That plus the blue land to give flight does seem better. I havent liked Kessig so far, but if I go towards the beat down more, we dont need to draw the library so to speak, to win, we just need to land lethal.
It helps with comboing off but it's not very aggressive, that's why I prefer the Soaring Seacliff + Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion package as you only have to make 4 mana afterwards all your fetched lands can come in tapped and get saced simply to make Knight of the Reliquary bigger instead of having to tap everything for as much mana as possible to fuel a big kessig wolf run. I think the beauty of this combo is that it's only a 2 card combo so we should try to preserve that as much as possible without diluting the beat down shell
I also think this Combo functions at best in an Collected company aggro shell. (however i would not write of the posibility of a vallue chord list)) I came up with a list of cards that the Collected Bant Deck should or should not include. Sorry for the medicore english, it is not my first language.
3-4 Retreat to Coralhelm: the other keypiece of the combo with additional synergies to the rest of the deck. With 4 Knights and some Collected companys in the list, I am leaning towards 4 copies of Retreat to Coralhelm.
4 Noble Hierarch: best dork and 100% on colour. Mana dorks can be untapped with Retreat to Coralhelm of landfall triggers to create aditional mana(pseudo lotuscobra effect). 3 Mana of a Fetchland? Not too shabby!
0-3 Eternal Witness: can bing back missing combo-pieces and can create Collected Company loops, which are pretty insane. Sometimes also just ensures your fourth landdrop.
3-4 Collected Company: helps to hit one of you 4 Knight of the Reliquary more consistent, applies pressure and enables you to play at intstant speed. (26+ targets would be nice) Core card of the deck!
0-3 Birds of Paradise: I am not sure about them. A recent Collected Bant list, that Top 8ted played the full 8 Dorks.
+ more consisten T1 dorks
+ more Coco Targets
- more susceptible to manascews if you reduce your landcount for them
- more susceptible to removal and board wipes
0-3 Geist of Saint Traft: Very good when they are good, unimpressive if your opponent can block effectively. Has nice synergies with Retreat to Coralhelm as you can tap down blockers of landfall triggers.
0-2 Qasali Pridemage: Exalted triggers and uses against so many decks
1-2 Scavenging Ooze: Also a very usefull tool against a big share of the current meta
0-4 Tarmogoyf, Loxodon Smiter, Kitchen Finks: dependent on your mana curve and deck construction you want to add some amount of these efficient beaters.
4 Path to Exile: Without red and black, we don´t have access to Lightning Bolt or Abrupt decay. To make at least some kind of interaction possible, 4 of them here! Additional Vallue: They can net you landfall triggers at instant speed! If you are "comboing off" and one of your 2 combopieces gets targeted by removal in response to the knight activation (which is the correct play against you, if you just casted Retreat to Coralhelm this turn), you can path one of your own creatures in response.
This nets you a landfall trigger to untap knight and tutor Sejiri Steppe. If Retreat to Coralhelm got targeted by removal path allows you to go of in response to the removal by untapping the knight.
1-2 Sejiri Steppe: Part of the protection/tutor package for knight. Often terrible when drawn, you probably want to have a second one for that case.
0-1 Kessig Wolf Run or Soaring Seacliff: There is a widely played card called Etched champion that can just ruin your whole comboplan on its own. Both lands are fine against him and come with their pro´s and cons.
Kessig Wolf Run
+ Can be used multiple times
+ Also fine when drawn
- needs mana
- some damage gets blocked
- Of colour, needs the inclusion of another red mana producer
+ if you combo off you are probably able to fetch for a red source and generate aditional mana.
+ Can boost your Knight for the last missing points of damage, that you might need.
Soaring Seacliff
+ On colour
+ no aditional requirements
+ easier to inclue into sideboard (1 card combo)
- needs to be held back in hand if you want to use it
- only usable one
This also could be a possible sideboard card that comes against affinity. G1 you combo of if he doesen´t have the champion or go the beatdown route if needed. I don´t know which is correct.
Enough Forests and Plains. Except your utility lands and maybe one island, everything else should include one of those basic types, as our knight only can eat these cards.
Things that should not be included are:
Steppe Lynx: This deck does not create ridiculous amounts of landfall triggers unless you have knight out. For this reason Steppe Lynx wont do anything exceptional! I don´t have experience with him, but my gut tells me to stay away from that card.
Too many (or any) of the new Battle for Zendikar duals: You don´t want to be forced to draw and play any of these tapped in the fist few turns of the game under any circumstances. (Sejiri Steppe is already a liability) What benefits do you expect to get from the new duals? When you are able to "combo off" you can tutor into basics of your choice anyways without having problems. I see no reason to include them other than some cornercases. You are better of throwing the ususal amout of shock´s into the deck to have a working mana base for a strong Bant Coco deck!
Hedron crab or any similiar yanky additional combo card. If you want to abandon the beatdown plan fine, but don´t do it by including fragile cards, that are useless outside of your "X-Cards combo". In my oppinion the Knight of the Reliquary + Retreat to Coralhelm combo is not effective enough to build the whole deck around it. As someone mentioned earlier:
If you try to go 50& Combo 50%Pressure, both won´t be consistent. In my oppinion 90% pressure and 10% combo is the way to go. Seriously, don´t include to much fancy and conditional stuff or things that have very one sided synergies
2+ Mangara of Corondorinstead ofPath to Exile: i see the synergies with collected company or an untap trigger for a double activation. However path is such an invalluable/cheap/unconditional piece of removal that often will be the only reason you are still alive against twin and other decks. Okay probably a 3/1 split with a path in the sideboard may be arguable.
Spellskite: I am not sure on this one, but for me it looks like a bonus target for Kolaghan's Command and another card, that transforms your deck into a pile of combo centric cards, that can´t pressure your opponent. + unlike other real threats Spellskite does not help to get counterspells out of your opponents hand.
Lotus Cobra: Costs double as much mana and is less reliable than the other mana dorks (and does not benefit from the untap trigger from Retreat to Coralhelm. Again, this deck does not consistently accumulate crazy amounts of landfall unless you combo. (where Lotus Cobra is not needed) So why would i play it?
Thanks for the good post. I think this highlights all of the card choices well.
...now if one more person says Steppe Lynx should be in this deck I'm gonna loose it!! You highlighted why it shouldn't be included or relied on as a main damage dealer for the deck
Nice post, but I am still firmly in the camp of trying this out as a tempo deck without CoCo. I want to be able to go big with things like sun titan (possibly as soon as turn 3) and sigarda and sphinx's rev. I think playing it like twin with 15-19 creatures and some solid interaction just sounds like a better plan. I have played abzan CoCo pretty extensively and I just did not like how hit or miss the card can be or the fact that you have to dilute your interaction so much to accommodate it.
I agree that Wild Nacatl is more reliable and it's turning out that way in testing but when it works and he's swinging for 4 every turn it's pretty brutal.
Wow I'm surprised no one talked about the new 0/3 defender with landfall - gain 1 life. This guy would make it so can block early against aggro. Mitigate losing life from the fetches (and fetching out your while deck, basically +1 life for every fetch and land that comes in) You can play the off color shock for red for the double strike land.
I feel like my version of the shell would be roughly
4 Nobel
4 KoTR
2-3 of that 0/3 wall dude
1 BoP
3 Retreat to Coralhelm
2-3 Commune with the Gods
Lands:
x fetches
1 sacred foundry
1 Soaring Seacliff
1-2 Sejiri Steppe
1 Kessag Wolf Run
Thats just the shell. There's plenty of slot left for interaction.
Magically christmas land would be
T1: Nobel
Turn 2: KoTR
Turn 3: The defender dude, plus retreat (combo holding a pact of negation or something)
Nice post, but I am still firmly in the camp of trying this out as a tempo deck without CoCo. I want to be able to go big with things like sun titan (possibly as soon as turn 3) and sigarda and sphinx's rev. I think playing it like twin with 15-19 creatures and some solid interaction just sounds like a better plan. I have played abzan CoCo pretty extensively and I just did not like how hit or miss the card can be or the fact that you have to dilute your interaction so much to accommodate it.
The nice thing about CoCo is that your opponents removal almost means nothing if you're just restocking and reloading with a company. Even countering an EoT company leaves them open to getting comboed out the next turn. I'm firmly in the camp of collected company being the best thing to happen to creature based decks in modern since Aether Vial and it needs to be in here.
So I've been lurking on this topic for some time, and this is my first post, so forgive me if I break all sorts of rules. That being said...
With so much mana between the 8 mana dorks and their interaction with retreat, dare I say we could cut the idea of CoCo, play 4 chord, and throw in the foundations of Bant Conscription? Just a thought. I think the amount of mana this deck can produce on turn three (6) is being massively overlooked. I remember seeing a Bant Conscription deck doing well recently in modern. I don't think it would be too difficult to port KoTR and Retreat into that shell, and it makes the deck more modular/ allows for more silver bullets in the sideboard.
So I've been lurking on this topic for some time, and this is my first post, so forgive me if I break all sorts of rules. That being said...
With so much mana between the 8 mana dorks and their interaction with retreat, dare I say we could cut the idea of CoCo, play 4 chord, and throw in the foundations of Bant Conscription? Just a thought. I think the amount of mana this deck can produce on turn three (6) is being massively overlooked. I remember seeing a Bant Conscription deck doing well recently in modern. I don't think it would be too difficult to port KoTR and Retreat into that shell, and it makes the deck more modular/ allows for more silver bullets in the sideboard.
I agree the mana potential is definitely being overlooked and I think there are way better things to be doing with this deck than playing coco. Having an ewit cryptic engine going on turn three is obsurdly powerful as is sphinxs reving for 5 on turn 4.
So I've been lurking on this topic for some time, and this is my first post, so forgive me if I break all sorts of rules. That being said...
With so much mana between the 8 mana dorks and their interaction with retreat, dare I say we could cut the idea of CoCo, play 4 chord, and throw in the foundations of Bant Conscription? Just a thought. I think the amount of mana this deck can produce on turn three (6) is being massively overlooked. I remember seeing a Bant Conscription deck doing well recently in modern. I don't think it would be too difficult to port KoTR and Retreat into that shell, and it makes the deck more modular/ allows for more silver bullets in the sideboard.
I agree the mana potential is definitely being overlooked and I think there are way better things to be doing with this deck than playing coco. Having an ewit cryptic engine going on turn three is obsurdly powerful as is sphinxs reving for 5 on turn 4.
I'd be careful about abusing the mana potential when I still remember all the echoes of "Bolt the Birds". Don't count on 5-6 mana on Turn 3 when people realize that there aren't that many non-mana dork good Bolt targets in our lists.
I suppose it's a good thing that I can see the shadows of Amulet Bloom in this deck--both are capable of a Turn 3 combo a respectable amount of the time. Our Turn 3 kill is Turn 1 dork, Turn 2 KotR, Turn 3 Retreat. Take that, Twin, especially when their Exarch can't profitably tap our KotR assuming good play and good land tutoring!
My current build is a little midrangey with some focus on the combo. It runs both Tejiri Steppe and Kessig wolf run. Kessig Wolf Run lets you save a few life by leaving some fetches in the graveyard while geting you through hexproof/pro-blue blockers. It also makes your combo resilient to grave hate. Even if your opponent can keep your grave exiled, you will still be swinging for 10 trample. Not amazing, but better than losing. Sejiri steppe exists to protect you from removal. While comboing out and when going into combat, its best to keep a fetch land up to let you tutor chain for Sejiri. Here is my current list...
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
I think that the aggro shell is the best shell for this combo. My current deck being Bant CoCo so I do have some experience with this archetype. From my experience the more value creatures you put in the deck that don't put up a fast clock and die to lightning bolt(ewit, flickerwisp, finks(good for staling bad for punching through goyfs)) the less likely you will be able to race other decks. This deck wants as many threats as possible to beat down while threatening combo if CoCo mana is up or there is a knight on the field. When you slow this deck down to add value, cantrips, or tutors without going full control, you will find yourself losing to the unfair decks alot because you don't put up a clock fast enough and you don't have the tools to stop them. The problem with going full control is while it is better than going value bant, why whould you play control in bant colors when you could play twin in u/r/b and have much better tools for dealing with combo and aggro. Also if you put dorks in bant control you dilute your deck to much and make it liable to dork removal but without them your deck is so slow, so its not hard to disrupt a 2 turn combo. Also if you want to ramp to 6 mana turn 3 just play bloom titan much more reliable.
This deck does best when we have a turn one dork to ramp into a 3 drop plus it gets us to our combo 1 turn faster.
Plan A: Beatdown with lighting bolt prof creature (rhox, smiter, geist, knight) with support of anti combo cards that don't hurt the beatdown plan (path, dromoka's, voice, qasali)
Plan B: Draw into combo and play when it is safe. If we have a knight that is a 4/4 or higher we have immense pressure on our opponent.
Side Board Plan: Slow down combo so we can get the beats in or protect our combo.
Collected Company: Helps the deck recover from board wipes or seals the deal when we are ahead. Also allows combo you to get Knight in at the end of you opponents turn.
Rhox vs Finks: I like rhox better than finks because of the 4 butt. A 2/1 is not hard for decks to handle after finks gets bolted and while it can chump it does not help with putting up a fast clock.
Dromoka's Command: Can be a blow out in some match ups. Acts as removal, gets rid of indestructible enchantments, stops twin, use the fight mode on an attacking rhox gain 10+ life. I would run 2 but I could only fit one in the deck.
3 vs 4 Retreats: This deck's chances of winning all depends on not having a slow hand. We want action in our opening hand and if we get to many retreats or CoCo in our opener we have a higher chance of losing. Remember combo is plan B. Also the deck is on the upper limit of spells it can support.
Solid list similar to my own view on the deck. One critique would be that we want a voice in play for the combo turn, likely 4 voice + 2 utility (i went with spellskite, but it was a tossup with qasali) is going to work better. I doubt we want explosives in our sideboard since we will be running out so many mana dorks.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Solid list similar to my own view on the deck. One critique would be that we want a voice in play for the combo turn, likely 4 voice + 2 utility (i went with spellskite, but it was a tossup with qasali) is going to work better. I doubt we want explosives in our sideboard since we will be running out so many mana dorks.
Mainboard spellskite does not help with the beat down plan. While skite is very good at what it does its another card that slows down plan A game one.
You underestimate the power of EE. If we don't combo this deck has a very hard time vs b/w tokens and decks that go wider than us because of the lack of trample. Its good vs infect another bad matchup. Also good vs bogles, lantern control, merfolk and affinity. Its works best at 0 or 2 in our deck but it is a very flexible card that can function at 1,3 or even 4 depending on the board state. Don't forget it his all permanents not just creatures.
In regards to the discussion of 'like twin' we need to also realize that Twin's Plan B* is Beats + Bolt/Electrolyze, and we dont have any of that reach whatsoever.
I like the idea of Sun Titan as a potential high end cap, but I've come around on CoCo because we fall prey to the same thing any aggro/beats deck does otherwise, no way to restock the shelves on a board reset.
Sun Titan and Finks in the Yard = instant stabalize against a lot of things.
Question though, outside of 'we combo them out' how are people planning on dealing with Token, specifically spirits from Lingering Souls? I've got a multitude of red and black answers for that, but my time with GW is limited to say the least.
Spirits
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
It helps with comboing off but it's not very aggressive, that's why I prefer the Soaring Seacliff + Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion package as you only have to make 4 mana afterwards all your fetched lands can come in tapped and get saced simply to make Knight of the Reliquary bigger instead of having to tap everything for as much mana as possible to fuel a big kessig wolf run. I think the beauty of this combo is that it's only a 2 card combo so we should try to preserve that as much as possible without diluting the beat down shell
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
...now if one more person says Steppe Lynx should be in this deck I'm gonna loose it!! You highlighted why it shouldn't be included or relied on as a main damage dealer for the deck
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
I feel like my version of the shell would be roughly
4 Nobel
4 KoTR
2-3 of that 0/3 wall dude
1 BoP
3 Retreat to Coralhelm
2-3 Commune with the Gods
Lands:
x fetches
1 sacred foundry
1 Soaring Seacliff
1-2 Sejiri Steppe
1 Kessag Wolf Run
Thats just the shell. There's plenty of slot left for interaction.
Magically christmas land would be
T1: Nobel
Turn 2: KoTR
Turn 3: The defender dude, plus retreat (combo holding a pact of negation or something)
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=499393 My Sales Thread
The nice thing about CoCo is that your opponents removal almost means nothing if you're just restocking and reloading with a company. Even countering an EoT company leaves them open to getting comboed out the next turn. I'm firmly in the camp of collected company being the best thing to happen to creature based decks in modern since Aether Vial and it needs to be in here.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
With so much mana between the 8 mana dorks and their interaction with retreat, dare I say we could cut the idea of CoCo, play 4 chord, and throw in the foundations of Bant Conscription? Just a thought. I think the amount of mana this deck can produce on turn three (6) is being massively overlooked. I remember seeing a Bant Conscription deck doing well recently in modern. I don't think it would be too difficult to port KoTR and Retreat into that shell, and it makes the deck more modular/ allows for more silver bullets in the sideboard.
I agree the mana potential is definitely being overlooked and I think there are way better things to be doing with this deck than playing coco. Having an ewit cryptic engine going on turn three is obsurdly powerful as is sphinxs reving for 5 on turn 4.
I'd be careful about abusing the mana potential when I still remember all the echoes of "Bolt the Birds". Don't count on 5-6 mana on Turn 3 when people realize that there aren't that many non-mana dork good Bolt targets in our lists.
I suppose it's a good thing that I can see the shadows of Amulet Bloom in this deck--both are capable of a Turn 3 combo a respectable amount of the time. Our Turn 3 kill is Turn 1 dork, Turn 2 KotR, Turn 3 Retreat. Take that, Twin, especially when their Exarch can't profitably tap our KotR assuming good play and good land tutoring!
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Loxodon Smiter
encahntemants x4
4 retreat to coralhelm
spells x14
4 Path to Exile
3 Stubborn Denial
4 Serum Visions
3 Commune with the Gods
4 Flooded Strand
4 Windswept Heath
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Prairie Stream
1 canopy vista
1 cinder glade
6 Forest
2 Plains
1 Island
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Kessig Wolf Run
- Manite
So here is the best deck I could think of.
3 Voice of Resurgence
3 Loxodon Smiter
3 Rhox War Monk
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
Spells 11
4 Path to Exile
3 Collected Company
1 Dromoka's Command
3 Retreat to Coralhelm
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Flooded Strand
1 Gavony Township
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Sejiri Steppe
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Meddling Mage
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Spellskite
3 Dispel
This deck does best when we have a turn one dork to ramp into a 3 drop plus it gets us to our combo 1 turn faster.
Plan A: Beatdown with lighting bolt prof creature (rhox, smiter, geist, knight) with support of anti combo cards that don't hurt the beatdown plan (path, dromoka's, voice, qasali)
Plan B: Draw into combo and play when it is safe. If we have a knight that is a 4/4 or higher we have immense pressure on our opponent.
Side Board Plan: Slow down combo so we can get the beats in or protect our combo.
Collected Company: Helps the deck recover from board wipes or seals the deal when we are ahead. Also allows combo you to get Knight in at the end of you opponents turn.
Rhox vs Finks: I like rhox better than finks because of the 4 butt. A 2/1 is not hard for decks to handle after finks gets bolted and while it can chump it does not help with putting up a fast clock.
Dromoka's Command: Can be a blow out in some match ups. Acts as removal, gets rid of indestructible enchantments, stops twin, use the fight mode on an attacking rhox gain 10+ life. I would run 2 but I could only fit one in the deck.
3 vs 4 Retreats: This deck's chances of winning all depends on not having a slow hand. We want action in our opening hand and if we get to many retreats or CoCo in our opener we have a higher chance of losing. Remember combo is plan B. Also the deck is on the upper limit of spells it can support.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Mainboard spellskite does not help with the beat down plan. While skite is very good at what it does its another card that slows down plan A game one.
You underestimate the power of EE. If we don't combo this deck has a very hard time vs b/w tokens and decks that go wider than us because of the lack of trample. Its good vs infect another bad matchup. Also good vs bogles, lantern control, merfolk and affinity. Its works best at 0 or 2 in our deck but it is a very flexible card that can function at 1,3 or even 4 depending on the board state. Don't forget it his all permanents not just creatures.
I like the idea of Sun Titan as a potential high end cap, but I've come around on CoCo because we fall prey to the same thing any aggro/beats deck does otherwise, no way to restock the shelves on a board reset.
Sun Titan and Finks in the Yard = instant stabalize against a lot of things.
Question though, outside of 'we combo them out' how are people planning on dealing with Token, specifically spirits from Lingering Souls? I've got a multitude of red and black answers for that, but my time with GW is limited to say the least.
Spirits