Collected company is a 2 for 1, and even mana acceleration when you build the deck properly. It is the card with the highest power ceiling in the deck, and makes every other card better. It makes sideboard cards better by making them easy to find.
I would definitely suggest against cutting any.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Why not drop the amount of Collected Company down to 2 mainboard to give the deck some room?
4x Path to Exile
4x Remand
2x Collected Company
It would still function in a similar fashion. Since there is no win combo, the focus doesn't need to be on Collected Company as much. It would do it's job amazingly when played but this way it wouldn't be restricting the deck so much.
I can maybe, under extreme circumstances see ONE being cut for a cryptic, but never more than that - its just so good against everything - two instant speed beaters!
Without a combo, two instant speed beaters is not a win. My concern is that there will be a lot of bad matchups if the focus is trying to pull off a 4cmc spell to get 2 creatures. There is hardly any interaction with the opponent. Most linear strategies will continue just fine without caring that we are getting 3-drops. The majority of which don't even have evasion.
Compared to the faster aggro decks like burn, zoo, or affinity, their creatures come out fast and there are a lot of them like we want to do. But those decks have an edge over us because they also run a ton of cards that can interact with the opponent. CC may give us the creature dropping speed but we lose interactivity and I think that is the weakness of the proposed deck lists. By dropping the CC count to 2 it opens our options. We could still capitalize on the crazy tempo it offers but it won't restrict the deck to only being a mishmash of decent creatures. Dropping to 2 or even just 3, lets the deck have the wiggle room to fit in disruptive cards.
Without a combo, two instant speed beaters is not a win. My concern is that there will be a lot of bad matchups if the focus is trying to pull off a 4cmc spell to get 2 creatures. There is hardly any interaction with the opponent. Most linear strategies will continue just fine without caring that we are getting 3-drops. The majority of which don't even have evasion
I strongly disagree with this, the creatures are very disruptive. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben slows down many opponents. Scavenging Ooze interacts with Snapcaster Mage which is the highest played creature in the entire format not to mention that it stops various graveyard based combo decks (UW Tron, Living End, Dredgevine, any deck running Tasigur, the Golden Fang who has become extremely popular in the format). The list of cards Qasali Pridemage interacts with is too long but it's important to mention it demands an answer from Splinter Twin which is Tier 1. His exatled triggers help push through creatures as well, especially Geist of Saint Traft. Aven Mindcensor interacts with fetchlands which are widely used as well as hose all Tron decks and Bloom Titan. Voice of Resurgenceforces your opponents to play sub-optimally (disruptive). On top of this, Kitchen Finks isn't disruptive in the traditional sense but it hoses Burn which is incredibly popular.
Collected Company is a 2 for 1 that let's you interact at instant speed. There are also various SB creatures which can disrupt whatever metagame you are facing. Meddling Mage is great against Combo. Spellskite is great against Twin, Infect and others. Mirran Crusader is great against rock decks. Kor Firewalker is virtually a free win against burn. Kataki, War's Wage is great against affinity.
Not all these creatures are just vanilla undercosted beaters. We also have 4 Path to Exile to interact as well as Dromoka's Command in certain lists. It's definitely valid to play a more tempo-style deck with Remand and Cryptic Command but an all-in Collected Company deck maximizing creature count to increase the effectiveness of the card is also completely viable. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben has been an all-star for me and I personally don't want to be running 2U remands and 2UUU cryptics.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: Bant Company GWU Dredgevine GBR Affinity 0 Grixis Control UBR
Without a combo, two instant speed beaters is not a win. My concern is that there will be a lot of bad matchups if the focus is trying to pull off a 4cmc spell to get 2 creatures. There is hardly any interaction with the opponent. Most linear strategies will continue just fine without caring that we are getting 3-drops. The majority of which don't even have evasion
I strongly disagree with this, the creatures are very disruptive. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben slows down many opponents. Scavenging Ooze interacts with Snapcaster Mage which is the highest played creature in the entire format not to mention that it stops various graveyard based combo decks (UW Tron, Living End, Dredgevine, any deck running Tasigur, the Golden Fang who has become extremely popular in the format). The list of cards Qasali Pridemage interacts with is too long but it's important to mention it demands an answer from Splinter Twin which is Tier 1. His exatled triggers help push through creatures as well, especially Geist of Saint Traft. Aven Mindcensor interacts with fetchlands which are widely used as well as hose all Tron decks and Bloom Titan. Voice of Resurgenceforces your opponents to play sub-optimally (disruptive). On top of this, Kitchen Finks isn't disruptive in the traditional sense but it hoses Burn which is incredibly popular.
Collected Company is a 2 for 1 that let's you interact at instant speed. There are also various SB creatures which can disrupt whatever metagame you are facing. Meddling Mage is great against Combo. Spellskite is great against Twin, Infect and others. Mirran Crusader is great against rock decks. Kor Firewalker is virtually a free win against burn. Kataki, War's Wage is great against affinity.
Not all these creatures are just vanilla undercosted beaters. We also have 4 Path to Exile to interact as well as Dromoka's Command in certain lists. It's definitely valid to play a more tempo-style deck with Remand and Cryptic Command but an all-in Collected Company deck maximizing creature count to increase the effectiveness of the card is also completely viable. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben has been an all-star for me and I personally don't want to be running 2U remands and 2UUU cryptics.
Yeah fair points all around. However I'm still not convinced that pumping out creatures - even if they do have disruptive qualities - is enough to be viable. There isn't a theme or a central synergy and the speed of the deck is easily matched. My point remains that linear decks won't care what you are doing with all those Collected Companies because none of the creatures have evasion or means deal with creatures with evasion. 4 PtE isn't very much interaction. I think a deck with the disruptive creatures combined with some more disruptive spells would have a better shot. Either that or at least dedicate ourselves to being Collected Company hate-bears.
Hopefully I am proven wrong, but I don't think the direction that the deck is currently heading is the right one.
Which linear decks? Burn whose average spell is about 1.3 that Thalia increases to 2.3? Or Infect whose curve is hardly much higher?
How is remand going to help against those decks? You are remanding these 1 and 2 cmc spells at the cost of not casting a sorcery speed threat which could have a similar taxing effect, but with a body instead of a card draw.
As far as racing goes, I think you seriously underestimate the ability to race when you delay the opponent's strategy by a single turn with the disruptive elements. You don't need much time - giest and smiter are fast clocks in their own right and are outmatching the creatures those linear decks are jamming.
Thalia is just straight up better than remand in this deck. Not only because you can get it with collected company, but because against most tier 1 decks Thalia taxes similar amounts of mana as remand while being proactive. You need to be proactive imo, and remand simply does not fit the bill.
I do agree that 4 PTE as our only removal is a weakness. Spells 9-10, if you include them, should address that weakness.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I do agree that 4 PTE as our only removal is a weakness. Spells 9-10, if you include them, should address that weakness.
This. This is what I've been saying. I was never advocating that we must run Remand - that was just a suggestion. I mention that I think more disruption is necessary.
My experience has been different from yours it seems. With the exception of Affinity, those are good matchups (at least for my list). Aven mindcensor is excellent against those decks, stopping tron and bloom titan from searching for the lands to kill us, and twin we have qasali pridemage and pte as removal (so 6 maindeck answers in my list). Meddling mage post board is excellent against tron and bloom titan, and helpful against twin.
Affinity is the only bad matchup of those listed there imo, which gets better after board with spellskite, more qasali and kataki.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
My experience has been different from yours it seems. With the exception of Affinity, those are good matchups (at least for my list). Aven mindcensor is excellent against those decks, stopping tron and bloom titan from searching for the lands to kill us, and twin we have qasali pridemage and pte as removal (so 6 maindeck answers in my list). Meddling mage post board is excellent against tron and bloom titan, and helpful against twin.
Affinity is the only bad matchup of those listed there imo, which gets better after board with spellskite, more qasali and kataki.
That sounds promising, are you willing to post your list? I'd be very interested. I know you've been playing this deck for a while now. My comments were mostly directed at what I've seen on this thread so far and my play testing.
I was toying around with the more tempo-oriented ideas people were talking about earlier, even tried out a few Cryptics to see how it'd play out. So far they're good, since they play well with Collected Company holding up 4 mana for either one. They could also definitely be Spell Snares though, which I was trying for a while. SB is incomplete, still a work in progress. This creature count has been working for Collected Company but I definitely wouldn't go any lower.
Another note: since I cut Knight of the Reliquary the manabase is WAAAY better. The deck wants a low land count, but Knight wants singleton utility lands. I always felt like these goals were at odds in a 3-color deck.
I was toying around with the more tempo-oriented ideas people were talking about earlier, even tried out a few Cryptics to see how it'd play out. So far they're good, since they play well with Collected Company holding up 4 mana for either one. They could also definitely be Spell Snares though, which I was trying for a while. SB is incomplete, still a work in progress. This creature count has been working for Collected Company but I definitely wouldn't go any lower.
Another note: since I cut Knight of the Reliquary the manabase is WAAAY better. The deck wants a low land count, but Knight wants singleton utility lands. I always felt like these goals were at odds in a 3-color deck.
Interesting list. I'm also testing Cryptic Commands, being awesome so far. When you have both in hand there is definitely no "good play" from the opponent.
Some questions then:
-surprised about a full playset of Geists, don't you get awful hands and/or CC too often?
-how did the Cliques play out? I'm trying Exarchs as alternative creature.. really useful but the flying power of Clique is probably more needed for the beatdown.
-love the Celestial Colonnades, but same question as for Geist. Don't four tapped lands hurt the manabase too much? (Especially as you're not playing KoTR that makes them a tutorable wincon.)
I'll have a real testing of my list tonight, friends are playing Tier 1&2 decks. Will try to take some notes on matchups.
Note: so far, the creature that has surprised me the most is Mirror Entity (!). End of turn CC, Silverblade and Mirror on an empty board? Attack for 20, thanks. Brimaz popping out a 5/5? Yes please.
I'm quite new to the card, be glad to have some opinions on it.
-surprised about a full playset of Geists, don't you get awful hands and/or CC too often?
-how did the Cliques play out? I'm trying Exarchs as alternative creature.. really useful but the flying power of Clique is probably more needed for the beatdown.
-love the Celestial Colonnades, but same question as for Geist. Don't four tapped lands hurt the manabase too much? (Especially as you're not playing KoTR that makes them a tutorable wincon.)
Geist is the #1 thing I want to be doing on turn 2, so I wanted to maximize the chances. Also, in general when playing with multiple Geists, if I stick one and can keep swinging without him dying in combat then I'm way ahead so the dead card in hand isn't so bad, and if he would be blocked and die in combat that's also fine since I can still hit for 4 and play another. I think he's just the most worth the risk, pretty much of out of all legendary creatures in the entire format (think about how many decks you've seen with 4, and if you've ever seen a deck with 4 copies of any other legend aside from emrakul / griselbrand), though it's definitely a risk. Wouldn't fault anyone for going down to 3, but I won't be. Haven't run into the double-Geist Collected company yet, but its a small sample size so far & that's a general risk in my list; I have a lot of legends, I just feel like they're the strongest stand-alone threats at 3 or less (we don't always see a collected company after all). Upside, Eiganjo Castle can do some work.
Clique is great, I couldn't see running Exarch as a replacement, or at all without an abuse engine or combo. It's a thoughtsieze on a fast clock with flash, trade the lifeloss for the risk of giving your opponent a good replacement card (though you dont have to bin any of them, and you can use it to loot your own hand too). It's also a strong turn 2 play with exalted. Easy to kill and can't block well, so some games it comes out, but G1 I'm trying for a fast tempo win, and Clique's ability compliments Remand nicely to keep an opponent just off-balance enough for us to stay ahead without having to slow down our damage output. It's also exceptional in some matchups when you know that an opponent's deck hinges on key cards; worst-case it's a clock with flash and free information, plays well with the instants.
Celestial Collonade is great; 4x Collonade has, so far, been much better than the 4x singletons that I had before for Knight of the Reliquary. ETB tapped lands always have the risk of being awkward, but our only 1-drop is Hierarch and we don't always have one T1 which gives a good opening to play it, and I often find an opening when I want to hold up a Remand and don't need the 3rd mana immediately, or after a T2 Geist going into T3 with potentially 4 mana, we have a lot of options at 2~3 so a Collonade is no tempo loss there. And, of course, late game it's ideal and being tapped doesn't affect us. Best thing about it (aside from being a beater of course) is that running 4 copies REALLY helps the consistency to casting Clique, Brimaz, and Cryptic. With this particular loadout I want a good amount of UW duals and Collonade does a lot of work on top of filling that requirement.
BTW I agree with some earlier sentiment about KotR being a bit slow: If you want a way to grind and get utility she's fantastic, but if you want a fast clock and a low land count she's not what you want. She usually just isn't that large when you first drop her unless you get lucky, so after a turn of summoning sickness and a turn of fetching I could've gotten in a good amount of damage with pretty much any other 3-drop.
Updated OP with some comments on lands and matchups. Please point out anything that is missing in the OP. If you have comments on the grammer/phrasing, please PM me so we can get it fixed! Thanks!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
My original list relegated the Scavenging Ooze to the Sideboard but I found that the ooze are just too useful in the current meta as well as being just an all around great creature. I went down to one Ghost Quarter in the Main and two in the side due to occasionally getting mana screwed by unfortunately drawing, I was probably pushing my luck to run a maximum of 5 colorless lands in a deck that often sides into a 4 color list. Razorverge Thicket came in to give me some mana options that wouldn't cost me life as the burn match up is often won or lost passed on how much life you cause yourself to lose in game 1. Speaking of Burn I added Kor Firewalker to the side to help sure up the match up as I was losing a lot even with Rhox War Monk in the main due to shocking and fetching to get him out when I didn't have a dork, the rhino has since been sent to the sideboard due to under performing in other match ups. Went up one Birds of Paradise to up my chances of having a dork in my openers and to help with casting Magus of the Moon in game 2 and 3. I think that my absolute favorite part of my current sideboard is running the Magus of the Moon. Most decks NEVER see it coming, often aggressively fetching their way into shocklands early to try to avoid falling victim to a flashed in Aven Mindcensor only to lose hard to this 2/2 blood moon which can be thrown into play at instant speed by a collected company. I've been winning a lot with this list as people often simply aren't prepared for our resilient and disruptive threats.
How often do you find yourself holding Dromoka's Command? I'm afraid to draw it and not really have a use for it.
Magus of the Moon is quite interesting indeed!
Brimaz doesn't seem to do anything I wouldn't prefer vendilion or rhox for, why did you choose him over either of those for maindeck?
Brimaz, King of Oreskos has been more of an experiment, I liked the idea of having something main board to make dudes to boost voice token's power/toughness as well having little 1/1 vigiliant cats to boost with gavony. So far he hasn't been overly powerful but I've liked him more than main board rhox war monk. As for dromoka's command I've found it to be useful, especially as additional removal that can keeps my geist of saint traft from dying in combat as well as being able to prevent my board from being wiped out by red sweepers like pyroclasm, anger of the gods, etc the only reason I cut one was to make room for an additional birds of paradise to increase the deck's consistency, that said drawing one with an empty board is a terrible feeling. I may honestly cut the Brimaz, King of Oreskos for the fourth Birds of Paradise, the deck is just so much better when you're able to play a powerful three drop on turn 2 and having the full 8 dorks may be worth the trade off of possibly getting two dorks off of a collected company
I just got back from a local PPTQ, took the Bant Company out for a nice saturday. The field was about 30 fairly regular modern players.
Here's the list I took. Note I took out an eternal witness for the 3rd bird compared to the lists I have been running. I just never want to actually draw eternal witness (but its a house when company hits it).
Round 1: Grixis Control 2-0
This matchup was difficult. I played around both twin and moon for the whole match because I couldn't be sure what he was on. As it turned out, he didn't even have moon main board and no twin at all. Making this more difficult, the opponent knew from the start to play around aven mindcensor as he had seen my deck before. However, this matchup is so strong that it didn't matter: his removal could not keep up with the board state.
Round 2: RG Tron 2-0
Game 1 he mulled and played chromatic star into turn 2 expidition map with 2/3 tron online. I played Pridemage and killed the map. This stranded him for a few turns before getting Ugin into play - which was answered by company hitting 8 power for the win. I don't remember game 2, but it was short. I think it involved mindcensoring a map.
Round 3: Temur Delver 2-0
Hooting mandrils and delver couldn't race, although some tight play was required. He took a lot of damage from Gitaxian Probes and fetching shocks. Scooze does work here. Game 2 I played around blood moon and a good company sealed the game.
Round 4: UR twin 2-1
Tight match where he landed his exarch, untapped and twinned. Upon first activation, the Qasali Pridemage on the board killed it. He was on a 2 turn clock but had the second twin for the following turn, for which I had no answer. Second game was pretty quick with a company into smiter + geist ftw. Game 3 was a longer game where I made a couple play mistakes in leaving myself open to a twin, but he flooded for a couple turns and that was game. Tighter play on my part would have left him no room to twin there, even if he had top decked it.
Round 5: R/G Tron draw
I was tired and hungry, needed a break before top8. So I went for some food.
Cut to top 8, first seed!
Quarter Final: Skred Red 2-1
I've never played against this deck before, and I don't remember much. Blood moon got me one game but he got overrun in the other games.
Semi Final: Living End 1-2
This should be a great matchup. Game 1 goes according to plan, until he hits living end to get ~10 power of creatures from the yard. I tap the dork to float enough mana to hit a company, which wiffs completely. Scavenging ooze was not enough to bring it back the following turn. Post board I was very confident with 4 scooze and 2 meddling mage. Game 2 plays out super grindy with scoozes controlling gameplay. game 3 was unfortunate: I keep 2 misty, noble, 2 smiter and 2 company hand. He dismembers noble turn 1 and I never see another land. To add insult to injury, the draws for the rest of the game were company, company, smiter, geist. I think I should have mulled that hand to some hate, not sure.
I'm going to digest the event to see what changes, if any, I would make going forward.
I would definitely suggest against cutting any.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Compared to the faster aggro decks like burn, zoo, or affinity, their creatures come out fast and there are a lot of them like we want to do. But those decks have an edge over us because they also run a ton of cards that can interact with the opponent. CC may give us the creature dropping speed but we lose interactivity and I think that is the weakness of the proposed deck lists. By dropping the CC count to 2 it opens our options. We could still capitalize on the crazy tempo it offers but it won't restrict the deck to only being a mishmash of decent creatures. Dropping to 2 or even just 3, lets the deck have the wiggle room to fit in disruptive cards.
I strongly disagree with this, the creatures are very disruptive. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben slows down many opponents. Scavenging Ooze interacts with Snapcaster Mage which is the highest played creature in the entire format not to mention that it stops various graveyard based combo decks (UW Tron, Living End, Dredgevine, any deck running Tasigur, the Golden Fang who has become extremely popular in the format). The list of cards Qasali Pridemage interacts with is too long but it's important to mention it demands an answer from Splinter Twin which is Tier 1. His exatled triggers help push through creatures as well, especially Geist of Saint Traft. Aven Mindcensor interacts with fetchlands which are widely used as well as hose all Tron decks and Bloom Titan. Voice of Resurgenceforces your opponents to play sub-optimally (disruptive). On top of this, Kitchen Finks isn't disruptive in the traditional sense but it hoses Burn which is incredibly popular.
Collected Company is a 2 for 1 that let's you interact at instant speed. There are also various SB creatures which can disrupt whatever metagame you are facing. Meddling Mage is great against Combo. Spellskite is great against Twin, Infect and others. Mirran Crusader is great against rock decks. Kor Firewalker is virtually a free win against burn. Kataki, War's Wage is great against affinity.
Not all these creatures are just vanilla undercosted beaters. We also have 4 Path to Exile to interact as well as Dromoka's Command in certain lists. It's definitely valid to play a more tempo-style deck with Remand and Cryptic Command but an all-in Collected Company deck maximizing creature count to increase the effectiveness of the card is also completely viable. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben has been an all-star for me and I personally don't want to be running 2U remands and 2UUU cryptics.
Hopefully I am proven wrong, but I don't think the direction that the deck is currently heading is the right one.
How is remand going to help against those decks? You are remanding these 1 and 2 cmc spells at the cost of not casting a sorcery speed threat which could have a similar taxing effect, but with a body instead of a card draw.
As far as racing goes, I think you seriously underestimate the ability to race when you delay the opponent's strategy by a single turn with the disruptive elements. You don't need much time - giest and smiter are fast clocks in their own right and are outmatching the creatures those linear decks are jamming.
Thalia is just straight up better than remand in this deck. Not only because you can get it with collected company, but because against most tier 1 decks Thalia taxes similar amounts of mana as remand while being proactive. You need to be proactive imo, and remand simply does not fit the bill.
I do agree that 4 PTE as our only removal is a weakness. Spells 9-10, if you include them, should address that weakness.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
This. This is what I've been saying. I was never advocating that we must run Remand - that was just a suggestion. I mention that I think more disruption is necessary.
Affinity is the only bad matchup of those listed there imo, which gets better after board with spellskite, more qasali and kataki.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
4 Collected Company
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds of Paradise
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Aven Mindcensor
2 Rhox War Monk
2 Eternal Witness
4 Windswept Heath
1 Breeding Pool
2 Temple Garden
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Gavony Township
2 Stirring Wildwood
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Eiganjo Castle
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Spellskite
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Vendilion Clique
edit: fixed broken link
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
2 Breeding Pool
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Forest
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
1 Eiganjo Castle
(24) Creatures:
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Voice of Resurgence
4 Path to Exile
4 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
4 Collected Company
4 Negate
2 Spell Pierce
4 Kitchen Finks
Another note: since I cut Knight of the Reliquary the manabase is WAAAY better. The deck wants a low land count, but Knight wants singleton utility lands. I always felt like these goals were at odds in a 3-color deck.
Interesting list. I'm also testing Cryptic Commands, being awesome so far. When you have both in hand there is definitely no "good play" from the opponent.
Some questions then:
-surprised about a full playset of Geists, don't you get awful hands and/or CC too often?
-how did the Cliques play out? I'm trying Exarchs as alternative creature.. really useful but the flying power of Clique is probably more needed for the beatdown.
-love the Celestial Colonnades, but same question as for Geist. Don't four tapped lands hurt the manabase too much? (Especially as you're not playing KoTR that makes them a tutorable wincon.)
I'll have a real testing of my list tonight, friends are playing Tier 1&2 decks. Will try to take some notes on matchups.
Note: so far, the creature that has surprised me the most is Mirror Entity (!). End of turn CC, Silverblade and Mirror on an empty board? Attack for 20, thanks. Brimaz popping out a 5/5? Yes please.
I'm quite new to the card, be glad to have some opinions on it.
Geist is the #1 thing I want to be doing on turn 2, so I wanted to maximize the chances. Also, in general when playing with multiple Geists, if I stick one and can keep swinging without him dying in combat then I'm way ahead so the dead card in hand isn't so bad, and if he would be blocked and die in combat that's also fine since I can still hit for 4 and play another. I think he's just the most worth the risk, pretty much of out of all legendary creatures in the entire format (think about how many decks you've seen with 4, and if you've ever seen a deck with 4 copies of any other legend aside from emrakul / griselbrand), though it's definitely a risk. Wouldn't fault anyone for going down to 3, but I won't be. Haven't run into the double-Geist Collected company yet, but its a small sample size so far & that's a general risk in my list; I have a lot of legends, I just feel like they're the strongest stand-alone threats at 3 or less (we don't always see a collected company after all). Upside, Eiganjo Castle can do some work.
Clique is great, I couldn't see running Exarch as a replacement, or at all without an abuse engine or combo. It's a thoughtsieze on a fast clock with flash, trade the lifeloss for the risk of giving your opponent a good replacement card (though you dont have to bin any of them, and you can use it to loot your own hand too). It's also a strong turn 2 play with exalted. Easy to kill and can't block well, so some games it comes out, but G1 I'm trying for a fast tempo win, and Clique's ability compliments Remand nicely to keep an opponent just off-balance enough for us to stay ahead without having to slow down our damage output. It's also exceptional in some matchups when you know that an opponent's deck hinges on key cards; worst-case it's a clock with flash and free information, plays well with the instants.
Celestial Collonade is great; 4x Collonade has, so far, been much better than the 4x singletons that I had before for Knight of the Reliquary. ETB tapped lands always have the risk of being awkward, but our only 1-drop is Hierarch and we don't always have one T1 which gives a good opening to play it, and I often find an opening when I want to hold up a Remand and don't need the 3rd mana immediately, or after a T2 Geist going into T3 with potentially 4 mana, we have a lot of options at 2~3 so a Collonade is no tempo loss there. And, of course, late game it's ideal and being tapped doesn't affect us. Best thing about it (aside from being a beater of course) is that running 4 copies REALLY helps the consistency to casting Clique, Brimaz, and Cryptic. With this particular loadout I want a good amount of UW duals and Collonade does a lot of work on top of filling that requirement.
BTW I agree with some earlier sentiment about KotR being a bit slow: If you want a way to grind and get utility she's fantastic, but if you want a fast clock and a low land count she's not what you want. She usually just isn't that large when you first drop her unless you get lucky, so after a turn of summoning sickness and a turn of fetching I could've gotten in a good amount of damage with pretty much any other 3-drop.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Voice of Resurgence
3 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Aven Mindcensor
4 Loxodon Smiter
1 Eternal Witness
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Scavenging Ooze
Noncreature Spells
1 Dromoka's Command
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
1 Breeding Pool
2 Temple Garden
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Razorverge Thicket
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Spellskite
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Rhox War Monk
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Magus of the Moon
1 Stomping Ground
My original list relegated the Scavenging Ooze to the Sideboard but I found that the ooze are just too useful in the current meta as well as being just an all around great creature. I went down to one Ghost Quarter in the Main and two in the side due to occasionally getting mana screwed by unfortunately drawing, I was probably pushing my luck to run a maximum of 5 colorless lands in a deck that often sides into a 4 color list. Razorverge Thicket came in to give me some mana options that wouldn't cost me life as the burn match up is often won or lost passed on how much life you cause yourself to lose in game 1. Speaking of Burn I added Kor Firewalker to the side to help sure up the match up as I was losing a lot even with Rhox War Monk in the main due to shocking and fetching to get him out when I didn't have a dork, the rhino has since been sent to the sideboard due to under performing in other match ups. Went up one Birds of Paradise to up my chances of having a dork in my openers and to help with casting Magus of the Moon in game 2 and 3. I think that my absolute favorite part of my current sideboard is running the Magus of the Moon. Most decks NEVER see it coming, often aggressively fetching their way into shocklands early to try to avoid falling victim to a flashed in Aven Mindcensor only to lose hard to this 2/2 blood moon which can be thrown into play at instant speed by a collected company. I've been winning a lot with this list as people often simply aren't prepared for our resilient and disruptive threats.
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
Magus of the Moon is quite interesting indeed!
Brimaz doesn't seem to do anything I wouldn't prefer vendilion or rhox for, why did you choose him over either of those for maindeck?
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Brimaz, King of Oreskos has been more of an experiment, I liked the idea of having something main board to make dudes to boost voice token's power/toughness as well having little 1/1 vigiliant cats to boost with gavony. So far he hasn't been overly powerful but I've liked him more than main board rhox war monk. As for dromoka's command I've found it to be useful, especially as additional removal that can keeps my geist of saint traft from dying in combat as well as being able to prevent my board from being wiped out by red sweepers like pyroclasm, anger of the gods, etc the only reason I cut one was to make room for an additional birds of paradise to increase the deck's consistency, that said drawing one with an empty board is a terrible feeling. I may honestly cut the Brimaz, King of Oreskos for the fourth Birds of Paradise, the deck is just so much better when you're able to play a powerful three drop on turn 2 and having the full 8 dorks may be worth the trade off of possibly getting two dorks off of a collected company
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon
Here's the list I took. Note I took out an eternal witness for the 3rd bird compared to the lists I have been running. I just never want to actually draw eternal witness (but its a house when company hits it).
4 Collected Company
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Aven Mindcensor
2 Rhox War Monk
1 Eternal Witness
4 Windswept Heath
2 Breeding Pool
2 Temple Garden
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains
2 Stirring Wildwood
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Gavony Township
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Spellskite
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
Round 1: Grixis Control 2-0
This matchup was difficult. I played around both twin and moon for the whole match because I couldn't be sure what he was on. As it turned out, he didn't even have moon main board and no twin at all. Making this more difficult, the opponent knew from the start to play around aven mindcensor as he had seen my deck before. However, this matchup is so strong that it didn't matter: his removal could not keep up with the board state.
Round 2: RG Tron 2-0
Game 1 he mulled and played chromatic star into turn 2 expidition map with 2/3 tron online. I played Pridemage and killed the map. This stranded him for a few turns before getting Ugin into play - which was answered by company hitting 8 power for the win. I don't remember game 2, but it was short. I think it involved mindcensoring a map.
Round 3: Temur Delver 2-0
Hooting mandrils and delver couldn't race, although some tight play was required. He took a lot of damage from Gitaxian Probes and fetching shocks. Scooze does work here. Game 2 I played around blood moon and a good company sealed the game.
Round 4: UR twin 2-1
Tight match where he landed his exarch, untapped and twinned. Upon first activation, the Qasali Pridemage on the board killed it. He was on a 2 turn clock but had the second twin for the following turn, for which I had no answer. Second game was pretty quick with a company into smiter + geist ftw. Game 3 was a longer game where I made a couple play mistakes in leaving myself open to a twin, but he flooded for a couple turns and that was game. Tighter play on my part would have left him no room to twin there, even if he had top decked it.
Round 5: R/G Tron draw
I was tired and hungry, needed a break before top8. So I went for some food.
Cut to top 8, first seed!
Quarter Final: Skred Red 2-1
I've never played against this deck before, and I don't remember much. Blood moon got me one game but he got overrun in the other games.
Semi Final: Living End 1-2
This should be a great matchup. Game 1 goes according to plan, until he hits living end to get ~10 power of creatures from the yard. I tap the dork to float enough mana to hit a company, which wiffs completely. Scavenging ooze was not enough to bring it back the following turn. Post board I was very confident with 4 scooze and 2 meddling mage. Game 2 plays out super grindy with scoozes controlling gameplay. game 3 was unfortunate: I keep 2 misty, noble, 2 smiter and 2 company hand. He dismembers noble turn 1 and I never see another land. To add insult to injury, the draws for the rest of the game were company, company, smiter, geist. I think I should have mulled that hand to some hate, not sure.
I'm going to digest the event to see what changes, if any, I would make going forward.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
~Modern~
BGURWhiteless Death's ShadowRUGB
GWRUSaheeli BlinkURWG
RGBUGood Ole' DredgeUBGR
~Commander~
URWNarset, Enlightened Time-TravelerWRU
UBRWBreya, Etherium ArchitectWRBU
A Prolific Loser To Blood Moon