has anyone running this list thought of using Steward of Valeron?
Hes a knight, a mana dork and a bear with vigilance. He carries equipment incredibly well and can accelerate into a big drop earlier as well as fitting the tribe. At least this is my reasoning as to why he may be runnable in a G/W knights list.
what do you think of him?
Honestly I did thought of playing Steward of Valeron at some stage, I like that he can help us to power out the 4 drops such as Wilt-leaf Liege or Elspeth, Knight-Errant, I'm just not sure if at the later part of the game whether he would be as useful, since mana dorks are of not much use as the game goes along. I think for Knights deck that has an heavier curve can actually relies on Steward and Knight of the White Orchid, while a more weenie knights deck probably would prefer to use those knights with combative or protection skills in Steward position.
Regards to the bounce, vapor snag does more than just bounce their creatures, sometimes you use it to bounce a ninja back to your hand during combat to re-ninjustu, or vapor snag spellstutter to counter something. Mistblade sometimes is also the best card in the deck.
I guess that's why I like Peel from Reality so much -- I feel like it serves both purposes of Vapor Snag, and rarely do I not want both of them at the same time.
I do concur here, usually the double return works in my favor, and sometimes it can be a major swing in tempo over to Ninjas, however it does cost an additional 1 therefore we might struggle to cast effectively in the earlier stages of the game compared to 1 CC bounce spells.
My definition of a Knights deck is that the deck is tribal (heavy concentration of Knights) and that definition makes the deck lean towards aggro strategies. If you only have 8 Knights or fewer out of all your deck's creatures, I don't consider that a Knights deck anymore.
I tend to agree with Shiroe here regarding the definition of a Knight deck, otherwise the Knightfall deck which plays 4x Knight of the Reliquary would have qualify as one.
I agree with Shiroe. After having played with the combo in a knight-shell, I can pretty confidently say that a knight-deck isn't the best shell for the combo. That doesn't mean that it isn't good though. KotR is a very strong card in the midrange games, especially when drawn in multiples, as they can buff each other. The green splash gives access to Collected Company, which is obviously a strong card in a deck full of 3-drops. It also gives acces to manadorks, most notably Hierarch, which synergizes well with double strikers, as well as Knight of the White Orchid when you're on the draw. Also, a 1-3-4 curve just feels so much better than a 1-2-3 curve, when you cast your Knight of Meadowgrain, and the opponent plays a goyf.
The blue splash then gives access to the combo. Which is strong to have, because it allows us to win some more or less unwinnable games/matchups. The downside is, that playing the combo reduces your threat density, and that Retreat is sometimes a dead draw. Hence why I ended up playing only 2 - KotR can kick some major butt on it's own, and the added upside of having 10-15% of your wins come out of nowhere is a real threat, that the opponent has to respect. Splashing blue also gives access to counterspells in the sideboard, which can really increase some of the bad matchups (Tron, for example). If you want to more consistently combo out, Court Hussar may be worth testing out (You were talking about tribal cantrip, and that card is pretty good, but unfortunately dies from CoCo/Vial).
I'm not saying the correct way to build the deck is to play the combo, or even play multiple colors, as the different versions are capable of different things, but I have to admit I quite like how my current list is playing. I have to agree that it's important to keep the amount of actual knight creatures high though, something I'm not that good at because I want to test out all kinds of things.
Also agree with you here about keeping the "actual knight creatures" high enough - ironically this might just be the factor holding back Tribal Knights since the Knights are often lacking in more powerful abilities or insane power/toughness stats. That being said, the likes of Knight of Meadowgrain, Black Knight and White Knight do pack a punch(against opponents who only have Path to Exile for removal or Black removal spells respectively). I usually like to slap on a Rancor in order to make them much more threatening.
If twin combos, you'll lose, if it controls, it wont. Same deal with zoo. You just have to play correctly, and most of the time, thats knowing they can combo, and playing risky regardless.
With the new fetches, the mana base should be a lot smoother. I would like to see this Esper Knight build with Æther Vial, most of your knights cost 3 plus you don't have to always cast Haakon from the graveyard.
Yes, Absolutely, I used to have difficulties trying to get a less painful yet efficient manabase back then when we only had Zendikar fetches.
What I like about Esper Knights is the deck approach to a game. We can be potent both from a normal knights aggro route, or by graveyard recursion. As usual, the tradeoff is a lack of focus as a result, however I do feel due to the synergy between the cards, this deck tend to reduce that to a minimum.
I've been shadowing this thread for a while and I've decided to make knights my thing.
After buying the normal core cards, I feel like I want to head towards the puresteel type of build due to the small amount of CA and the protection to help make creatures stick.
1. Get a sword
2. Get a prot creature
3. Get Life from within
4. Attack with a Double Strike 4/4 Mirran Crusader with protection from blue, red, green, black
I'm not sold on the steelshaper's gifts, maybe just more artifacts?
I feel like 10 isn't really enough to trigger Metalcraft but I'm not sure what to take out as well - maybe Student of Warfare?
From playtesting, I always have the dilemma of Student or Vial turn 1 if I have both - what's the best choice here anyway??
Possibly Bonesplitter or Silver-Inlaid Dagger for Student?
I think I can see where your concerns are on regarding the lack of artifacts, seems like 10 is not sufficient enough for Metacraft, adding more equipments such as you mentioned Bonesplitter etc, will also reduce the mana curve of the deck, there are quite a far bit of 3CC spells in the deck at the moment. Are there any cheap equipments similar to Bladed Pinions? Some flying is always good.
Steelshaper's Gift is necessary here, they are effectively your Sword of Fire and Ice "x2 and x3" or any other swords for that matter. Or to dig a Basilisk Collar if you need life. They are useful as a equipment toolbox or to help towards metacraft.
I really don't fancy the decklists especially Elspeth with the Gustcloak creatures, from a flavor point of view I find that they don't link up, it seems like being foil and new art for Elspeth would be the only reason for me to be keen this DD set.
If you can convince your playgroup, you might also be able to run Yore-Tiller Nephilim, which is hilariously gimmicky with walls.
Thanks for the suggestions, I was hoping they would eventually change the rule to allow Nephilim as a Commander - house rules are difficult when you have people who might just join the playgroup from time to time.
Rhinos are an issue, those need to be countered or pathed
But I still think attacking the yard is the way to go. It mitigates most threats the deck can muster, so if you can prevent rhinos from killing you, the deck doesn't have all that many ways to actually threaten you. It's definitely a step toward success, considering if you don't have hate, they have 4 goyfs, 4 scoozes, 4 tasigurs and 4 rhinos or whatnot, each of which is more than capable of killing you singlehandedly.
Right now I'm trying to update the deck to the new meta, because firewalkers are not necessary for maindeck anymore.
Looking forward to seeing your new decklist, also I haven't play Modern as much as before, are the Ninjas well placed in the current meta?
I'm trying to figure out which to add to my knights deck: mirran crusader or silverblade. I am aware of the pros and cons of both such as how silverblade can make other creatures such my knight of meadowgrain to proc twice due to doublestrike. That allows the deck to have a faster clock. However, I'm also all to familiar with the weaknesses of soulbond and have lost many combat phases due to a well-timed removal spell. Mirran crusader is said to be more resilient to removal while also having the advantage of having doublestrike initially, which silverblade doesn't. When facing an unknown meta, which is the better choice?
I'm trying to figure out which to add to my knights deck: mirran crusader or silverblade. . .
With the popularity of GBx these days, Mirran Crusader has to be available in one's 75. If it's one or the other, I'd go with Crusader.
I gotta go with pzbw7z too, I prefer Mirran Crusader usually, even in an unknown meta. And especially since GBx is popular recently, Mirran Crusader's protection is more relevant than ever.
I like to use Rancor too, the trample works well with a buffed up Knight of Reliquary and also with lifelink, I could get plenty of life quickly, usually putting those decks working on a clock out of range. Additionally, the +2 power to a first strike creature makes it difficult for opponents to combat block, as knights typically have first strike.
To throw it open to another colour combination - RWB - Alesha, Who Smiles at Death allows you to cheat any dead walls with power <2 back into play attacking
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is really good choice as commander - cheap, free and consistent recursion is very very welcome!
Wall of Mulch seems like the best reason to play walls. Wall is about to die? Draw a card! Wrath of God? Draw a LOT of cards.
As for the current list, you have a LOT of ways to bring back enchantments...with very few enchantments at all. I know you are REALLY paranoid about losing Rolling Stones, but I think you overkilled the enchantment Resurrection. And on top of that, Rolling Stones doesn't help when most of your walls have 0 power. I would replace a lot of those recursion effects with attack pumps. OR....go red for Vent Sentinel and Lobber Crew.
Your are right haha, I'm paranoid about losing Rolling Stones because it seems to be one of the only card which can let the walls go on the offensive. Yup I agree there is way too many enchantment Recursion - I will streamline them later on, currently I'm just adding into the list whatever enchantment recursion I could think off.
I also just searched out Wakestone Gargoyle - - another card which definitely will make the deck.
You should really consider splashing Red into this. I had a R/W wall deck in vintage for a while and although it wasn't that strong (it was still walls after all) red has some huge cards for playing around with the Defender mechanic Vent Sentinel, Æther Membrane, Flamewright, Glyph of Destruction, Total War and Lobber Crew. Plus you can run cards like Boros Charm, Assemble the Legion etc. to pad out your roster. Without Red, you're going to struggle to deal damage but with it, you can hide behind your cheap and effecient defenders, sling spells for damage to whittle people down until you reach a point where you can turn them aggressive and beat face.
There's so many suggestion to splash red and green for walls deck win - I reckon we can almost have a [mana]RG[mana]deck lists, there are really good useful wall though as suggested Wall of Mulch and Wall of Blossoms by Burntgerbil, I immediately thought of Carnivorous Plant, it used to be a card I played back when I was having 80 cards standard decks.
Honestly I did thought of playing Steward of Valeron at some stage, I like that he can help us to power out the 4 drops such as Wilt-leaf Liege or Elspeth, Knight-Errant, I'm just not sure if at the later part of the game whether he would be as useful, since mana dorks are of not much use as the game goes along. I think for Knights deck that has an heavier curve can actually relies on Steward and Knight of the White Orchid, while a more weenie knights deck probably would prefer to use those knights with combative or protection skills in Steward position.
I do concur here, usually the double return works in my favor, and sometimes it can be a major swing in tempo over to Ninjas, however it does cost an additional 1 therefore we might struggle to cast effectively in the earlier stages of the game compared to 1 CC bounce spells.
I tend to agree with Shiroe here regarding the definition of a Knight deck, otherwise the Knightfall deck which plays 4x Knight of the Reliquary would have qualify as one.
Also agree with you here about keeping the "actual knight creatures" high enough - ironically this might just be the factor holding back Tribal Knights since the Knights are often lacking in more powerful abilities or insane power/toughness stats. That being said, the likes of Knight of Meadowgrain, Black Knight and White Knight do pack a punch(against opponents who only have Path to Exile for removal or Black removal spells respectively). I usually like to slap on a Rancor in order to make them much more threatening.
Really good to know knights can beat Twin though!
Yes, Absolutely, I used to have difficulties trying to get a less painful yet efficient manabase back then when we only had Zendikar fetches.
What I like about Esper Knights is the deck approach to a game. We can be potent both from a normal knights aggro route, or by graveyard recursion. As usual, the tradeoff is a lack of focus as a result, however I do feel due to the synergy between the cards, this deck tend to reduce that to a minimum.
I think I can see where your concerns are on regarding the lack of artifacts, seems like 10 is not sufficient enough for Metacraft, adding more equipments such as you mentioned Bonesplitter etc, will also reduce the mana curve of the deck, there are quite a far bit of 3CC spells in the deck at the moment. Are there any cheap equipments similar to Bladed Pinions? Some flying is always good.
Steelshaper's Gift is necessary here, they are effectively your Sword of Fire and Ice "x2 and x3" or any other swords for that matter. Or to dig a Basilisk Collar if you need life. They are useful as a equipment toolbox or to help towards metacraft.
Thanks for the suggestions, I was hoping they would eventually change the rule to allow Nephilim as a Commander - house rules are difficult when you have people who might just join the playgroup from time to time.
Excellent suggestions, good to give the walls some anthem effects
Looking forward to seeing your new decklist, also I haven't play Modern as much as before, are the Ninjas well placed in the current meta?
I gotta go with pzbw7z too, I prefer Mirran Crusader usually, even in an unknown meta. And especially since GBx is popular recently, Mirran Crusader's protection is more relevant than ever.
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is really good choice as commander - cheap, free and consistent recursion is very very welcome!
Your are right haha, I'm paranoid about losing Rolling Stones because it seems to be one of the only card which can let the walls go on the offensive. Yup I agree there is way too many enchantment Recursion - I will streamline them later on, currently I'm just adding into the list whatever enchantment recursion I could think off.
I also just searched out Wakestone Gargoyle -
Patriarch's Bidding is a good one - my friend play it in its Scion Ur Dragon deck and destroy us all the time lol.
Looks like Blue might be eventually removed for Green, I'm still deliberating over green or red to replace blue.
There's so many suggestion to splash red and green for walls deck win - I reckon we can almost have a [mana]RG[mana]deck lists, there are really good useful wall though as suggested Wall of Mulch and Wall of Blossoms by Burntgerbil, I immediately thought of Carnivorous Plant, it used to be a card I played back when I was having 80 cards standard decks.
Now Doran would really be nasty with Walls....that would mean replacing blue with green, definitely a very good choice for wall commander!