It’s really weird. If they can take control of the board and land a displacer its hard to get back control especially if you’re not getting land drops every turn Past like 4-5 lands. On the flip side, reflector Mage and spell Queller are such a beating that once you land a knight and they don’t kill it you win. If you can control the board you can just prevent them from ever getting EE or path off with spell Queller and selfless Spirit. At that point you’re just saving path for when they may have lethal or for displacer. If you have a reasonable start and they can’t win with their explosive start then you’re fine. It’s pretty even to be honest over a large sample size of games. Spellskite is ******* bomb in this MU lmao.
@SLStyles It's pretty good if your deck is operating reasonably ALONG SIDE it. Otherwise, if you're looking to hose the deck, it's not really great because depending on what deck you're playing, just casting Knight of the Reliquary and Spell Quellers can just win the game without Company. All in all I think it's pretty good.
If she were legal every modern event you’d have mother of runes decks, and vicious degenerate combo decks to dodge the BS that is mother of Runes creature vs. creature MU. But yes, if you could play her, you would fit 4 into the main, no questions asked.
Windswept Heath x 4
Wooded Foothills x 4
Flooded Strand x 2
Breeding Pool x 2
Sacred Foundry x 1
Temple Garden x 1
You don't NEED Misty Rainforest in all my experience playing the deck, you just need lots of access to green. Whether or not you play red, your choices are between Stomping Ground and Sacred Foundry. If you play Sacred Foundry, the land list above has NO difference in consistency (it's actually better to fetch Breeding Pool + Sacred Foundry because you have access to ALL ur spells mana wise compared to fetching Breeding Pool + plains + Stomping Ground for all your colours).
@DELTA622 my sideboards usually are based off this:
Izzet Staticaster x 2
Gaddock Teeg x 2
Stony Silence x 2
Unified WIll x 2
Bojuka Bog x 1
Depending on what is doing well, what I expect, and what I know I will play against, I will add certain cards. For example, I usually switch Reflector Mage from the main to side and vice versa in different amounts; sometimes I have all 4 in the main or I have only 2 in the sideboard for the whole 75. Sometimes I play 6 counter spells or I play only 3 so I have more room for hateful spells. Sometimes I'll have planeswalkers alongside more card advantage cards to further increase my win rate against fair decks from above 50 or 60, to 70% favored. I think if you want suggestions or tidbits on sideboarding, and particular card choice in the main or the side, be specific on the particular match-ups that leave you befuddled.
I guess my lists are different because against them MB I have 4 Courser of Kruphix and you pair that with Spell Queller and Voice of Resurgence. It's so hard to lose game 1 so long as I don't fall prey to the "draw the wrong half of your deck", but I guess that's against any deck. I guess for the lists you guys are playing, you side in ALL your counter spells and Blessed Alliance (if you play it) and pray you get a good had with Spell Quellers, Voices, and Qasali Pridemage.
@thetechzombie Your games in Round 1 were actually really good lol. Just a block of text before anything relevant discussed:
Game 1 why weren't you attacking with both Qasali Pridemage and Courser after he attacked with Reality Smasher in game 1? It's not like you're going to block, and if it was a hedge towards double Reality Smasher, taking 10 life is much better than losing 2 creatures. It may have put himself in a position to judge wrongly and block with a Noble Hierarch, and potentially trade with a flyer, which is huge. Also, why didn't you play Collected Company on your turn? It paid off because your opponent didn't play his Reality Smasher and Skyspawner, probably because he didn't know that because you cast CoCo into Reflector Mage on his turn, once your following turn is over, he can cast his bounced creatures. He straight up lost at that point not playing his Reality Smasher and Spawner because he didn't play them after your tapped out for Whisperwood knowing full well your hand is a bunch of Quellers.
Game 2 was just great actually lol. The actual turning point where it was just impossible for the Bant Eldrazi player to win was not playing Thought-Knot Seer on turn 3.I was like yelling at the screen "WTF DUDE YOU'RE GONNA LOSE THE GAME WHY DID YOU NOT PLAY TKS" lol xD. Like straight up it lost him the game lol; I watched the game like 3 times to figure out if he could win because after the game he had an interesting conversation with his friend lol. I just spent a little under an hour scrutinizing EVERY SINGLE DAMN DECISION AND MISTAKE (there were a lot) after he didn't play the TKS on T3 WHILE explaining my thoughts about it in this post (I deleted it all because I realized it was a waste of time). Believe me when I say he straight up lost the game because of that and not your top deck Path to Exile lol (it bothers me so much when people talk about losing to TOP DECKS... a lot of the time you lose to top decks because the sequence of decisions way down the line are what put you in the position to losing to that specific top deck--I can attest to that because I just foolishly spent the last hour trying to see if there was ANY possible way he could have won after not playing TKS on t3, AND THEN deciding to play Spawner instead of TKS AGAIN). I actually feel so tilted because I went through every permutation every turn lol FUQQQ. Anyways, YOU GO THERE, WOOO!
NOW, onto important stuff lol.
I think the combo is actually a personal preference at this point lol. So much of the time, ANYONE playing the deck is probably winning through fair grinding and disruption and rarely are you winning through the combo. Especially right now, playing retreat feels so bad when your Knight of the Reliquary dies, and if the Knight lives, she's so powerful that unless your opponent is playing an unfair deck, it will win the game on it's own. The interaction between Knight and Retreat is so damn powerful but it's really unreliable in this particular meta--why not just have an already reliable strategy without putting yourself in a poor situation that has Retreat which does virtually nothing? This discussion could go on and on but the one thing that EVERYONE can agree with is that playing Retreat is a choice and not mandatory; the deck is tempo/aggressive/disruptive midrange deck that plays a combo, not the other way around.
I think Elspeth, Sun's Champion is excellent in certain match-ups. If you resolve it against any midrange or control deck, you almost just straight up win if they can't get her off the board. That being said, she doesn't really synergize with what we're trying to do, and is clunky because she's 6 mana rofl.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant, however, is a card that I can testify that works. At the modern open at GP Toronto,the 6 matches I won were all 2-0 except for 1 (I forgot to ghost quarter myself to make Knight hit for 13 instead of 11, still won the match 2-1) because of Elspeth. The deck isn't as fast at killing your opponent but is REALLY adept at holding board dominance for A LONG TIME while disrupting your opponent. You add an Elspeth to that and suddenly your opponent cannot win on the board and is going to die to an Elspeth unless they rip the sickest top deck. I won a game against a Human Company deck (he had like 23 power on board) because I resolved an Elspeth on t3, held board dominance, and sent a 5/5 Voice in the air 4 times.
Courser is so good in our deck that I main 4. In regards to burn, over a large sample size of games you are favored against burn game 1 because of 4 Spell Queller, 4 Courser, and 2 Ooze. Sideboard becomes a joke lol.
The deck is actually really hard to play well. It's a deck that you need to put in reps in order to really get a grasp of what you should do with all your creatures, when to cast your instant speed stuff, where to cast them (like, before or after attackers, in resp to a spell, EoT). Knight + Courser + Tireless Tracker + Fetchlands + Horizon Canopy + instant speed spells + playing sorcery speed creatures + the MU your in makes the deck a hard deck to play. Even the uses of your creatures are quite extensive.
I'm not gonna tell you to stay on it but I am gonna tell you that if you like it and want to have reasonable success to your eye, then you gotta get the experience by playing AND learning about the deck. This can be applied to any deck that has a myriad of choices but it's certainly one of things that stand out in this deck.
Congrats to your run at PPTQ! Only having been on it for 2 months makes that finish a respectable one.
Windswept Heath x 4
Wooded Foothills x 4
Flooded Strand x 2
Breeding Pool x 2
Sacred Foundry x 1
Temple Garden x 1
You don't NEED Misty Rainforest in all my experience playing the deck, you just need lots of access to green. Whether or not you play red, your choices are between Stomping Ground and Sacred Foundry. If you play Sacred Foundry, the land list above has NO difference in consistency (it's actually better to fetch Breeding Pool + Sacred Foundry because you have access to ALL ur spells mana wise compared to fetching Breeding Pool + plains + Stomping Ground for all your colours).
Izzet Staticaster x 2
Gaddock Teeg x 2
Stony Silence x 2
Unified WIll x 2
Bojuka Bog x 1
Depending on what is doing well, what I expect, and what I know I will play against, I will add certain cards. For example, I usually switch Reflector Mage from the main to side and vice versa in different amounts; sometimes I have all 4 in the main or I have only 2 in the sideboard for the whole 75. Sometimes I play 6 counter spells or I play only 3 so I have more room for hateful spells. Sometimes I'll have planeswalkers alongside more card advantage cards to further increase my win rate against fair decks from above 50 or 60, to 70% favored. I think if you want suggestions or tidbits on sideboarding, and particular card choice in the main or the side, be specific on the particular match-ups that leave you befuddled.
Game 1 why weren't you attacking with both Qasali Pridemage and Courser after he attacked with Reality Smasher in game 1? It's not like you're going to block, and if it was a hedge towards double Reality Smasher, taking 10 life is much better than losing 2 creatures. It may have put himself in a position to judge wrongly and block with a Noble Hierarch, and potentially trade with a flyer, which is huge. Also, why didn't you play Collected Company on your turn? It paid off because your opponent didn't play his Reality Smasher and Skyspawner, probably because he didn't know that because you cast CoCo into Reflector Mage on his turn, once your following turn is over, he can cast his bounced creatures. He straight up lost at that point not playing his Reality Smasher and Spawner because he didn't play them after your tapped out for Whisperwood knowing full well your hand is a bunch of Quellers.
Game 2 was just great actually lol. The actual turning point where it was just impossible for the Bant Eldrazi player to win was not playing Thought-Knot Seer on turn 3.I was like yelling at the screen "WTF DUDE YOU'RE GONNA LOSE THE GAME WHY DID YOU NOT PLAY TKS" lol xD. Like straight up it lost him the game lol; I watched the game like 3 times to figure out if he could win because after the game he had an interesting conversation with his friend lol. I just spent a little under an hour scrutinizing EVERY SINGLE DAMN DECISION AND MISTAKE (there were a lot) after he didn't play the TKS on T3 WHILE explaining my thoughts about it in this post (I deleted it all because I realized it was a waste of time). Believe me when I say he straight up lost the game because of that and not your top deck Path to Exile lol (it bothers me so much when people talk about losing to TOP DECKS... a lot of the time you lose to top decks because the sequence of decisions way down the line are what put you in the position to losing to that specific top deck--I can attest to that because I just foolishly spent the last hour trying to see if there was ANY possible way he could have won after not playing TKS on t3, AND THEN deciding to play Spawner instead of TKS AGAIN). I actually feel so tilted because I went through every permutation every turn lol FUQQQ. Anyways, YOU GO THERE, WOOO!
NOW, onto important stuff lol.
I think the combo is actually a personal preference at this point lol. So much of the time, ANYONE playing the deck is probably winning through fair grinding and disruption and rarely are you winning through the combo. Especially right now, playing retreat feels so bad when your Knight of the Reliquary dies, and if the Knight lives, she's so powerful that unless your opponent is playing an unfair deck, it will win the game on it's own. The interaction between Knight and Retreat is so damn powerful but it's really unreliable in this particular meta--why not just have an already reliable strategy without putting yourself in a poor situation that has Retreat which does virtually nothing? This discussion could go on and on but the one thing that EVERYONE can agree with is that playing Retreat is a choice and not mandatory; the deck is tempo/aggressive/disruptive midrange deck that plays a combo, not the other way around.
I think Elspeth, Sun's Champion is excellent in certain match-ups. If you resolve it against any midrange or control deck, you almost just straight up win if they can't get her off the board. That being said, she doesn't really synergize with what we're trying to do, and is clunky because she's 6 mana rofl.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant, however, is a card that I can testify that works. At the modern open at GP Toronto,the 6 matches I won were all 2-0 except for 1 (I forgot to ghost quarter myself to make Knight hit for 13 instead of 11, still won the match 2-1) because of Elspeth. The deck isn't as fast at killing your opponent but is REALLY adept at holding board dominance for A LONG TIME while disrupting your opponent. You add an Elspeth to that and suddenly your opponent cannot win on the board and is going to die to an Elspeth unless they rip the sickest top deck. I won a game against a Human Company deck (he had like 23 power on board) because I resolved an Elspeth on t3, held board dominance, and sent a 5/5 Voice in the air 4 times.
Courser is so good in our deck that I main 4. In regards to burn, over a large sample size of games you are favored against burn game 1 because of 4 Spell Queller, 4 Courser, and 2 Ooze. Sideboard becomes a joke lol.
The deck is actually really hard to play well. It's a deck that you need to put in reps in order to really get a grasp of what you should do with all your creatures, when to cast your instant speed stuff, where to cast them (like, before or after attackers, in resp to a spell, EoT). Knight + Courser + Tireless Tracker + Fetchlands + Horizon Canopy + instant speed spells + playing sorcery speed creatures + the MU your in makes the deck a hard deck to play. Even the uses of your creatures are quite extensive.
I'm not gonna tell you to stay on it but I am gonna tell you that if you like it and want to have reasonable success to your eye, then you gotta get the experience by playing AND learning about the deck. This can be applied to any deck that has a myriad of choices but it's certainly one of things that stand out in this deck.
Congrats to your run at PPTQ! Only having been on it for 2 months makes that finish a respectable one.