I personally have been enjoying the tango lands in my sort of budget version of the deck. With 5 basics, I almost always can fetch on t1 basic on t2 and then my tangos are useful for the rest of the game, at no life cost. If land distruction, Fulminator Mage is heavy in your meta, then I understand paying the extra $$. I think that 1 Prairie Stream and 1 Canopy Vista deserve a mention or test.
The issue is that Knightfall is a first and foremost a tempo deck. I bring this point up because having lands come into play tapped can be a huge tempo disadvantage. This fact alone can very easily lead to use losing the game. I would argue that most of the reason Sejiri Steppe isn't run in any professional builds is because it comes into play tapped. If I were to run it, it would be the only forced tap land in the deck, yet I steer clear of it because it has to be tapped.
What decks are you losing to game 1 where you NEED to rely on a landfall golfish to win?
Elves and Boggles
Against most decks, the game one can easily swing either way. To a certain degree, it depends on what you draw. For example, Scavenging Ooze isn't great against Tron. I bring this up because if you draw the wrong half of your deck, you can get behind. The combo wins no matter how far behind we are. Thereby, post-board, we remove that wrong half of the deck, but, pre-board, sometimes you just need to combo.
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.
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 have not played against storm but I imagine the matchup involves spell queller-ing the right spells and pathing their baral/Electromancer. You could also use scooze to hurt their past in flames plan.
True. Queller hits everything in the deck, including the most important cards (creatures, PiF, Gifts). Between that and Scooze, I imagine the best way to win would be via Empty the Warrens, and I'm betting it would be hard to make a pile big enough to win vs. Knightfall's creature beatdown.
Don't forget Clique and the combo. Post board we also get counterspells and maybe an Eidolon or Reteric.
Against Jund, we generally play the role of the aggro deck. While they do have a fair bit of removal, knightfall tends to overlord their removal. Therefore, I would leave in the quellers, not as a 2-1, but as a tempo play with evasion. Additionally, you want to side like you're playing an aggro deck. Taking out a birds is fine, but don't drop too many of them. Turn 1 birds let's aggro. Also, Liliana tends to not be that good against us. Taking out birds makes it suddenly quite good.
Blessed Alliance is ok, but it's generally not where you want to be as it doesn't really fit into the aggro plan. Our goal is essentially to overload their removal. I would never side out path, but killing their threats isn't the goal. We are not the control deck. You can bring one blessed alliance in for their stuff, but, past that, you'll end up with too much removal in hand and no board (personal experience).
Furthermore, I would argue that our top decks are about equal. To oversimplify it, Jund has dead hand disruption while we have dead birds. The difference is that jund rarely brings in land destruction (it's a trap as our threats need to be answered before our lands (once again overloading removal)). Thereby, you can frequently make birds a threat.
That said, there are two threats to keep in mind: 1. Kalitas 2. Scavenging ooze. They are the two greatest threats jund has (Kalitas a little more than scooze). If you can save your paths for them, you will be favored. Kelvin chew said something similar if you read his post.
Lastly, sequencing and mindset are the most important thing. The winner tends to be the one who makes less mistakes (which makes it my favorite matchup).
When Knightfall creates a board stall, it usually ends up winning. Between the fliers, tireless tracker drawing cards, and knight of the reliquary fetching gavony township and other value lands, we can usually break through. The same can't be said for Bant Eldrazi. They have drowner of hope, eldrazi displacer, and not much else (sometimes a post-board walker). Furthermore, it's worth noting that bant eldrazi is a better aggro deck. They will usually beat us if we start racing.
Therefore, in order to beat them, I want to play the role of the control deck because I can win the long game. One way to ensure this is to try to save path to exile for eldrazi displacer (and pridemage on their skite protecting it). Thereby, if you can drop a huge knight and they don't path him, you can usually end up winning by stalling with him (and to lesser extent a giant voice token). Once again, we tend to be favored in the long game if you can get rid of eldrazi displacer.
Tireless tracker helps you get to the late game faster and break board stalls before they find an EE.
Izzet Staticaster is surprisingly good in this matchup. It kills all the scion tokens (making drowner just a big 5/5), kills their hierarchs (stopping them from getting an ever so slightly larger creature to break board stalls), kills eldrazi skyspawner, adds a level of combat math to blocking, is a decent blessed alliance target, and let's us fake a spell queller.
Blessed Alliance is just useful. It gains life making the game go longer, it forces them to sac an attacking creature (which will probably be a real threat given that we can favorably block the little guys). Lastly, it untaps two creatures allowing for surprise blocks or fetching wolfrun (though don't forget spellskite can redirect wolfrun).
I'll admit that it might be wise to bring in Ghost Quarter, but I rarely find myself hitting one of their lands with the main deck GQ so I doubt that I would rather have a second one over a utility land that breaks board stalls.
I have lost many games against bant eldrazi but I rarely lose a match. So, I hope this helps.
You just either wait for your opponent to tap out or for you to have no other options. PS, surprise flipping ormenhdal for the win after a cryptic tap is one of the greatest feelings in magic.
One last thing on Wolf Run. It can be activated after blocks which enables quite a few more combat tricks. Personally, I love trading a bird for a Thought-knot seer.
I played Westvale Abbey for about three months. I love the card. It provides many moments where your goal becomes to just get them to 9 life. Given the puesdo ramp that knightfall does, it's not that hard to have the mana to flip it. If anything, it's usually harder to have five creatures. The thing is, I ran into two issues with it. 1. I ran it before Spell Queller and the two cards have too much anti-synergy. 2. Personally, I generally found Wolf Run to be better (at the time I ran all 4 colorless lands). They both do roughly the same thing in terms of trying to finish the game off. Wolf Run is less risky and better for comboing.
Grixsis Control's game plan is to 1-1 or 2-1 everything. Thereby, cards like voice and company are inherently good against them. The matchup is fairly skill intensive but the more 2-1 you run, the better your chance of winning.
Wolf Run also makes Blessed Alliance a much better side board card. I've swung with knight into a chump blocker and then used blessed Alliance to grab Wolf Run and win in quite a few games.
In my head, the retreat is there for the matchups you need to be aggressive. The landfall deck could race infect and burn effectively without any help. Additionally, the mana base is rather constrained as is (not in the form of getting a certain color but rather making sure you can cast everything on curve).
I foolishly didn't play with seal of fire and instead ran atarka's command. I say foolishly because I was siding out the command every match. I quickly realized I had made a mistake. Frequently, I ran into the problem of being able to, at sorcery speed, make a huge creature. Problem because my opponent would have one blocker and so it wouldn't matter that I had a huge guy. Caleb Durwald, the deck's creator, recently posted an updated list that includes another ghor clan rampager for what I assume to be this issue. Anyway, seal acts like removal. Additionally, 14 fetches does turn on revolt frequently enough, but, unlike fatal push, renegade rallier is terrible without revolt. There were games that I could have won sooner if I had drawn a fetch. Furthermore, seal obviously helps goyf, but goyf wasn't really that great. Lastly, seal gives you something to do on turn 1.
Another thing worth noting, the deck has a lot of combat math. In other words, don't crack your fetches if you don't need to. The only reason I got to 21 affinity was because I valued an untracked fetch over playing a nacatl.
Tonight I decided to run Hoogland's rallier landfall deck back on page 85 to try something new. Easiest 3-0 I've had in awhile (infect, burn, kuldotha rebirth bushwhacker, and affinity for fun). My favorite moment was playing affinity (all pre-board but it seems rather favorable). I managed to swing for 21 with trample being added to the creature he blocked. I'll admit, the deck is rough around the edges, but it's one of the most fun things I've played in a bit. There's something rather satisfying about swinging with a 9/9 on turn 3.
I know it's not knightfall, but it does run knight. That said, knight plays a majorly different role in that deck. In other words, I would never add retreat to it.
Against most decks, the game one can easily swing either way. To a certain degree, it depends on what you draw. For example, Scavenging Ooze isn't great against Tron. I bring this up because if you draw the wrong half of your deck, you can get behind. The combo wins no matter how far behind we are. Thereby, post-board, we remove that wrong half of the deck, but, pre-board, sometimes you just need to combo.
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.
Don't forget Clique and the combo. Post board we also get counterspells and maybe an Eidolon or Reteric.
Mostly though, a fast clock and Spell Queller.
Blessed Alliance is ok, but it's generally not where you want to be as it doesn't really fit into the aggro plan. Our goal is essentially to overload their removal. I would never side out path, but killing their threats isn't the goal. We are not the control deck. You can bring one blessed alliance in for their stuff, but, past that, you'll end up with too much removal in hand and no board (personal experience).
Furthermore, I would argue that our top decks are about equal. To oversimplify it, Jund has dead hand disruption while we have dead birds. The difference is that jund rarely brings in land destruction (it's a trap as our threats need to be answered before our lands (once again overloading removal)). Thereby, you can frequently make birds a threat.
That said, there are two threats to keep in mind: 1. Kalitas 2. Scavenging ooze. They are the two greatest threats jund has (Kalitas a little more than scooze). If you can save your paths for them, you will be favored. Kelvin chew said something similar if you read his post.
Lastly, sequencing and mindset are the most important thing. The winner tends to be the one who makes less mistakes (which makes it my favorite matchup).
When Knightfall creates a board stall, it usually ends up winning. Between the fliers, tireless tracker drawing cards, and knight of the reliquary fetching gavony township and other value lands, we can usually break through. The same can't be said for Bant Eldrazi. They have drowner of hope, eldrazi displacer, and not much else (sometimes a post-board walker). Furthermore, it's worth noting that bant eldrazi is a better aggro deck. They will usually beat us if we start racing.
Therefore, in order to beat them, I want to play the role of the control deck because I can win the long game. One way to ensure this is to try to save path to exile for eldrazi displacer (and pridemage on their skite protecting it). Thereby, if you can drop a huge knight and they don't path him, you can usually end up winning by stalling with him (and to lesser extent a giant voice token). Once again, we tend to be favored in the long game if you can get rid of eldrazi displacer.
In terms of post-board, they tend to bring in all their Engineered Explosives, Rest in Peace, sometimes Worship, sometimes blessed alliance, and any planeswalkers. With that in mind and looking at your current decklist, I would cut 2 scavenging ooze (RIP hits this card hard and it isn't super useful to begin with), 1 Noble Hierarch (Because Izzet Staticaster hits all creatures with the same), and 2 Retreat to Coralhelm (because we don't need to combo if we can create a board stall (plus RIP)) for 2 Izzet Staticaster, Tireless Tracker, 2 Blessed Alliance.
I'll admit that it might be wise to bring in Ghost Quarter, but I rarely find myself hitting one of their lands with the main deck GQ so I doubt that I would rather have a second one over a utility land that breaks board stalls.
I have lost many games against bant eldrazi but I rarely lose a match. So, I hope this helps.
I played Westvale Abbey for about three months. I love the card. It provides many moments where your goal becomes to just get them to 9 life. Given the puesdo ramp that knightfall does, it's not that hard to have the mana to flip it. If anything, it's usually harder to have five creatures. The thing is, I ran into two issues with it. 1. I ran it before Spell Queller and the two cards have too much anti-synergy. 2. Personally, I generally found Wolf Run to be better (at the time I ran all 4 colorless lands). They both do roughly the same thing in terms of trying to finish the game off. Wolf Run is less risky and better for comboing.
Grixsis Control's game plan is to 1-1 or 2-1 everything. Thereby, cards like voice and company are inherently good against them. The matchup is fairly skill intensive but the more 2-1 you run, the better your chance of winning.
I foolishly didn't play with seal of fire and instead ran atarka's command. I say foolishly because I was siding out the command every match. I quickly realized I had made a mistake. Frequently, I ran into the problem of being able to, at sorcery speed, make a huge creature. Problem because my opponent would have one blocker and so it wouldn't matter that I had a huge guy. Caleb Durwald, the deck's creator, recently posted an updated list that includes another ghor clan rampager for what I assume to be this issue. Anyway, seal acts like removal. Additionally, 14 fetches does turn on revolt frequently enough, but, unlike fatal push, renegade rallier is terrible without revolt. There were games that I could have won sooner if I had drawn a fetch. Furthermore, seal obviously helps goyf, but goyf wasn't really that great. Lastly, seal gives you something to do on turn 1.
Another thing worth noting, the deck has a lot of combat math. In other words, don't crack your fetches if you don't need to. The only reason I got to 21 affinity was because I valued an untracked fetch over playing a nacatl.
PS, Updated Landfall List
I know it's not knightfall, but it does run knight. That said, knight plays a majorly different role in that deck. In other words, I would never add retreat to it.