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
3 Forest (Uptick in Blood moon decks)
2 Plains
1 Island
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Sejiri Steppe (Better than Kessig in this meta probably)
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy

Also, this is what I'm currently on. I'm heading to a GP in April. I know we have some time for things to sort out but would love suggestions in the meantime.
Land (22)
1x Breeding Pool
1x Flooded Strand
4x Forest
1x Gavony Township
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Island
3x Misty Rainforest
2x Plains
1x Sejiri Steppe
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath

Enchantment (2)
2x Retreat to Coralhelm

Creature (27)
3x Birds of Paradise
1x Courser of Kruphix
1x Eternal Witness
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Scavenging Ooze
2x Selfless Spirit
4x Spell Queller
2x Tireless Tracker
2x Voice of Resurgence

Instant (8)
4x Collected Company
4x Path to Exile

Planeswalker (1)
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard (15)
1x Aven Mindcensor
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
1x Fracturing Gust
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Kataki, War's Wage
2x Kitchen Finks
1x Negate
1x Nissa, Steward of Elements
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Settle the Wreckage
1x Stony Silence
2x Unified Will

Quote from brosterman »

Good work on the Jace lists, everyone. I will be testing some this weekend.

To everyone else dismissing Jace in this deck: The best midrange card ever printed was just unbanned, and is in the colors of our midrange deck. It would be very ignorant to just dismiss him without proper testing. And testing doesn't just include testing vs U/x jace control decks and BBE Jund, there are still other decks out there.

Finally, I think Vendilion Clique should see an uptick in play. It has good play patterns with and against Jace, and if you are including Jace in your lists, I assume you are slightly tweaking your manabase to make double blue easier, thus making Vendilion Clique easier to cast. I know one of the reasons I cut it before was because it's relatively hard to cast without manadorks.

Jace will see play in Bant Knightfall, but i'm tending to run it out of the sideboard simply because it's the best grind-walker this deck will have access to. I'm still on the train that Retreat to Corallhelm will stick in the deck - yesterday i won a game against Griselbrand-Combo, where i mulled down to 5 and just had a Birds of Paradise, Retreat and 3 lands. I couldn't afford to mull down further, so i kept.

In the end my enemy breached in a Worldspine Wurm, which i tapped down. Then the 3 5/5 trample tokens took me down to 3(!). Next turn i stabilized whereas i've scryed Path to exile on top. I drew it and had Tireless Tracker in game (already a 4/3). The first Token got tapped down by a fetchland (down to 2), the 2nd path'd and the third was blocked by tracker. Crack a Clue, damage and i'm down to 1.

I stabilized with Scavenging Ooze which i took off of Company. This game convinced my once more that Retreat is still fine. Combo and aggro will remain archetypes after the release of BBE and Jace - so we are nowhere in a dead spot.

Much worse for our deck is the vastly uptick in Bogles, Mardu Pyromancer and Griselbrand Combo. I fought all three in the last couple of weeks and it ws pretty tough.