Yeah, i like your deck setup. Tithe & Mox Diamond has good synergies. Tithe can also be utilised effectively with fetches other than the Mox.
I have been thinking of a way of replacing Aether Vial in maindeck, and Mother, Tithe & Mox seems like choice. However i might replace 4xKnight of the White Orchid with 2x Sliver Knight & 2x White Knight.
Yeah, i like your deck setup. Tithe & Mox Diamond has good synergies. Tithe can also be utilised effectively with fetches other than the Mox.
I have been thinking of a way of replacing Aether Vial in maindeck, and Mother, Tithe & Mox seems like choice. However i might replace 4xKnight of the White Orchid with 2x Sliver Knight & 2x White Knight.
How is your deck test for this build so far?
Really good, it's been unchanged for ages, which is a good sign
I replace chrome mox with a 4th mox diamond
1st turn 2 mana and 2nd turn white orchid knight and 2 floating mana (4 in total, effectivley allowing 5 mana for 3rd turn) is always good, and draws alot of land out of your deck in 3 to 4 turns also allowing you to get equipment out and attached fast
I now use something similar in my solder deck and it's evil
Tithe and mox also helped me win against an Armageddon prison deck
The idea is to always start 2nd, then you can do this 1st turn
T1: mox, discard a land, tithe, play a land,
T2: play white orchid, search a land and put it in play, then play a land from your hand
The mox/tithe setup gives me far less land issues and mulligans - and in essence a far more reliable start than a vial - and in some respect, faster
Yeah, with Knight of the White Orchid, i do not really mind being on the draw as it almost certainly helps me to get the extra land into play.
Good to hear that the mox/tithe setup has some degree of consistency. I'll certaintly try it since i have all the cards and i'm sick of getting my first turn Aether Vial countered by Mental Misstep.
Meanwhile i'm having lots of fun with my Black/White Haakon's Confidant deck. Will post some matchups when i'm free over the next few days.
I have been playing extensively (without sideboard) against Zoo, Team America and Counterbalance Thorpter recently.
Bad performance:
Sword of War and Peace: Changes nothing at the boardposition. Life is irrelevant cause you can often kill with one crusader hit. Never searched for it with mystics. 5 Equipments are too much, 4 for the toolbox are enough.
Good performance:
Batterskull: I tutored it a lot. When you cast mystic turn two and reveal your batterskull it reads like: Opponent please use your removal and kill me as quick as possible or will smash your face. It’s like a free removal discard spell, which protects our more important knights (mirran, student, exemplar) from death. I feel it deserves one spot. If you find it in the middle or lategame and equip it it’s gg like Elspeth.
Metamorph again was a house. Copying Jitte, Batterskull, Obliterator, etc.
Personally I have been so much in favor of Jitte, SoFI & SoLS to the extent that I’m not willing to consider any other Swords or equipment. I still find them as the best maindeck equipments at the moment. However I feel SoWP might replace SoBM if you are already running multiple copies of Mirran Crusader or if your meta is full of RDW and Zoo decks. I also agree with you that 5 equipments is overkill here. Too many equipments makes the deck very chunky.
Important for me is the fact that we can’t create CA. I think here your Haakons Confidant-List is the key to your future. I will try to get a playset of confidants in the new list. So maybe the amazing metamorphes have to go (beside SoWaP). Then I add 4 confis which will lead to a 61 card list;)
He will be a great addition and create some CA. What do you think?
Knights really struggle for Card advantage. Dark Confidant is a massive card advantage tool which when vial in during EOT enable us to get at least 1 card before it is removed subsequently. Against better players, Bob is always a magnet for removal which allows my Knight Exemplar or Haakon to hang around longer. Most times i'll even bait a removal with Knight Exemplar in order to ensure Bob goes through. I usually play Knights of Meadowgrain to counter against loss of life from Bob but you already have SoWP, SoLS and Batterskull so I think the life loss issue is pretty much covered.
Although Bob is very good, but i feel playing 4 Bobs and 4 SFM is detriment to the deck identity. We are looking at eight non-knights 2 drops which effectively means no more spaces for other 2 drop knights. Exemplar or Haakon would seem less useful and redundant here and we might be better off with the deadguy deck instead of forcing a knights theme. This is also why i have two BW knights build in my primer - Haakon's Swords and Haakon's Confidant.
I notice you have a relatively high mana curve with many 3 drops, do you have any issues with the deck moving too slowly?
Now we also have Grand Abolisher from M12, which looks like a card that belongs to any W sideboard. It's tough taking out cards at the moment and i don't usually practise much with sideboard so i'm not sure what i can do with this card at the moment.
Moving on, I'm going to update my Primer with these 3 new cards with some comments:
The deck is never to slow. Look at the current meta, the only fast decks at the moment are the combos/ichorids. All of them are a preboard-autoloss. So here our SB is very important and the fact that our hate have to be free (Leylines, Surg. Extr, etc) so that we can still expand our boardposition.
All other decks are not so fast.
I will put SoBaM and SoWaP in my sideboard. Against some decks they are an autowin.
I guess my meta might be faster than yours. Even Vindicate is too slow for me, which i why i'm not playing it in my BW lists.
You are correct about Knights being an auto-loss to combo and dredge, there is no way we can win by turn 4 and those decks can win even before that. I usually play only 4 hate cards against Combo and Dredge respectively because that is the most i can afford at the moment.
I already have SoBM in my sideboard. I'm still considering SoWP though.
Together with SFM and Batterskull Dark Confidant is our best removalcatcher. They eat every single removal. So nearly every Mirran or Exemplar hits the board and stays there!
My current problem is the missing of metamorph cause he is so a versatile card, but I need the CA of Confidant:( There is simply so space for them.
With all the equipment (4) Puresteel Paladine is still not good enough. Just wanted to say that;)
Dark Confidant is a magnet for removal. Period. Killing Bob is akin to breaking a Standstill as soon as you see it (that is how i look at it anyway).
Perhaps you can keep Phyrexian Metamorph in the sideboard? And i like the fact we can bypass counters by putting Metamorph into play via Aether Vial.
Yes i also agree Puresteel is not good enough. It doesn't belongs to Knights at the moment. A measly card advantage(i'm being optimistic) is not justification for playing him here.
My todays testings proved that SFM and Confidant are a super tech in the deck. Out knights have the strong bodys and protection and the CA of SFM and Confi speeds us up and wins the games.
The problem with metamorph in the SB: We need 4 Gravehate slots (Leyline) and 7-8 Combo hate cards. So there are 4 slots open. 2 for the new swords and at least 2 serenity vs random stuff like enchantress.
I have been concerned about diluting the knights theme with 4x Bob and 4x SFM. But i have to agree with you these 2 creatures are really massive and one of the best around. The CA from this 2 cards can also be very overwhelming. Somemore you are also playing Phyrexian Metamorph which can copy them for more degenerate card drawing. I'll try out your list myself to see how it works.
Don't forget metamorph in the sideboard is good against NO Progenitus or Show & Tell decks, i have some regulars in my meta piloting them so it might be applicable for me but i also have Retribution of the Meek.
As you can see a standard maindeck, with the last addition of two metamorph and one cutted vindicate, which leads to a 61 cardlist.
The SB is divided in two categories: One free disruption which does not stop our early drops to go the offense route and the second which is combined with the SFM-toolbox.
Report:
Round 1 vs Maik (later he won the tournament) with Mono Red
He won the dice and started with 2 goblin guides followed by a metamorph. Crusader and jitte came to late.
Game two he started with searing blaze, chainlightning and a bolt to kill two of my confidants. Then a topdecked batterskull with lovely Elspeth killed him quickly.
Game three a could sword his figure and play a confidant. In the next few turns I managed it to get elspeth online and a exemplar. When I dropped the second exemplar and viales in a student, then pump first exemplar to attack him he stopped my turn. He said he wants to see everything slower. I did it and then pump my exemplar and goiing to deal the leather damage. Then he smiled and told me that the I can not attack with my exemplar cause it was played that turn. (THAT was his only goal when he wanted to hear everything again).
The right decission would have been to call the judge. I made a mistake and thought I could easy kill him a turn later and said ok my fault. In his turn he killed me with 9dmg of burn. 1-2
This are the players who should not play tournaments! They only try to cheat which maybe is an amazing feeling for them, but in the end other players will quit playing vs such bad people. Bad luck that such a *** won the tournament in the end. First I thought about dropping here. It was not fun at all...
Round two vs Raphael with UB (Midrage)
First game I killed him very fast with confi/vial and stoneforge;) Ok better with batterskull... but he was screwed.
Ame two and three we had confibattles which both were ended quickly by his KNIGHTS!!! Yes, he killed me two times with his phyrexian crusaders! A nightmare with this deck! No removal can kill them. I was able to stop one of them for two turns with my metamorph, but then he found his repeal:(
1-2
Round three vs Stefan with Maverick
A friend of mine.... we played 5 games in the game time and ended 4-1. 2-0 for the tournament record. Very bad matchup. He was able to get stoneforge, batterskull two times online and kill me with it. In game two I overextended with two confidants at the same time. When I played fish that was no problem, but in knights its suicide!
Never found a stoneforge nor a metamorph...
0-3 drop
+
Metamorph
Confidant
Stoneforge
-
Cheater Tournamentwinner! go to hell!!!
opposing Knights;)
no luck
really hard luck. sorry you had a hard time.
I have added in deck tags for you.
Going off with 2 goblin guides followed by a metamorph i dont think many decks stand much of a chance. You were always on damage limitation mode and a few burn away from losing the same game.
However you should have won the first match by winning the third game, the guy was very unsporting here. Did you mean to say you pump the wrong exemplar(the one tat just came into play)? I don't blame you as you were just careless. If he didnt pull off the "play too fast please rewind" you might have done it correctly. Frankly speaking if i was the opponent i would had scooped by then. Unfortunately winning matters and this pple really kills the fun of the game.
For the second match against Phyrexian crusader, i guess you can't do much against him, that creature is a sure win against some matchups not only exclusively to us.
3rd match i guess your opponent had a god hand, SFM with batterskull is nuts...would Leonin relic-warder helped if you had him? If you have the chance try to test him. I have played both vindicate and him and prefer Leonin.
your meta doesnt have misstep? at the moment i'm unable to join my LGS monthly tournaments becoz of family commitments but my meta has many pple playing a very nasty Mental mistep/spell snare/JTMS which owns creatures deck easily.
From your tournament report it seems Batterskull is a good performer here. Can you give me your review on the card? I added it into my primer but i simply don't know how it fare as an alternative equipment to Jitte and Swords.
This was my attempt to shove the power of Puresteel Paladin into a basic Vial-Knights deck, with mixed results. There isn't much in the way of local Legacy tournies in my area, but people do have some Legacy decks built-up to sling around...for, I don't know, in case a tournament spontaneously breaks out?
The main problem I have is surviving the early rush...Zoo and RDW were giving me problems (RDW not so much after Leylines came in), as I took out a lot of removal for Puresteel Paladin/Metamorph. If anything, I was finding Phyrexian Metamorph to be too slow for me. I often never wanted to play it as an opposing creature (though it became a Dark Confidant more than anything else) because I had too much else going on in my hand. I'm finding Sword of Feast and Famine to be an absolute beast, especially with all the 'Goyfs/Confidants/Vindicates/Pulses around. I'll probably fine-tune my Equipment package in the upcoming days...I may actually give SoBM another look.
Sideboard was pretty Standard with what I have lying around. I (and many others) pretty much use the same deck and port it across formats, so I had Leyline of Sanctity for the RDW and MBC matchups, O-Ring for problematic permanents, and Misstep to combat other Vial/Misstep decks.
Wasteland was never really that relevant for me, either. I'd probably rather just have like 21x Plains and 1-2x Emeria, the Sky Ruin in the event that a game gets stretched out. I typically Vial out all my creatures and hardcast the Equipment, so it's not a strain on the mana, but it just became a target for opposing Wastelands, which was getting ridiculous.
Anyway, anxiously awaiting the chance to play in an actual tournament.
This was my attempt to shove the power of Puresteel Paladin into a basic Vial-Knights deck, with mixed results. There isn't much in the way of local Legacy tournies in my area, but people do have some Legacy decks built-up to sling around...for, I don't know, in case a tournament spontaneously breaks out?
The main problem I have is surviving the early rush...Zoo and RDW were giving me problems (RDW not so much after Leylines came in), as I took out a lot of removal for Puresteel Paladin/Metamorph. If anything, I was finding Phyrexian Metamorph to be too slow for me. I often never wanted to play it as an opposing creature (though it became a Dark Confidant more than anything else) because I had too much else going on in my hand. I'm finding Sword of Feast and Famine to be an absolute beast, especially with all the 'Goyfs/Confidants/Vindicates/Pulses around. I'll probably fine-tune my Equipment package in the upcoming days...I may actually give SoBM another look.
Sideboard was pretty Standard with what I have lying around. I (and many others) pretty much use the same deck and port it across formats, so I had Leyline of Sanctity for the RDW and MBC matchups, O-Ring for problematic permanents, and Misstep to combat other Vial/Misstep decks.
Wasteland was never really that relevant for me, either. I'd probably rather just have like 21x Plains and 1-2x Emeria, the Sky Ruin in the event that a game gets stretched out. I typically Vial out all my creatures and hardcast the Equipment, so it's not a strain on the mana, but it just became a target for opposing Wastelands, which was getting ridiculous.
Anyway, anxiously awaiting the chance to play in an actual tournament.
Nice to see some interest in knights again
I read your passage first before looking at the decklist, and was surprised to see only 3 Puresteel Paladin. Why not get a playset of it since your intention is to utilise him? If you were to utilise him i would rather maximise his ability. I also counted the equipment and saw 5. I would take out the Elspeth and add 2 more equipments really.
How about the Mox Diamond and Tithe Package, with a couple of Mox Opal? Mox Diamond is not a legendary artifact so you may play more of them. You can reduce maybe one or 2 lands afterwards to free up more space. Maybe i might go for 4 Knight of the White orchid to fully negate Mox Diamond drawbacks. Speed is of the essence here so casting an early Puresteel followed by SFM would be how i play the deck.
Against Zoo it is always going to be problematic since they pack at least 10 removals and we are a creature deck. Maybe the speed from the Moxes and CA from Tithe and Puresteel will put them under some form of pressure?
For sideboard, always play 4 Leyline as you want them to be in the opening hand.
I have a list here which i what i might play if i try the Puresteel hardware:
Even then with 7 equipments & 4 Puresteel seems likely to net me only an average of 1-2 additional cards per game.
Has anyone given any thought to Adaptive Automaton? Probably not worth it in non-Puresteel builds, but in Puresteel builds he's an artifact, a knight, and a lord. Something to consider, anyway.
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The Phyrexian crusader (from the other player) was amazing. Maybe I have to change the deck to make room for some of him. He just won without any removal! He needs a bigger blackspash I think. Maybe together with a buried alive haakon package. And there will be space for two darkblast which can kill every critter with power two which is very important.... besides he dredges for Haakon and other stuff...
The Leonin Relic-warder would not have changed anything. More vindicates/paths maybe.... but not sure.
My meta has a lot of mental misstep. Every deck plays it, me included. I boarded them every single game and it saved a lot of my critters from burn or countered their misstep. Worked fine all day long.
BAtterskull is amazing. You drop your SFM turn two and your opponent have to waste a remval to a 1/2 critter. If he has none you can drop eot your 4/4 batterskull. If you are luck (like me) you find your elspeth. And get 7 life/turn while also protecting elspeth. YOu opponent have to find an answer to batterskull or will die to this 4/4. Well and when he kills it. You have spent not so much resources like him. After the death of batterskull you can drop your really good knights without fearing that they are killed by tons of removal;)
@AEIOU
NIce to see other players interested in this stylish deck. My first thought was the same then Nabbydian: Why only 3 puresteel? You want to see him every single turn! He is the reason why you destabilized your manabase (den) and your hole deck (5 equips are in a normal built overkill, believe me). How are your experiences with puresteel as a CA/engine? I bought a set when the was released but never had the time to test him and I always feared that his impact is to weak.
Chromemox is a way to speed you up. You can imprint random stuff to accelerate yourself. Maybe in a puresteel-built 3 moxes can replace the 4 vial and make room for your important 4th paladin.
In a puresteelbuilt I would not play confidant. You already have two ways to create CA: SFM and Paladin. Thats enough! Oh when you splash black your manabase will be much weaker (wasteland....), you need your early drops.
Now to a important card:
Phyrexian Metamorph: It is very intersting that you never want to play him. In my meta he is one of our strongest cards. You can copy KotR, random critters like ph. cursader, opposing SFM or a batterskull (jitte, ...). You can copy a tombstalker. AND metamorph is a removal for every legendary creature! Every game I found him I was happy and when I cast him I often wished there will be his brother in the next few turns. He is sooooo multifunctional for a turn three drop.
Oh and one thing: I will add at least two knights with protection red in my list. A lot of goblins and burn decks are around and a critter with protection red is nuts in that matchups. He can stop these annoying stupid red decks. When a SFM is around your jitte is a turn away to combo them out.
Yup, i agree with you the key problem with Phyrexian crusader is requiring a bigger splash of B which i'm unwilling to do so as it will make our land base unstable and vulnerable to Wasteland. As a result i prefer Stillmoon Cavalier over him.
However i do wish to try him out somehow, and have created another casual thread below on Mono-black knights. Over here we don't have any excuses not to use him anymore do we?
I think you pointed out something very interesting, using Darkblast to dredge Haakon, didnt really thought of it.
Regarding mental misstep, i'm still unsure about using up 4 sideboard slots for it. I thought it would be better using it against difficult matchups. However in my meta i do played against opponents who after sideboarding have up to 8 removal spells. I still remember a game against a NO Bant where he Swords/paths me 5 turns in a row and beat me with a Noble Hierarch for several turns since i have no blockers. What do you normally remove for Misstep?
Your analysis on Batterskull sound convincing enough, i'll probably get a piece and try it out myself.
Previously I was so so unconvinced about Puresteel Paladin in a knights build that I haven't even brought any of them. I should be buying a playset soon and will try out the decklist above. All this testing is what makes the game fun. Give us more knights please!
Phyrexian Metamorph is something i'll definitely try. I should be taking out my Kinsbaile Cavalier for her. If you want a knight with protection from R, it has to be silver knight which i guess you have already selected.
Has anyone given any thought to Adaptive Automaton? Probably not worth it in non-Puresteel builds, but in Puresteel builds he's an artifact, a knight, and a lord. Something to consider, anyway.
Yeah, i think he is worth a try in Puresteel builds, not as a 4 ofs, but maybe one or two could suffice. It seems he is probably completing with the likes of Phyrexian Metamorph and Mirran Crusader for card slots.
First of all thanks for your interest in our knights deck! Great that you give us new imput.
Indeed I thought he is good, but he has one problem. He can just give our guys +1/+1. So he is as a lord worser than exemplar. She pumps our knights and make them indestructable. And the second problem is that our list is very narrow. We need a lot of critters and removal and most of the cards great like student, mirran which we can't cut in a non-puresteel deck.
So what are the slots where the automaton can be inserted?
It will be the slots where at the moment confidant and metamorph are. But when I compare automaton with metamorph the shapeshifter looks overwhelming cause he can copy exemplar and win the game. Or he can be whatever you want. You see?
I think automaton is a solid card, but simply doesn't fit in our list.
Yeah i tend to agree with what you say on automation. However don't forget you will not always have an exemplar to copy. But Metamorph does seems to have more applications than automation and both enables metacraft so i guess at this stage Metamorph gets the nod due to his versatility.
By the way Enemy was the pioneer of the knights thread
@ Enemy
First of all thanks for your interest in our knights deck! Great that you give us new imput.
Indeed I thought he is good, but he has one problem. He can just give our guys +1/+1. So he is as a lord worser than exemplar. She pumps our knights and make them indestructable. And the second problem is that our list is very narrow. We need a lot of critters and removal and most of the cards great like student, mirran which we can't cut in a non-puresteel deck.
So what are the slots where the automaton can be inserted?
It will be the slots where at the moment confidant and metamorph are. But when I compare automaton with metamorph the shapeshifter looks overwhelming cause he can copy exemplar and win the game. Or he can be whatever you want. You see?
I think automaton is a solid card, but simply doesn't fit in our list.
Yeah, I agree that it has no place in a non-puresteel build, but I was thinking of possibly moving the Mirrans to the sideboard for Automatons in a Puresteel build. This is very tentative as I really love my Mirran Crusaders and I know how good they are, but...it might be worth creating a speculative list regardless. if I was going to try it, here would be my tentative list.
Looking it over, I'm not sure that it's worth it...but if I was going to do it, that's what I'd go with. You lose the powerhouse that is Mirran Crusader, but in return your knights get that much bigger, and Paladin becomes more reliable. Again, I don't know whether the tradeoff is worth it since Crusader can outright win games on his own if he's not dealt with, but I'm just going to throw this list out there. It gives me a total of 20 artifacts including lands, and the equipments are searchable via Mystic.
It's a shame we can't reliably utilize Mox Opal, otherwise there'd be a much better reason for trying this. As it stands, I just don't know whether Puresteel Paladin is worth the tradeoff in power. I really like the card, and if it had first strike I think it would be worth it. But as it is...I'm afraid it might be relegated to the realm of casual.
@Nabbydian: I only worked on the mono-white lists, you did all the rest, and wrote an awesome primer But I am really glad that there's such an interest in Knights and that this thread has been staying alive.
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Went to my local shop on Thursday with my Mono-White Knights. Had to make due with what I had on hand, since the store that I buy singles from went out of business.
First Match: TezzAffinity
I got stomped. Game one he had 8 artifacts, including a Batterskull and a Signal Pest, on turn 2. I was dead by turn 3. Game two went almost as fast, swinging for lethal in the air on turn 4.
0-2
Second Match: Mill
I got him down to 2 life game one, but he managed to mill me with Mind Funeral. Games 2 and 3 he auto scooped after I had Leylines in both opening hands. Apparently, he didn't have any sort of removal, so he was completely shut down.
2-1
Third Match: Burn
Game one went as follows-
T1 - Student, go
T2 - Mystic, search for Batterskull, swing, go
T3 - Cheat in Batterskull, swing, go
After that, he couldn't keep up with the lifelink. His topdecks must have been garbage, because he just scooped.
Game two I got another opening Leyline. He tried to keep me locked down by burning my creatures, and even had me down to 1 life with his Lavamancer, but I finally drew a Path, then got my Jitte out and won.
2-0
Sorry that the match descriptions being so under-detailed. It was a long day, and I don't remember much. I know that the board is lacking, but again, I played with what I had. The problem was Affinity, as I expected, but that seems like a really bad match-up for Mono-White.
Any suggestions for a better sideboard would be greatly appreciated. I'm in the process of getting my fourth Leyline.
Yeah, I agree that it has no place in a non-puresteel build, but I was thinking of possibly moving the Mirrans to the sideboard for Automatons in a Puresteel build. This is very tentative as I really love my Mirran Crusaders and I know how good they are, but...it might be worth creating a speculative list regardless. if I was going to try it, here would be my tentative list.
Looking it over, I'm not sure that it's worth it...but if I was going to do it, that's what I'd go with. You lose the powerhouse that is Mirran Crusader, but in return your knights get that much bigger, and Paladin becomes more reliable. Again, I don't know whether the tradeoff is worth it since Crusader can outright win games on his own if he's not dealt with, but I'm just going to throw this list out there. It gives me a total of 20 artifacts including lands, and the equipments are searchable via Mystic.
It's a shame we can't reliably utilize Mox Opal, otherwise there'd be a much better reason for trying this. As it stands, I just don't know whether Puresteel Paladin is worth the tradeoff in power. I really like the card, and if it had first strike I think it would be worth it. But as it is...I'm afraid it might be relegated to the realm of casual.
@Nabbydian: I only worked on the mono-white lists, you did all the rest, and wrote an awesome primer But I am really glad that there's such an interest in Knights and that this thread has been staying alive.
Yes, i remember we ever discuss before and agreeing in this thread on Puresteel not being good enough for knights but you had to try it first before you draw the verdict. Now i'll need you to try automation again
To be frank, i feel this is worth a try. Knights with first strike is massive in combat especially with gang-blocking and can really kill off opponents' critters without suffering any attrition on our side. And i think you are right to go maximum for 4x automation. This allows us to win with inflated knights if equipments doesnt work.
Your decklist looks interesting, and seems quite easy to reach metacraft with 20 artifacts. Darksteel Citadel is a good addition. 2 seems just nice.
Thanks for the compliment. Hopefully the thread can draw more interest and engage more players towards playing tribal knights.
Went to my local shop on Thursday with my Mono-White Knights. Had to make due with what I had on hand, since the store that I buy singles from went out of business.
First Match: TezzAffinity
I got stomped. Game one he had 8 artifacts, including a Batterskull and a Signal Pest, on turn 2. I was dead by turn 3. Game two went almost as fast, swinging for lethal in the air on turn 4.
0-2
Second Match: Mill
I got him down to 2 life game one, but he managed to mill me with Mind Funeral. Games 2 and 3 he auto scooped after I had Leylines in both opening hands. Apparently, he didn't have any sort of removal, so he was completely shut down.
2-1
Third Match: Burn
Game one went as follows-
T1 - Student, go
T2 - Mystic, search for Batterskull, swing, go
T3 - Cheat in Batterskull, swing, go
After that, he couldn't keep up with the lifelink. His topdecks must have been garbage, because he just scooped.
Game two I got another opening Leyline. He tried to keep me locked down by burning my creatures, and even had me down to 1 life with his Lavamancer, but I finally drew a Path, then got my Jitte out and won.
2-0
Sorry that the match descriptions being so under-detailed. It was a long day, and I don't remember much. I know that the board is lacking, but again, I played with what I had. The problem was Affinity, as I expected, but that seems like a really bad match-up for Mono-White.
Any suggestions for a better sideboard would be greatly appreciated. I'm in the process of getting my fourth Leyline.
Your deck looks quite similar to what i might play in a Mono-White Aggro Knights. I was just curious on your choice of Swords, were you forced by what you could find to play SoWP & SoBM? Some fetches to thin the deck would be good. You might also cut 1 or 2 pieces of Knight of Meadowgrain for other cards as you have too many 2cc creatures.
I think you could consider going for a Enlightened Tutor Toolbox. With this toolbox, one copy of Serenity in your sideboard effectively becomes 5. It will also fix your matchup with Affinity. Pitching Needle can also take out Tezzeret.
@Seraph2k: There is a LOT of burn at my local shop, which is why I mainboard it. I have all the of the new swords, so SoFaI and SoLaS are both out.
And I agree with you on the Batterskull. Having a turn 3 4/4 Lifelink Vigilance creature is great, and it usually forces your opponent to focus on the germ instead of one of your knights.
@Nabbydian: I was going to put my Needles in, but couldn't find them. I have them back now, so next week they'll definitely be put back in. I don't want to use fetches in a mono-color deck, mostly because of how prevalent burn is in my meta, and that puts life at a premium. I do like the suggestions for the board, but Tutors are a bit spendy for me currently. But I may pick them up down the road.
As for my SoBaM/SoWaP choice, that's solely because I don't have SoFaI, and again, a bit too spendy. But they get the job done well enough.
Edit: Another thing is that Batterskull is (mostly) burn-proof. I love watching someone sac two lands to blow up a 0/0.
@Nabbydian: I was going to put my Needles in, but couldn't find them. I have them back now, so next week they'll definitely be put back in. I don't want to use fetches in a mono-color deck, mostly because of how prevalent burn is in my meta, and that puts life at a premium. I do like the suggestions for the board, but Tutors are a bit spendy for me currently. But I may pick them up down the road.
As for my SoBaM/SoWaP choice, that's solely because I don't have SoFaI, and again, a bit too spendy. But they get the job done well enough.
Edit: Another thing is that Batterskull is (mostly) burn-proof. I love watching someone sac two lands to blow up a 0/0.
No wonder you didnt play fetches. There is less burn in my meta, and fetches works well against JTMS's fateseal ability. You can also consider playing Pulse of the Fields in the sideboard.
Seems like we have another advocator for Batterskull here. Well if everyone says so it is definitely worth a try. I'll go out and buy one for my deck.
@Nabbydian Chrome Mox vs Mox DiamondYes I like Mox D. much more. I like it to discard a land instead of a spell/critter which can be important during the lategame and it has great synergys with out Knight of the White Orchid. Maybe it deserves a chance in our deck. And with the moxes we are able to play a splash without fearing wateland which can destabilize our manabase, which is - I think - the most important part of our deck!
Ans yes, cut the chevallier and learn to love Mr Tentacle;) And you will never get the feeling that batterskull costed a lot of money. I bought it, played it and after 10 minutes of playing with it it won a game of its own! Thats a great card. Oh and get those cards quickly, I think puresteel and metamorph will see play a lot...
@"Mirran Crusader"
At the moment I am absolutely sold on him. I will never cut a single one of them cause they are our two turn combo clock with equipment or elspeth. They have protection from goyf, KotR and other guys/removal.
Concerning Darkblast: Maybe in a deck with a bit deeper blacksplash it can do a lot of bad things. A recurrable removal in days of Misstep is always good. You can kill easy opposing critters and dig for haakon. But hey it is even strong if you don't play him. I always loved darkblast when I played dredge.
@OverlordChao:
Try to get a SoFaI it is amazing. It gives us CA, improves our Mirran and kills enemy critters...
@Enl. Toolbox
Sure it is a nice addition in our SB. It can fetch for every good card like equipment, wheel of sun and moon, maybe crypt (which is bad I think), needle and serenity. But there is one problem: Everybody expects us to play vial, swords, paths, students and will play a special card maindeck or in the SB, which he or she will board with 100%. You know what I mean? Yes: mental Misstep! Maybe that can hit us hard when we are going for your tutortarget. Thats the point where I prefer my leylines. If you find them (40% opening hand) they are in play and you can start your buisness with dropping our critters. The opponent will find an answer for the leyline or lose. If he has a mental misstep in hand great, but mirran and SFM will laugh all day long and smash his face;)
I also prefer Mox Diamond with the same reasons you stated; and i'll be trying a Mox/Tithe Knights deck shortly. I'm curious to see how the extra speed we get from Diamond works for Knights.
I have been playing Haakon's Confidant for more than a month and its due for a change.
Yes, i just brought the tentacles playset a few days ago. It's price has been rising steadily recently. It'll replace my Kinsbaile Cavalier. I'm still waiting for Puresteel price to dip further HAHA
Misstep has really messed up vial decks and creature decks. In my meta, almost 70% of the decks has misstep mainboard in. I'm still undecided over playing misstep myself - to counter misstep
I was never really convinced with SoFF ability, by the way it offers the same protection as Mirran Crusader! And they are quite useless compared to the other swords during mid-game..do let me know if your playtesting proves me wrong!
I'm actually more curious with which equipment you removed for SoFF, IMO the existing equipment are already considered irreplacable.
"The premier tribal White Weenie deck, Knights, excels in its matches against creature-based decks. "
"What's great about this deck is its power against creature based decks. Knight Exemplar resolving usually spells "GG" against Merfolk, who have no main board removal short of Jitte. Making all of your creatures indestructible is much better than you may initially think. Not only does it stop a lot of spot removal and burn cards from targeting and killing your Knights, it stops some of the cards that would be considered excellent sideboard tech against White Weenie. Board wipes like Wrath of God, Firespout, Engineered Explosives, and Pernicious Deed all work well against most White Weenie decks, but not Knights. With Knight Exemplar on the field you don't have to worry about a single board wipe in the game. The sharing of indestructible also gives you an infinite number of chump blocks to buy as much time as you want if needed. Swarming the field is made easier with Hero of Bladehold and both versions of Elspeth. This makes it extremely hard for any deck that tries to win using creatures to ever fulfill such a strategy against you."
The decklist included some cards which i always felt doesnt really works well in knights, especially Honor of the Pure & Hero of Bladehold. However we have no information of the meta, and at first glance it looks very much like a standard deck.
However most importantly, it was able to finish around the top decks in that tournament. I understand this may be a flash in the pan but at least it has done it.
For the black splash, has anyone tried going for an Entomb toolbox? Add some Polluted Deltas and an Underground Sea with Wonder and you've got flying Knights.
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"The premier tribal White Weenie deck, Knights, excels in its matches against creature-based decks. "
"What's great about this deck is its power against creature based decks. Knight Exemplar resolving usually spells "GG" against Merfolk, who have no main board removal short of Jitte. Making all of your creatures indestructible is much better than you may initially think. Not only does it stop a lot of spot removal and burn cards from targeting and killing your Knights, it stops some of the cards that would be considered excellent sideboard tech against White Weenie. Board wipes like Wrath of God, Firespout, Engineered Explosives, and Pernicious Deed all work well against most White Weenie decks, but not Knights. With Knight Exemplar on the field you don't have to worry about a single board wipe in the game. The sharing of indestructible also gives you an infinite number of chump blocks to buy as much time as you want if needed. Swarming the field is made easier with Hero of Bladehold and both versions of Elspeth. This makes it extremely hard for any deck that tries to win using creatures to ever fulfill such a strategy against you."
The decklist included some cards which i always felt doesnt really works well in knights, especially Honor of the Pure & Hero of Bladehold. However we have no information of the meta, and at first glance it looks very much like a standard deck.
However most importantly, it was able to finish around the top decks in that tournament. I understand this may be a flash in the pan but at least it has done it.
That...is a very strange list No Stoneforge Mystic? Wall of Omens? Honor of the Pure? I guess it works, apparently...does this mean we should evaluate these cards further? Does...does Honor of the Pure actually have a place in this deck? I never thought I'd ever say that...but...it worked...I'm so confused right now
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Yeah, I mean, Honor of the Pure can get a few more damage across, but I'd rather have a turn 2 Jitte or something. Call me crazy, but that deck seems like it got SUPER lucky on the match-ups or something.
For the black splash, has anyone tried going for an Entomb toolbox? Add some Polluted Deltas and an Underground Sea with Wonder and you've got flying Knights.
Yeah, i have tried out both Entomb & Buried Alive. Another poster has also recommended dumping Glory into the graveyard. We can definitely do with Wonder, If space permits why not? Dropping him into graveyard and sending all the knights through for an alpha strike won't be something our opponent expects from knights.
That said if i want to enhance the Entomb toolbox and create more graveyard shenanigans, I'll probably still prefer Glory over Wonder. Although at the end of the day i would rather have another knight creature though.
That...is a very strange list No Stoneforge Mystic? Wall of Omens? Honor of the Pure? I guess it works, apparently...does this mean we should evaluate these cards further? Does...does Honor of the Pure actually have a place in this deck? I never thought I'd ever say that...but...it worked...I'm so confused right now
Basically since he choosed Walls/Honor, he had to forgo the SFM package. I think the walls probably did a good job stalling before the Heros and Elspeths comes in.
I never considered Honor of the Pure because many times during my games i have a sword but no creatures to equip. In that situation Honor is worse off. And SFM gives us CA and an additional creature to equip.
There is no way we can play 4 Honors and 4 swords in the same deck. Where are we going to get the creatures?
Will you be playtesting this build to dispel all your doubts/confusion once and for all?
Yeah, I mean, Honor of the Pure can get a few more damage across, but I'd rather have a turn 2 Jitte or something. Call me crazy, but that deck seems like it got SUPER lucky on the match-ups or something.
Yeah, i agree. I prefer an equipment to Honor. In fact I don't even play Honor in my type 2 knights deck. I still think it must be Elspeth which won him most of the games. In any case this decklist should be extremely consistent so i don't think he ends up with a bad opening hand on most occasions.
I am not sure if that list should show us the future. I never felt that we need a crusade-effect. If your board is empty what would you like to see:
Crusade/Honor or a critter?
I think the equipment/stoneforge way is the better one. And Wall of Omens... I want to win not to stall the ground with a wall;)
I actually saw a youtube video of a guy playing knights deck with Honor of the pure a few weeks ago, and if i dont recall wrongly it was a top-8 or top-4 match in one of the SCG tournament.
Like i say earlier i'm not sold on the Honor and Wall, i did not even consider them when writing the primer.
Or is there a stigma over accepting that a deck comprising of mainly Type 2 cards could perform well in a legacy meta?
@Nabbydian: I...don't think I could ever stick Honor of the Pure in a non-casual deck, and Wall of Omens, while a much better card overall than Honor, still does not fit our strategy. To be honest, I think that the player who ran this deck knew his metagame really well and built this deck specifically to be beat those decks, he was very skilled, he got really lucky, or some combination of the three.
I could see Honor working in a fast, token based swarm white weenie deck (with cards like Spectral Procession, Raise the Alarm, etc.), but not in Knights. We don't really rely on size or the swarm strategy for our creatures, we rely on their exceptional built-in abilities like protection, first strike, double strike, indestructibility from Exemplar, etc. and then we use equipment and Mystic to make them even better. I don't see how Honor and Wall of Omens could be superior to this, and unless I see these results replicated, I don't think I'm going to test this type of deck out. I'll stick with the Stoneforge package, thank you very much
However, I am kind of tempted to build the aforementioned swarm style token white weenie deck as a separate deck from knights
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I totally agree with you on Honor of the Pure (why play him when we have lords. Somemore we have other better choices like Metamorph and Automation around).
-spooky-, the guy who wrote the article has really tempted me to try out some of the decklists he posted. I have most of the cards already and i'm curious how good they will might turn out to be. After attacking with singleton knights for so long i guess it's time to attack with hordes of creatures again?
Below is link to the Youtube video of a Mono-White Legacy knights deck with Honor of the Pure which i mention in my earlier post (I can't find the SCG video, maybe i recall wrongly).
Isn't hakkon with nameless inversion powerful enough for us. We also would get vindicate and hymn added to our arsenal of awesome cards. Not to mention arrogant bloodlord and an alternative clock with phyrexian crusader. The green splash seems only good for kotr. Would a rock version be viable?
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I have been thinking of a way of replacing Aether Vial in maindeck, and Mother, Tithe & Mox seems like choice. However i might replace 4xKnight of the White Orchid with 2x Sliver Knight & 2x White Knight.
How is your deck test for this build so far?
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
Really good, it's been unchanged for ages, which is a good sign
I replace chrome mox with a 4th mox diamond
1st turn 2 mana and 2nd turn white orchid knight and 2 floating mana (4 in total, effectivley allowing 5 mana for 3rd turn) is always good, and draws alot of land out of your deck in 3 to 4 turns also allowing you to get equipment out and attached fast
I now use something similar in my solder deck and it's evil
Tithe and mox also helped me win against an Armageddon prison deck
The idea is to always start 2nd, then you can do this 1st turn
T1: mox, discard a land, tithe, play a land,
T2: play white orchid, search a land and put it in play, then play a land from your hand
The mox/tithe setup gives me far less land issues and mulligans - and in essence a far more reliable start than a vial - and in some respect, faster
Good to hear that the mox/tithe setup has some degree of consistency. I'll certaintly try it since i have all the cards and i'm sick of getting my first turn Aether Vial countered by Mental Misstep.
Meanwhile i'm having lots of fun with my Black/White Haakon's Confidant deck. Will post some matchups when i'm free over the next few days.
I have been playing extensively (without sideboard) against Zoo, Team America and Counterbalance Thorpter recently.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
Nice, good to hear about your experiences with Phyrexian Metamorph, Sword of War and Peace and Batterskull. I also added deck tags for the decklist.
Personally I have been so much in favor of Jitte, SoFI & SoLS to the extent that I’m not willing to consider any other Swords or equipment. I still find them as the best maindeck equipments at the moment. However I feel SoWP might replace SoBM if you are already running multiple copies of Mirran Crusader or if your meta is full of RDW and Zoo decks. I also agree with you that 5 equipments is overkill here. Too many equipments makes the deck very chunky.
Knights really struggle for Card advantage. Dark Confidant is a massive card advantage tool which when vial in during EOT enable us to get at least 1 card before it is removed subsequently. Against better players, Bob is always a magnet for removal which allows my Knight Exemplar or Haakon to hang around longer. Most times i'll even bait a removal with Knight Exemplar in order to ensure Bob goes through. I usually play Knights of Meadowgrain to counter against loss of life from Bob but you already have SoWP, SoLS and Batterskull so I think the life loss issue is pretty much covered.
Although Bob is very good, but i feel playing 4 Bobs and 4 SFM is detriment to the deck identity. We are looking at eight non-knights 2 drops which effectively means no more spaces for other 2 drop knights. Exemplar or Haakon would seem less useful and redundant here and we might be better off with the deadguy deck instead of forcing a knights theme. This is also why i have two BW knights build in my primer - Haakon's Swords and Haakon's Confidant.
I notice you have a relatively high mana curve with many 3 drops, do you have any issues with the deck moving too slowly?
Now we also have Grand Abolisher from M12, which looks like a card that belongs to any W sideboard. It's tough taking out cards at the moment and i don't usually practise much with sideboard so i'm not sure what i can do with this card at the moment.
Moving on, I'm going to update my Primer with these 3 new cards with some comments:
Phyrexian Metamorph
Grand Abolisher
Batterskull
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
I guess my meta might be faster than yours. Even Vindicate is too slow for me, which i why i'm not playing it in my BW lists.
You are correct about Knights being an auto-loss to combo and dredge, there is no way we can win by turn 4 and those decks can win even before that. I usually play only 4 hate cards against Combo and Dredge respectively because that is the most i can afford at the moment.
I already have SoBM in my sideboard. I'm still considering SoWP though.
Dark Confidant is a magnet for removal. Period. Killing Bob is akin to breaking a Standstill as soon as you see it (that is how i look at it anyway).
Perhaps you can keep Phyrexian Metamorph in the sideboard? And i like the fact we can bypass counters by putting Metamorph into play via Aether Vial.
Yes i also agree Puresteel is not good enough. It doesn't belongs to Knights at the moment. A measly card advantage(i'm being optimistic) is not justification for playing him here.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
I have been concerned about diluting the knights theme with 4x Bob and 4x SFM. But i have to agree with you these 2 creatures are really massive and one of the best around. The CA from this 2 cards can also be very overwhelming. Somemore you are also playing Phyrexian Metamorph which can copy them for more degenerate card drawing. I'll try out your list myself to see how it works.
Don't forget metamorph in the sideboard is good against NO Progenitus or Show & Tell decks, i have some regulars in my meta piloting them so it might be applicable for me but i also have Retribution of the Meek.
Hey, i saw your list and have already replied your PM with some of my thoughts on the list. Looks good and ready to RUMBLE!
Most importantly, GOOD LUCK & ALL THE BEST to you!
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
really hard luck. sorry you had a hard time.
I have added in deck tags for you.
Going off with 2 goblin guides followed by a metamorph i dont think many decks stand much of a chance. You were always on damage limitation mode and a few burn away from losing the same game.
However you should have won the first match by winning the third game, the guy was very unsporting here. Did you mean to say you pump the wrong exemplar(the one tat just came into play)? I don't blame you as you were just careless. If he didnt pull off the "play too fast please rewind" you might have done it correctly. Frankly speaking if i was the opponent i would had scooped by then. Unfortunately winning matters and this pple really kills the fun of the game.
For the second match against Phyrexian crusader, i guess you can't do much against him, that creature is a sure win against some matchups not only exclusively to us.
3rd match i guess your opponent had a god hand, SFM with batterskull is nuts...would Leonin relic-warder helped if you had him? If you have the chance try to test him. I have played both vindicate and him and prefer Leonin.
your meta doesnt have misstep? at the moment i'm unable to join my LGS monthly tournaments becoz of family commitments but my meta has many pple playing a very nasty Mental mistep/spell snare/JTMS which owns creatures deck easily.
From your tournament report it seems Batterskull is a good performer here. Can you give me your review on the card? I added it into my primer but i simply don't know how it fare as an alternative equipment to Jitte and Swords.
By the way I finally went out and brought a playset of Phyrexian Metamorph.
Anyone else interested to comment on this thread? No one else keen on knights at the moment?
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
4x Ancient Den
4x Wasteland
15x Plains
Spells (15):
4x Aether Vial
4x Swords to Plowshares
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Batterskull
3x Mother of Runes
2x Student of Warfare
4x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Puresteel Paladin
4x Knight Exemplar
4x Mirran Crusader
2x Phyrexian Metamorph
4x Relic of Progenitus
4x Mental Misstep
4x Oblivion Ring
3x Leyline of Sanctity
This was my attempt to shove the power of Puresteel Paladin into a basic Vial-Knights deck, with mixed results. There isn't much in the way of local Legacy tournies in my area, but people do have some Legacy decks built-up to sling around...for, I don't know, in case a tournament spontaneously breaks out?
The main problem I have is surviving the early rush...Zoo and RDW were giving me problems (RDW not so much after Leylines came in), as I took out a lot of removal for Puresteel Paladin/Metamorph. If anything, I was finding Phyrexian Metamorph to be too slow for me. I often never wanted to play it as an opposing creature (though it became a Dark Confidant more than anything else) because I had too much else going on in my hand. I'm finding Sword of Feast and Famine to be an absolute beast, especially with all the 'Goyfs/Confidants/Vindicates/Pulses around. I'll probably fine-tune my Equipment package in the upcoming days...I may actually give SoBM another look.
Sideboard was pretty Standard with what I have lying around. I (and many others) pretty much use the same deck and port it across formats, so I had Leyline of Sanctity for the RDW and MBC matchups, O-Ring for problematic permanents, and Misstep to combat other Vial/Misstep decks.
Wasteland was never really that relevant for me, either. I'd probably rather just have like 21x Plains and 1-2x Emeria, the Sky Ruin in the event that a game gets stretched out. I typically Vial out all my creatures and hardcast the Equipment, so it's not a strain on the mana, but it just became a target for opposing Wastelands, which was getting ridiculous.
Anyway, anxiously awaiting the chance to play in an actual tournament.
Nice to see some interest in knights again
I read your passage first before looking at the decklist, and was surprised to see only 3 Puresteel Paladin. Why not get a playset of it since your intention is to utilise him? If you were to utilise him i would rather maximise his ability. I also counted the equipment and saw 5. I would take out the Elspeth and add 2 more equipments really.
How about the Mox Diamond and Tithe Package, with a couple of Mox Opal? Mox Diamond is not a legendary artifact so you may play more of them. You can reduce maybe one or 2 lands afterwards to free up more space. Maybe i might go for 4 Knight of the White orchid to fully negate Mox Diamond drawbacks. Speed is of the essence here so casting an early Puresteel followed by SFM would be how i play the deck.
Against Zoo it is always going to be problematic since they pack at least 10 removals and we are a creature deck. Maybe the speed from the Moxes and CA from Tithe and Puresteel will put them under some form of pressure?
For sideboard, always play 4 Leyline as you want them to be in the opening hand.
I have a list here which i what i might play if i try the Puresteel hardware:
Even then with 7 equipments & 4 Puresteel seems likely to net me only an average of 1-2 additional cards per game.
4x Ancient Den
4x Wasteland
12x Plains
Artifacts (8):
4x Aether Vial
4x Mox Diamond
Equipments (7)
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Sword of Body and Mine
1x Batterskull
1x Neurok Hoversail
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Tithe
Creatures (18):
3x Mother of Runes
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Puresteel Paladin
3x Knight Exemplar
4x Mirran Crusader
4x Relic of Progenitus
4x Mental Misstep
3x Oblivion Ring
4x Leyline of Sanctity
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
In Modern:
:symu::symw::symr: Holy Rollers (Geist Tempo)
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Yup, i agree with you the key problem with Phyrexian crusader is requiring a bigger splash of B which i'm unwilling to do so as it will make our land base unstable and vulnerable to Wasteland. As a result i prefer Stillmoon Cavalier over him.
However i do wish to try him out somehow, and have created another casual thread below on Mono-black knights. Over here we don't have any excuses not to use him anymore do we?
Link to Mono-Black Knights: Return of Darth Knights
I think you pointed out something very interesting, using Darkblast to dredge Haakon, didnt really thought of it.
Regarding mental misstep, i'm still unsure about using up 4 sideboard slots for it. I thought it would be better using it against difficult matchups. However in my meta i do played against opponents who after sideboarding have up to 8 removal spells. I still remember a game against a NO Bant where he Swords/paths me 5 turns in a row and beat me with a Noble Hierarch for several turns since i have no blockers. What do you normally remove for Misstep?
Your analysis on Batterskull sound convincing enough, i'll probably get a piece and try it out myself.
Previously I was so so unconvinced about Puresteel Paladin in a knights build that I haven't even brought any of them. I should be buying a playset soon and will try out the decklist above. All this testing is what makes the game fun. Give us more knights please!
Between Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond, wouldn't Diamond be the better choice? And Diamond has good synergies with Knight of the White Orchid, Path to Exile and Tithe.
Phyrexian Metamorph is something i'll definitely try. I should be taking out my Kinsbaile Cavalier for her. If you want a knight with protection from R, it has to be silver knight which i guess you have already selected.
Yeah, i think he is worth a try in Puresteel builds, not as a 4 ofs, but maybe one or two could suffice. It seems he is probably completing with the likes of Phyrexian Metamorph and Mirran Crusader for card slots.
Yeah i tend to agree with what you say on automation. However don't forget you will not always have an exemplar to copy. But Metamorph does seems to have more applications than automation and both enables metacraft so i guess at this stage Metamorph gets the nod due to his versatility.
By the way Enemy was the pioneer of the knights thread
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
Yeah, I agree that it has no place in a non-puresteel build, but I was thinking of possibly moving the Mirrans to the sideboard for Automatons in a Puresteel build. This is very tentative as I really love my Mirran Crusaders and I know how good they are, but...it might be worth creating a speculative list regardless. if I was going to try it, here would be my tentative list.
13 Plains
4 Ancient Den
3 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Darksteel Citadel
Creatures: 24
4 Student of Warfare
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Puresteel Paladin
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Adaptive Automaton
4 Path to Exile
Artifacts: 10
4 Aether Vial
1 Neurok Hoversail
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Batterskull
Looking it over, I'm not sure that it's worth it...but if I was going to do it, that's what I'd go with. You lose the powerhouse that is Mirran Crusader, but in return your knights get that much bigger, and Paladin becomes more reliable. Again, I don't know whether the tradeoff is worth it since Crusader can outright win games on his own if he's not dealt with, but I'm just going to throw this list out there. It gives me a total of 20 artifacts including lands, and the equipments are searchable via Mystic.
It's a shame we can't reliably utilize Mox Opal, otherwise there'd be a much better reason for trying this. As it stands, I just don't know whether Puresteel Paladin is worth the tradeoff in power. I really like the card, and if it had first strike I think it would be worth it. But as it is...I'm afraid it might be relegated to the realm of casual.
@Nabbydian: I only worked on the mono-white lists, you did all the rest, and wrote an awesome primer
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First Match: TezzAffinity
I got stomped. Game one he had 8 artifacts, including a Batterskull and a Signal Pest, on turn 2. I was dead by turn 3. Game two went almost as fast, swinging for lethal in the air on turn 4.
0-2
Second Match: Mill
I got him down to 2 life game one, but he managed to mill me with Mind Funeral. Games 2 and 3 he auto scooped after I had Leylines in both opening hands. Apparently, he didn't have any sort of removal, so he was completely shut down.
2-1
Third Match: Burn
Game one went as follows-
T1 - Student, go
T2 - Mystic, search for Batterskull, swing, go
T3 - Cheat in Batterskull, swing, go
After that, he couldn't keep up with the lifelink. His topdecks must have been garbage, because he just scooped.
Game two I got another opening Leyline. He tried to keep me locked down by burning my creatures, and even had me down to 1 life with his Lavamancer, but I finally drew a Path, then got my Jitte out and won.
2-0
Sorry that the match descriptions being so under-detailed. It was a long day, and I don't remember much. I know that the board is lacking, but again, I played with what I had. The problem was Affinity, as I expected, but that seems like a really bad match-up for Mono-White.
Any suggestions for a better sideboard would be greatly appreciated. I'm in the process of getting my fourth Leyline.
Yes, i remember we ever discuss before and agreeing in this thread on Puresteel not being good enough for knights but you had to try it first before you draw the verdict. Now i'll need you to try automation again
To be frank, i feel this is worth a try. Knights with first strike is massive in combat especially with gang-blocking and can really kill off opponents' critters without suffering any attrition on our side. And i think you are right to go maximum for 4x automation. This allows us to win with inflated knights if equipments doesnt work.
Your decklist looks interesting, and seems quite easy to reach metacraft with 20 artifacts. Darksteel Citadel is a good addition. 2 seems just nice.
Thanks for the compliment. Hopefully the thread can draw more interest and engage more players towards playing tribal knights.
Your deck looks quite similar to what i might play in a Mono-White Aggro Knights. I was just curious on your choice of Swords, were you forced by what you could find to play SoWP & SoBM? Some fetches to thin the deck would be good. You might also cut 1 or 2 pieces of Knight of Meadowgrain for other cards as you have too many 2cc creatures.
I think you could consider going for a Enlightened Tutor Toolbox. With this toolbox, one copy of Serenity in your sideboard effectively becomes 5. It will also fix your matchup with Affinity. Pitching Needle can also take out Tezzeret.
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Serenity or 1 Aura of Silence
1 Pithing Needle
1 Oblivion Ring
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Retribution of the Meek
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
And I agree with you on the Batterskull. Having a turn 3 4/4 Lifelink Vigilance creature is great, and it usually forces your opponent to focus on the germ instead of one of your knights.
@Nabbydian: I was going to put my Needles in, but couldn't find them. I have them back now, so next week they'll definitely be put back in. I don't want to use fetches in a mono-color deck, mostly because of how prevalent burn is in my meta, and that puts life at a premium. I do like the suggestions for the board, but Tutors are a bit spendy for me currently. But I may pick them up down the road.
As for my SoBaM/SoWaP choice, that's solely because I don't have SoFaI, and again, a bit too spendy. But they get the job done well enough.
Edit: Another thing is that Batterskull is (mostly) burn-proof. I love watching someone sac two lands to blow up a 0/0.
No wonder you didnt play fetches. There is less burn in my meta, and fetches works well against JTMS's fateseal ability. You can also consider playing Pulse of the Fields in the sideboard.
Seems like we have another advocator for Batterskull here. Well if everyone says so it is definitely worth a try. I'll go out and buy one for my deck.
I also prefer Mox Diamond with the same reasons you stated; and i'll be trying a Mox/Tithe Knights deck shortly. I'm curious to see how the extra speed we get from Diamond works for Knights.
I have been playing Haakon's Confidant for more than a month and its due for a change.
Yes, i just brought the tentacles playset a few days ago. It's price has been rising steadily recently. It'll replace my Kinsbaile Cavalier. I'm still waiting for Puresteel price to dip further HAHA
Misstep has really messed up vial decks and creature decks. In my meta, almost 70% of the decks has misstep mainboard in. I'm still undecided over playing misstep myself - to counter misstep
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
I'm actually more curious with which equipment you removed for SoFF, IMO the existing equipment are already considered irreplacable.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
I'm reposting here with kind permission from -spooky-, who wrote an article, Squandered Resources: White Weenie describing White Weenie in Legacy.
One of the deck mentioned in the article was a mono-white Knights deck, which was able to finish fourth out of an 88-man tournament in March of 2011:
4 Hero of Bladehold
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Leonin Skyhunter
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Student of Warfare
4 Wall of Omens
4 White Knight
1 Elspeth Tirel
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Arid Mesa
16 Plains
"The premier tribal White Weenie deck, Knights, excels in its matches against creature-based decks. "
"What's great about this deck is its power against creature based decks. Knight Exemplar resolving usually spells "GG" against Merfolk, who have no main board removal short of Jitte. Making all of your creatures indestructible is much better than you may initially think. Not only does it stop a lot of spot removal and burn cards from targeting and killing your Knights, it stops some of the cards that would be considered excellent sideboard tech against White Weenie. Board wipes like Wrath of God, Firespout, Engineered Explosives, and Pernicious Deed all work well against most White Weenie decks, but not Knights. With Knight Exemplar on the field you don't have to worry about a single board wipe in the game. The sharing of indestructible also gives you an infinite number of chump blocks to buy as much time as you want if needed. Swarming the field is made easier with Hero of Bladehold and both versions of Elspeth. This makes it extremely hard for any deck that tries to win using creatures to ever fulfill such a strategy against you."
The decklist included some cards which i always felt doesnt really works well in knights, especially Honor of the Pure & Hero of Bladehold. However we have no information of the meta, and at first glance it looks very much like a standard deck.
However most importantly, it was able to finish around the top decks in that tournament. I understand this may be a flash in the pan but at least it has done it.
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
It's an updated version of Brawl into an epic, new game.
That...is a very strange list
In Modern:
:symu::symw::symr: Holy Rollers (Geist Tempo)
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Yeah, i have tried out both Entomb & Buried Alive. Another poster has also recommended dumping Glory into the graveyard. We can definitely do with Wonder, If space permits why not? Dropping him into graveyard and sending all the knights through for an alpha strike won't be something our opponent expects from knights.
That said if i want to enhance the Entomb toolbox and create more graveyard shenanigans, I'll probably still prefer Glory over Wonder. Although at the end of the day i would rather have another knight creature though.
Basically since he choosed Walls/Honor, he had to forgo the SFM package. I think the walls probably did a good job stalling before the Heros and Elspeths comes in.
I never considered Honor of the Pure because many times during my games i have a sword but no creatures to equip. In that situation Honor is worse off. And SFM gives us CA and an additional creature to equip.
There is no way we can play 4 Honors and 4 swords in the same deck. Where are we going to get the creatures?
Will you be playtesting this build to dispel all your doubts/confusion once and for all?
Yeah, i agree. I prefer an equipment to Honor. In fact I don't even play Honor in my type 2 knights deck. I still think it must be Elspeth which won him most of the games. In any case this decklist should be extremely consistent so i don't think he ends up with a bad opening hand on most occasions.
I actually saw a youtube video of a guy playing knights deck with Honor of the pure a few weeks ago, and if i dont recall wrongly it was a top-8 or top-4 match in one of the SCG tournament.
Like i say earlier i'm not sold on the Honor and Wall, i did not even consider them when writing the primer.
Or is there a stigma over accepting that a deck comprising of mainly Type 2 cards could perform well in a legacy meta?
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
I could see Honor working in a fast, token based swarm white weenie deck (with cards like Spectral Procession, Raise the Alarm, etc.), but not in Knights. We don't really rely on size or the swarm strategy for our creatures, we rely on their exceptional built-in abilities like protection, first strike, double strike, indestructibility from Exemplar, etc. and then we use equipment and Mystic to make them even better. I don't see how Honor and Wall of Omens could be superior to this, and unless I see these results replicated, I don't think I'm going to test this type of deck out. I'll stick with the Stoneforge package, thank you very much
However, I am kind of tempted to build the aforementioned swarm style token white weenie deck as a separate deck from knights
In Modern:
:symu::symw::symr: Holy Rollers (Geist Tempo)
My NovelJoy author profile: http://www.noveljoy.com/userInfo?wid=189
I write mainly horror/scifi/fantasy type short stories. Please read and feel free to send me feedback.
I totally agree with you on Honor of the Pure (why play him when we have lords. Somemore we have other better choices like Metamorph and Automation around).
-spooky-, the guy who wrote the article has really tempted me to try out some of the decklists he posted. I have most of the cards already and i'm curious how good they will might turn out to be. After attacking with singleton knights for so long i guess it's time to attack with hordes of creatures again?
This is the link to discussion on his article: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=340901
Below is link to the Youtube video of a Mono-White Legacy knights deck with Honor of the Pure which i mention in my earlier post (I can't find the SCG video, maybe i recall wrongly).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nADi_uSFWrI
Take a look and tell me what you think about it. I hope it doesnt confuse your further! My apologies in advance!
Signature by Syndarion from Aeternal Studios!
[Deck/Primer] Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Darth Knights in Legacy
[Deck] Casual Knights in Legacy
[Deck/Primer] Modern Knights
[Deck/Primer] Modern Ninjas
LEGACY
Legacy Knights Variants WG,WU,WR,WB,W,B
Soldiers Stompy W
NinjaStill UB
FOWless Merfolk UW
Aggro Elves G
MODERN
Modern Knights Variants WG,BR
Modern Ninjas Variants UB,UG,UW,UWR
Modern Kithkins WR,W
legacy: Doomsday, Dredge, BUG (shard less and still)
modern: storm, woo dredge, U-tron
EDH: maelstrom wanderer, Gisela, krenko, lazav, sharrum, sheoldred/xiahou dun, norin the wary, Thrax, Mimeoplasm, GW legends