I just went to my first modern SCG Open in Richmond with my trusty Knightfall and, well, I made 27th. I haven’t really been paying much attention to the competitive meta, and I think that hurt me a bit. That said, I think I did well enough. My list can be found here.
Round 1: Affinity (2-1)
This was my only game loss to affinity across four matches. I lost to double Signal Pest with Memnite and Ornithopter. I almost stabilized, but I didn't have enough health. Game two was close, but he top decked a Blinkmoth Nexus instead of three damage. Game three was over soon after it started.
Round 2: Jeskai Control (0-2)
I didn’t establish much of a clock before Elspeth, Sun's Champion.
Round 3: R/G Tron (2-1)
She played a Pyroclasm on turn two for my turn one birds game one. Thankfully, I had a two drop and, even though she established tron, didn’t really follow it up with much. Game two she Firespout on my bird into 3/3 knight. Game 3, I had all the fun of Eldritch Evolution a Reclamation Sage into a Manglehorn to blow up an Oblivion Stone. (You can't do that with a stony silence.) I also greatly enjoyed watching my opponent play a tapped star.
Round 4: U/W Control (1-2)
Hey look, Elspeth, Sun's Champion again... (at least this time I Kessig Wolf Run on a Kitchen Finks to kill it). I feel like the U/W/X control matchup isn't that bad, but these two rounds did not go well.
Round 5: G/W Valuetown (1-2)
See round 15. That said, after this matchup, I almost wanted to drop, but I kept going.
Round 6: Affinity (2-0)
Game one, I turn two Spell Queller, turn three Spell Queller, turn four Collected Company, turn five Collected Company. Also, I think I have a little too much hate in the sideboard for this matchup. It's already pretty good pre-board.
Round 7: R/B Burn (2-0)
Game one, I was had a fast hand. Game two, well, after company hit double Kitchen Finks, my opponent conceded.
Round 8: Affinity (2-0)
Game one we both mulled to 5. The issue is, he kept an iffy 5 while I kept 2 lands, a Noble Hierarch, a Scavenging Ooze, and a Spell Queller before top-decking Collected Company and another land.
Round 9: Grishoalbrand (2-1)
Honestly, my opponent should have won this match. I kept a hand that relied vastly too much on a Noble Hierarch and my opponent Collective Brutality it and a Unified Will away. I didn't present much of a clock either. The thing is, Grishoalbrand can struggle with consistency and, well, that's what happened.
Round 10: Boros Burn (2-0)
Game one, I was just fast. Game two, he Searing Blaze my dork before Searing Blood on my Scavenging Ooze. Thankfully, I followed it up with a Kitchen Finks and he proceeded to flood while I played a Courser of Kruphix and Eldritch Evolution into another Kitchen Finks.
Round 11: Affinity (2-0)
Spell Queller is a good magic card.
Round 12: Eldrazi Tron (2-1)
He cast All is Dust game one and I nearly recovered. Had I drawn a Path to Exile or a Reflector Mage over a few turns, the game would have ended (despite a few misplays on my part). So, I had to make up for it in games two and three.
Round 13: Storm (0-2)
Well, Kazu did win the entire open... Game one, I mulled to four, and, well, enough said. Game two, let's just say that two Spell Queller, two Scavenging Ooze, an Izzet Staticaster and a Reflector Mage on his turn two Baral, Chief of Compliance weren't enough.
Round 14: Jeskai Queller (2-1)
The use of Spell Queller typically hinders their ability to run wraths. To make up for this, they run bolts and paths. This highly favors knightfall as spot removal is, in a way, pretty bad against the deck.
Round 15: Todd Stevens with G/W Valuetown (0-2) (Agreed upon draw to guarantee top 32 as neither of us could be in the top 16)
After playing the matchup twice (once against Mr. Todd Stevens), I'm beginning to think that it and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle are the worst matchups for Knightfall. Both G/W Valuetown and Knightfall are very grindy and value based, but Knightfall trades a little long term value for immediate value. For example, most of Spell Queller's value is the fact that it has flash, flying and exiles a spell. Compare that to Ramunap Excavator which almost draws an extra card every turn. Needless to say, Knightfall is the aggro deck in the matchup and it has very little hope of aggroing well given that our opponent is on a similar plan, but with a better late-game strategy.
Final takeaways: I really like Manglehorn over Stony Silence. I never drew Nissa, Steward of Elements, but she seems to deserve her spot. I really like 5 counter spells in the side. Lastly, I never got the retreat combo. In all honesty though, I want to replace the two retreats with Trackers in such an open meta.
All in all, it was fun. Any Questions?
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Kelvin Chew just posted a guide to Vizier Knightfall on MTG Mint. It looks interesting, but i'm still on the fence. I'll need to proxy up some of the cards and playtest.
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How do we get Knight to a 20/20?
Since every game, and each deck will be different, we're going to have to make a few generalizations to crunch some numbers.
Most lists run 4 forest/plains basics, 4 forest/plains shock lands and 8-9 fetchlands.
Doing the least amount of self-harm, how do we get knight to attack for 20?
Knight: size of the knight after the step
Yard: number of lands in the graveyard
Life: life spent so far, we assume we always pay the 2 for shock lands
Floating: assumed we float all mana the the end of a sequence, and that a 2nd uptap trigger goes to the manadork () is floating mana if we have one.
Attacks for: calculates knights power if we were to grab a kessig wolf-run next, and use all floating mana to activate it.
E Exalted = 1,
K Kessig = 1,
X Kessig value = Floating -2
if we assume we have 2 basics in play, no land in hand, and an empty graveyard.
Yard: 0
Life spent: 0
Floating: 0(0)
Attacks for: 2 +E+K+X
Yard: 3
Life spent: 0
Floating: 1(2)
Attacks for: 5 +1+1+0(0) =7(7)
Yard: 5
Life spent: 1
Floating: 2(4)
Attacks for: 7 +1+1+0(2) =9(11)
Yard: 7
Life spent: 4
Floating: 3(6)
Attacks for: 9 +1+1+1(4) =12(15)
Yard: 9
Life spent: 7
Floating: 4(8)
Attacks for: 11+1+1+2(6) =15(19)
Yard: 11
Life spent: 10
Floating: 5(10)
Attacks for: 13+1+1+3(8) =18(23)
Yard: 13
Life spent: 13
Floating: 6(12)
Attacks for: 15+1+1+4(10) =21(27)
If we have a hierarch as the manadork we can't use kessig until at least step 3 as we wont have the R to activate. If we have a bird instead we could generate R, and get kessig as soon as the 1st step, but you would not have the exalted trigger. If we had 1-2 land in graveyard before we started the combo we would just add that value to the knights power in the attacks for row.
the above sequence is drawn out to show least life taken when you don't have a manadork, If you do have a manadork, you can optimize slightly by replacing step 5 with
Yard: 10
Life spent: 9
Floating: 5(9)
Attacks for 12+1+1+3(7) =16(21)
This would just be a general case, obviously there are many many different variables that could change this sequencing. Different target value, number of blockers, number of other attackers or Exalted triggers you have, and what specific lands you have left in your deck.
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I agree, I find it particularly interesting to go back through the thread and see some of the cards people were trying out. A year ago when retreat was announced, it was almost a given that you would play a Sejiri Steppe. But, it comes into play tapped, it's not a plains, doesn't protect when knight has summoning sickness... and that had to be found out through testing.
Our current shift into more toolbox creatures is drastically different than the threats first proposed, Lotus Cobra into Sun Titan was a thought. Playing up the landfall synergy with big Steppe Lynx was working for a while. Splashing red for Wild Nacatl, Lightning Bolt and Kessig Wolf Run... we've kept the wolf run but dropped the other two.
Combining Collected Company with Spell Queller, Selfless Spirit, and Fauna Shaman are just the latest iterations of that. and its the only way to tell if things just don't work.
Im looking at you Hedron Crab, Ruin Ghost, Drift of Phantasms
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I'm quite happy with Geist of St. Traft and a 1 of Westvale Abbey.
2-1 Elves.
G1: After mulling to 6 I keep a Gq, plains and some decent creatures and a path. I didn't draw into a green mana and was quickly swarmed by an army of elves.
-2 advocate, not convinced this was correct, felt it was too slow +2 sunlance white psudo bolts for more removal.
G2: Any opener with a t2 geist is keep-able. we rode are angel maker to victory here. 2 exalted triggers is more than enough to keep geist alive, If they choose to block its basically a 2 or 3 for 1, and you still get 4 in the air.
G3: opening 7 had the turn 4 combo. Elves doesn't run creature removal but a chord into reclamation sage can put an end to the party. t1 treetop, t2 fetch into W/U to sunlance a heritage druid, t3 Knight he spends the turn barfing a bunch of elves into play t4 I drop the retreat. he shows me the rec sage in hand and I count out my lands.
2-0 Naya Burn.
G1: My opponent had the by in R1, he was on the creature heavy version of burn with nacatels and kird ape. much of this game was won off the back of kitchen finks, and voice of resurgence he scooped after I coco'd into Ooze and Geist with 5 life left.
-3 Retreat, combo is painful, and he has too much removal for knight, +2 Sunlance +1 Courser of Kruphix more removal for his little dudes, and a brickwall with incidental life-gain seems good.
G2: This played out much like game 1 except I got in some geist beats and stalled out his attackers with sylvan advocate and a kitchen finks.
Match 3 2:1 Burn
This time, a more traditional burn list.
G1: I drew into most of my fetchlands, and ran out of basics to get. but It did create a big enough knight to crash in a few times, I felt my opponent had this one but fetched more painfully than he needed.
same sb plan as last round.
G2: This was a weird game, he sent a bunch of burn to my dudes this match, and landed a graffdiggers cage turning off coco. I had a 2/2 kotr and a treetop village when he charmed me to 1 life, he was at 7. I miscounted my lands and thought I had enough for treetop + wildwood activation so I fetched for wildwood eot. I untapped and realized that the extra land was a misty not a breeding pool -- should of got a GQ to hit my own misty and grab a basic to grow knight to 4/4 and activate treetop. he had a path anyway, and topped a bolt but that was still a punt.
G3: t2 geist and exalted triggers all aboard the beatdown train! I stole this game and it felt goooood.
Match 4 Abzan coco
G1: on the pay, I had the t3 combo in my opening 7, and got to live the dream. He tapped out on t2 for a voice of resurgence and I counted out 18 lands. My opponent had never seen the combo before and was genuinely surprised. Theres no way he would have tapped out to my knight had he known.
+linvala, +thalia, +Gaddock Teeg, -3 geist, I'm really not sure how to sb here so I decided to hate on Chord and coco's knowing, on average my stuff is bigger. I anticipated the boards to get clogged up, and unlike elves his creatures are bigger than 1/1's so geist felt bad.
G2: mulled to 6, into a t4 combo
t3 I had to try and jam the knight, maybe he didnt have a path? - no dice. I put out retreat and settled into a grindy one. I had thalia, hierarch, sylvan, knight and pridemage out and was beating down with the sylvan + exalted triggers. I played my 6th land for the power up and swing with sylvan. opponent has a bird 2 Vseer and plays out his last card, redcap targeting thalia. I activate knight and grab westvale to scoop up the team and summon the 9/7. I path the bird and crash in for 9. he draws a blank and scoops the next turn.