I wasn't really planning on commenting on spoilers, but this thread has been rather active, so I thought I'd contribute my 2 cents.
4x Includes in Knightfall Giver of Runes - Who didn't see this one coming? In short, we play a lot of must be killed threats (See Spell Queller and Deputy of Detention) and giving them protection is quite potent. Furthermore, it helps to generate and break up board stalls (something our deck loves). Lastly, I've always been against knightfall being a silver bullet deck (see below). This card might change that notion.
In terms of how to include it, that's a subject I'm a bit more shaky on and, as such, will leave for another day.
Possibly worth playing Collector Ouphe - Stony silence on a stick is going to change how artifact decks have to play. When I look at the 75 of hardened scales, I see ~4x Nature's claim and ~2x Dismember. Simply said, two ways to take this card off the table won't be enough. I don't know if that really means anything to us, but it's something worth keeping in mind.
In terms of knightfall, I don't intend to play this card by default. Between Spell Queller, Deputy of Detention, Giver of Runes, and Knight of Autumn, I think we have enough game that I'm not actually interested in this card as it's just a tad too specific a sideboard call. Of course, this card really is meta-dependent.
Serra the Benevolent - Her plus can be relevant, but generally isn't all that great. Her minus is wonderful, and worship is a card that sometimes just wins the game. Normally, I would say that she is competing with the 1x sideboard grindy card slot, but I think she does a little more than just grind. So, I think it's a possibility.
Probably not worth playing Eladamri's Call - Let me preface this by saying that I can easily see people playing this card, but I am extremely suspicious of if it's right. Naturally, the card will be quite potent against midrange and control decks, but that's a match-up that we're already highly favored against.
So then, why not? When I saw this card, I thought of Eldritch Evolution. Both cards tutor up "anything" (I don't play 4 drops) and I'll occasionally play Evolution in my side. That said, Eldritch Evolution is vastly more efficient in that it puts that creature immediately into play. As modern is a blazing fast format, I value the speed of that card over the added cost it provides. As an example, I need to play a card on turn 2 that interacts with tron (typically Knight of the Reliquary to tutor up ghost quarter, but, if I'm on the play, I can see an argument for something like Knight of Autumn to destroy Expedition Map). Bird into Evolution does this while Eladamri's Call can't. Said in another way, if I'm casting a card that tutors up a creature, that creature needs to provide significant card/tempo advantage, moreso than the loss in card/tempo advantage of spending the extra mana.
This, naturally leads to my second point about how knightfall functions. We are a deck where all our spells are quite potent at 1-1 and 2-1. Hence, it's usually more important for Collected Company to hit 2 creatures than it is for Collected Company to hit two specific creatures. This is further shown in post board games where we side out all the cards that don't achieve the desired 1-1 effect with cards that do (See Unified Will, Negate or whatever else you're playing). Said in a different way, we aren't a silver bullet deck. I wouldn't recommend playing specific answer cards (like Kataki, War's Wage) as our card advantage engine (see Collected Company) usually means that we will be the last one standing if all we do is trade against the unfair decks.
Cards not worth playing: Force of Negation - Currently, we definitely don't have enough blue cards for Force of Negation to be up a significant enough amount of time to warrant playing it. Simply said, we'd have to switch around the numbers to play more blue cards. This just isn't worth it.
Force of Vigor - I am quite glad they printed this card. I think it will do great things for the format, but I doubt I'll ever play it. I've found most of our artifact/enchantment themed decks to be pretty reasonable match-ups. As pointed out earlier with Eladamri's Call, Knightfall is a deck that tends to play cards that try to 1 for 1 and 2 for 1 our opponent. Hence, our deck and our sideboard need to be extremely flexible to enable us to that. Cards, like Spell Queller, Deputy of Detention, Knight of Autumn enable that with a bit more flexibility than Force of Vigor.
Cute things from the set: Tranquil Thicket - Has anyone ever Path to Exiled a Reality Smasher and then used it's trigger to discard a land for more favorable blocks? Well, Tranquil Thicket means you can do that against other decks now. Please don't (but if you're a bit competitive, feel free to subtly mention that this is doable to your opponent).
While I don't fully agree with it's numbers, I like how it plays 3x Deputy and 1x Knight of Autumn
Onto the very important topic of spoiler season. Alright, cards worth mentioning when talking about Knightfall:
Teyo, The Shieldmage - Seems Too Specific. I like having more burn hate, but I'd rather play Knight of Autumn. Hexproof does matter against Thoughtseize, but, if they're casting Thoughtseize, then I'm usually winning the late game and don't need more hate. Hexproof also matters against combo, but usually they side in an answer. Therefore, I'm not going to play him.
Vivien, Champion of the wilds - Not too sure if too cheeky, but always holding up what looks like Queller mana is stupidly strong. Plus, it can come down on turn two, provides real card advantage, and most people suck at doing Knight of the Reliquary + Vigilance math. My concern is that it has stiff competition with the one-of planeswalker in the side spot and, unlike Jace, it doesn't provide an alternative wincon. That said, turn 2 planeswalker is really worth considering.
Narset Partner of Veils - Too few targets but it does only affect opponents. I wouldn't play it by default, but there exists a small and local metagame where I would.
Dovin's Veto - Better than negate but I don't think the white cost is entirely free. Additionally, I'm not too sure that can't be countered is too relevant (or at least as relevant as it is in, for example, U/W control. Most decks side out Negate, Spell Pierce, etc as we are a mostly creature heavy deck. I'll need to think about how relevant can't be countered is compared to my ability to seamlessly have white mana, but I'll be buying some of these as I can definitely see Meta's where I want it.
Ashiok, Dream Render - Grave Hate plus search hate is powerful. I need to think more on this one, though I don't think we will be playing it as it seems just a tad too specific (and slightly competed with the tutorable Bojuka Bog)
And now for the card we really need to think about, Blast Zone. There is heavy competition for colorless lands in my deck, but, simply said, this competes for it. Obviously, we will need to do some extensive testing to learn how to use it. So, why blast zone? Firstly, it isn't a godsend. It's extremely slow and slightly clunky, it'll never deal with Chalice of the void or Tokens, and it requires a lot of mana. Why play it? Because it's a land. Horizon Canopy and Field of Ruin are secretly some of the better cards in our deck because they are tutorable and can "1-1" on a land. Even though blast zone is really awkward because it costs a lot of mana, it adds to that trend in a way few other cards can. Further testing and numbers needed
Lavina's effect is too weak. Obviously, it has the chance to be a blowout, but the average case is hardly doing anything.
On the other hand, Deputy of Detention is something worth main boarding in multiples. Knightfall is really good at grinding but it can struggle against the less interactive and more aggressive decks. Deputy helps to solve that problem. Worth mentioning though, the one power is a pretty major drawback and be weary of instant speed removal on him, albeit you should be used to the removal by now with Spell Queller.
never! gavony is a wincon.. you can play one field in your 75 but not over gavony
It's more like Kessig Wolf Run over Gavony. Kessig provides some reach in a deck that otherwise has none. Township is a stellar card, but Wolf-Run has a more immediate impact and, frequently, is more mana efficient. Modern is too fast to take 2 turns off.
Truly, I wish I could play both (the lack of township brings my mirror win-percentage way down), but there's not enough room.
As to Field of ruin, our deck can ALMOST support three colorless lands. As such, field of ruin works reasonably well as it isn't fully colorless.
Worth mentioning: I don't claim that the wolf run is right (I'm pretty sure it's not), but I will claim that I'm more comfortable with it, and that's a strong enough reason to prefer it
I'm gonna say some pretty heretical things, so please at least hear me out...
...Retreat to Coralhelm sucks right now, and has sucked for a while.
As someone who has been reading the thread sporadically (and hasn't built the deck yet), would you mind elaborating on this? I don't think your wrong, but I'm curious specifically what reasons make Coralhelm weak right now.
In the games I've played it's pretty lackluster, and often times I wished it were something else. With the rise of control and midrange, I don't think a 3 mana enchantment that doesn't affect the board is where you want to be.
From what I've seen, Kelvin Chew has also dropped retreat and he is the biggest pro who plays this deck
What do you guys think of those 2 Meddling Mage main ?
Knightfall has always been first and foremost a value/tempo deck. That said, not all our value/tempo cards align with what our opponent is doing (see scavenging ooze against Tron). To solve this problem, traditionally, we played retreat to coralhelm. However, since Jace was unbanned, some players, like Kelvin Chew and myself, have eschewed playing retreat in favor of Jace. Jace both helps solve the answers aligning with threats problem that is probably this deck's greatest weakness as well as not being a loss in tempo (see drawing retreat without a knight).
However, knightfall still needs a little boost for combo matchups like storm. To assist with this problem, some of us started playing meddling mage as it enables us to interact with decks in a tempo/value way that we still need to do so against. In other words, we are trying to go even deeper on the tempo/value plan as meddling mage let's us fight "fairly" against decks that normally ignore this plan entirely.
That said, Meddling Mage still somewhat suffers from the retreat to coralhelm problem as it all too frequently is an almost vanilla 2 mana 2/2 that is pretty taxing on the manabase. The big bonus though is that it can be hit off of company.
TLDR: Jace allows for a greater degree of consistency which allows us to vary our answers to other decks. Meddling mage is a great way to vary our answers
This weekend, I went to GP Memphis just to play in the modern side events. I played 15 rounds (5, 3-round semi-casual tournaments) and went 13-1-1 with Kevin Chew's recent MTGO list almost card for card (I was short one SB Jace and, at first refused to run two worships). My loss came from 5-C Humans and it convinced me that Kevin Chew was right about running two worships.
Noteworthy points: I've been reading through the comments and it seems that there is a disagreement on if we will be running Jace (especially when compared to other walkers). The answer is yes (albeit, your budget might convince you to play Gideon). Knightfall has, traditionally, been a deck that has an answer to pretty much every other deck in the format. However, the problem is that it doesn't always draw it. The biggest reason to play Jace is because he greatly helps fix that problem. This, combined with the fact that we play so many good-at-keeping-Jace-alive creatures means our Jace is quite possibly better than most other Jaces. As a bonus, Vendilion Clique is a pretty powerful card and it feels great to play it main.
Of course, playing Jace comes with three major drawbacks, no Kessig Wolf Run, no Retreat to coralhelm, and a different manabase (10 fetches plus 7 fetchable lands makes Knight less likely to activate his ability and more likely to just attack). That said, I wouldn't dream of switching back as the inclusion of Jace trumps these points.
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.
Any suggestions to beat Eldrazi and taxes running the traditional Knightfall list?
We are a pretty notoriously terrible matchup for them. We outsize them, we have better card advantage with coco, and it's hard to lock our mana because Thalia, guardian of thraben doesn't do much and we have lots of mana dorks. In other words, we tend to have a better late game, and they struggle at being the aggro deck. That said, this isn't a for sure matchup. However, if you keep Eldrazi Displaced off the board, it doesn't take too much to stabilize, and then win.
Basically, keep in mind that Walking Ballista is a threat, try to be ready for All is dust, and realize that we are the aggressive deck (they're not very good at killing us too quickly). They're fairly threat light so Path to Exile, Reflector Mage and a large swinging Knight of the Reliquary ends the game quickly.
I finally got around to playing Bant Humans and, well, I won't be playing traditional Knightfall for the next while. The deck cuts a little bit of the midrange grind (like lifegain) for a lot more aggression. Essentially, instead of playing powerful answers (like Scavenging ooze for yards), the deck plays cards that buy time (like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Reflector mage). This time is used to make your opponets lifetotal low with your Champion of the parish before they do much of anything. This increase in aggression helps out stupendously. Tonight, I managed to out aggro elves (something I could pretty much never do with knightfall).
Let's break it down a little further. Modern is a format where you kinda need some way to goldfish. Humans can do that a little better than knightfall. The deck, by it's nature, is a bit more linear. Of course, this opens the deck up to a little more hate (namely Anger of the Gods), but, typically, you're still going to win the too deck war.
So, it seems that I'm going to be on it for the next while.
4x Includes in Knightfall
Giver of Runes - Who didn't see this one coming? In short, we play a lot of must be killed threats (See Spell Queller and Deputy of Detention) and giving them protection is quite potent. Furthermore, it helps to generate and break up board stalls (something our deck loves). Lastly, I've always been against knightfall being a silver bullet deck (see below). This card might change that notion.
In terms of how to include it, that's a subject I'm a bit more shaky on and, as such, will leave for another day.
Possibly worth playing
Collector Ouphe - Stony silence on a stick is going to change how artifact decks have to play. When I look at the 75 of hardened scales, I see ~4x Nature's claim and ~2x Dismember. Simply said, two ways to take this card off the table won't be enough. I don't know if that really means anything to us, but it's something worth keeping in mind.
In terms of knightfall, I don't intend to play this card by default. Between Spell Queller, Deputy of Detention, Giver of Runes, and Knight of Autumn, I think we have enough game that I'm not actually interested in this card as it's just a tad too specific a sideboard call. Of course, this card really is meta-dependent.
Soulherder - This card seems to be the payoff that a flicker deck was looking for. I don't think that deck will play Knight of the Reliquary, I wanted to give it a shout out because I look forward to brewing with it, Collected Company, Eternal Witness, Reflector Mage, and possibly Coiling Oracle.
Serra the Benevolent - Her plus can be relevant, but generally isn't all that great. Her minus is wonderful, and worship is a card that sometimes just wins the game. Normally, I would say that she is competing with the 1x sideboard grindy card slot, but I think she does a little more than just grind. So, I think it's a possibility.
Probably not worth playing
Eladamri's Call - Let me preface this by saying that I can easily see people playing this card, but I am extremely suspicious of if it's right. Naturally, the card will be quite potent against midrange and control decks, but that's a match-up that we're already highly favored against.
So then, why not? When I saw this card, I thought of Eldritch Evolution. Both cards tutor up "anything" (I don't play 4 drops) and I'll occasionally play Evolution in my side. That said, Eldritch Evolution is vastly more efficient in that it puts that creature immediately into play. As modern is a blazing fast format, I value the speed of that card over the added cost it provides. As an example, I need to play a card on turn 2 that interacts with tron (typically Knight of the Reliquary to tutor up ghost quarter, but, if I'm on the play, I can see an argument for something like Knight of Autumn to destroy Expedition Map). Bird into Evolution does this while Eladamri's Call can't. Said in another way, if I'm casting a card that tutors up a creature, that creature needs to provide significant card/tempo advantage, moreso than the loss in card/tempo advantage of spending the extra mana.
This, naturally leads to my second point about how knightfall functions. We are a deck where all our spells are quite potent at 1-1 and 2-1. Hence, it's usually more important for Collected Company to hit 2 creatures than it is for Collected Company to hit two specific creatures. This is further shown in post board games where we side out all the cards that don't achieve the desired 1-1 effect with cards that do (See Unified Will, Negate or whatever else you're playing). Said in a different way, we aren't a silver bullet deck. I wouldn't recommend playing specific answer cards (like Kataki, War's Wage) as our card advantage engine (see Collected Company) usually means that we will be the last one standing if all we do is trade against the unfair decks.
Cards not worth playing:
Force of Negation - Currently, we definitely don't have enough blue cards for Force of Negation to be up a significant enough amount of time to warrant playing it. Simply said, we'd have to switch around the numbers to play more blue cards. This just isn't worth it.
Force of Vigor - I am quite glad they printed this card. I think it will do great things for the format, but I doubt I'll ever play it. I've found most of our artifact/enchantment themed decks to be pretty reasonable match-ups. As pointed out earlier with Eladamri's Call, Knightfall is a deck that tends to play cards that try to 1 for 1 and 2 for 1 our opponent. Hence, our deck and our sideboard need to be extremely flexible to enable us to that. Cards, like Spell Queller, Deputy of Detention, Knight of Autumn enable that with a bit more flexibility than Force of Vigor.
Cute things from the set:
Tranquil Thicket - Has anyone ever Path to Exiled a Reality Smasher and then used it's trigger to discard a land for more favorable blocks? Well, Tranquil Thicket means you can do that against other decks now. Please don't (but if you're a bit competitive, feel free to subtly mention that this is doable to your opponent).
Of course, who knows where the format will be?
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-bant-company-73599#paper
While I don't fully agree with it's numbers, I like how it plays 3x Deputy and 1x Knight of Autumn
Onto the very important topic of spoiler season. Alright, cards worth mentioning when talking about Knightfall:
Teyo, The Shieldmage - Seems Too Specific. I like having more burn hate, but I'd rather play Knight of Autumn. Hexproof does matter against Thoughtseize, but, if they're casting Thoughtseize, then I'm usually winning the late game and don't need more hate. Hexproof also matters against combo, but usually they side in an answer. Therefore, I'm not going to play him.
Vivien, Champion of the wilds - Not too sure if too cheeky, but always holding up what looks like Queller mana is stupidly strong. Plus, it can come down on turn two, provides real card advantage, and most people suck at doing Knight of the Reliquary + Vigilance math. My concern is that it has stiff competition with the one-of planeswalker in the side spot and, unlike Jace, it doesn't provide an alternative wincon. That said, turn 2 planeswalker is really worth considering.
Narset Partner of Veils - Too few targets but it does only affect opponents. I wouldn't play it by default, but there exists a small and local metagame where I would.
Dovin's Veto - Better than negate but I don't think the white cost is entirely free. Additionally, I'm not too sure that can't be countered is too relevant (or at least as relevant as it is in, for example, U/W control. Most decks side out Negate, Spell Pierce, etc as we are a mostly creature heavy deck. I'll need to think about how relevant can't be countered is compared to my ability to seamlessly have white mana, but I'll be buying some of these as I can definitely see Meta's where I want it.
Ashiok, Dream Render - Grave Hate plus search hate is powerful. I need to think more on this one, though I don't think we will be playing it as it seems just a tad too specific (and slightly competed with the tutorable Bojuka Bog)
Dovin, Hand of control - I'm pretty sure it's a worse Thalia...
And now for the card we really need to think about, Blast Zone. There is heavy competition for colorless lands in my deck, but, simply said, this competes for it. Obviously, we will need to do some extensive testing to learn how to use it. So, why blast zone? Firstly, it isn't a godsend. It's extremely slow and slightly clunky, it'll never deal with Chalice of the void or Tokens, and it requires a lot of mana. Why play it? Because it's a land. Horizon Canopy and Field of Ruin are secretly some of the better cards in our deck because they are tutorable and can "1-1" on a land. Even though blast zone is really awkward because it costs a lot of mana, it adds to that trend in a way few other cards can. Further testing and numbers needed
On the other hand, Deputy of Detention is something worth main boarding in multiples. Knightfall is really good at grinding but it can struggle against the less interactive and more aggressive decks. Deputy helps to solve that problem. Worth mentioning though, the one power is a pretty major drawback and be weary of instant speed removal on him, albeit you should be used to the removal by now with Spell Queller.
It's more like Kessig Wolf Run over Gavony. Kessig provides some reach in a deck that otherwise has none. Township is a stellar card, but Wolf-Run has a more immediate impact and, frequently, is more mana efficient. Modern is too fast to take 2 turns off.
Truly, I wish I could play both (the lack of township brings my mirror win-percentage way down), but there's not enough room.
As to Field of ruin, our deck can ALMOST support three colorless lands. As such, field of ruin works reasonably well as it isn't fully colorless.
Worth mentioning: I don't claim that the wolf run is right (I'm pretty sure it's not), but I will claim that I'm more comfortable with it, and that's a strong enough reason to prefer it
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/the-knight-falls/
However, knightfall still needs a little boost for combo matchups like storm. To assist with this problem, some of us started playing meddling mage as it enables us to interact with decks in a tempo/value way that we still need to do so against. In other words, we are trying to go even deeper on the tempo/value plan as meddling mage let's us fight "fairly" against decks that normally ignore this plan entirely.
That said, Meddling Mage still somewhat suffers from the retreat to coralhelm problem as it all too frequently is an almost vanilla 2 mana 2/2 that is pretty taxing on the manabase. The big bonus though is that it can be hit off of company.
TLDR: Jace allows for a greater degree of consistency which allows us to vary our answers to other decks. Meddling mage is a great way to vary our answers
Noteworthy points: I've been reading through the comments and it seems that there is a disagreement on if we will be running Jace (especially when compared to other walkers). The answer is yes (albeit, your budget might convince you to play Gideon). Knightfall has, traditionally, been a deck that has an answer to pretty much every other deck in the format. However, the problem is that it doesn't always draw it. The biggest reason to play Jace is because he greatly helps fix that problem. This, combined with the fact that we play so many good-at-keeping-Jace-alive creatures means our Jace is quite possibly better than most other Jaces. As a bonus, Vendilion Clique is a pretty powerful card and it feels great to play it main.
Of course, playing Jace comes with three major drawbacks, no Kessig Wolf Run, no Retreat to coralhelm, and a different manabase (10 fetches plus 7 fetchable lands makes Knight less likely to activate his ability and more likely to just attack). That said, I wouldn't dream of switching back as the inclusion of Jace trumps these points.
Anywho, if you've got questions, AMA.
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.
Bring in Tireless tracker, Unified Will, Reflector Mage, whatever artifact hate, and generally Grindy cards (Nissa, Steward of Elements)
Basically, keep in mind that Walking Ballista is a threat, try to be ready for All is dust, and realize that we are the aggressive deck (they're not very good at killing us too quickly). They're fairly threat light so Path to Exile, Reflector Mage and a large swinging Knight of the Reliquary ends the game quickly.
Let's break it down a little further. Modern is a format where you kinda need some way to goldfish. Humans can do that a little better than knightfall. The deck, by it's nature, is a bit more linear. Of course, this opens the deck up to a little more hate (namely Anger of the Gods), but, typically, you're still going to win the too deck war.
So, it seems that I'm going to be on it for the next while.