If we talk about 2 different decks, I absolutely agree with the analysis. But by comparing the new Bant interation with the Abzan deck, I don't see the reasoning behing playing blue instead of black.
I believe the Vizier combo doesn't really fit into Knightfall. The new Abzan Company versions are mainly a combo deck and can outgrind the opponent sometimes. However, Knightfall imo is a creature-toolbox deck that works more like a tempo/midrange deck that has the option to combo off if the pieces come together. Retreat also feels like a "natural" card in the deck, whereas the Druid/Vizier package seems to be isolated from the rest of the deck.
Bothe decks may be CoCo decks, but their gameplan is totally different. Also, giving up on Path to Exile is something I am very sceptical about, I think the removal is needed more in our deck than another tutor.
Both of them are obviously way better players than I am, so I might be wrong with my assumptions, but I feel like the new version is mainly a result of the hype around the new combo and we will see more of the "classic" list in the future.
Here's where I disagree with you that the gameplans don't fit together:
1) you yourself said that Knightfall is, to some degree, a toolbox deck. The Vizier version actually does fit into that plan by allowing us to play Chord of Calling. In my opinion, if there is a version of this build that is worth running it will be one that balances the combo plan with the toolbox plan.
2) Knight of the Reliquary fits quite naturally into the combo plan as well by offering a chance to tutor Kessig Wolf-Run for infinite damage. It's not quite as good in the mana outlet slot as Duskwatch Recruiter or Rhonas, but it's an independently powerful card as well and here it has even more applications than elsewhere. Some Naya Vizier lists that are floating out there are in fact running Knight of the Reliquary for these reasons.
This being said, going for two copies of Vizier seems like a good way to play that combo without being all-in on it. Harsh Mentor does seem great against opposing Vizier decks.
Note the horrendous mislabeling as "Counters Company". I don't understand how that name gained traction despite the majority of the community hating it.
our two drops are great? im not sure why people think otherwise. Voice and ooze are both great in this DS format. the only 2 drop im medium on is selfless spirit but it serves a very specific purpose
Our 2-drops are good utility, but they don't contribute to the combo plan in any way, and aren't heavy hitters like our 3-drop slot. This is totally fine, mind you, and Knightfall is doing great as a deck with a mix of utility, grindy beatdown and an occasional combo.
...But (and keep in mind I'm mostly theorycrafting here because I don't have testing results) there may be matchups where the linear combo plan offered by Druid/Vizier might be more proactively powerful, and that's uninteractive decks such as Tron, Ad Nauseam, maybe Dredge and Storm? Most of our 2-drops are usually useless in these matchups.
There is the obvious exception of Scooze vs. Storm and of course vs. Dredge, which makes me think we should run one Scooze in the main to find with Chord. Pridemage is decent against Ad Nauseam but not amazing.
I'd be interested to see if the Vizier version can perform in those matchups. It's possible it's just not worth it and we should all be sticking to the tried and true list. All I'm saying is don't write this version off just yet.
Skuttlespike/JetpackBlues thanks for the stream, I really enjoyed it and look forward to watching more.
I honestly don't share your negative outlook on the Knightfall/Vizier mash-up you were playing. I think it has legs with a few tweaks. The second match against UW looked winnable (if slightly worse than traditional Knightfall), and I think the match against Green Devotion could have gone differently with a Ghost Quarter in the list (though note this is probably a bad match-up for traditional Knightfall in general. We don't care though because Green Devotion is probably a tier 3 deck at best!)
I also don't know about more Birds over Nobles; I feel Noble is probably the best card in the deck. I say that with the full knowledge that fewer birds would make having Red for Wolf Run more awkward, but the Exalted is just so powerful. Overall threatening the combo seems pretty powerful. I wouldn't give up on the build yet.
I'd also say the card I'm most curious about is the new Nissa. It's a high bar for non-creatures in our deck not called Path/CoCo/Retreat, but potentially hitting a 3-drop or a utility land each turn seems like it could be good enough.
I don't know how valuable 3-0s are but I've been winning with this list week after week so here it is:
Creatures:
Noble Hierarch x 4
Birds of Paradise x 4
Knight of the Reliquary x 4
Spell Queller x 4
Tireless Tracker x 3
Voice of Resurgence x 3
Selfless Spirit x 2
Spellskite x 1
Scavenging Ooze x 2
Qasali Pridemage x 2
Spells:
Path to Exile x 4
Collected Company x 4
Retreat to Coralhelm x 2
Lands:
Windswept Heath x 4
Misty Rainforest x 4
Flooded Strand x 2
Breeding Pool x 2
Temple Garden x 1
Sacred Foundry 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
Sideboard:
Reflector mage x 2
Kitchen Finks x 2
Izzet Staticaster x 1
Vendilion Clique x 1
Gaddock Teeg x 1
Eldritch evolution x 1
Blessed Alliance x 1
Unified Will x 2
Negate x 2
Worship x 2
This deck and all it's Variants is FUQN awesome lol.
Am I reading it wrong or do you play 61 cards? If so why? Either way, my list is pretty similar and I agree, the deck feels great. Spellskite is underrated IMO. Sure it's bad against Kolaghan's command but really great at protecting our must-kill threats.
How has unified will performed for you vs elder tron? I've always felt weird about bringing it in, seems pretty rough if they land their creatures early and often, but i understand how its huge when they try to land the big big stuff. I've really struggled vs eldrazi tron myself honestly, maybe just need more reps.
It's been a bomb for me every time. Even on their most creature-heavy draws we tend to have more than them, and it's a life-saver against Ugin and All is Dust while still having the flexibility to work against a TKS or Reality Smasher. Besides with only two copies we're not overloading on them.
On this Rhonas vs. Walking Ballista debate,there are too many scenarios where Rhonas can't end the game to make that worth having one additional Coco hit. Examples: Ensnaring Bridge, Ad Nauseam, Angel's grace ( Ballista kills them the next turn). Not to mention that Ballista is by no means a bad card on its own. Ask Standard players!
Agreed, I don't think Rhonas is where we want to be in the current builds. I think it's possible to come up with a build that takes full advantage of Rhonas, though. I think such a build would have 4 Goyf and maybe some number of Stubborn Denial, possibly a Dromoka's Command. I don't know if it would be any good, but I do think it's possible.
On a sidenote, after playing against Grixis Shadow last night (got wrecked by mana-flooding both games, but managed to beat him after that in a game for fun), I've decided to up my Voice count from 2 to 3, and considering going to 4. Voice is great against them. Also, Reflector Mage is a beast.
Good points. I assumed there would be a valid reason for it, I just wasn't sure what it was. Thanks!
I should add that in spite of what I said, Dispel IS reasonable, I used to run 1 copy myself but I've opted for 2 Negate instead.
On a different note, your article (nice article, by the way) notes that Knightfall has a favorable matchup against Death's Shadow, and I've seen that suggestion elsewhere as well. However aside from speculation (my own speculation included), I've never really heard concrete arguments as to why.
Our deck doesn't fear removal (i.e. The majority of instants) because it's built to grind through it. Virtually every creature is must-kill, and we have built-in protection in Spell Queller and Selfless Spirit. We also have numerous card and tempo advantage engines. Eventually something sticks and we end up ahead on board.
As you allude to in that article, combo is a bit of a problem for us, and Negate is the solution to that problem since Dispel doesn't hit the majority of problematic combo cards.
That being said, in a lot of matchups (Valakut, Tron), Unified Will is superior to Negate because it hits creatures.
I personally run 2-2 but I could see myself going up to 3 Will - 1 Negate.
I've been playing bant company without the retreats but i'm thinking about giving them another go, what is the consensus number of 3 drops in the deck? I'm currently at 12 (with reflector mage instead of retreat), is that a normal number or are a lot of lists playing 13-14? I was thinking of playing 4 spell queller, 4 knight, 2 retreat, 2 tracker and a courser. I assume we have to up our mana dork count to 8 if i add in more 3 drops.
I think you can get away with 7 dorks and 13 3-drops. That's what I'm running currently and it seems to work, probably because Modern isn't as fast right now as it has been in the past. If you're playing 14+ 3-drops I would go up to 8 dorks, but I also wouldn't recommend doing that. 7 dorks seems to be the sweet-spot and the point of diminishing returns IMO. Birds are not nearly as good as Hierarchs and adding an extra bird increases the number of hands without action, bad topdecks and makes Coco less consistent.
I think I'm going to drop my fourth Path to Exile for one of the removal creatures just to get my creature count up a tad. does anyone have opinions on Reflector Mage versus Fiend Hunter versus Fairgrounds Warden? I have personally never been a big fan of Reflector Mage as a card, but I see a ton of people running it in knightfall.
On the issue of fetches, it's a much bigger deal to not have misty if you run basic island. Most lists don't and so it doesn't matter, but if you do then misty is far superior to foothills. I don't think you can cover the difference with any other combination of fetches either, since fetching forests is just so important.
I really, REALLY don't recommend it. If any criticism of our deck is valid it's that we run little removal. Replacing path, one of the most useful removal spells in Modern and one that is extremely well-positioned in this meta full of Tasigur, Eldrazi and Death's Shadows, with Reflector Mage isn't going to fix that. Path is a lifesaver so often that it isn't even worth making a list of situations where it's good. It's one of the premier removal spells for a reason. That said, Reflector Mage is great out of the board. I like running 2 mages and 2 Blessed Alliance to basically go from 4 to 8 removal spells where needed. Most lists are not currently running Reflector in the main, but it wouldn't be crazy to run 1-2 main to effectively up our removal count.
IMO the advantages of Bant Vizier relative to Abzan Vizier would be that it is more disruptive (Spell Queller, Reflector Mage, Unified Will), less disruptible (Spell Queller as protection, and less susceptibility to graveyard hate), and has a better beatdown plan (Knight of the Reliquary).
The main downside is less consistency in terms of comboing out. Abzan is definitely better at that.
Here's where I disagree with you that the gameplans don't fit together:
1) you yourself said that Knightfall is, to some degree, a toolbox deck. The Vizier version actually does fit into that plan by allowing us to play Chord of Calling. In my opinion, if there is a version of this build that is worth running it will be one that balances the combo plan with the toolbox plan.
2) Knight of the Reliquary fits quite naturally into the combo plan as well by offering a chance to tutor Kessig Wolf-Run for infinite damage. It's not quite as good in the mana outlet slot as Duskwatch Recruiter or Rhonas, but it's an independently powerful card as well and here it has even more applications than elsewhere. Some Naya Vizier lists that are floating out there are in fact running Knight of the Reliquary for these reasons.
My bad for not knowing
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpkob17/9th-32nd-decklists-2017-05-28
I would say it's too early to tell whether the Vizier version is better or worse than the traditional list, but it's safe to say that it IS viable.
This being said, going for two copies of Vizier seems like a good way to play that combo without being all-in on it. Harsh Mentor does seem great against opposing Vizier decks.
Note the horrendous mislabeling as "Counters Company". I don't understand how that name gained traction despite the majority of the community hating it.
Our 2-drops are good utility, but they don't contribute to the combo plan in any way, and aren't heavy hitters like our 3-drop slot. This is totally fine, mind you, and Knightfall is doing great as a deck with a mix of utility, grindy beatdown and an occasional combo.
...But (and keep in mind I'm mostly theorycrafting here because I don't have testing results) there may be matchups where the linear combo plan offered by Druid/Vizier might be more proactively powerful, and that's uninteractive decks such as Tron, Ad Nauseam, maybe Dredge and Storm? Most of our 2-drops are usually useless in these matchups.
There is the obvious exception of Scooze vs. Storm and of course vs. Dredge, which makes me think we should run one Scooze in the main to find with Chord. Pridemage is decent against Ad Nauseam but not amazing.
I'd be interested to see if the Vizier version can perform in those matchups. It's possible it's just not worth it and we should all be sticking to the tried and true list. All I'm saying is don't write this version off just yet.
I honestly don't share your negative outlook on the Knightfall/Vizier mash-up you were playing. I think it has legs with a few tweaks. The second match against UW looked winnable (if slightly worse than traditional Knightfall), and I think the match against Green Devotion could have gone differently with a Ghost Quarter in the list (though note this is probably a bad match-up for traditional Knightfall in general. We don't care though because Green Devotion is probably a tier 3 deck at best!)
I also don't know about more Birds over Nobles; I feel Noble is probably the best card in the deck. I say that with the full knowledge that fewer birds would make having Red for Wolf Run more awkward, but the Exalted is just so powerful. Overall threatening the combo seems pretty powerful. I wouldn't give up on the build yet.
Am I reading it wrong or do you play 61 cards? If so why? Either way, my list is pretty similar and I agree, the deck feels great. Spellskite is underrated IMO. Sure it's bad against Kolaghan's command but really great at protecting our must-kill threats.
It's been a bomb for me every time. Even on their most creature-heavy draws we tend to have more than them, and it's a life-saver against Ugin and All is Dust while still having the flexibility to work against a TKS or Reality Smasher. Besides with only two copies we're not overloading on them.
On a sidenote, after playing against Grixis Shadow last night (got wrecked by mana-flooding both games, but managed to beat him after that in a game for fun), I've decided to up my Voice count from 2 to 3, and considering going to 4. Voice is great against them. Also, Reflector Mage is a beast.
I should add that in spite of what I said, Dispel IS reasonable, I used to run 1 copy myself but I've opted for 2 Negate instead.
On a different note, your article (nice article, by the way) notes that Knightfall has a favorable matchup against Death's Shadow, and I've seen that suggestion elsewhere as well. However aside from speculation (my own speculation included), I've never really heard concrete arguments as to why.
Anyone care to comment on this point?
As you allude to in that article, combo is a bit of a problem for us, and Negate is the solution to that problem since Dispel doesn't hit the majority of problematic combo cards.
That being said, in a lot of matchups (Valakut, Tron), Unified Will is superior to Negate because it hits creatures.
I personally run 2-2 but I could see myself going up to 3 Will - 1 Negate.
I think you can get away with 7 dorks and 13 3-drops. That's what I'm running currently and it seems to work, probably because Modern isn't as fast right now as it has been in the past. If you're playing 14+ 3-drops I would go up to 8 dorks, but I also wouldn't recommend doing that. 7 dorks seems to be the sweet-spot and the point of diminishing returns IMO. Birds are not nearly as good as Hierarchs and adding an extra bird increases the number of hands without action, bad topdecks and makes Coco less consistent.
I really, REALLY don't recommend it. If any criticism of our deck is valid it's that we run little removal. Replacing path, one of the most useful removal spells in Modern and one that is extremely well-positioned in this meta full of Tasigur, Eldrazi and Death's Shadows, with Reflector Mage isn't going to fix that. Path is a lifesaver so often that it isn't even worth making a list of situations where it's good. It's one of the premier removal spells for a reason. That said, Reflector Mage is great out of the board. I like running 2 mages and 2 Blessed Alliance to basically go from 4 to 8 removal spells where needed. Most lists are not currently running Reflector in the main, but it wouldn't be crazy to run 1-2 main to effectively up our removal count.