I totally agree with you on Honor of the Pure (why play him when we have lords. Somemore we have other better choices like Metamorph and Automation around).
-spooky-, the guy who wrote the article has really tempted me to try out some of the decklists he posted. I have most of the cards already and i'm curious how good they will might turn out to be. After attacking with singleton knights for so long i guess it's time to attack with hordes of creatures again?
Below is link to the Youtube video of a Mono-White Legacy knights deck with Honor of the Pure which i mention in my earlier post (I can't find the SCG video, maybe i recall wrongly).
For the black splash, has anyone tried going for an Entomb toolbox? Add some Polluted Deltas and an Underground Sea with Wonder and you've got flying Knights.
Yeah, i have tried out both Entomb & Buried Alive. Another poster has also recommended dumping Glory into the graveyard. We can definitely do with Wonder, If space permits why not? Dropping him into graveyard and sending all the knights through for an alpha strike won't be something our opponent expects from knights.
That said if i want to enhance the Entomb toolbox and create more graveyard shenanigans, I'll probably still prefer Glory over Wonder. Although at the end of the day i would rather have another knight creature though.
That...is a very strange list No Stoneforge Mystic? Wall of Omens? Honor of the Pure? I guess it works, apparently...does this mean we should evaluate these cards further? Does...does Honor of the Pure actually have a place in this deck? I never thought I'd ever say that...but...it worked...I'm so confused right now
Basically since he choosed Walls/Honor, he had to forgo the SFM package. I think the walls probably did a good job stalling before the Heros and Elspeths comes in.
I never considered Honor of the Pure because many times during my games i have a sword but no creatures to equip. In that situation Honor is worse off. And SFM gives us CA and an additional creature to equip.
There is no way we can play 4 Honors and 4 swords in the same deck. Where are we going to get the creatures?
Will you be playtesting this build to dispel all your doubts/confusion once and for all?
Yeah, I mean, Honor of the Pure can get a few more damage across, but I'd rather have a turn 2 Jitte or something. Call me crazy, but that deck seems like it got SUPER lucky on the match-ups or something.
Yeah, i agree. I prefer an equipment to Honor. In fact I don't even play Honor in my type 2 knights deck. I still think it must be Elspeth which won him most of the games. In any case this decklist should be extremely consistent so i don't think he ends up with a bad opening hand on most occasions.
I am not sure if that list should show us the future. I never felt that we need a crusade-effect. If your board is empty what would you like to see:
Crusade/Honor or a critter?
I think the equipment/stoneforge way is the better one. And Wall of Omens... I want to win not to stall the ground with a wall;)
I actually saw a youtube video of a guy playing knights deck with Honor of the pure a few weeks ago, and if i dont recall wrongly it was a top-8 or top-4 match in one of the SCG tournament.
Like i say earlier i'm not sold on the Honor and Wall, i did not even consider them when writing the primer.
Or is there a stigma over accepting that a deck comprising of mainly Type 2 cards could perform well in a legacy meta?
"The premier tribal White Weenie deck, Knights, excels in its matches against creature-based decks. "
"What's great about this deck is its power against creature based decks. Knight Exemplar resolving usually spells "GG" against Merfolk, who have no main board removal short of Jitte. Making all of your creatures indestructible is much better than you may initially think. Not only does it stop a lot of spot removal and burn cards from targeting and killing your Knights, it stops some of the cards that would be considered excellent sideboard tech against White Weenie. Board wipes like Wrath of God, Firespout, Engineered Explosives, and Pernicious Deed all work well against most White Weenie decks, but not Knights. With Knight Exemplar on the field you don't have to worry about a single board wipe in the game. The sharing of indestructible also gives you an infinite number of chump blocks to buy as much time as you want if needed. Swarming the field is made easier with Hero of Bladehold and both versions of Elspeth. This makes it extremely hard for any deck that tries to win using creatures to ever fulfill such a strategy against you."
The decklist included some cards which i always felt doesnt really works well in knights, especially Honor of the Pure & Hero of Bladehold. However we have no information of the meta, and at first glance it looks very much like a standard deck.
However most importantly, it was able to finish around the top decks in that tournament. I understand this may be a flash in the pan but at least it has done it.
Feel free to link the article. I wrote the article to be helpful to people, so if it would be helpful for you to link it in your primer then please do!
Sure! Thanks for your generously! I'll link it with the appropriate credits then!
I have a few mates weary of standard and starting to lean towards the legacy scene.
At the moment in terms of playing skill and price entry, White weenie is certainly looking like one of the more feasible and straightforward options available. Looking forward to more such articles from you. Cheers!
Great article here. I was able to gain good insight on the various white creatures build available which is very relevant for me as all my staples are mostly White.
I saw your description on this deck archtype which you stated was able to place fourth out of an 88-man tournament in March of 2011:
I have a knight primer/thread in the legacy forums, and was actually delighted when i read about this deck's performance. And if you dont mind i would like to link your article and thread to the primer to share with the others on how knights can be competitive to an extent.
I was never really convinced with SoFF ability, by the way it offers the same protection as Mirran Crusader! And they are quite useless compared to the other swords during mid-game..do let me know if your playtesting proves me wrong!
I'm actually more curious with which equipment you removed for SoFF, IMO the existing equipment are already considered irreplacable.
Sounds quite weird that you are using KotR as your EDH general. And you are also so adamant about it.
Anyway since you are thinking of building a knight subtheme, i wrote a primer below describing some of the more playable knights available which should be relevant to you.
I think after the Exemplar rotates out of standard, he wants to turn this into a casual deck. So i've just put down some points how to improve this deck for casual environment.
Cos Standard forum would be better to talk about improving the deck for Standard. Here, we can improve it well for casual.
Or did i misunderstood the whole point?
Icic, what i decipher from his post was:
ways to improve the deck from now till rotation. (now to Sept)
How it can fit into casual once exemplar rotates. (after Sept)
I would max out on Day of Judgement to 4 pieces, and replace the 3 Revoke Existence with 4 Oblivion Ring. I find that i was always hoping to get DOJ to do board wipe and especially since it usually provides CA as it takes out more opponent creatures than my own.
Oblivion Ring will be much more versatile and it can take out planeswalker as well.
However this will be a auto-loss to splinter-twins combo.
@Nabbydian: I was going to put my Needles in, but couldn't find them. I have them back now, so next week they'll definitely be put back in. I don't want to use fetches in a mono-color deck, mostly because of how prevalent burn is in my meta, and that puts life at a premium. I do like the suggestions for the board, but Tutors are a bit spendy for me currently. But I may pick them up down the road.
As for my SoBaM/SoWaP choice, that's solely because I don't have SoFaI, and again, a bit too spendy. But they get the job done well enough.
Edit: Another thing is that Batterskull is (mostly) burn-proof. I love watching someone sac two lands to blow up a 0/0.
No wonder you didnt play fetches. There is less burn in my meta, and fetches works well against JTMS's fateseal ability. You can also consider playing Pulse of the Fields in the sideboard.
Seems like we have another advocator for Batterskull here. Well if everyone says so it is definitely worth a try. I'll go out and buy one for my deck.
@Nabbydian Chrome Mox vs Mox DiamondYes I like Mox D. much more. I like it to discard a land instead of a spell/critter which can be important during the lategame and it has great synergys with out Knight of the White Orchid. Maybe it deserves a chance in our deck. And with the moxes we are able to play a splash without fearing wateland which can destabilize our manabase, which is - I think - the most important part of our deck!
Ans yes, cut the chevallier and learn to love Mr Tentacle;) And you will never get the feeling that batterskull costed a lot of money. I bought it, played it and after 10 minutes of playing with it it won a game of its own! Thats a great card. Oh and get those cards quickly, I think puresteel and metamorph will see play a lot...
@"Mirran Crusader"
At the moment I am absolutely sold on him. I will never cut a single one of them cause they are our two turn combo clock with equipment or elspeth. They have protection from goyf, KotR and other guys/removal.
Concerning Darkblast: Maybe in a deck with a bit deeper blacksplash it can do a lot of bad things. A recurrable removal in days of Misstep is always good. You can kill easy opposing critters and dig for haakon. But hey it is even strong if you don't play him. I always loved darkblast when I played dredge.
@OverlordChao:
Try to get a SoFaI it is amazing. It gives us CA, improves our Mirran and kills enemy critters...
@Enl. Toolbox
Sure it is a nice addition in our SB. It can fetch for every good card like equipment, wheel of sun and moon, maybe crypt (which is bad I think), needle and serenity. But there is one problem: Everybody expects us to play vial, swords, paths, students and will play a special card maindeck or in the SB, which he or she will board with 100%. You know what I mean? Yes: mental Misstep! Maybe that can hit us hard when we are going for your tutortarget. Thats the point where I prefer my leylines. If you find them (40% opening hand) they are in play and you can start your buisness with dropping our critters. The opponent will find an answer for the leyline or lose. If he has a mental misstep in hand great, but mirran and SFM will laugh all day long and smash his face;)
I also prefer Mox Diamond with the same reasons you stated; and i'll be trying a Mox/Tithe Knights deck shortly. I'm curious to see how the extra speed we get from Diamond works for Knights.
I have been playing Haakon's Confidant for more than a month and its due for a change.
Yes, i just brought the tentacles playset a few days ago. It's price has been rising steadily recently. It'll replace my Kinsbaile Cavalier. I'm still waiting for Puresteel price to dip further HAHA
Misstep has really messed up vial decks and creature decks. In my meta, almost 70% of the decks has misstep mainboard in. I'm still undecided over playing misstep myself - to counter misstep
Yeah, I agree that it has no place in a non-puresteel build, but I was thinking of possibly moving the Mirrans to the sideboard for Automatons in a Puresteel build. This is very tentative as I really love my Mirran Crusaders and I know how good they are, but...it might be worth creating a speculative list regardless. if I was going to try it, here would be my tentative list.
Looking it over, I'm not sure that it's worth it...but if I was going to do it, that's what I'd go with. You lose the powerhouse that is Mirran Crusader, but in return your knights get that much bigger, and Paladin becomes more reliable. Again, I don't know whether the tradeoff is worth it since Crusader can outright win games on his own if he's not dealt with, but I'm just going to throw this list out there. It gives me a total of 20 artifacts including lands, and the equipments are searchable via Mystic.
It's a shame we can't reliably utilize Mox Opal, otherwise there'd be a much better reason for trying this. As it stands, I just don't know whether Puresteel Paladin is worth the tradeoff in power. I really like the card, and if it had first strike I think it would be worth it. But as it is...I'm afraid it might be relegated to the realm of casual.
@Nabbydian: I only worked on the mono-white lists, you did all the rest, and wrote an awesome primer But I am really glad that there's such an interest in Knights and that this thread has been staying alive.
Yes, i remember we ever discuss before and agreeing in this thread on Puresteel not being good enough for knights but you had to try it first before you draw the verdict. Now i'll need you to try automation again
To be frank, i feel this is worth a try. Knights with first strike is massive in combat especially with gang-blocking and can really kill off opponents' critters without suffering any attrition on our side. And i think you are right to go maximum for 4x automation. This allows us to win with inflated knights if equipments doesnt work.
Your decklist looks interesting, and seems quite easy to reach metacraft with 20 artifacts. Darksteel Citadel is a good addition. 2 seems just nice.
Thanks for the compliment. Hopefully the thread can draw more interest and engage more players towards playing tribal knights.
Went to my local shop on Thursday with my Mono-White Knights. Had to make due with what I had on hand, since the store that I buy singles from went out of business.
First Match: TezzAffinity
I got stomped. Game one he had 8 artifacts, including a Batterskull and a Signal Pest, on turn 2. I was dead by turn 3. Game two went almost as fast, swinging for lethal in the air on turn 4.
0-2
Second Match: Mill
I got him down to 2 life game one, but he managed to mill me with Mind Funeral. Games 2 and 3 he auto scooped after I had Leylines in both opening hands. Apparently, he didn't have any sort of removal, so he was completely shut down.
2-1
Third Match: Burn
Game one went as follows-
T1 - Student, go
T2 - Mystic, search for Batterskull, swing, go
T3 - Cheat in Batterskull, swing, go
After that, he couldn't keep up with the lifelink. His topdecks must have been garbage, because he just scooped.
Game two I got another opening Leyline. He tried to keep me locked down by burning my creatures, and even had me down to 1 life with his Lavamancer, but I finally drew a Path, then got my Jitte out and won.
2-0
Sorry that the match descriptions being so under-detailed. It was a long day, and I don't remember much. I know that the board is lacking, but again, I played with what I had. The problem was Affinity, as I expected, but that seems like a really bad match-up for Mono-White.
Any suggestions for a better sideboard would be greatly appreciated. I'm in the process of getting my fourth Leyline.
Your deck looks quite similar to what i might play in a Mono-White Aggro Knights. I was just curious on your choice of Swords, were you forced by what you could find to play SoWP & SoBM? Some fetches to thin the deck would be good. You might also cut 1 or 2 pieces of Knight of Meadowgrain for other cards as you have too many 2cc creatures.
I think you could consider going for a Enlightened Tutor Toolbox. With this toolbox, one copy of Serenity in your sideboard effectively becomes 5. It will also fix your matchup with Affinity. Pitching Needle can also take out Tezzeret.
The Phyrexian crusader (from the other player) was amazing. Maybe I have to change the deck to make room for some of him. He just won without any removal! He needs a bigger blackspash I think. Maybe together with a buried alive haakon package. And there will be space for two darkblast which can kill every critter with power two which is very important.... besides he dredges for Haakon and other stuff...
The Leonin Relic-warder would not have changed anything. More vindicates/paths maybe.... but not sure.
My meta has a lot of mental misstep. Every deck plays it, me included. I boarded them every single game and it saved a lot of my critters from burn or countered their misstep. Worked fine all day long.
BAtterskull is amazing. You drop your SFM turn two and your opponent have to waste a remval to a 1/2 critter. If he has none you can drop eot your 4/4 batterskull. If you are luck (like me) you find your elspeth. And get 7 life/turn while also protecting elspeth. YOu opponent have to find an answer to batterskull or will die to this 4/4. Well and when he kills it. You have spent not so much resources like him. After the death of batterskull you can drop your really good knights without fearing that they are killed by tons of removal;)
@AEIOU
NIce to see other players interested in this stylish deck. My first thought was the same then Nabbydian: Why only 3 puresteel? You want to see him every single turn! He is the reason why you destabilized your manabase (den) and your hole deck (5 equips are in a normal built overkill, believe me). How are your experiences with puresteel as a CA/engine? I bought a set when the was released but never had the time to test him and I always feared that his impact is to weak.
Chromemox is a way to speed you up. You can imprint random stuff to accelerate yourself. Maybe in a puresteel-built 3 moxes can replace the 4 vial and make room for your important 4th paladin.
In a puresteelbuilt I would not play confidant. You already have two ways to create CA: SFM and Paladin. Thats enough! Oh when you splash black your manabase will be much weaker (wasteland....), you need your early drops.
Now to a important card:
Phyrexian Metamorph: It is very intersting that you never want to play him. In my meta he is one of our strongest cards. You can copy KotR, random critters like ph. cursader, opposing SFM or a batterskull (jitte, ...). You can copy a tombstalker. AND metamorph is a removal for every legendary creature! Every game I found him I was happy and when I cast him I often wished there will be his brother in the next few turns. He is sooooo multifunctional for a turn three drop.
Oh and one thing: I will add at least two knights with protection red in my list. A lot of goblins and burn decks are around and a critter with protection red is nuts in that matchups. He can stop these annoying stupid red decks. When a SFM is around your jitte is a turn away to combo them out.
Yup, i agree with you the key problem with Phyrexian crusader is requiring a bigger splash of B which i'm unwilling to do so as it will make our land base unstable and vulnerable to Wasteland. As a result i prefer Stillmoon Cavalier over him.
However i do wish to try him out somehow, and have created another casual thread below on Mono-black knights. Over here we don't have any excuses not to use him anymore do we?
I think you pointed out something very interesting, using Darkblast to dredge Haakon, didnt really thought of it.
Regarding mental misstep, i'm still unsure about using up 4 sideboard slots for it. I thought it would be better using it against difficult matchups. However in my meta i do played against opponents who after sideboarding have up to 8 removal spells. I still remember a game against a NO Bant where he Swords/paths me 5 turns in a row and beat me with a Noble Hierarch for several turns since i have no blockers. What do you normally remove for Misstep?
Your analysis on Batterskull sound convincing enough, i'll probably get a piece and try it out myself.
Previously I was so so unconvinced about Puresteel Paladin in a knights build that I haven't even brought any of them. I should be buying a playset soon and will try out the decklist above. All this testing is what makes the game fun. Give us more knights please!
Phyrexian Metamorph is something i'll definitely try. I should be taking out my Kinsbaile Cavalier for her. If you want a knight with protection from R, it has to be silver knight which i guess you have already selected.
Has anyone given any thought to Adaptive Automaton? Probably not worth it in non-Puresteel builds, but in Puresteel builds he's an artifact, a knight, and a lord. Something to consider, anyway.
Yeah, i think he is worth a try in Puresteel builds, not as a 4 ofs, but maybe one or two could suffice. It seems he is probably completing with the likes of Phyrexian Metamorph and Mirran Crusader for card slots.
First of all thanks for your interest in our knights deck! Great that you give us new imput.
Indeed I thought he is good, but he has one problem. He can just give our guys +1/+1. So he is as a lord worser than exemplar. She pumps our knights and make them indestructable. And the second problem is that our list is very narrow. We need a lot of critters and removal and most of the cards great like student, mirran which we can't cut in a non-puresteel deck.
So what are the slots where the automaton can be inserted?
It will be the slots where at the moment confidant and metamorph are. But when I compare automaton with metamorph the shapeshifter looks overwhelming cause he can copy exemplar and win the game. Or he can be whatever you want. You see?
I think automaton is a solid card, but simply doesn't fit in our list.
Yeah i tend to agree with what you say on automation. However don't forget you will not always have an exemplar to copy. But Metamorph does seems to have more applications than automation and both enables metacraft so i guess at this stage Metamorph gets the nod due to his versatility.
By the way Enemy was the pioneer of the knights thread
I have a primer here with some decklists on legacy knights, perhaps you might find it useful?
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=322579
Between Sigiled Paladin or Accorder Paladin i would actually prefer the former as you have stated we usually don't attack in droves.
I totally agree with you on Honor of the Pure (why play him when we have lords. Somemore we have other better choices like Metamorph and Automation around).
-spooky-, the guy who wrote the article has really tempted me to try out some of the decklists he posted. I have most of the cards already and i'm curious how good they will might turn out to be. After attacking with singleton knights for so long i guess it's time to attack with hordes of creatures again?
This is the link to discussion on his article: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=340901
Below is link to the Youtube video of a Mono-White Legacy knights deck with Honor of the Pure which i mention in my earlier post (I can't find the SCG video, maybe i recall wrongly).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nADi_uSFWrI
Take a look and tell me what you think about it. I hope it doesnt confuse your further! My apologies in advance!
Yeah, i have tried out both Entomb & Buried Alive. Another poster has also recommended dumping Glory into the graveyard. We can definitely do with Wonder, If space permits why not? Dropping him into graveyard and sending all the knights through for an alpha strike won't be something our opponent expects from knights.
That said if i want to enhance the Entomb toolbox and create more graveyard shenanigans, I'll probably still prefer Glory over Wonder. Although at the end of the day i would rather have another knight creature though.
Basically since he choosed Walls/Honor, he had to forgo the SFM package. I think the walls probably did a good job stalling before the Heros and Elspeths comes in.
I never considered Honor of the Pure because many times during my games i have a sword but no creatures to equip. In that situation Honor is worse off. And SFM gives us CA and an additional creature to equip.
There is no way we can play 4 Honors and 4 swords in the same deck. Where are we going to get the creatures?
Will you be playtesting this build to dispel all your doubts/confusion once and for all?
Yeah, i agree. I prefer an equipment to Honor. In fact I don't even play Honor in my type 2 knights deck. I still think it must be Elspeth which won him most of the games. In any case this decklist should be extremely consistent so i don't think he ends up with a bad opening hand on most occasions.
I actually saw a youtube video of a guy playing knights deck with Honor of the pure a few weeks ago, and if i dont recall wrongly it was a top-8 or top-4 match in one of the SCG tournament.
Like i say earlier i'm not sold on the Honor and Wall, i did not even consider them when writing the primer.
Or is there a stigma over accepting that a deck comprising of mainly Type 2 cards could perform well in a legacy meta?
I'm reposting here with kind permission from -spooky-, who wrote an article, Squandered Resources: White Weenie describing White Weenie in Legacy.
One of the deck mentioned in the article was a mono-white Knights deck, which was able to finish fourth out of an 88-man tournament in March of 2011:
4 Hero of Bladehold
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Leonin Skyhunter
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Student of Warfare
4 Wall of Omens
4 White Knight
1 Elspeth Tirel
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Arid Mesa
16 Plains
"The premier tribal White Weenie deck, Knights, excels in its matches against creature-based decks. "
"What's great about this deck is its power against creature based decks. Knight Exemplar resolving usually spells "GG" against Merfolk, who have no main board removal short of Jitte. Making all of your creatures indestructible is much better than you may initially think. Not only does it stop a lot of spot removal and burn cards from targeting and killing your Knights, it stops some of the cards that would be considered excellent sideboard tech against White Weenie. Board wipes like Wrath of God, Firespout, Engineered Explosives, and Pernicious Deed all work well against most White Weenie decks, but not Knights. With Knight Exemplar on the field you don't have to worry about a single board wipe in the game. The sharing of indestructible also gives you an infinite number of chump blocks to buy as much time as you want if needed. Swarming the field is made easier with Hero of Bladehold and both versions of Elspeth. This makes it extremely hard for any deck that tries to win using creatures to ever fulfill such a strategy against you."
The decklist included some cards which i always felt doesnt really works well in knights, especially Honor of the Pure & Hero of Bladehold. However we have no information of the meta, and at first glance it looks very much like a standard deck.
However most importantly, it was able to finish around the top decks in that tournament. I understand this may be a flash in the pan but at least it has done it.
Sure! Thanks for your generously! I'll link it with the appropriate credits then!
I have a few mates weary of standard and starting to lean towards the legacy scene.
At the moment in terms of playing skill and price entry, White weenie is certainly looking like one of the more feasible and straightforward options available. Looking forward to more such articles from you. Cheers!
Great article here. I was able to gain good insight on the various white creatures build available which is very relevant for me as all my staples are mostly White.
I saw your description on this deck archtype which you stated was able to place fourth out of an 88-man tournament in March of 2011:
4 Hero of Bladehold
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Leonin Skyhunter
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Student of Warfare
4 Wall of Omens
4 White Knight
1 Elspeth Tirel
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Honor of the Pure
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Arid Mesa
16 Plains
I have a knight primer/thread in the legacy forums, and was actually delighted when i read about this deck's performance. And if you dont mind i would like to link your article and thread to the primer to share with the others on how knights can be competitive to an extent.
Below is my knights primer:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=322579
I'm actually more curious with which equipment you removed for SoFF, IMO the existing equipment are already considered irreplacable.
Anyway since you are thinking of building a knight subtheme, i wrote a primer below describing some of the more playable knights available which should be relevant to you.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=322579
You can select your knights from there. Cheers.
Icic, what i decipher from his post was:
ways to improve the deck from now till rotation. (now to Sept)
How it can fit into casual once exemplar rotates. (after Sept)
Well i guess we covered both for him
Or did i misinterpret his message? Skullcramp and Catalclysm doesnt belong to standard.
Oblivion Ring will be much more versatile and it can take out planeswalker as well.
However this will be a auto-loss to splinter-twins combo.
No wonder you didnt play fetches. There is less burn in my meta, and fetches works well against JTMS's fateseal ability. You can also consider playing Pulse of the Fields in the sideboard.
Seems like we have another advocator for Batterskull here. Well if everyone says so it is definitely worth a try. I'll go out and buy one for my deck.
I also prefer Mox Diamond with the same reasons you stated; and i'll be trying a Mox/Tithe Knights deck shortly. I'm curious to see how the extra speed we get from Diamond works for Knights.
I have been playing Haakon's Confidant for more than a month and its due for a change.
Yes, i just brought the tentacles playset a few days ago. It's price has been rising steadily recently. It'll replace my Kinsbaile Cavalier. I'm still waiting for Puresteel price to dip further HAHA
Misstep has really messed up vial decks and creature decks. In my meta, almost 70% of the decks has misstep mainboard in. I'm still undecided over playing misstep myself - to counter misstep
Yes, i remember we ever discuss before and agreeing in this thread on Puresteel not being good enough for knights but you had to try it first before you draw the verdict. Now i'll need you to try automation again
To be frank, i feel this is worth a try. Knights with first strike is massive in combat especially with gang-blocking and can really kill off opponents' critters without suffering any attrition on our side. And i think you are right to go maximum for 4x automation. This allows us to win with inflated knights if equipments doesnt work.
Your decklist looks interesting, and seems quite easy to reach metacraft with 20 artifacts. Darksteel Citadel is a good addition. 2 seems just nice.
Thanks for the compliment. Hopefully the thread can draw more interest and engage more players towards playing tribal knights.
Your deck looks quite similar to what i might play in a Mono-White Aggro Knights. I was just curious on your choice of Swords, were you forced by what you could find to play SoWP & SoBM? Some fetches to thin the deck would be good. You might also cut 1 or 2 pieces of Knight of Meadowgrain for other cards as you have too many 2cc creatures.
I think you could consider going for a Enlightened Tutor Toolbox. With this toolbox, one copy of Serenity in your sideboard effectively becomes 5. It will also fix your matchup with Affinity. Pitching Needle can also take out Tezzeret.
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Serenity or 1 Aura of Silence
1 Pithing Needle
1 Oblivion Ring
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Retribution of the Meek
Yup, i agree with you the key problem with Phyrexian crusader is requiring a bigger splash of B which i'm unwilling to do so as it will make our land base unstable and vulnerable to Wasteland. As a result i prefer Stillmoon Cavalier over him.
However i do wish to try him out somehow, and have created another casual thread below on Mono-black knights. Over here we don't have any excuses not to use him anymore do we?
Link to Mono-Black Knights: Return of Darth Knights
I think you pointed out something very interesting, using Darkblast to dredge Haakon, didnt really thought of it.
Regarding mental misstep, i'm still unsure about using up 4 sideboard slots for it. I thought it would be better using it against difficult matchups. However in my meta i do played against opponents who after sideboarding have up to 8 removal spells. I still remember a game against a NO Bant where he Swords/paths me 5 turns in a row and beat me with a Noble Hierarch for several turns since i have no blockers. What do you normally remove for Misstep?
Your analysis on Batterskull sound convincing enough, i'll probably get a piece and try it out myself.
Previously I was so so unconvinced about Puresteel Paladin in a knights build that I haven't even brought any of them. I should be buying a playset soon and will try out the decklist above. All this testing is what makes the game fun. Give us more knights please!
Between Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond, wouldn't Diamond be the better choice? And Diamond has good synergies with Knight of the White Orchid, Path to Exile and Tithe.
Phyrexian Metamorph is something i'll definitely try. I should be taking out my Kinsbaile Cavalier for her. If you want a knight with protection from R, it has to be silver knight which i guess you have already selected.
Yeah, i think he is worth a try in Puresteel builds, not as a 4 ofs, but maybe one or two could suffice. It seems he is probably completing with the likes of Phyrexian Metamorph and Mirran Crusader for card slots.
Yeah i tend to agree with what you say on automation. However don't forget you will not always have an exemplar to copy. But Metamorph does seems to have more applications than automation and both enables metacraft so i guess at this stage Metamorph gets the nod due to his versatility.
By the way Enemy was the pioneer of the knights thread