You side out the quellers against grindy deck and burn. Burn is obvious, it can be good but usually only if you get a Searing Blaze or something similar. You can keep them in against grindy decks like jund, but then you use them as a EoT flash creature, not a soft counter.
As convulted as I can make the explanation. You side them out when it doesn't cause your opponent to waste extra resources killing the queller. In burn, usually it doesn't present enough of a clock and doesn't stop enough damage. Jund, it's great when you stop a Lili from landing, but usually it'll just get pushed, bolted, or decayed. Keep them in against control, but only use them when you see a board wipe or Cryptic Command.
Spell Queller is one of your best card against Burn alongside scooze & finks...I would never side them out against Burn. Unless they have searing blaze to kill it, you basically hard countered one of their burn spell because you are forcing them to point a bolt at your queller instead of your face.
I side out the spell quellers against decks that play eldrazi displacer for obvious reasons but apart from that I rarely cut more than one queller post board...the card is just awesome and the main argument for playing Classic Knightfall over Humans.
I am on Humans Knightfall as well currently. Whats your main deck/SB configuration to make the match up more favorable against burn FoodChainGoblins? I am running the list that top 8ed GP Birmingham with 2 thalias GOT / 1 mayor in the main and a slightly different SB: 3 U.Will, 2 Gideon AOZ, 2 Burrenton Forge Tender and the rest is the same as the GP list without the Thalia GOT (moved to maindeck).
I bring the 3 U.will and the Forge Tenders against Burn but overall the match up feels very Play/Draw dependent...i miss spell queller here.
But overall Humans Knightfall has more raw power than traditional knightfall indeed. You win a lot of games against Titanshift/Storm and other random unfair decks just by having a quick clock and some minor disruptions. And the match up against Grixis Death Shadow and Eldrazi tron is favorable IMO.
I have been trying the 4x reflector mages main deck in Knightfall as well on MTGO. And in the current meta infested by death's shadow it's really good. As Kelvin said, Modern is dominated by creature decks and reflector mage represents an insane tempo gain. it teams up so well with spell queller and collected company. I don't miss the 3 value creatures (2/1 split of tracker and courser) and the one 1 selfless spirit that i cut for the 4x reflector. But i changed my sideboard to include 2x tireless trackers for the grindy match ups.
I tried and did not like Vizier Knightfall...the deck is not good against death's shadow/Burn/Eldra Tron and I feel like if you want to sleeve up the devoted druid combo, you'd better do it in Abzan CoCo where at least the 4x vizier of remedies have a double use with kitchen finks. Such a dead card on it's own.
By the way MalkoMann, how did you do at GP Copenhagen? I believe that you said you were going there with Knightfall?
I really like your list, mono green main! Relics are so good at the moment that a playset maindeck is not a bad idea, even if they are dead they cycle.
I will give your deck a try with the following changes:
- I'll cut harmonize for the third KHE. I know that this card is nuts. I use to play it as a 3 and it was never disappointing. 3 copies help to get it down turn 2 often enough. Yes it's a dead draw when you are in top deck mode but the power of the card is so strong it's worth it. Also titanshift is really good at topdecking since outside of KHE or forests, we are happy to draw all other cards late game.
- 1x Sheltered Thicket instead of the 8th fecth. I have been playing that land for a while and the cycling is welcome when you are flooding. I like going down to only 2 forests with 14 mountains.
- In SB I'll have +1 Nature's Claim and +1 Thragtusk instead of Chandra and Harmonize.
I'll have a few leagues with this build, keep records and let you guys know how I did.
that's interesting. So how many trackers do you have in the SB and what other cards do you bring in against death shadow? it's a tough match up for sure, so I might give the trackers a try.
On the discussion about Tireless Tracker, yes the card is probably at its best in Titanshift with all the lands and mana to sink into clues. However do we actualy need that card in the sideboard?
I havenot played the card in titanshift because I always thought that I would be bringing it in against the control and midrange decks....where we are already heavily favored. So i'd rather save the SB slots for hard match-ups and against control/midrange I usually bring some good ol' Baloths / Thragtusk.
My main deck is fairly stock: 27 lands, 15 ramp (1 wood elves and 3/3 split explore farseek), 10 usual wincons, 4 bolts and the flex spots configuration that I am currently testing is 1x Prismatic Omen, 1x Chandra torch of Defiance, 1x Engineered Explosives, 1x Anger of the Gods.
Gaddock Teeg is definitely a powerful card I'm not contesting that! I had him in the SB on and off. But for now I am enjoying the raw power of Eidolon against storm.
On a side note, I got destroyed by Bogles yesterday. I think it was only the second time I played against that deck. it is a match-up where blessed alliance would have been crazy good. Oh well, we simply can't have answers to everything I guess! and hopefully Bogles is not played a lot.
What are we sideboarding Eidolon of Rhetoric for? It is obviously good against Storm and Ad Nauseam specifically, and has some applications against blue control decks (shuts off Snapcaster Mage and doesn't allow them to cast spells from under Queller), but what other decks in the meta do we want it against? I like sideboard cards to be flexible against multiple decks - is it justifiable just because Storm and Ad Nauseam are such poor matchups?
Storm is a really poor matchup. They are so consistent at killing us turn 4 (and often virtually turn 3!!). I lost so many games that I feel Eidolon deserves a slot, if only for that damn deck! And especially in conjuction with Eldritch evolution. I'd say that online i play against storm every 10 rounds on average these days...
However I don't know if Storm would be as represented at a GP as it is on MTGO. But even then, the 1 Eidolon is great against Ad Nauseam, really good against Cheerios and Krark-clan combo (fringe decks i know but we would struggle against them) and also i can see it being useful against Burn and Elves to slow them down but not sure on that one, i will need to test. As you said it has the potential to ruin the day of Snapcaster players too.
Gaddock Teeg could replace Eidolon, it has a lot more application in other match-ups but I feel like the rest of the sideboard is already nicely tuned for the meta anyway. Against Storm Teeg dies in no time while they usually only have 1 card in their 75 that can deal with Eidolon (repeal or echoing truth).
I have dropped Bojuka because it was under-performing and you guys convinced me. Also I decided to give another chance to Eldritch Evolution and it did not disappoint: I played two storm decks in a row and won both matches! One of them thanks to eldritch evolution for Eidolon of "fair play" which gives us the win right then...my opponent tutored for echoing truth but I had negate
I am also trying a single Rhox war monk for Burn and maybe dredge...therefore I switched to 2tracker/1courser in the main because I have more powerful cards in the SB for burn.
We will see how it goes in the next few leagues. I am already 5-0 in a friendly modern league beating Jund, Grixis Death Shadow, Storm, Storm and Goblins so its a good start.
Yes it is good to see that we all have success with similar decklists, meaning that the deck is finely tuned for the meta as it is.
I am happy with 2 courser/1 tracker in the main, it is the "valuetown" package with the 3 voices! I prefer 2 coursers because against Burn it is our best card and I run into this match-up quite often. Also courser is a more versatile creature than tracker IMO. he gives card advantage or card selection, blocks well, gains life, doesnt die to bolt/anger and all that without needind extra mana investment. Therefore G1 in a wide meta i think the 2 coursers/1 tracker split is better. That being said tracker just takes over the game against midrange and control, so having a second copy in the SB feels good to me.
The botanical sanctum explanation makes sense. I agree with you about merfolk, having a non-island blue source is nice! against Fish, not fetching island goes a long way to winning...another reason why 8 dorks is a good idea!
I have tried eldritch evolution in the past but didnt like it...i think its just my inexperience with it though. I didnt try it for very long, 1 or 2 leagues. I had a game where i sacrificed a dork to evolution and my opponent countered it
We are a CoCo deck and i just want to maximise my creature count. Having 2 copies of each of my SB creatures means that I have better chances to CoCo into them. Also, Staticaster and V.Clique are Flash creatures, they are obviously very effective when cast in the opponent's turn and I feel like it doesnot work well with evolution...
The go-wide aggro decks are just rough matchups with our limited removal, my combined record against Merfolk, Elves and Zoo decks is 4-5 currently. I find that Merfolk is the easier of the three where Reflector Mage really shines and they are not quite as low to the ground. If you cannot find Staticaster or multiple paths against Elves, it can feel really hopeless - in theory you shouldn't want Retreats in sideboarded games against them, but I sometimes have them in on the play as a desperation measure. Kitchen Finks and Voice are great against Zoo, but not so much the other two.
I always keep retreats against Elves and Merfolks because it transforms izzet staticaster into a machine gun! I also side-in 2 negates for elves to try to stop their chord or coco.
I read this forum for a while and I thought it was time to give my contribution. I have been playing Knightfall for 2 months online and paper. I love the deck.
I had a 5-0 result few weeks ago, the list can be found on mtgtop8:
Lantern Control: Win 2-1. lost G1 then won G2 thanks to an early stony silence and G3 with the 0/1 dorks...best cards for this match-up!
Burn: Win 2-1. i dont like playing Burn, we are not favored but here I managed to win G1 on the play with a turn 2 courser and G3 my opponent mana-flooded.
Death Shadow Jund. Win 2-0. I LOVE versing any kind of death shadow decks...I feel like knightfall his really favored in that match-up and that probably explains why the deck has been performing good recently. they have issues against decks that swarm the board like we do. Discard spells are not a big deal because we have many creature/spells that cause them issues, we grind really well then its just a matter of playing creatures like voice/finks/scooze/knight to stabilize and finish them off in the air with queller or a kessig kill. CoCo is stellar as usual. Just beware of temur battle rage if playing the Jund version.
Storm. Win 2-1. Storm on the other hand.....disgusting match-up IMO, they are so consistent at killing you turn 4/5. Scooze is good but often dies before doing anything, queller/counters on their key spells is good too but they easily play around that with remands/bolts for queller...really hard. Here i honestly dont know what happened. My opponent comboed G1, then G2 and 3 was unable to find some of his combo pieces before i won. This is really rare but i happily took that win! I have a really bad record of losses against storm so if you guys have any tips for the match-up, please share!
Jund. Win 2-1. I enjoy playing midrange decks, it's always a close match-up that reward skills. Once again, Knightfall is really good at grinding so i think we are slightly favored but it ain't easy. I won G1 with a good hand on the play, turn 2 Kotr turn 3 CoCo. G3 was a really close game where i killed him just on time with a Queller pumped by gavony township.
Since that league i have made the following changes to the deck:
- 1 selfless spirit
+ 1 bird of paradise
I think that we do so much better when we have a turn 1 dork...it's worth going up to 8 and risking a dork flooding once in a while. It is hard to cut something for it because all the creatures in the deck serve a purpose but i think selfless spirit as a one-of is fine.
In the Sideboard:
- 1 blessed alliance
+ 1 tireless tracker
I haven't needed blessed allaince much. against burn i side in 4 counters and 2 finks now. against death shadow i win without it thanks to 2 reflector mages/2 finks/1 bog. Only place where it was good was affinity for etched champion but I already have 2 reflector mage/2 izzet staticaster and 1 stony silence for that match-up so I am fine. Tireless tracker is an awesome card and I felt sad only having one copy in the 75. it comes in against any midrange/bant eldrazi and of course control decks.
I have been copying the manabase with the 1 botanical sanctum but can someone explain why we are not running the second flooded strand instead? 10 fecthes seem great for Kotr and trackers. kotr as a 4/4 on turn 2 or 3 is so important sometimes.
Thanks guys and let's continue the good work of representing that awesome Knightfall
Spell Queller is one of your best card against Burn alongside scooze & finks...I would never side them out against Burn. Unless they have searing blaze to kill it, you basically hard countered one of their burn spell because you are forcing them to point a bolt at your queller instead of your face.
I side out the spell quellers against decks that play eldrazi displacer for obvious reasons but apart from that I rarely cut more than one queller post board...the card is just awesome and the main argument for playing Classic Knightfall over Humans.
I bring the 3 U.will and the Forge Tenders against Burn but overall the match up feels very Play/Draw dependent...i miss spell queller here.
But overall Humans Knightfall has more raw power than traditional knightfall indeed. You win a lot of games against Titanshift/Storm and other random unfair decks just by having a quick clock and some minor disruptions. And the match up against Grixis Death Shadow and Eldrazi tron is favorable IMO.
I'd like to try the deck and need a starting point
I tried and did not like Vizier Knightfall...the deck is not good against death's shadow/Burn/Eldra Tron and I feel like if you want to sleeve up the devoted druid combo, you'd better do it in Abzan CoCo where at least the 4x vizier of remedies have a double use with kitchen finks. Such a dead card on it's own.
By the way MalkoMann, how did you do at GP Copenhagen? I believe that you said you were going there with Knightfall?
I will give your deck a try with the following changes:
- I'll cut harmonize for the third KHE. I know that this card is nuts. I use to play it as a 3 and it was never disappointing. 3 copies help to get it down turn 2 often enough. Yes it's a dead draw when you are in top deck mode but the power of the card is so strong it's worth it. Also titanshift is really good at topdecking since outside of KHE or forests, we are happy to draw all other cards late game.
- 1x Sheltered Thicket instead of the 8th fecth. I have been playing that land for a while and the cycling is welcome when you are flooding. I like going down to only 2 forests with 14 mountains.
- In SB I'll have +1 Nature's Claim and +1 Thragtusk instead of Chandra and Harmonize.
I'll have a few leagues with this build, keep records and let you guys know how I did.
I havenot played the card in titanshift because I always thought that I would be bringing it in against the control and midrange decks....where we are already heavily favored. So i'd rather save the SB slots for hard match-ups and against control/midrange I usually bring some good ol' Baloths / Thragtusk.
Here is my current SB on MTGO:
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Beast Within
2 Nature's claim
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Thragtusk
2 Anger of the Gods
My main deck is fairly stock: 27 lands, 15 ramp (1 wood elves and 3/3 split explore farseek), 10 usual wincons, 4 bolts and the flex spots configuration that I am currently testing is 1x Prismatic Omen, 1x Chandra torch of Defiance, 1x Engineered Explosives, 1x Anger of the Gods.
On a side note, I got destroyed by Bogles yesterday. I think it was only the second time I played against that deck. it is a match-up where blessed alliance would have been crazy good. Oh well, we simply can't have answers to everything I guess! and hopefully Bogles is not played a lot.
Storm is a really poor matchup. They are so consistent at killing us turn 4 (and often virtually turn 3!!). I lost so many games that I feel Eidolon deserves a slot, if only for that damn deck! And especially in conjuction with Eldritch evolution. I'd say that online i play against storm every 10 rounds on average these days...
However I don't know if Storm would be as represented at a GP as it is on MTGO. But even then, the 1 Eidolon is great against Ad Nauseam, really good against Cheerios and Krark-clan combo (fringe decks i know but we would struggle against them) and also i can see it being useful against Burn and Elves to slow them down but not sure on that one, i will need to test. As you said it has the potential to ruin the day of Snapcaster players too.
Gaddock Teeg could replace Eidolon, it has a lot more application in other match-ups but I feel like the rest of the sideboard is already nicely tuned for the meta anyway. Against Storm Teeg dies in no time while they usually only have 1 card in their 75 that can deal with Eidolon (repeal or echoing truth).
2 Negate
2 Unified Will
3 Reflector Mage
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Eldritch evolution
1 Stony Silence
I have dropped Bojuka because it was under-performing and you guys convinced me. Also I decided to give another chance to Eldritch Evolution and it did not disappoint: I played two storm decks in a row and won both matches! One of them thanks to eldritch evolution for Eidolon of "fair play" which gives us the win right then...my opponent tutored for echoing truth but I had negate
I am also trying a single Rhox war monk for Burn and maybe dredge...therefore I switched to 2tracker/1courser in the main because I have more powerful cards in the SB for burn.
We will see how it goes in the next few leagues. I am already 5-0 in a friendly modern league beating Jund, Grixis Death Shadow, Storm, Storm and Goblins so its a good start.
I am happy with 2 courser/1 tracker in the main, it is the "valuetown" package with the 3 voices! I prefer 2 coursers because against Burn it is our best card and I run into this match-up quite often. Also courser is a more versatile creature than tracker IMO. he gives card advantage or card selection, blocks well, gains life, doesnt die to bolt/anger and all that without needind extra mana investment. Therefore G1 in a wide meta i think the 2 coursers/1 tracker split is better. That being said tracker just takes over the game against midrange and control, so having a second copy in the SB feels good to me.
The botanical sanctum explanation makes sense. I agree with you about merfolk, having a non-island blue source is nice! against Fish, not fetching island goes a long way to winning...another reason why 8 dorks is a good idea!
I have tried eldritch evolution in the past but didnt like it...i think its just my inexperience with it though. I didnt try it for very long, 1 or 2 leagues. I had a game where i sacrificed a dork to evolution and my opponent countered it
We are a CoCo deck and i just want to maximise my creature count. Having 2 copies of each of my SB creatures means that I have better chances to CoCo into them. Also, Staticaster and V.Clique are Flash creatures, they are obviously very effective when cast in the opponent's turn and I feel like it doesnot work well with evolution...
I always keep retreats against Elves and Merfolks because it transforms izzet staticaster into a machine gun! I also side-in 2 negates for elves to try to stop their chord or coco.
I read this forum for a while and I thought it was time to give my contribution. I have been playing Knightfall for 2 months online and paper. I love the deck.
I had a 5-0 result few weeks ago, the list can be found on mtgtop8:
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15256&d=292679&f=MO
In that league i had the following matches:
Lantern Control: Win 2-1. lost G1 then won G2 thanks to an early stony silence and G3 with the 0/1 dorks...best cards for this match-up!
Burn: Win 2-1. i dont like playing Burn, we are not favored but here I managed to win G1 on the play with a turn 2 courser and G3 my opponent mana-flooded.
Death Shadow Jund. Win 2-0. I LOVE versing any kind of death shadow decks...I feel like knightfall his really favored in that match-up and that probably explains why the deck has been performing good recently. they have issues against decks that swarm the board like we do. Discard spells are not a big deal because we have many creature/spells that cause them issues, we grind really well then its just a matter of playing creatures like voice/finks/scooze/knight to stabilize and finish them off in the air with queller or a kessig kill. CoCo is stellar as usual. Just beware of temur battle rage if playing the Jund version.
Storm. Win 2-1. Storm on the other hand.....disgusting match-up IMO, they are so consistent at killing you turn 4/5. Scooze is good but often dies before doing anything, queller/counters on their key spells is good too but they easily play around that with remands/bolts for queller...really hard. Here i honestly dont know what happened. My opponent comboed G1, then G2 and 3 was unable to find some of his combo pieces before i won. This is really rare but i happily took that win! I have a really bad record of losses against storm so if you guys have any tips for the match-up, please share!
Jund. Win 2-1. I enjoy playing midrange decks, it's always a close match-up that reward skills. Once again, Knightfall is really good at grinding so i think we are slightly favored but it ain't easy. I won G1 with a good hand on the play, turn 2 Kotr turn 3 CoCo. G3 was a really close game where i killed him just on time with a Queller pumped by gavony township.
Since that league i have made the following changes to the deck:
- 1 selfless spirit
+ 1 bird of paradise
I think that we do so much better when we have a turn 1 dork...it's worth going up to 8 and risking a dork flooding once in a while. It is hard to cut something for it because all the creatures in the deck serve a purpose but i think selfless spirit as a one-of is fine.
In the Sideboard:
- 1 blessed alliance
+ 1 tireless tracker
I haven't needed blessed allaince much. against burn i side in 4 counters and 2 finks now. against death shadow i win without it thanks to 2 reflector mages/2 finks/1 bog. Only place where it was good was affinity for etched champion but I already have 2 reflector mage/2 izzet staticaster and 1 stony silence for that match-up so I am fine. Tireless tracker is an awesome card and I felt sad only having one copy in the 75. it comes in against any midrange/bant eldrazi and of course control decks.
I have been copying the manabase with the 1 botanical sanctum but can someone explain why we are not running the second flooded strand instead? 10 fecthes seem great for Kotr and trackers. kotr as a 4/4 on turn 2 or 3 is so important sometimes.
Thanks guys and let's continue the good work of representing that awesome Knightfall