Starting all over (again?)

Due to being disrupted by GP Madrid, i’ve put aside Bant Knightfall for a while. I’ve played Affinity with my teammates running hot on Burn and the third one failing on Junk Midrange. My results have been mixed – a 50/50 I believe because I haven’t kept record of my results.

This record was the result of a mediocre preparation and a handful of bad matchups. All-in-All it was a fun time and the results have been ok’ish at least.

After the GP i’ve struggled to really come up with Magic because i was in serious doubt regarding my deck choice for the upcoming month. After testing Dredge and Vengevine Aggro i concluded that it’s the most easiest thing to stick on old behaviors and run Bant Knightfall again.

Here’s why i firmly believe this deck is capable of getting to the top tables:

First: A proactive Beatdown plan

The deck has some Beaters, primarily Knight of the Reliquary, but also Tireless Tracker is able to get the Beatdown going. Although these are not the heaviest hitters in the format (both need a serious investment in Lands / Mana), they are both capable of being huge threats once unanswered.

Furthermore Noble Hierarch and Qasali Pridemage support the Creature-Beatdown with there Exalted ability. While all these Critters doesn’t line up well against Reality Smasher, Death’s Shadow or Ulamog, it’s worth mentioning that they can attack for up to 5+ Damage from Turn 3 on.

Even if the opponents threats are huge Roadblocks, the Flyer’s mean serious trouble. Spell Queller and Selfless Spirit can chip in for quite some damage. Most Modern-Decks lack evasive Creatures that are able to block Flyers.

In the Mid- to Lategame Knight of the Reliquary, Tireless Tracker and Scavenging Ooze are great. They can become big quite easily and have added utility packed together to let the Beatz go on.

So in conclusion the deck promises a bunch of Beaters attached to useful abilities, that can give the edge if left unchecked.

Verdict Beatdown: ++

Second: Disruption on a stick

Spell Queller, Selfless Spirit, Voice of Resurgence, Scavenging Ooze, Thalia, Heretic Cather and the Knight herself assure some serious Tempo / Disruption gameplan. This sets Bant aside Naya Company, that relies heavily on the hard-hitting Beaters like Loxodon Smiter, Knight of the Reliquary, Tireless Tracker or Tarmogoyf.

These Critters does allow me to keep up with the diverse kind of threats all over the modern format. Sometimes a Qasali Pridemage lines up poorly against Death’s Shadow, but at all it’s worth the slot as long as Ad Nauseam, Affinity, Burn and Tron are part of the Format.

Especially Thalia, Heretic Cathar impressed me a lot. The comes-tapped-onto-the-battlefield clause caused some serious headaches for my opponents and gave me some tempo against otherwise difficult matchups.

Another point to contribute to this is that I’m a big believer in the assumption, that disruption must be paired with pressure. In modern disruption on-a-stick is one of the most important aspects of being proactive. The classic Jund / Junk Midrange decks do lack that ability and therefore lose more games in matchups that need to establish a board-presence and disrupt the opponents gameplan.

On another note:

That’s why I skimped on playing a BGx deck right now. There disruption suite, consisting of Discard + removal do not line up very well right now – these decks have too many blanks, especially against Tron and Scapeshift. The future of BGx is either Death’s Shadow or Traverse the Ulvenwald, because both are well-balanced between threats and disruption – no part outweighs the other in a particular way.

Rock-style decks include 20+ removal and 6 – 10 discard spells, kinda overkill in my eyes. Tarmogoyf decreased in playability because of the printing of Fatal Push.

Sometimes these decks do nothing else than killing creatures on board – if there are some. If not – drawing blanks isn’t my hobby, but this is just my opinion.

The possibility to out-tempo Ramp- and Combo-strategies is the single good reason to play Bant over traditional Midrange or other Creature-based decks. Aether Vial-decks are the poster-child of tempo, but they line up poorly against Midrange and Control – a problem knightfall does not share.

Bant has a whopping 10 outs against sweepers (Supreme Verdict, Anger of the Gods) and can come back pretty well with Collected Company after the threats has been picked away or killed turn after turn.

A problem occurs as long as the deck has to fight against a strategy with a lot of redundant pieces, like say UR Storm. While the first attempt to go off can be easily disrupted, the second attempt might be enough to go off. These matchups are the most difficult to pilot through because there’s a need of disrupting the opponents Turn 2 / 3 plays while maintaining pressure on board.

The go-wide-decks like Elves, Goblins or Tokens seem to be threatening as well. The amount of creatures on board is often too much to handle for Knightfall (lacking removal is an issue with this deck).

Bant Knightfall has an additional (new) tool against creature-centric decks in Reflector Mage. While his stats aren’t that impressive, his bounce-ability is somehow really annoying for certain decks. 

Wether Tasigur, the Golden Fang or Goblin Guide – nobody likes to not play his creatures.

A bonus of the Mage is, that his ability doesn’t trigger the discard-clause of Reality Smasher – what more can someone wish for?

Verdict disruption: +

Third: Combo-finish

It does only happen once in a while, just because not both combo-pieces can be tutored, but if it does, I’m either ahead in value or close out the game directly. Retreat to Coralhelm is exceptionally well positioned right now because most of the decks in modern are creature-based, so the card itself is no blank in many games. On top of that – how many decks can remove a once-resolved Enchantment? 

The most versatile answer is Abrupt Decay – a card that has lost a lot of it’s impact in the format and therefore decreases in playability.

What does set Retreat aside as a mediocre card is the fact that many decks does play exceptional huge creatures in small amounts. Tapping down Smashers and Seers mid-combo becomes attractive, doesn’t it?

Another upside is, that it’s the best way to race Combo and Ramp in the format. A problem other Midrange-based creature decks cannot solve because there plan is to discard stuff and / or just race – which they do poorly.

So down the line: Retreat is in great shape right now.

Combo-verdict: +-

Fourth: The explosiveness

The deck couldn’t work without these three bombers: Birds of Paradise, Noble Hierarch and Collected Company. While the first two are granting a 3-Drop on the second turn, the latest ensures a 2-for-1 at literally all stages of the game.

It’s exceptional important to ramp into a 3-drop because all 2-drops does have (more-or-less) only little impact. They are Hatebears that do chip in for some damage, disrupts here and there or support otherwise, but there impact is pretty low-ceiling.

So the real bombs are costing 3 Mana and the top-curver is Company with 4 Mana. It’s pretty good that this one stretches our (virtually) available copies of some cards (namely Spell Queller and Knight of the Reliquary) to 8 (either there’s 1+ in our hand or it must be expected to find at least one in the top 6 of the library).

I’ve started with 7 dorks but quickly recognized that the true haymakers of the deck are the 3-mana critters and Company. It’s awkard to have a 2^nd copy of BoP in the opener, but hey the deck has to make compromises.

Another thing that should be noted is that I skimped on Eternal Witness and Courser of Kruphix. 

Both dudes are great Value-machines, but let’s be honest: the raw power (a 2/1 and a 2/4 for 3 Mana) is completely deniable. As I’ve stated in another Blog-entry, Modern is not about the great Value-decks of old days, it’s about speed and resilience.

To compensate for this loss I’ve added a 2^nd Tireless Tracker and 2 Thalia 2.0. Tracker is at heart a 4-drop (casted followed by a landdrop) that grows bigger over time and fits perfectly in the Landfall-mechanic. Thalia is a contribution to the greedy manabases seen along the line. Especially on the play and Turn 2 it’s a mess for some players.

Fifth: The reach

Everybody familiar with GW Creature decks will know that these kind of decks have great options in terms of reach. Gavony Township and Kessig Wolf Run ensures that even laughable Birds of Paradise can end games. Between Birds, Selfless Spirit and Spell Queller we got 10 Flyer’s at all.

Ooze, Knight and Tracker grows the longer the games tend to get. They tutor stuff, exile cards from graveyards or draw cards. Voice of Resurgence hinders instant-speed actions on the other side of the table or can spit out huge tokens, Selfless Spirit and Queller are able to protect the combo while going off.

As all this is great news, not every time everything lines up well. Opponents overloading our disruption, slow starts (usually those w/o a Bird / Hierarch), flooding or the “wrong half of the deck shows up” prevents this deck from becoming exceptional rather than good.

Verdict reach: +

Last Words

For now the deck is in great shape and has tools to beat most of the top-tier of the format. It combines aspects of Midrange-decks with disruption, Ramp and even tempo-elements commonly known of Aether Vial-decks.

It’s combo consists of 2 pieces that work fine for themselves as long as modern sticks to creature-based decks. The weaknesses are there low-impact 2-Drops and the variance of it’s draws that sometimes doesn’t line up well.