Playing as traditional Knightfall I wonder what you players do with the Courser of Cruphix drawback (the enemy sees all the cards you draw).
Do you keep Courser in vs. control? For example (1) UW control/ (2) Grixis control/ (3) Emeria (Sun Titan) control
Do you keep Courser in vs. combo? For example (4) Valakut, (5) Ad Nauseam.
I always felt that Courser is a two edges sword post board, vs. (1) and (2) I would leave it in, because we want to maximize the creature drops we can get per turn. However, if our counter magic (Negate/ Unified Will) has to do the job, I always feel that showing our removal/counter spells to our opponent is a huge disadvantage. For example we want to get rid off their big threats in (4) and (5) without showing them the exact number of interaction spells we have.
Can you give me a general advice in what kind of matchups you keep Courser in?
Thank you!
Courser is one of my favorite cards in the deck. Obviously it's great against aggro, but a lot of times the Courser/Knight combo will keep me afloat against sticky threats like etched champion or an unblockable flier. Just last night I was getting beat down by a 3/3 flyer, and it took me down to 1. I played courser, had double knight in play to gain 2 extra life per turn, and was able to stay alive for two turns while I gained some life, found a BoP to chump block, gained some more life, then eventually hit a Blessed Alliance on top that won me the game.
Fetchlands and Courser are also a great combination that help you filter to what you need. Especially with a Horizon canopy in play. I've had games where I have Courser/Knight, and I am able to look at 3-4 cards on top of my library with a horizon canopy in play where a single path to exile might be my only out.
Unless you have a jam-packed board for the unfair matchups, I like to keep Courser in to try and filter through my draws to hit the counterspells. Even if the opponent knows you have them, you can still clock them and they eventually have to jam. Courser also survives anger of the gods against red decks, which is important. He also works well in combination with Tireless Tracker. When you see a counterspell on top, you can crack a clue at instant speed to counter a spell.
I keep courser in against almost all matchups, especially control and aggro. In the unfair matchups, if I can side out paths and reflector mages, I usually keep courser in. But if I need paths, like against UR storm, I normally look to cut courser.
What's the consensus of mana dork numbers and land numbers in traditional Knightfall? 23 lands + 7 Dorks or 22 lands + 8 Dorks? Obviously most hands are much better with a t1 dork, but that makes your deck weaker to sweepers and spot removal, and you are less likely to hit that important 3rd or 4th land drop if your dorks die. In an open meta, I'm thinking that 22 lands + 8 Dorks is good main, with a bojuka bog in the board that I can bring in against the sweeper/grindy decks to hit those land drops while cutting a bird or two.
Not sure if this is the right sub to talk about this, but I played Todd Steven's GW "ValueTown" deck here https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/692848#paper with -1 Finks -1 Crucible +2 Ramunap Excavator in a comp league. Started out 3-0 but ended 3-2 losing to Ad Naus and Infect. It was my first time playing the deck but I now see the glaring weaknesses. I felt like I could never win in a million years against Ad Naus, and probably any non-interactive decks in general. Excavator was fine though. Felt good with Ghost Quarter, and combined well with Azusa. Although I felt like I had an overabundance of "get extra land" abilities between courser and excavator and Knight. I missed Reflector Mage a lot. And with the GW version, casting CoCo doesn't have any good instant speed effects. You just get knights, Coursers, Excavators, etc., no reflector mages, quellers, or staticasters like traditional knightfall.
I took Kelvin Chew's non-combo list from his guide, did -2 Quasali +2 Courser, and 5-0'd the league. 4 Reflector Mage maindeck felt great. It has targets against almost every big name deck right now, and opened up some valuable slots in the SB. Here's the board I ran:
2 Nissa, SoE
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Unified Will
2 negate
1 Qasali pridemage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Izzet Staticaster
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Kataki
Looks like Kelvin Chew is at it again. Super interesting list. Aside from Duskwatch Recruiter, the deck can also win with infinite mana into Kessig Wolf Run. This list is much stronger against GY hate than abzan. Two gavony is interesting though. I think I would still rather have 1 gavony and 1 GQ like normal bant coco decks.
I have always considered Abzan Company a pretty poor matchup
I agree with this, especially on mtgo where a lot of the "Collected Counters" lists are actually just GW because you can't gain infinite life on mtgo. The infinite mana ability is much easier to manage on MTGO, so it's more popular and also a worse matchup for us than the traditional abzan combo. I lost to a GW infinite mana coco deck in the modern challenge this weekend, and the matchup seemed real hard because scooze does basically nothing aside from stopping eternal witness. You gotta pray for paths to stop the infinite mana. Eidolon of Rhetoric actually won me a game because they made infinite mana, but couldn't play the rest of their combo. I was able to break it up with a path, and then win that game. I think a phyrexian revoker could go a long way, especially with a eldritch evolution in the board.
Joinning the Unified Will/Disdainful Stroke discussion, I was running 2 Negate/2Disdainful for awhile in Knightfall, and in Bant Eldrazi before that. I did that because most spells you want to counter are 4cmc+ like anything from tron, and PrimeTime/Scapeshift just like people are mentioning. One reason I switched over to 2 Unified Will is because Disdainful Stroke doesn't counter Living End, which has caught an uptick on MTGO lately with the new additions from Amonkhet. It's not a great matchup for us, and the Unified Will over Disdain Stroke for me is a hedge in that matchup specifically. Another argument for Unified Will over Disdainful stroke is being able to counter anger of the gods, which can sometimes just be a blowout. So currently I like Unified Will over Disdainful Stroke, but once people stop playing Living End again, I might switch it back.
Also, went up to 23 lands with 7 dorks after getting stuck on 2 and 3 lands all the time, and it feels SOOOOO much better.
@brosterman, @jetpackblues, could you explain the rationale behind lotus cobra?
I've found that unless you have a perfectly curved hand, the deck loses a lot of velocity when your t-1 dork dies, or if you don't have a t-1 dork. Lotus cobra is able to pick up that velocity and let you cast all your spells quicker. And when it's combined with Knight or Tireless Tracker, it makes a lot of mana to dumb into clues, wolfrun, gavony, etc. I've actually never even combo'd with it in play at all.
Hey everyone. I played against Skuttlespike yesterday (5/7) in the Knightfall mirror. I played 4 leagues yesterday, going 50-, 0-3(lol), 3-2, then another 5-0. I picked up the 2x lotus cobra from Skuttle, and dropped all the quasali pridemages. Lotus cobra has been great for me.
I've been having trouble with storm and dredge, and was considering other options in the board. I run 2x scooze main, but that's about it. I was considering bjouka bog, loaming shaman, or another scooze but I haven't had time to test them. I also have been liking the 1x eldritch evolution in the board, so I am leaning toward trying that singleton loaming shaman. Unfortunately, it's kinda ***** against storm.
Courser is one of my favorite cards in the deck. Obviously it's great against aggro, but a lot of times the Courser/Knight combo will keep me afloat against sticky threats like etched champion or an unblockable flier. Just last night I was getting beat down by a 3/3 flyer, and it took me down to 1. I played courser, had double knight in play to gain 2 extra life per turn, and was able to stay alive for two turns while I gained some life, found a BoP to chump block, gained some more life, then eventually hit a Blessed Alliance on top that won me the game.
Fetchlands and Courser are also a great combination that help you filter to what you need. Especially with a Horizon canopy in play. I've had games where I have Courser/Knight, and I am able to look at 3-4 cards on top of my library with a horizon canopy in play where a single path to exile might be my only out.
Unless you have a jam-packed board for the unfair matchups, I like to keep Courser in to try and filter through my draws to hit the counterspells. Even if the opponent knows you have them, you can still clock them and they eventually have to jam. Courser also survives anger of the gods against red decks, which is important. He also works well in combination with Tireless Tracker. When you see a counterspell on top, you can crack a clue at instant speed to counter a spell.
I keep courser in against almost all matchups, especially control and aggro. In the unfair matchups, if I can side out paths and reflector mages, I usually keep courser in. But if I need paths, like against UR storm, I normally look to cut courser.
2 Nissa, SoE
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Unified Will
2 negate
1 Qasali pridemage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Izzet Staticaster
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Kataki
I agree with this, especially on mtgo where a lot of the "Collected Counters" lists are actually just GW because you can't gain infinite life on mtgo. The infinite mana ability is much easier to manage on MTGO, so it's more popular and also a worse matchup for us than the traditional abzan combo. I lost to a GW infinite mana coco deck in the modern challenge this weekend, and the matchup seemed real hard because scooze does basically nothing aside from stopping eternal witness. You gotta pray for paths to stop the infinite mana. Eidolon of Rhetoric actually won me a game because they made infinite mana, but couldn't play the rest of their combo. I was able to break it up with a path, and then win that game. I think a phyrexian revoker could go a long way, especially with a eldritch evolution in the board.
Also, went up to 23 lands with 7 dorks after getting stuck on 2 and 3 lands all the time, and it feels SOOOOO much better.
I've found that unless you have a perfectly curved hand, the deck loses a lot of velocity when your t-1 dork dies, or if you don't have a t-1 dork. Lotus cobra is able to pick up that velocity and let you cast all your spells quicker. And when it's combined with Knight or Tireless Tracker, it makes a lot of mana to dumb into clues, wolfrun, gavony, etc. I've actually never even combo'd with it in play at all.
I've been having trouble with storm and dredge, and was considering other options in the board. I run 2x scooze main, but that's about it. I was considering bjouka bog, loaming shaman, or another scooze but I haven't had time to test them. I also have been liking the 1x eldritch evolution in the board, so I am leaning toward trying that singleton loaming shaman. Unfortunately, it's kinda ***** against storm.