On thetechzombie's list, i really not like your manabase i prefear play no red and less forests and more horizon canopy and ghost quarter if you not run retreat.
First point is that I only have the one Canopy. Second, I don't even like Canopy that much. It still pains me like Fethces and Shocks do, I rarely end up drawing off of it, and it isn't a plains/forest that can be sacrificed to Knight.
On having red without the combo, I think you're wrong. I used to play without the combo and without red, and I would just get stuck in board stalls. Gavony can sometimes help, but it's way slower than Kessig. Even without the combo, Kessig just lets you win out of nowhere. I can't tell you how many times I've been able to fetch up a Kessig after blocks to kill my opponent simply because they didn't expect it. Also, with Humans running around with Phantasmal Images, it's a neat trick to Kessig their own Image to kill it. It's saved me several games. The Kessig package is good enough in and of itself that I would probably always play it, but on top of that, it gives you access to a really important sideboard card: Izzet Staticaster. Staticaster is really good against Humans and other small dork decks lie Elves, Spirits, and Druid combo.
The red doesn't hurt our manabase a ton (occassionally it can come up. It hurt me pretty bad in the final game of the Semis from my previous post), but it can give you access to some important tools. I would not cut the red, even if I'm not running the Combo.
In response to the overall discussion on Retreat, I haven't liked it for a while now, and I think a lot of the lists that have been showing up lately on Goldfish have been cutting them. I found myself almost always siding them out. Without resulting in a combo, the card just does nothing. So you either have to go all in on them, or you have to cut them entirely. I would just play other cards to help against linear decks like Meddling Mage or better value cards in those slots.
Admittedly, I got really lucky as I ran into all of the worst matchups and they all got screwed. I went 4-0-2 in Swiss and lost in the Semi-finals.
Round 1- Storm: Game 1 he failed to go off. Game 2 He mulliganed to 4.
Round 2- Tron: Both games, the opponent just took way too long to get tron online.
Round 3- Burn: Game 1 he got flooded, but game 2 was a tight game. He just drew a bunch of creatures late game after I already had a board presence.
Round 4- Tron: Game 1 failed to get tron online fast enough, Game 2 was close but I lost after a late game Ugin. Game 3 had 5 minutes left on the clock and she kept a bad hand for time's sake. No Tron lands but lots of cantrips, but I had the Stony Silence which locked her out.
Round 4 and 5 were Intentional Draws. The decks were Infect (which I probably would have won) and Jeskai Ascendancy.
T8
Quarterfinals- Rematch of the Burn guy. Game 1 was close but he bricked in the end. Game 2 was again close but he drew 3 Destructive Revelry and 2 Searing Blaze when I didn't have a Worship and he didn't draw lands.
Semifinals- I just got steamrolled by Jeskai Ascendancy. I kept a questionable hand Game 3 and it didn't pan out.
Overall, I just got super lucky. However, I would've liked to face other opponents like Humans. However, there were only 2 Humans players in the room of 64 and they both lost early. I never got to try the Tamiyo in any of the games, so I'm not sure how I feel. I might finally take out the 1 Qasali Pridemage since Affinity is on the decline, and replace it with a Selfess Spirit. I have been hesitant to do this as it's still a fine beater with exalted and it can come in handy in certain situations. I also might cut a single Staticaster from the Board as the decks it's good against seem to not be prevalent around here. Other than that, I don't know if I would make many changes to the list. Everything felt good. I just got rather lucky.
I know Sculler and Queller don't play the EXACT same role, but they both disrupt the opponent. That's kinda what I was going for. Black also gives you Kambal and other hand disrupters like Freebooter (if you need more of the Sculler effects). The Fiend Hunter/Wasteland Strangler combos also help fill a similar role as Reflector Mage in that they help interact with the board while adding bodies to the board. Flickerwisp helps as well in the Humans matchup as it resets big Champions and can block non-exalted Mantis Riders. Black also lets you run Bajuka Bog without completely destroying your mana base with a colorless, etb tapped land. I think black might be something worth experimenting with, and I just wanted to throw it out there since I don't have a bunch of time to test all the different variations.
So, I've been playing Knightfall for over a 2 years now. There's not a ton I can add to the conversation that hasn't already been said. It's weakest matchups are clearly the linear decks, and the two drop slot is really where the deck is weakest (if SFM got unbanned that would help a lot) . Earlier, someone made a comprehensive list of playable cards for the maindeck and sideboard, but I went through the pain of finding all the cards that might even be remotely playable that can fill flex slots.
I don't have the time or money to test every single one of these cards in depth but I'll just say what I'm most interested in. I kinda like the idea of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. It lets you filter the cards you don't want for the given matchup and it lets you rebuy CoCo later on. The only problem is that it does nothing if it immediately dies to removal.
If we want more cards against combo or control, we can try and add Spellstutter Sprites. It lets us play even more as a flash deck and it can help save creatures from Paths and Bolts just by itself. With Vendilion Clique, you can put a better package against combo and control.
I also like the idea of Champion of Wits for the same reason as Jace. It can help filter bad cards and it can be another threat for the late game against midrange and control.
If you're struggling with fliers, boy did I find the card for you. Aven Mimeomancer can turn your Noble Hierarchs or Birds into 3/1 fliers that can black Mantis Rider and Spirits all day long. Plus, it can turn them into threats.
One of the matchups that I think is also rough is burn, and I've always wanted to try Sunscourge Champion. It gains two immediately and then 4 later. Sometimes, you die with cards in hand anyways so the discard on the Eternalize doesn't matter. I think it might be good, but Finks just might be better since Finks is cards advantage while Champion is disadvantage.
I kinda want to try Tamiyo, Field Researcher as well. She can tap down blockers, and draw a ton of cards. She seems great against any deck except for combo.
The problem with all of these cards, save Clique and Sprite, are that they all help the already good matchups (midrange and control). There are so few cards that help against control.
Finally, I've noticed that everyone seems to be off of the Coralhelm combo. I too have cut it. My question is, if we're not playing the combo, why run blue? Why not Abzan CoCo which gives access to hand disruption with Tidehollow Sculler? This deck went 5-0 a couple weeks ago and I think it might be a good place to start.
The only reason to be playing blue is really for Reflector Mage, since Sculler plays the same roll as Spell Queller. I know this is the thread for Bant Knightfall, but maybe Abzan is the way to go? I wish I had more time to test all these cards. I hope come of this helped give people testing ideas.
Game 1 why weren't you attacking with both Qasali Pridemage and Courser after he attacked with Reality Smasher in game 1? It's not like you're going to block, and if it was a hedge towards double Reality Smasher, taking 10 life is much better than losing 2 creatures. It may have put himself in a position to judge wrongly and block with a Noble Hierarch, and potentially trade with a flyer, which is huge. Also, why didn't you play Collected Company on your turn? It paid off because your opponent didn't play his Reality Smasher and Skyspawner, probably because he didn't know that because you cast CoCo into Reflector Mage on his turn, once your following turn is over, he can cast his bounced creatures.
In response to the first part, I tend to play a little conservatively. The slight benefit of a little extra damage now may not be worth it if I need my Courser to block. I know I probably won't be blocking, but if I really need to, I would like to have that option available. For the second question, I had a spell queller on the top of my deck revealed off of Courser. Therefore, even if my CoCo hits nothing else, I know I can counter something with the Queller so I should hold it for his turn.
Game 2 was just great actually lol. The actual turning point where it was just impossible for the Bant Eldrazi player to win was not playing Thought-Knot Seer on turn 3.I was like yelling at the screen "WTF DUDE YOU'RE GONNA LOSE THE GAME WHY DID YOU NOT PLAY TKS" lol xD. Like straight up it lost him the game lol; I watched the game like 3 times to figure out if he could win because after the game he had an interesting conversation with his friend lol. I just spent a little under an hour scrutinizing EVERY SINGLE DAMN DECISION AND MISTAKE (there were a lot) after he didn't play the TKS on T3 WHILE explaining my thoughts about it in this post (I deleted it all because I realized it was a waste of time). Believe me when I say he straight up lost the game because of that and not your top deck Path to Exile lol (it bothers me so much when people talk about losing to TOP DECKS... a lot of the time you lose to top decks because the sequence of decisions way down the line are what put you in the position to losing to that specific top deck--I can attest to that because I just foolishly spent the last hour trying to see if there was ANY possible way he could have won after not playing TKS on t3, AND THEN deciding to play Spawner instead of TKS AGAIN). I actually feel so tilted because I went through every permutation every turn lol FUQQQ. Anyways, YOU GO THERE, WOOO!
I was wondering the whole time why he wasn't playing the TKS. I knew he had it from the Ancient Stirrings and was leaving up path every turn for it. Even when I could have cast a Voice one turn, I didn't because I knew he had a TKS. I don't know if playing it turn three would have changed all that much however. I still had the path and was leaving it up every turn. It would have come out the same in the end.
Courser is so good in our deck that I main 4. In regards to burn, over a large sample size of games you are favored against burn game 1 because of 4 Spell Queller, 4 Courser, and 2 Ooze. Sideboard becomes a joke lol.
I want to try a 4 Courser build but I have no idea what to take out. Maybe 1 Reflector Mage and an Ooze? Then you become slightly worse against the Dredge matchup because Ooze is so important in that game 1.
I'm not gonna tell you to stay on it but I am gonna tell you that if you like it and want to have reasonable success to your eye, then you gotta get the experience by playing AND learning about the deck. This can be applied to any deck that has a myriad of choices but it's certainly one of things that stand out in this deck.
I forgot to mention that I've been playing the deck for maybe a year and a half now, so I am definitely not new. I have a good handle on most of the interactions and matchups, but the fact that I have been playing it for so long might be contributing to me not being as high on the deck as I used to.
Hey everybody. I mostly just lurk here to try and get ideas, but I went 4-2 in a PPTQ today and barely squeaked out a 16th place out of about 50 players. Here is the list I was running:
It is generally a pretty stock list except for a couple of notable cards. My big question is: do we really need to be playing Retreat to Coralhelm? When I first started playing the deck, I played 2 like normal. Eventually, I just realized that I wasn't comboing with it nearly enough. I was sideing it out in almost every matchup except where the combo potential can steal a game from faster decks or you need to untap a staticaster with it. I eventually went down to one in favor of an extra grindy card like Tireless Tracker or something. For this tournament, I decided to swap out the last Retreat with Whisperwood Elemental, and I don't think I missed it one bit. Whisperwood may not be the right card to fill the slot, but I never felt like I needed a Retreat. The second more odd card choice is the Elspeth in the board. I have been playing her for quite a while and I love her in the grindy games. I would like to try other cards in that slot, perhaps Elspeth, Knight-Errant, but I don't want to spend the money on her just to test her out when she may or may not be good. Any thoughts on the ideas I have raised? And also, if you're wondering why I don't run Horizon Canopy or I split my Fetches so awkwardly, the answer is money. I don't have a Canopy or 4 Misty's and I am not going to spend a lot to marginally improve the mana base.
For the games:
Round one- Paired against Bant ELdrazi, and if you actually want to, you can watch the stream of me playing in the feature match here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/164662393 The first game kinda showed off the power of the Whisperwood Elemental, but I might have won that game regardless. Game two, I had no business winning. I was stuck on mana and couldn't play anything in my hand except for a path until about turn 5 or 6. Fortunately, he had a very slow hand and once I found the mana, the ball started rolling. In the last turn, I also figured he had a Blessed Alliance against my Scooze and Voice so I also attacked with a Bird. He was not happy after that.
Round two and three- I got paired up against burn both rounds and got steamrolled in both matches. Scavenging Ooze is really not that great in this matchup if you aren't trading your creatures to put them in the graveyard.
Round 4- I got paired against some weird mono-blue illusions tribal deck. Let's just say it was really bad and I beat him pretty easily.
Round 5- I got paired against Saffron Olive's mono-black vehicles deck, which you can probably look up somewhere. He didn't seem very experienced in playing against Kessig Wolf Run as I was able to "get him" both games with it. Game one, he could have soaked up enough damage to survive and kill me on the crackback, but he only put one toughness to chump block my knight and activated Kessig for lethal.
Round 6- Paired against Dredge. Game one, I had no business winning. He got off to a blistering fast start and only through 2 Coursers and a Knight gaining me a bunch of life was I able to win at one life in the end. He could have easily won this game but he Conflagrated after block killing both my Coursers and doming me for three when he could have also finished off my Knight. Game two, lost pretty quickly by keeping a shoddy hand and I didn't get there. Game three, he had a bad hand and my Scooze was able to take him off of his graveyard so he had to play stinkweed imps to try and block.
Overall, I don't know how much I would change from the deck. There was a ton of affinity, GBx Midrange, and other good matchups but I didn't get paired against them to get good feedback. Mostly my wins were due to my opponents punting or just playing bad decks in general. As the previous discussions here have suggested, Courser is really good and I don't know why I ever took her out for a while. The other card I don't like is Eidolon of Rhetoric. The only time she is a slam-dunk is against storm and that's only if you have her in your opening hand. I hardly ever bring her in and this spot might just be better spent on something else. Teeg and Thalia have been mentioned, which I like but I am unsure of. I like the deck, but I have been running poorly this past 2 months or so that it's really put me off and I'm trying to find other good CoCo decks that aren't Elves (which I have) and Counters Company (which I also have). I am going to try Bant Spirits (just ordered the cards) and I only need a few cards to put together Todd Stevens' GW Value-Town. Always open to discussion.
Be extremely conscious about fetching Island type shock lands. Only do it as a last resort so as to minimize the islandwalk from the Merfolk side. Sometimes you can gum up the board enough with your bigger creatures that Islandwalk is the only way they can get past you. You can use Knight to sac the lands that they are trying to spreading seas, but remember that you can only sac forests and plains. Therefore, you should also be conscious to not get your utility lands like Gavony and Kessig until you absolutely have to because they can't be sacced in response to a spreading seas. Finally, as a last resort, if they do manage to hit a land with spreading seas (especially a utility land since they can't be sacced to Knight) you can try to fetch up a ghost quarter and ghost quarter your own land that is underneath the spreading seas. If it comes down to the Ghost Quarter play, try and do it when they feel like they are safe to attack with Islandwalk, then you get rid of your island and try and block to decimate their board. Also, always be conscious about Aether Vial and what options he can vial in at any moment.
These are just very general tips. The matchup does feel pretty rough, but you have to play extremely smart. I have played traditional Knightfall for about a year now and I have a friend who plays Merfolk regularly. We got paired up often at our LGS and we seemed to go back and forth a lot, but the more we learned about the tricks of each other's decks, the harder it felt for me. It seems like a matchup where the most experienced player should win. If you know your side, and they aren't well prepared and don't know how to play against you, you should be fine. There aren't great sideboard options aside from staticasters, so I guess load up on those if Merfolk is a big problem at your LGS. If you're going into a larger tournament though, Merfolk isn't an extremely popular deck so I wouldn't go hog wild trying to beat it at the expense of other matchups. Other than that, hope to get lucky I guess. Either get lucky off of them getting screwed, you getting insanely good Collected Company hits, or hope to hit your combo without interaction.
Has anyone suggested mixing the hive mind combo in with the green devotion deck? You can use summoner's pact just as a search tool when you need it or you can use it to win. You also get access to slaughter's pact. I'ts just a suggestion.
You seem to not be aware of how retail stores make money. They do it by selling things for more than they bought them for. In addition, they try to convince consumers to buy things at their prices, even if they're not planning to. If morals are your primary thing, I suggest you don't open up a store.
Yes, but there is a difference between marking up prices to make a profit or trading up a couple bucks and ripping someone off. everybody knows the difference and you're a sleezeball if you try to justify ripping someone off. And if I were a store owner, I would give these guys warnings to try and keep the atmosphere nice.
First point is that I only have the one Canopy. Second, I don't even like Canopy that much. It still pains me like Fethces and Shocks do, I rarely end up drawing off of it, and it isn't a plains/forest that can be sacrificed to Knight.
On having red without the combo, I think you're wrong. I used to play without the combo and without red, and I would just get stuck in board stalls. Gavony can sometimes help, but it's way slower than Kessig. Even without the combo, Kessig just lets you win out of nowhere. I can't tell you how many times I've been able to fetch up a Kessig after blocks to kill my opponent simply because they didn't expect it. Also, with Humans running around with Phantasmal Images, it's a neat trick to Kessig their own Image to kill it. It's saved me several games. The Kessig package is good enough in and of itself that I would probably always play it, but on top of that, it gives you access to a really important sideboard card: Izzet Staticaster. Staticaster is really good against Humans and other small dork decks lie Elves, Spirits, and Druid combo.
The red doesn't hurt our manabase a ton (occassionally it can come up. It hurt me pretty bad in the final game of the Semis from my previous post), but it can give you access to some important tools. I would not cut the red, even if I'm not running the Combo.
In response to the overall discussion on Retreat, I haven't liked it for a while now, and I think a lot of the lists that have been showing up lately on Goldfish have been cutting them. I found myself almost always siding them out. Without resulting in a combo, the card just does nothing. So you either have to go all in on them, or you have to cut them entirely. I would just play other cards to help against linear decks like Meddling Mage or better value cards in those slots.
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Selfless Spirit
2 Meddling Mage
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Spell Queller
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Eternal Witness
2 Reflector Mage
1 Tireless Tracker
Spells
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
4 Windswept Heath
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Flooded Strand
2 Temple Garden
2 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Stomping Ground
3 Forest
2 Plains
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Kessig Wolf Run
3 Izzet Staticaster
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Stony Silence
2 Unified Will
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Damping Sphere
1 Worship
1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
Admittedly, I got really lucky as I ran into all of the worst matchups and they all got screwed. I went 4-0-2 in Swiss and lost in the Semi-finals.
Round 1- Storm: Game 1 he failed to go off. Game 2 He mulliganed to 4.
Round 2- Tron: Both games, the opponent just took way too long to get tron online.
Round 3- Burn: Game 1 he got flooded, but game 2 was a tight game. He just drew a bunch of creatures late game after I already had a board presence.
Round 4- Tron: Game 1 failed to get tron online fast enough, Game 2 was close but I lost after a late game Ugin. Game 3 had 5 minutes left on the clock and she kept a bad hand for time's sake. No Tron lands but lots of cantrips, but I had the Stony Silence which locked her out.
Round 4 and 5 were Intentional Draws. The decks were Infect (which I probably would have won) and Jeskai Ascendancy.
T8
Quarterfinals- Rematch of the Burn guy. Game 1 was close but he bricked in the end. Game 2 was again close but he drew 3 Destructive Revelry and 2 Searing Blaze when I didn't have a Worship and he didn't draw lands.
Semifinals- I just got steamrolled by Jeskai Ascendancy. I kept a questionable hand Game 3 and it didn't pan out.
Overall, I just got super lucky. However, I would've liked to face other opponents like Humans. However, there were only 2 Humans players in the room of 64 and they both lost early. I never got to try the Tamiyo in any of the games, so I'm not sure how I feel. I might finally take out the 1 Qasali Pridemage since Affinity is on the decline, and replace it with a Selfess Spirit. I have been hesitant to do this as it's still a fine beater with exalted and it can come in handy in certain situations. I also might cut a single Staticaster from the Board as the decks it's good against seem to not be prevalent around here. Other than that, I don't know if I would make many changes to the list. Everything felt good. I just got rather lucky.
One-Drops
Burrenton Forge-Tender
Duantless Bodyguard
Dryad Militant
Ulvenwald Tracker
Two-Drops
Coiling Oracle
Dromoka's Command
Fleecemane Lion
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Kataki, War's Wage
Meddling Mage
Negate
Phyrexian Revoker
Remorseful Cleric
Saffi Eriksdotter
Spellskite
Spellstutter Sprite
Tocatli Honor Guard
Wall of Omens
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3-Drops
Aven Mindcensor
Aven Mimeomancer
Brimaz, King of Oreskos
Champion of Wits
Courser of Kruphix
Eidolon of Rhetoric
Eternal Witness
Thalia, Heretic Cathar
Fairgrounds Warden
Geist of Saint Traft
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
Kitchen Finks
Loxodon Smiter
Magus of the Moon
Militia Bugler
Mirran Crusader
Nimble Obstructionist
Nissa, Vastwood Seer
Order of Whiteclay
Prowling Serpopard
Reclamation Sage
Renegade Rallier
Rhox War Monk
Runic Armasaur
Sunscourge Champion
Troll Ascetic
Vendilion Clique
4-Drops
Bloodbraid Elf
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Obstinate Baloth
Settle the Wreckage
Tamiyo, Field Researcher
5-Drop
Archangel Avacyn
Fracturing Gust
Elspeth Sun's Champion
I don't have the time or money to test every single one of these cards in depth but I'll just say what I'm most interested in. I kinda like the idea of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. It lets you filter the cards you don't want for the given matchup and it lets you rebuy CoCo later on. The only problem is that it does nothing if it immediately dies to removal.
If we want more cards against combo or control, we can try and add Spellstutter Sprites. It lets us play even more as a flash deck and it can help save creatures from Paths and Bolts just by itself. With Vendilion Clique, you can put a better package against combo and control.
I also like the idea of Champion of Wits for the same reason as Jace. It can help filter bad cards and it can be another threat for the late game against midrange and control.
If you're struggling with fliers, boy did I find the card for you. Aven Mimeomancer can turn your Noble Hierarchs or Birds into 3/1 fliers that can black Mantis Rider and Spirits all day long. Plus, it can turn them into threats.
One of the matchups that I think is also rough is burn, and I've always wanted to try Sunscourge Champion. It gains two immediately and then 4 later. Sometimes, you die with cards in hand anyways so the discard on the Eternalize doesn't matter. I think it might be good, but Finks just might be better since Finks is cards advantage while Champion is disadvantage.
I kinda want to try Tamiyo, Field Researcher as well. She can tap down blockers, and draw a ton of cards. She seems great against any deck except for combo.
The problem with all of these cards, save Clique and Sprite, are that they all help the already good matchups (midrange and control). There are so few cards that help against control.
Finally, I've noticed that everyone seems to be off of the Coralhelm combo. I too have cut it. My question is, if we're not playing the combo, why run blue? Why not Abzan CoCo which gives access to hand disruption with Tidehollow Sculler? This deck went 5-0 a couple weeks ago and I think it might be a good place to start.
4x Birds of Paradise
1x Bojuka Bog
4x Collected Company
3x Eternal Witness
2x Fiend Hunter
4x Flickerwisp
1x Forest
2x Ghost Quarter
1x Godless Shrine
1x Horizon Canopy
4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Marsh Flats
4x Noble Hierarch
2x Overgrown Tomb
2x Plains
2x Scavenging Ooze
2x Selfless Spirit
1x Swamp
2x Temple Garden
4x Tidehollow Sculler
2x Verdant Catacombs
1x Voice of Resurgence
4x Wasteland Strangler
4x Windswept Heath
The only reason to be playing blue is really for Reflector Mage, since Sculler plays the same roll as Spell Queller. I know this is the thread for Bant Knightfall, but maybe Abzan is the way to go? I wish I had more time to test all these cards. I hope come of this helped give people testing ideas.
In response to the first part, I tend to play a little conservatively. The slight benefit of a little extra damage now may not be worth it if I need my Courser to block. I know I probably won't be blocking, but if I really need to, I would like to have that option available. For the second question, I had a spell queller on the top of my deck revealed off of Courser. Therefore, even if my CoCo hits nothing else, I know I can counter something with the Queller so I should hold it for his turn.
I was wondering the whole time why he wasn't playing the TKS. I knew he had it from the Ancient Stirrings and was leaving up path every turn for it. Even when I could have cast a Voice one turn, I didn't because I knew he had a TKS. I don't know if playing it turn three would have changed all that much however. I still had the path and was leaving it up every turn. It would have come out the same in the end.
I want to try a 4 Courser build but I have no idea what to take out. Maybe 1 Reflector Mage and an Ooze? Then you become slightly worse against the Dredge matchup because Ooze is so important in that game 1.
I forgot to mention that I've been playing the deck for maybe a year and a half now, so I am definitely not new. I have a good handle on most of the interactions and matchups, but the fact that I have been playing it for so long might be contributing to me not being as high on the deck as I used to.
3 Forest
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Flooded Strand
2 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Voice of Resurgence
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Spell Queller
4 Reflector Mage
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Courser of Kruphix
1 Whisperwood Elemental
Spells
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Izzet Staticaster
2 Stony Silence
2 Negate
2 Unified Will
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
It is generally a pretty stock list except for a couple of notable cards. My big question is: do we really need to be playing Retreat to Coralhelm? When I first started playing the deck, I played 2 like normal. Eventually, I just realized that I wasn't comboing with it nearly enough. I was sideing it out in almost every matchup except where the combo potential can steal a game from faster decks or you need to untap a staticaster with it. I eventually went down to one in favor of an extra grindy card like Tireless Tracker or something. For this tournament, I decided to swap out the last Retreat with Whisperwood Elemental, and I don't think I missed it one bit. Whisperwood may not be the right card to fill the slot, but I never felt like I needed a Retreat. The second more odd card choice is the Elspeth in the board. I have been playing her for quite a while and I love her in the grindy games. I would like to try other cards in that slot, perhaps Elspeth, Knight-Errant, but I don't want to spend the money on her just to test her out when she may or may not be good. Any thoughts on the ideas I have raised? And also, if you're wondering why I don't run Horizon Canopy or I split my Fetches so awkwardly, the answer is money. I don't have a Canopy or 4 Misty's and I am not going to spend a lot to marginally improve the mana base.
For the games:
Round one- Paired against Bant ELdrazi, and if you actually want to, you can watch the stream of me playing in the feature match here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/164662393 The first game kinda showed off the power of the Whisperwood Elemental, but I might have won that game regardless. Game two, I had no business winning. I was stuck on mana and couldn't play anything in my hand except for a path until about turn 5 or 6. Fortunately, he had a very slow hand and once I found the mana, the ball started rolling. In the last turn, I also figured he had a Blessed Alliance against my Scooze and Voice so I also attacked with a Bird. He was not happy after that.
Round two and three- I got paired up against burn both rounds and got steamrolled in both matches. Scavenging Ooze is really not that great in this matchup if you aren't trading your creatures to put them in the graveyard.
Round 4- I got paired against some weird mono-blue illusions tribal deck. Let's just say it was really bad and I beat him pretty easily.
Round 5- I got paired against Saffron Olive's mono-black vehicles deck, which you can probably look up somewhere. He didn't seem very experienced in playing against Kessig Wolf Run as I was able to "get him" both games with it. Game one, he could have soaked up enough damage to survive and kill me on the crackback, but he only put one toughness to chump block my knight and activated Kessig for lethal.
Round 6- Paired against Dredge. Game one, I had no business winning. He got off to a blistering fast start and only through 2 Coursers and a Knight gaining me a bunch of life was I able to win at one life in the end. He could have easily won this game but he Conflagrated after block killing both my Coursers and doming me for three when he could have also finished off my Knight. Game two, lost pretty quickly by keeping a shoddy hand and I didn't get there. Game three, he had a bad hand and my Scooze was able to take him off of his graveyard so he had to play stinkweed imps to try and block.
Overall, I don't know how much I would change from the deck. There was a ton of affinity, GBx Midrange, and other good matchups but I didn't get paired against them to get good feedback. Mostly my wins were due to my opponents punting or just playing bad decks in general. As the previous discussions here have suggested, Courser is really good and I don't know why I ever took her out for a while. The other card I don't like is Eidolon of Rhetoric. The only time she is a slam-dunk is against storm and that's only if you have her in your opening hand. I hardly ever bring her in and this spot might just be better spent on something else. Teeg and Thalia have been mentioned, which I like but I am unsure of. I like the deck, but I have been running poorly this past 2 months or so that it's really put me off and I'm trying to find other good CoCo decks that aren't Elves (which I have) and Counters Company (which I also have). I am going to try Bant Spirits (just ordered the cards) and I only need a few cards to put together Todd Stevens' GW Value-Town. Always open to discussion.
These are just very general tips. The matchup does feel pretty rough, but you have to play extremely smart. I have played traditional Knightfall for about a year now and I have a friend who plays Merfolk regularly. We got paired up often at our LGS and we seemed to go back and forth a lot, but the more we learned about the tricks of each other's decks, the harder it felt for me. It seems like a matchup where the most experienced player should win. If you know your side, and they aren't well prepared and don't know how to play against you, you should be fine. There aren't great sideboard options aside from staticasters, so I guess load up on those if Merfolk is a big problem at your LGS. If you're going into a larger tournament though, Merfolk isn't an extremely popular deck so I wouldn't go hog wild trying to beat it at the expense of other matchups. Other than that, hope to get lucky I guess. Either get lucky off of them getting screwed, you getting insanely good Collected Company hits, or hope to hit your combo without interaction.