That's true. Though affinity isn't an awful matchup.

It's also worth noting that Jund can be a very bad matchup - it's probably the best of all the 'fair' decks, and that presenting a fast clock (ie. Geist of Saint Traft and Elspeth, Knight-Errant) is a decent defense against ANY deck because it can throw them off balance.

Against merfolk it's probably going to come down to Engineered Explosives but sometimes you just have to be ballsy and start swinging hard.

I dislike Big Zoo for this reason - it's harder to tell (compared to most other aggro decks) when you should block and wait for your silver bullet sideboard card to show up, and when you should just say 'fuck it' and go all-in.

Which however is the optimal Scenario which requires you to have both a 3 of and a 2 of in your first few draws. Against an agressive deck it aslo means, that eventhough you just hit them for 9 Damage but also are completely defensless at the same time, since you spent 2 turns dropping those 2 Cards.

From my testing Jund got alot easier after boarding, when i was able to side out the Retreats.Also have you tested Stubborn Denial? I tried it against Jund and it was great, though it is one of the matchups where you realiably get to have a 4 power creature in play which improves Stubborn Denial alot.

Yeah, its not likely, but the point is that if you manage it it's pretty decent against a variety of things.

You're defenseless against merfolk anyway because of islandwalk (like I said above) so that's not a huge distinguishing factor (not having blockers), and against infect and affinity you can use your silly mana dorks and 2/2s and chump blockers.

I mean I think the point is that there are various of lines of play you could take and which one is best really depends on the situation. I honestly cannot suggest a lot for merfolk at all but I know that taking an aggro line could be the way forward.

There is Spellskite and others in the side to help with infect (use ability to steal their pump spells) and against Affinity you have Stony Silence, Qasali Pridemage, Kataki, War's Wage and lots more.

Those awkward aggro decks that are slightly faster than us are hard matches.

You're right, i just think a card like Vapor Snag for example would leave you with more favorable lines of play against those decks since you can both make a creature drop and play it.

I'd rather just have board clear. Maybe a singleton Supreme Verdict. But it'll hurt us too.

Is AEther Vial anything to consider?

It could be..... I prefer the card advantage of CoCo over the tempo advantage of Vial though.

How do you feel about the Birds of Paradise?

Turn 2 3-drop wins games but I don't think it's anywhere near as good as noble hierarch. A mana dork with exalted is too good.

I don't know if you care, but LSV talked a little about the deck. It seems like you agree on how the deck should run, but just another opinion never hurts.

Always worth reading another opinion.

I say you do need a Rogue's Passage, because of the artifact manlands. Which would make Affinity a harder matchup, and any other fringe deck that uses those lands.

... And its pretty good with geist, exalted and a bad hand :)

Yeah I think Rogue's Passage may well be the best option. There have been a few times I've wanted it.

You know what else is good with Geist? Retreat to Coralhelm. Even just tapping down 1 creature is enough. It's even fine to suicide him in, because it's not like we don't have other creatures.

Finally! This deck deserved to hit number one :)

Thanks everyone! Thank you so much. I also pulled an expedition Flooded Strand today so I'm in a REALLY good mood.

+1 Love the deck, but do you think it's possible to do well without any cantrips or counterspells? I assume you have tested this build and have arrived on it for a reason, but could you explain why you don't actually need these usually staple blue cards? Is PtE enough for what the deck cares to do? I also love the inclusion of the mana dorks, though it does seem obvious. Nice work!

The reason why there aren't a large number of staple blue cards is because that this is primarily a fast, aggro deck. Staple blue cards would slow down the strategy and ultimately undermine what this deck is trying to achieve. We are aiming to play as many threats as we can, as quickly as we can. An alternative midrange strategy would be to play fewer creatures but also leave mana up to defend them. This is a viable strategy - but much, much slowly. PtE is enough here because we aim for T5/T6 win, so we just need a little removal. If we were going to play the deck with counterspells it would be much more likely we'd end up with a T8/T9 win instead because instead of going all-in on threats we'd be holding mana up to protect one creature.

It's kind of like the difference between delver and burn. Delver plays a threat then holds mana up to protect that threat. Burn doesn't care if stuff does because there's plenty more where that came from!

Horizon Canopy is pretty good with the knight..

I can only really run like 3 lands that don't combo. I have Sejiri Steppe, Horizon Canopy and Gavony Township.

Sejiri Steppe is definitely underperforming so I'm thinking about putting in Stirring Wildwood.

Ok, quick update:

Sigarda, Host of Herons was great but not mainboard material in a deck like this. She gets replaced by Geist of Saint Traft. He's equally good against control due to hexproof but slightly worse versus Jund and Junk due to Liliana of the Veil. Regardless in 99% of situations I'd rather see a 3-drop in my hand than a 5-drop. The other advantage is that it ups my Collected Company targets from 24 to 25.

Sejiri Steppe goes for Stirring Wildwood. Manlands are great and too many opponents were playing around the steppe. They could easily just ignore it.

Now whether I want Stirring Wildwood or Rogue's Passage, I'm not sure. I think Wildwood is more generally useful, but I don't know.

So no more Sejiri Steppe? Interesting, explain :). Between Stirring Wildwood and Rogue's PassageI think passage is better, especially if youre not running steppe anymore. Combo finisher and its great with geist. Maybe both?

I wanted Sejiri Steppe to protect Knight from removal. The problem is that the removal being played is invariably coming out at a time when she's already tapped and therefore cannot actually use her ability to save herself. Steppe is therefore useless.

You can always untap her with a fetch, but i see your point.

What do you think about a sword in a list like this? Sword of Light and Shadow seems nice, and then theres always Sword of Fire and Ice. Sword of Light and Shadow offers great protection against troublesome blockers (Gurmag Angler, Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Siege Rhino to name a few), protects against Path to Exile and is a great stabilizer if you get a bad start. What do you think about this? And what sword would be best?