Oops that was me trying to make edits on my phone. I had a Curse of Deaths Hold in the SB that I wanted to replace with KCommand, I guess im sticking to my desktop for making edits from now on .
I didn't mean for there to be any KCommand in the main at all.
Im excited to hear your thoughts on the deck once youve put it together !!
With Todd Stevens doing so well with his GW Company list, and how similar it is to knightfall, it really has me excited for our deck heading into the new meta!
I think all knightfall really needs is a brand-name player to have success with the deck at a major North American event for it to climb in meta-share.
I feel that the Nahiri package is the strongest way to build Mardu. If left unchecked it has an inevitable win condition, but the strategy severely lacks in means to provide any pressure in the early game. This is where I think that Bitterblossom could be quite good. While not an immediate threat, Bitterblossom provides an endless stream of flying Fae that like Nahiri, if left alone will take over the game. The strength of having these two threats is that they really require different answers from our opponent. Dreadbore/Hero's Downfall isn't widely played in modern so opponents will be digging to their Bolts to hit Nahiri. While a bolt will take out a faerie,it does so at negative tempo, as It will be replaced for 1 life on the next turn. Bitterblossom really requires either a board-wipe(after which it just keeps making dudes) or a naturalize effect, that will do nothing against nahiri.
Knowing that we will always have a blocker on duty we can tick up nahiri with relative safety, and while supplementing these Faerie tokens with Lingering Souls we can further tax our opponents removal. Taking some inspiration from BU Faeries, we can also run Smugglers copter to increase the beat down clock and loot away some of our poorer draws. With Copter + Nahiri we can churn through our deck pretty quickly to dig down to the answers we need.
Tack on the best removal, and discard suite that modern can offer and I think we have a gameplan.
You just either wait for your opponent to tap out or for you to have no other options. PS, surprise flipping ormenhdal for the win after a cryptic tap is one of the greatest feelings in magic.
Can Confirm. That 18 point life swing is truly satisfying, especially after OP taps out, or in response to a Cryptic.
I'm not worried about push.
It's just going to replace some number of removal in most shells, and become the defacto removal in UB decks.
Our opponent will get a better rate over a terminate, but we're still going to overload them with efficient bodies.
Push will be another combat trick to lookout for. chump-block push could be a thing, especially when they don't have a fetch land.
And they 'will' require revolt to hit our 3 drops
Hello RPD, perhaps I can elaborate.
I can't speak to the version of burn you played, but I can talk about a more traditional Naya burn list.
I believe that we win this match-up when they become forced to spend their burn spells on our creatures instead of our life total. I believe that we can do this by presenting a clock, and developing our board over theirs.
I feel that we are at the advantage when developing our board. We have access to mana ramp, and collected company that allow us to get multiple creatures out at once. We also run ~28 creatures to their ~16, so we have more resources to commit to the board. Having these extra resources puts us at an advantage in creature combat, we can trade, double block, and attack into their blockers knowing that we have another creature to commit where they may not. We become further advantaged in these trades because of scavenging ooze, the life gain increases the number of burn spells that they need, and If their playing blockers instead of bolts its nothing but good for us.
If our burn players life total isn't in danger from us then they have no reason to spend their bolts on our creatures, so we need to present a clock. Quellers are our easiest way to do this, burn typically wont have anything block it, and we can snag their creatures to clear up the ground. With the ground mostly clear we can chip away at their fetch-shocked life total and threaten to close the game. When they begin spending their win conditions to free their blockers from queller, or taking out our creatures instead of our lifetotal they shift the game into a more attrition style match where we have the definite advantage. We control the game by forcing our burn player to play more defensively.
These are just my opinions and I have had lots of success with this strategy in this matchup. I do run 1 courser, 2 finks, 2 scooze, and 2 blessed alliance in the 75 and they all help out immensely.
I hope this helps explain my thoughts more clearly.
@RPD
For the burn matchup I rely heavily on Courser, Finks, and Scavenging Ooze. The marginal lifegain is very important as it takes them from needing 6 burn spells to 8 or more
I attack and trade my creatures with theirs very aggressively, the thought process is that creatures in the yard means more fodder for scooze, and If you can convince the burn player to send the damage to your creatures in a defensive effort, your already winning. I like to keep quellers in for this reason, They block Goblin guides and are unopposed in the air, and by prioritizing their creature spells with queller I can keep their board more clear to allow my creatures to walk in.
In my testing with Bedlam it felt best as a one of.
Bedlam almost always came down on turn 6 or later, but would often make some of my sequencing feel awkward.
It was a fantastic top-deck in the late game, especially if Liliana made an appearance because your and the opponent are probably hellbent. So, The re-fuel was often enough to pick up the needed answers.
Most of the time however, Bedlam felt like a more expensive wall of omens that required some hoops to be jumped through.
@Rulleboren
I think Loxodon Smiter is a close comparison, and is probably just better.
Easier casting cost, and has a relevant ability against Liliana\Discard effects.
Im not sure how often Knuckleblade's activated abilities will be relevant or when we would want to use them over using our mana on something else.
R: Haste - We likely only have access to the one R when we cast him. Only scenario I can think of getting haste Is getting him off a main-phase Coco, and having a bird to get R.
2U: Return to hand. - we're spending 3 mana to save knucks, or 3 mana to cast queller to save knucks and advance the board. I'll take queller given the choice.
2G: Pump +2/+2. swinging or blocking with a 6/6 sounds decent, but I can't help but think that there are better uses for our mana. Gavony the team, hold up Clique/Queller. I think this becomes good when the board is mostly clear, or you're able to tapdown blockers with retreat, but then did you really need the extra 2 points?
@Akalah
Im willing to give Heart of Kiran a try. It certainly feels aggressive enough to apply pressure while ticking up Nahiri. The major concerns I have is that it's basically a dead draw in a from-behind situation, and without a walker the only way to crew it is to have at least 3 spirit tokens.(given the 'stock' list) Because of this I'm not convinced that it's better than either Bob or Wall of Omens in this deck.
But I am still willing to proxy it, and give it a whirl. I've been wrong before.
I've been noticing more and more lists trying to run tireless tracker, and it got me thinking about what else synergises with it and hopefully the rest of our knightfall deck. Scryb Ranger came to mind. It’s a common include in legacy maverick lists, and I think that knightfall runs enough creatures with activated abilities, and landfall effects that scryb ranger should fit right in.
I haven't seen it included in other versions of knightfall, and maybe there's a point that I'm missing, but I think the faerie fits in well in the archetype. It allows extra knight activations and allows us to generate extra mana in the main phase, or mana fixing with birds, and nobel. If we can manage to squeeze dryad arbor into the manabase, scryb ranger lets us use it to block, then bring it to hand before damage. And because we can just play back down the land we can guarantee consistent landfall triggers for our courser of kruphix, tireless tracker and retreat to coralhelm.
A magical christmas land scenario is being able to generate clue tokens, pumping the tracker and drawing a card for every turn you have a manadork, a forest, scryb ranger and tireless tracker in play. The interaction would go like this: Float 2 mana (dork+forest) -> activate ranger, returning forest, untap dork -> play the forest, trigger tracker -> use floating 2 to pop the clue, draw 1 and pump the tracker. At the end of it all it cost you your land drop, and the scryb ranger activation to draw 1 and grow a threat.
Scryb ranger itself is a small 1/1, but the rest of its textbox, flash, flying and protection from blue, are all relevant. Flash allows us to use it like the untap mode of blessed alliance, flying is relevant against infect lands, thopters, vault scourge and other airborne threats. Protection from blue holds off merfolk, celestial colonnade, and vendilion clique.
Two immediate issues I do see is the body - its boltable, and it doesn’t attack very well without an exalted trigger, but its ability isn't affected by summoning sickness, so you can eek out some value. Secondly, unlike maverick we don't have green sun’s zenith to grab the faerie consistently, it is however a Collected Company target.
Has anyone tried out Scryb Ranger? Any thoughts?
This is a list I’m thinking of list
Wouldn't worry too much about it. The deck is still a relatively new contender and as more people pick it up and play it, the more streamlined it'll get. I would always encouraging testing both stock lists and brew lists anyway because it helps you improve as a MTG player in general by understanding the roles that the cards in the deck play as well as how and why some cards are played over others.
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.
So it's official, we have enemy fastlands coming out with Kaladesh being spoiled and all, so.... is Blackcleave cliffs still our best option, or are the R/W and B/W ones worth checking out?
not that the R/W or B/W ones are bad for us, but B/R gives us painless access to bolt, and Inquisition on Turn 1.
both of the new ones would give access to path on turn 1, and Path to Exile is typically a card we're not too keen on casting in the first turn on two if possible.
I'm a fan of the the main 60. But some of the sideboard choices elude me. The 3 staticaster seem like overkill, and only 3 scooze as graveyard hate seems lite for the dredge matchup.
I run a Dryad Arbor. Its a forest, which is relevant for Kotr, and a creature to be grabbed off a Coco/Chord.
Like in most decks that run him he acts as a tutorable chump blocker or lili sacrifice. My favorite use for it however is to help flip a Westvale Abbey.
I didn't mean for there to be any KCommand in the main at all.
Im excited to hear your thoughts on the deck once youve put it together
I think all knightfall really needs is a brand-name player to have success with the deck at a major North American event for it to climb in meta-share.
I feel that the Nahiri package is the strongest way to build Mardu. If left unchecked it has an inevitable win condition, but the strategy severely lacks in means to provide any pressure in the early game. This is where I think that Bitterblossom could be quite good. While not an immediate threat, Bitterblossom provides an endless stream of flying Fae that like Nahiri, if left alone will take over the game. The strength of having these two threats is that they really require different answers from our opponent. Dreadbore/Hero's Downfall isn't widely played in modern so opponents will be digging to their Bolts to hit Nahiri. While a bolt will take out a faerie,it does so at negative tempo, as It will be replaced for 1 life on the next turn. Bitterblossom really requires either a board-wipe(after which it just keeps making dudes) or a naturalize effect, that will do nothing against nahiri.
Knowing that we will always have a blocker on duty we can tick up nahiri with relative safety, and while supplementing these Faerie tokens with Lingering Souls we can further tax our opponents removal. Taking some inspiration from BU Faeries, we can also run Smugglers copter to increase the beat down clock and loot away some of our poorer draws. With Copter + Nahiri we can churn through our deck pretty quickly to dig down to the answers we need.
Tack on the best removal, and discard suite that modern can offer and I think we have a gameplan.
Can Confirm. That 18 point life swing is truly satisfying, especially after OP taps out, or in response to a Cryptic.
It's just going to replace some number of removal in most shells, and become the defacto removal in UB decks.
Our opponent will get a better rate over a terminate, but we're still going to overload them with efficient bodies.
Push will be another combat trick to lookout for. chump-block push could be a thing, especially when they don't have a fetch land.
And they 'will' require revolt to hit our 3 drops
I can't speak to the version of burn you played, but I can talk about a more traditional Naya burn list.
I believe that we win this match-up when they become forced to spend their burn spells on our creatures instead of our life total. I believe that we can do this by presenting a clock, and developing our board over theirs.
I feel that we are at the advantage when developing our board. We have access to mana ramp, and collected company that allow us to get multiple creatures out at once. We also run ~28 creatures to their ~16, so we have more resources to commit to the board. Having these extra resources puts us at an advantage in creature combat, we can trade, double block, and attack into their blockers knowing that we have another creature to commit where they may not. We become further advantaged in these trades because of scavenging ooze, the life gain increases the number of burn spells that they need, and If their playing blockers instead of bolts its nothing but good for us.
If our burn players life total isn't in danger from us then they have no reason to spend their bolts on our creatures, so we need to present a clock. Quellers are our easiest way to do this, burn typically wont have anything block it, and we can snag their creatures to clear up the ground. With the ground mostly clear we can chip away at their fetch-shocked life total and threaten to close the game. When they begin spending their win conditions to free their blockers from queller, or taking out our creatures instead of our lifetotal they shift the game into a more attrition style match where we have the definite advantage. We control the game by forcing our burn player to play more defensively.
These are just my opinions and I have had lots of success with this strategy in this matchup. I do run 1 courser, 2 finks, 2 scooze, and 2 blessed alliance in the 75 and they all help out immensely.
I hope this helps explain my thoughts more clearly.
For the burn matchup I rely heavily on Courser, Finks, and Scavenging Ooze. The marginal lifegain is very important as it takes them from needing 6 burn spells to 8 or more
I attack and trade my creatures with theirs very aggressively, the thought process is that creatures in the yard means more fodder for scooze, and If you can convince the burn player to send the damage to your creatures in a defensive effort, your already winning. I like to keep quellers in for this reason, They block Goblin guides and are unopposed in the air, and by prioritizing their creature spells with queller I can keep their board more clear to allow my creatures to walk in.
-3 Retreat -1 bird +2 finks, +2 blessed alliance.
Have you had success with Bedlam?
In my testing with Bedlam it felt best as a one of.
Bedlam almost always came down on turn 6 or later, but would often make some of my sequencing feel awkward.
It was a fantastic top-deck in the late game, especially if Liliana made an appearance because your and the opponent are probably hellbent. So, The re-fuel was often enough to pick up the needed answers.
Most of the time however, Bedlam felt like a more expensive wall of omens that required some hoops to be jumped through.
I think Loxodon Smiter is a close comparison, and is probably just better.
Easier casting cost, and has a relevant ability against Liliana\Discard effects.
Im not sure how often Knuckleblade's activated abilities will be relevant or when we would want to use them over using our mana on something else.
R: Haste - We likely only have access to the one R when we cast him. Only scenario I can think of getting haste Is getting him off a main-phase Coco, and having a bird to get R.
2U: Return to hand. - we're spending 3 mana to save knucks, or 3 mana to cast queller to save knucks and advance the board. I'll take queller given the choice.
2G: Pump +2/+2. swinging or blocking with a 6/6 sounds decent, but I can't help but think that there are better uses for our mana. Gavony the team, hold up Clique/Queller. I think this becomes good when the board is mostly clear, or you're able to tapdown blockers with retreat, but then did you really need the extra 2 points?
Im willing to give Heart of Kiran a try. It certainly feels aggressive enough to apply pressure while ticking up Nahiri. The major concerns I have is that it's basically a dead draw in a from-behind situation, and without a walker the only way to crew it is to have at least 3 spirit tokens.(given the 'stock' list) Because of this I'm not convinced that it's better than either Bob or Wall of Omens in this deck.
But I am still willing to proxy it, and give it a whirl. I've been wrong before.
I haven't seen it included in other versions of knightfall, and maybe there's a point that I'm missing, but I think the faerie fits in well in the archetype. It allows extra knight activations and allows us to generate extra mana in the main phase, or mana fixing with birds, and nobel. If we can manage to squeeze dryad arbor into the manabase, scryb ranger lets us use it to block, then bring it to hand before damage. And because we can just play back down the land we can guarantee consistent landfall triggers for our courser of kruphix, tireless tracker and retreat to coralhelm.
A magical christmas land scenario is being able to generate clue tokens, pumping the tracker and drawing a card for every turn you have a manadork, a forest, scryb ranger and tireless tracker in play. The interaction would go like this: Float 2 mana (dork+forest) -> activate ranger, returning forest, untap dork -> play the forest, trigger tracker -> use floating 2 to pop the clue, draw 1 and pump the tracker. At the end of it all it cost you your land drop, and the scryb ranger activation to draw 1 and grow a threat.
Scryb ranger itself is a small 1/1, but the rest of its textbox, flash, flying and protection from blue, are all relevant. Flash allows us to use it like the untap mode of blessed alliance, flying is relevant against infect lands, thopters, vault scourge and other airborne threats. Protection from blue holds off merfolk, celestial colonnade, and vendilion clique.
Two immediate issues I do see is the body - its boltable, and it doesn’t attack very well without an exalted trigger, but its ability isn't affected by summoning sickness, so you can eek out some value. Secondly, unlike maverick we don't have green sun’s zenith to grab the faerie consistently, it is however a Collected Company target.
Has anyone tried out Scryb Ranger? Any thoughts?
This is a list I’m thinking of list
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
not that the R/W or B/W ones are bad for us, but B/R gives us painless access to bolt, and Inquisition on Turn 1.
both of the new ones would give access to path on turn 1, and Path to Exile is typically a card we're not too keen on casting in the first turn on two if possible.
Like in most decks that run him he acts as a tutorable chump blocker or lili sacrifice. My favorite use for it however is to help flip a Westvale Abbey.