I dont see why a Twin-less meta wouldnt just be Burn/Infect/Goryo/Zoo and win before anyone else can get Tron online.
Without the deck that slows people down, just jam your cards thoughtlessly and swing.
In my humble opinion, the format will devolve into Tron/Heartless Eldrazi or Bx Eldrazi on the top-end, and Affinity/Burn/Infect/Grishoalbanned on the bottom end. There is no room in modern anymore for midrange. I literally don't know if Naya Company is even fast enough to remain a relevant part of the meta.
One thing I can say for sure, with a reasonable amount of confidence here, is that Bloodmoon x4 is a fantastic start to cracking the meta. Assuming Twin is essentially dead (I have my reservations, I still think the deck is still completely viable), the only other major deck that isn't fazed is burn (skred red doesnt count lol). Tron, the Eldrazi decks, jund, zoo, b/w tokens, infect, affinty, I could go on. Bloodmoon is going to be crazy good.
I mostly disagree with that analysis.
Decks Blood Moon is good against:
Tron
Bx Eldrazi (Not game-winning, needs fast clock in combination with blood moon)
Jund (Likely going to drop out of tier 1, so not too relevant)
Decks that can ignore Blood Moon:
Zoo (Plays blood moon in the sideboard, has 4 basics + 5ish mana dorks, etc)
Affinity (seriously?... the deck universally boards blood moon itself, and can kill you by turn 3, utterly useless here)
Infect (Can kill you turn 2. Easily kill by turn 3, can easily fetch basics to play around blood moon, also runs 4 dorks to mana-fix)
Decks I'm not sure about:
BW Tokens (Plays at least 4 basics, and 4 fetches. Might not play around maindecked blood moons game 1?)
Mainboarded Blood Moon are not as good as you think. If you accelerate them out turn 2 with Simian Spirit Guide they can definitely catch your opponent off-guard, but then you run into the consistency issues of top-decking SSGs later in the game.
I do not own all the cards yet, so I would like some input on some decisions before actually buying the missing cards.
1. Do I need 4 Tarmogoyf instead of 3 Voice and 1 Smiter?
I've seen lists running either choice but I'm unsure which one would probably be the better.
2. Should I add another Elspeth to the list?
I've allways liked Elspeth in zoo, and found a slot for one.
Would adding another one be an improvement?
3. How good is Dromoka's Command for this deck?
The meta around here does not have any twin decks, so should I still try to get this card?
4. Birds of Paradise works fine at the moment.
Is it a good idea to wait a while before getting Noble Hierarch instead?
Or should I try to swap ASAP?
1) I've played extensively with both bant and 4C Knightfall. I'm fairly convinced that Voice of Resurgence/Loxodon SMiter are better in Bant Knightfall. I've only used goyfs in the 4C version of the deck, but they work fairly well. I'd give them about a 6/10 in the zoo variant.
2) Your deck runs not enough lands, and too many non-creature spells already in my opinion. You're only running 21 lands with 4 dorks, and I run 22 lands and 5 dorks, and consider that much closer to optimal. I would probably cut all 3 Collected Company from your deck if you were going to add a 2nd Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and add a couple of creatures.
3) Collected Naya usually runs 1 copy of Dromoka's Command, but all the top-placing Knightfall decks I've seen have cut it all together. I run 0 copies, and don't have a copy in the SB either.
4) The exalted from Noble Hierarch vastly outweighs the ability to produce red from Birds of Paradise in my opinion. I run 4 hierarchs and 1 bird in my list. In fact, the only real advantage that birds have in my opinion is being able to fly. Sometimes I'll do odd stuff like block a big flyer with a bird, and then pump with Kessig Wolf Run to trade. Geist of Saint Traft especially needs exalted triggers to punch through, and you're also not running the full 8 bolts + paths.
I'm slowly making my way through all the posts in the thread, but I wanted to jump up to the front and ask about three things.
Spellskite maindeck. We've seen two recent well-placing decks run 4 Spellskite MD. This seems like madness to me given how much force it takes from our beatdown plan A. Is it really worth it on account of Twin/Infect/Burn? In my (limited) testing, Twin is about 50/50 and burn is favored post-board.
Meddling Mage. Makes the maindeck? As a 4-of? It's a damn good hatebear, don't get me wrong. But again, it seems like it's mostly here to protect our combo at the expense of pressure. Is that so good that it can take the place of a utility beater like Scooze or a game-winning threat like Geist? Or are people naming things like Splinter Twin or Lightning Bolt with good results? (The guessing game never really appealed to me.)
Chord of Calling. I'm warming up to this one, especially since the instant speed plays well with EoT Chord - KotR - next turn Retreat - combo off. What have people's experiences been? Is it worth having a higher chance of whiffing your CoCos, or alternately pulling your only interaction (Path)? Or maybe even run it in place of CoCo? All that said I really do like it with mana dorks, Retreat to float extra mana, and a high creature count to easily push it out.
Any input would be appreciated!
As an aside, I can echo the enthusiasm for Voice of Resurgence. In my testing I had a game vs. Grixis that was decided on a counter-war over a Retreat to Coralhelm. Knightfall got out-countered, and then won the next turn with the 4 7/7 Elemental tokens that Grixis had to put out not to lose to the combo.
1) I run 0 copies of Spellskite in my 75. I have a combined 11-2 record with Bant Knightfall at my local modern tourneys, and 9-3 with 4C Knightfall. There are 3 reasons I don't run any. A) Nearly every deck that folds to skites have multiple ways to answer them (Destructive Revelry, Twisted Image, Nature's Claim, Ancient Grudge, etc.). B) Both Knightfall builds maindeck Qasali Pridemage, which answers most of the things that Spellskite does. C) They don't in any way contribute to getting the other guy dead, and I don't like durdling around with hate cards, unless they seriously hose the opponent.
2) I have no experience running Meddling Mage. I'm not adventurous with my builds, so I refuse to even test it to be honest. I consider it way too hit-or-miss, and too vulnerable to common removal. Especially the Bant Knightfall list has a high amount of bolt/pyroclasm resistant creatures, and I like to dead my opponents removal if possible.
3) I don't play with the more midrangey-control versions of Knightfall, so I can't speak on Chord of Calling. Most posts recently that I've seen about it have been fairly positive. I prefer to try and overwhelm the opponent with sheer card advantage via CoCo, rather than run the toolboxy approach. I feel like Collected Junk does that better than Knightfall at any rate.
I run 2 Burrenton Forge Tender in my SB instead of the more common Kor Firewalker to protect against sweepers like clasm/anger. He works just as well vs Kozilek's Return.
Unfortunately, K's Return is colorless.
Yea, this card is ****ed.
Oh Jesus Christ... that should have been instantly apparent to me.
Well.. @#$& me sideways I guess? The GR Tron match-up was already real bad, this just makes it that much worse. We may need to add some Mark of Asylum to the SB. Our SB slots are at a premium as it is though. I already run Negate in the SB, and am considering a copy of Unified Will. That being said, I'd way rather be getting their Karn/Ugin/Wurmcoils than needing to blow those on sweeper protection. More than 1/2 the creatures in the 4C version of the deck will die from 2 dmg.
Way worse than the devoid part is the being able to find it with Ancient Stirrings in my opinion. Sometimes Tron just died due to not having a sweeper early enough. This massively increases the chances that they have their sweeper on time.
hmmm.. i don't know.. kozilek's return is really good.. but other than our dork and geist, the rest should be able to get big enough to survive the 1st pyroclasm when its cast.. and just ooze it away before the 2nd effect.. so isn't really that big of a problem i guess? but still.. maybe for me i might still drop those 2 aven mindcensor in my sb and go for either full set of meddling mage or 2 dromoka command. that 2 aven mindcensor havent been doing very well for me.. how about boros charm for those playing zoo?
Here's a list of stuff in my deck that dies to Kozilek's Return:
Noble Hierarch
Birds of Paradise
Qasali Pridemage
Voice of Resurgence
Scavenging Ooze
Geist of Saint Traft
And Knight of the Reliquary/Wild Nacatl/Tarmogoyf all still could die if I'm a little unlucky.
Disagree. At the risk of derailing the topic: A) Tron plays O-Stone, which is a 3 drop. B) One of Trons greatest weaknesses is the lack of ability to interact on the opponents turn. This allows them to kill manlands (HUGE against infect/affinity), blow up creatures in response to a Cranial Plating equip, and a hundred other things that I'm not mentioning. I probably wouldn't replace all of the Pyroclasms, but I'd definitely have some number of Kozilek's Return in my 75.
I run 2 Burrenton Forge Tender in my SB instead of the more common Kor Firewalker to protect against sweepers like clasm/anger. He works just as well vs Kozilek's Return.
Unfortunately, K's Return is colorless.
Yea, this card is ****ed.
Oh Jesus Christ... that should have been instantly apparent to me.
Well.. @#$& me sideways I guess? The GR Tron match-up was already real bad, this just makes it that much worse. We may need to add some Mark of Asylum to the SB. Our SB slots are at a premium as it is though. I already run Negate in the SB, and am considering a copy of Unified Will. That being said, I'd way rather be getting their Karn/Ugin/Wurmcoils than needing to blow those on sweeper protection. More than 1/2 the creatures in the 4C version of the deck will die from 2 dmg.
Way worse than the devoid part is the being able to find it with Ancient Stirrings in my opinion. Sometimes Tron just died due to not having a sweeper early enough. This massively increases the chances that they have their sweeper on time.
Not exactly sure what the OP did wrong here. People asked for the source; it's an inside one, so the OP gives as much info as he can without risking the source's job. People continue to question the OP, so he states that he'll give the exact source to a mod. This isn't some holier than thou dismissal- it's standard behavior for protecting sources here. The diction doesn't even suggest superiority complex, which is the first thing some of you assumed for some reason.
Agreed. I have no problem with how he handled the request for sources. And since this thread is still around, I'm guessing the mods were satisfied with his answer. I believe this to be real and am not looking forward to what this means for standard.
I would have responded in some nearly identical fashion if I were the OP.
In contrast though, I couldn't care less about standard, but I am worried about the modern implications. That's the lowest activation cost on any of the dual-color manlands. You can reasonably afford to activate and regenerate it even pretty early in the game. It's probably more powerful than Stirring Wildwood/Shambling Vent/Lavaclaw Reaches and comparable to Raging Ravine. I really don't think that GBx shells needed any kind of boost. :s
Through the history of lands in magic, all emblematic dual-lands came in 10, in two cycle of 5, 5 ally colors and 5 enemy colors , I expected from the 3rd cycle of dual "fetchable" lands to be available in all 10 color combination.
In my opinion the battleland cycle in Zendikar's expedition is incomplete, if you can't understand that, I can't explain it more to you, and you saying that a cycle of 5 is complete don't convince me.
Mind you, Alpha only had 9 of the 10 original Dual lands. It wasn't until Beta that they printed Volcanic Island
Also, Enemy colored Battle Lands need to get in line behind Enemy colored Fastlands. Just saying.
Beaten to it. The most relevant 1/2 cycle I can think of are the fastlands by far. Once those get reprinted, you guys can have the rest of your battle lands lol.
So this was just spoiled, possibly giving tron access to an instant-speed Pyroclasm (that ancient stirrings can hit).
What're your thoughts regarding dealing with this should it become common, possible Dromoka's Command in the main if not already? Dispel?
I run 2 Burrenton Forge-Tender in my SB instead of the more common Kor Firewalker to protect against sweepers like clasm/anger. He works just as well vs Kozilek's Return. He's obviously not quite as big a hoser as Kor Firewalker, but the added utility against Twin/GR Tron, etc. makes him my preferred choice for those SB slots.
In a meta with lots of Liliana, Smiter wins.
In a meta with lots of Jeskai Control, Geist might be better.
It's obviously not that simple, but the deck can also choose from Finks, Clique, Rhox War Monk ... Just in the 3 drop.
After that, if Smiter is good, then so is Wilt-Leaf Liege as opposed to maybe Elspeth in the 4 drop.
Is Lightning Bolt better than CoCo? The deck changes.
This makes it very hard to determine a proper 75. The constant is the Knightfall combo.
Then think about play style .... The fact is that Knightfall as a two card combo validates a few different archetypes. Doesn't mean it's not tier 2.
Kryxo, there is no meta where Jeskai is better. Bad point you're trying to make? Geist may be better in a combo heavier meta where a turn 1 mana dork followed by Geist is nice. He sucks against a heavy creature meta though
No one is maindecking Finks in a naya zoo/knightfall deck unless they're trying to hate burn
Smiter is solid in a world of a slower meta, and he's a solid, big dumb beater
Clique used in this deck screams "I don't know what I'm doing, I want to play all the decks, ALL OF THEM!"
Wilt-Leaf being used in this deck is nonsense. Go play Little Kid Junk or some Coco deck
Elspeth is a reasonable 1 or 2 of. Voice of Resurgence is preferred by some people, and I wouldn't say they're wrong if they felt that way
Bolt is better than Coco in modern, is that even a debate? I do see some debate about the number of paths, bolts, coco, the combo piece, whether Chord or Commune is to be used.
The Knightfall section definitely needs to go back into developing, you even just proved my point. None of you guys have a general idea of the deck and the flex spots. Are you guys seriously going to tell me Knightfall deserves to share the tier 2 meta with other Zoo decks, Junk, Merfolk, Infect. They certainly have a good idea what the deck looks like, you don't see too much confusion in those topics. The deck is definitely not tier 2 proven. At least a deck like Azorious had some back to back success
Nitpick: He didn't say where Jeskai was better. He said in a meta with lots of jeskai control, Geist might be better.
With that exception, most of your points are solid. Even as a Knightfall player, I have a hard time justifying it's inclusion in T2. It did top 4 the Brazil GP though, and if you combine all the Knightfall variants, it does have enough metagame share to qualify. It's just that the deck is too new to have solidified even 2-3 variant deck lists. My guess is that it will eventually end up with a zoo and a bant version.
1) You're currently running 7 basics, which I consider a pretty high count for a 3 color deck. I'd probably consider cutting an island and a plains for a couple more dual lands.
2) What do you think of Stirring Wildwood in the deck. I constantly toy with the idea of jamming a manland into Bant Knightfall, but I'm never sure if the deck can take the tempo loss. I'd probably add manlands to every one of my decks if I could lol.
3) I know this is a recurring argument in this thread, but I firmly believe that even Bant lists should be running Kessig Wolf Run. Our combo is cold to a single Etched Champion. And Affinity alone has a 10% metagame share. That's not including other decks like Boggles with pro-creatures or other corner cases. The opportunity cost to do so is pretty low, and I'm convinced (for now) that it's the best utility land we can be running.
Generally I agree with everything Wpgstevo says, and we run nearly identical Bant Knightfall lists (although I just switched to the 4C Zoo variant to test it out) but I've played a total of 4 4-round tourneys without Sejiri Steppe, and never once had a Knight removed after i'd started comboing off.
Now that's not the largest sample size in the world, but I find that opponents don't wait around to use their removal until after you can combo. I've also jammed 25+ matches against my friends and never had it come up either, and they obviously know my deck pretty well.
I'm personally not willing to risk a CIPT land for a shot at protecting the combo.
Ok well since this isn't the budget forum, I'm going to list off the best cards that I know of for what you're trying to achieve.
- Flickerwisp - The best card that you can be running for this strategy. Better in all ways (that I can think of) than Lyev Skyknight. 4 is a requirement.
- You should be running 4x Blade Splicer, no questions asked.
- Restoration Angel is also extremely good in this strategy.
- In my opinion the best flicker effects are in this order: Cloudshift > Momentary Blink > Ghostly Flicker. I used to play around with a BW version of this deck before I bought more competitive cards, and needing to hold open mana to blank removal was really important. The cheaper the flicker, the better.
- Would definitely consider trying out Mulldrifter in this deck. You can flicker it (preferably with Cloudshift) with the evoke trigger on the stack, and draw 4 cards for 2WU and get a 2/2 flyer, which is pure valuetown.
- Since you're running UW, Court Hussar fits perfectly in your deck. Sea Gate Oracle has a strictly worse effect, but doesn't require white mana.
Have people here talked about Amaral's Knightfall-Zoo list that top 4'd Porto Allegre?
After giving it a spin, I must say it's really streamlined. I'm impressed. Less reliant on the combo, full on Zoo approach. Tremendous pressure. List can be found here:
While I've been having good success with bant knightfall, I'll probably switch to Amarals exact 60 once I get 4 goyfs. It seems like a incredibly powerful linear aggro deck with a T3 kill thrown in for good measure, and I feel that's where I want to be right now in modern. I particularly like the Elspeths in his list.
In addition to aggro matches like burn and zoo, I've found Rhox War monk from the SB to help in a few mid-rangey battles (jund, merfolk) with exalted and kessig wolf run. In my experience it's better here than kitchen finks.
Kessig wolf run replaces gavony as we can't afford too many colourless lands. Most situations where gavony will win eventually, kessig will win shortly.
edit: Out of curiosity, what are you boarding out for Thalia - a retreat and a company?
I do have a playset of Rhox War Monk. Maybe I'll swap my Finks for them in the sideboard. I'm just worried about them not having a quick enough impact on the game, as I run 0 Dromoka's Command in my 75. They do play around Anger of the Gods better than Finks, which I like.
Against burn, I'll side out some number of Retreats for Thalia. I probably should side out a CoCo or two, but I didn't in my last match. Against control decks, I keep both Retreat and CoCo in my deck, and remove my least powerful creatures in the match-up instead. Reason being that I like to hold onto CoCos until I've run them out of counterspells, and then capitalize by out valuing them. It's risky since you can get blown out by a dispel and lose a lot of tempo, but sometimes I'll intentionally run out a CoCo end-step to get countered and tap them out, and then main phase a second one to get a lot of board presence. Retreat lets me draw into gas a lot more frequently if both decks are low on resources, which is important, since a control deck will eventually out topdeck us.
I also like to go from 8 to 6 dorks against control decks, to minimize the impact that their Wraths have on me, and so I can draw more impactful cards. Accelerating into a T3 kill seems less viable against a control deck at any rate.
In my humble opinion, the format will devolve into Tron/Heartless Eldrazi or Bx Eldrazi on the top-end, and Affinity/Burn/Infect/Grishoalbanned on the bottom end. There is no room in modern anymore for midrange. I literally don't know if Naya Company is even fast enough to remain a relevant part of the meta.
I mostly disagree with that analysis.
Decks Blood Moon is good against:
Tron
Bx Eldrazi (Not game-winning, needs fast clock in combination with blood moon)
Jund (Likely going to drop out of tier 1, so not too relevant)
Decks that can ignore Blood Moon:
Zoo (Plays blood moon in the sideboard, has 4 basics + 5ish mana dorks, etc)
Affinity (seriously?... the deck universally boards blood moon itself, and can kill you by turn 3, utterly useless here)
Infect (Can kill you turn 2. Easily kill by turn 3, can easily fetch basics to play around blood moon, also runs 4 dorks to mana-fix)
Decks I'm not sure about:
BW Tokens (Plays at least 4 basics, and 4 fetches. Might not play around maindecked blood moons game 1?)
Mainboarded Blood Moon are not as good as you think. If you accelerate them out turn 2 with Simian Spirit Guide they can definitely catch your opponent off-guard, but then you run into the consistency issues of top-decking SSGs later in the game.
1) I've played extensively with both bant and 4C Knightfall. I'm fairly convinced that Voice of Resurgence/Loxodon SMiter are better in Bant Knightfall. I've only used goyfs in the 4C version of the deck, but they work fairly well. I'd give them about a 6/10 in the zoo variant.
2) Your deck runs not enough lands, and too many non-creature spells already in my opinion. You're only running 21 lands with 4 dorks, and I run 22 lands and 5 dorks, and consider that much closer to optimal. I would probably cut all 3 Collected Company from your deck if you were going to add a 2nd Elspeth, Knight-Errant, and add a couple of creatures.
3) Collected Naya usually runs 1 copy of Dromoka's Command, but all the top-placing Knightfall decks I've seen have cut it all together. I run 0 copies, and don't have a copy in the SB either.
4) The exalted from Noble Hierarch vastly outweighs the ability to produce red from Birds of Paradise in my opinion. I run 4 hierarchs and 1 bird in my list. In fact, the only real advantage that birds have in my opinion is being able to fly. Sometimes I'll do odd stuff like block a big flyer with a bird, and then pump with Kessig Wolf Run to trade. Geist of Saint Traft especially needs exalted triggers to punch through, and you're also not running the full 8 bolts + paths.
See 1) above.
1) I run 0 copies of Spellskite in my 75. I have a combined 11-2 record with Bant Knightfall at my local modern tourneys, and 9-3 with 4C Knightfall. There are 3 reasons I don't run any. A) Nearly every deck that folds to skites have multiple ways to answer them (Destructive Revelry, Twisted Image, Nature's Claim, Ancient Grudge, etc.). B) Both Knightfall builds maindeck Qasali Pridemage, which answers most of the things that Spellskite does. C) They don't in any way contribute to getting the other guy dead, and I don't like durdling around with hate cards, unless they seriously hose the opponent.
2) I have no experience running Meddling Mage. I'm not adventurous with my builds, so I refuse to even test it to be honest. I consider it way too hit-or-miss, and too vulnerable to common removal. Especially the Bant Knightfall list has a high amount of bolt/pyroclasm resistant creatures, and I like to dead my opponents removal if possible.
3) I don't play with the more midrangey-control versions of Knightfall, so I can't speak on Chord of Calling. Most posts recently that I've seen about it have been fairly positive. I prefer to try and overwhelm the opponent with sheer card advantage via CoCo, rather than run the toolboxy approach. I feel like Collected Junk does that better than Knightfall at any rate.
Here's a list of stuff in my deck that dies to Kozilek's Return:
Noble Hierarch
Birds of Paradise
Qasali Pridemage
Voice of Resurgence
Scavenging Ooze
Geist of Saint Traft
And Knight of the Reliquary/Wild Nacatl/Tarmogoyf all still could die if I'm a little unlucky.
Disagree. At the risk of derailing the topic: A) Tron plays O-Stone, which is a 3 drop. B) One of Trons greatest weaknesses is the lack of ability to interact on the opponents turn. This allows them to kill manlands (HUGE against infect/affinity), blow up creatures in response to a Cranial Plating equip, and a hundred other things that I'm not mentioning. I probably wouldn't replace all of the Pyroclasms, but I'd definitely have some number of Kozilek's Return in my 75.
Oh Jesus Christ... that should have been instantly apparent to me.
Well.. @#$& me sideways I guess? The GR Tron match-up was already real bad, this just makes it that much worse. We may need to add some Mark of Asylum to the SB. Our SB slots are at a premium as it is though. I already run Negate in the SB, and am considering a copy of Unified Will. That being said, I'd way rather be getting their Karn/Ugin/Wurmcoils than needing to blow those on sweeper protection. More than 1/2 the creatures in the 4C version of the deck will die from 2 dmg.
Way worse than the devoid part is the being able to find it with Ancient Stirrings in my opinion. Sometimes Tron just died due to not having a sweeper early enough. This massively increases the chances that they have their sweeper on time.
I would have responded in some nearly identical fashion if I were the OP.
In contrast though, I couldn't care less about standard, but I am worried about the modern implications. That's the lowest activation cost on any of the dual-color manlands. You can reasonably afford to activate and regenerate it even pretty early in the game. It's probably more powerful than Stirring Wildwood/Shambling Vent/Lavaclaw Reaches and comparable to Raging Ravine. I really don't think that GBx shells needed any kind of boost. :s
Beaten to it. The most relevant 1/2 cycle I can think of are the fastlands by far. Once those get reprinted, you guys can have the rest of your battle lands lol.
I run 2 Burrenton Forge-Tender in my SB instead of the more common Kor Firewalker to protect against sweepers like clasm/anger. He works just as well vs Kozilek's Return. He's obviously not quite as big a hoser as Kor Firewalker, but the added utility against Twin/GR Tron, etc. makes him my preferred choice for those SB slots.
Nitpick: He didn't say where Jeskai was better. He said in a meta with lots of jeskai control, Geist might be better.
With that exception, most of your points are solid. Even as a Knightfall player, I have a hard time justifying it's inclusion in T2. It did top 4 the Brazil GP though, and if you combine all the Knightfall variants, it does have enough metagame share to qualify. It's just that the deck is too new to have solidified even 2-3 variant deck lists. My guess is that it will eventually end up with a zoo and a bant version.
Just a couples notes and questions:
1) You're currently running 7 basics, which I consider a pretty high count for a 3 color deck. I'd probably consider cutting an island and a plains for a couple more dual lands.
2) What do you think of Stirring Wildwood in the deck. I constantly toy with the idea of jamming a manland into Bant Knightfall, but I'm never sure if the deck can take the tempo loss. I'd probably add manlands to every one of my decks if I could lol.
3) I know this is a recurring argument in this thread, but I firmly believe that even Bant lists should be running Kessig Wolf Run. Our combo is cold to a single Etched Champion. And Affinity alone has a 10% metagame share. That's not including other decks like Boggles with pro-creatures or other corner cases. The opportunity cost to do so is pretty low, and I'm convinced (for now) that it's the best utility land we can be running.
But on topic: I personally think that SoFaI is the closest equipment to Jitte left in modern. That being said, it does a pretty poor impression.
Now that's not the largest sample size in the world, but I find that opponents don't wait around to use their removal until after you can combo. I've also jammed 25+ matches against my friends and never had it come up either, and they obviously know my deck pretty well.
I'm personally not willing to risk a CIPT land for a shot at protecting the combo.
- Flickerwisp - The best card that you can be running for this strategy. Better in all ways (that I can think of) than Lyev Skyknight. 4 is a requirement.
- You should be running 4x Blade Splicer, no questions asked.
- Restoration Angel is also extremely good in this strategy.
- In my opinion the best flicker effects are in this order: Cloudshift > Momentary Blink > Ghostly Flicker. I used to play around with a BW version of this deck before I bought more competitive cards, and needing to hold open mana to blank removal was really important. The cheaper the flicker, the better.
- Would definitely consider trying out Mulldrifter in this deck. You can flicker it (preferably with Cloudshift) with the evoke trigger on the stack, and draw 4 cards for 2WU and get a 2/2 flyer, which is pure valuetown.
- Since you're running UW, Court Hussar fits perfectly in your deck. Sea Gate Oracle has a strictly worse effect, but doesn't require white mana.
If you decided to go BW instead, you would gain access to Shriekmaw, Tidehollow Sculler, Undying Evil (not exactly the same as a flicker effect, but quite similar), and sideboard cards like Orzhov Pontiff and Sin Collector.
While I've been having good success with bant knightfall, I'll probably switch to Amarals exact 60 once I get 4 goyfs. It seems like a incredibly powerful linear aggro deck with a T3 kill thrown in for good measure, and I feel that's where I want to be right now in modern. I particularly like the Elspeths in his list.
I do have a playset of Rhox War Monk. Maybe I'll swap my Finks for them in the sideboard. I'm just worried about them not having a quick enough impact on the game, as I run 0 Dromoka's Command in my 75. They do play around Anger of the Gods better than Finks, which I like.
Against burn, I'll side out some number of Retreats for Thalia. I probably should side out a CoCo or two, but I didn't in my last match. Against control decks, I keep both Retreat and CoCo in my deck, and remove my least powerful creatures in the match-up instead. Reason being that I like to hold onto CoCos until I've run them out of counterspells, and then capitalize by out valuing them. It's risky since you can get blown out by a dispel and lose a lot of tempo, but sometimes I'll intentionally run out a CoCo end-step to get countered and tap them out, and then main phase a second one to get a lot of board presence. Retreat lets me draw into gas a lot more frequently if both decks are low on resources, which is important, since a control deck will eventually out topdeck us.
I also like to go from 8 to 6 dorks against control decks, to minimize the impact that their Wraths have on me, and so I can draw more impactful cards. Accelerating into a T3 kill seems less viable against a control deck at any rate.