This deck utilizes some of the most powerful synergies and combos in the shard. It is the chimerical fusion of Troll worship, knightfall, and years of an unhealthy obsession with Bant Mid-range in Modern.
Strengths:
Multiple plays enable a turn 3-5 win. This speed gives us a way to beat decks that typically prey on ramp and creature strategies. Additionally, this deck places a tension on your opponents: it demands interaction while simultaneously punishing interaction. The knightfall combo demands removal or enchantment hate. However, creature removal and enchantment hate are made less impactful by the presence of 7 hexproof creatures and a low enchantment count. Due to the fact that this deck has several distinct linear strategies within it, most sideboard hate that is brought in serves to mitigate one line of play, while ignoring the others. This forced bifurcation of your opponent's cards into useful or useless extremes depending on which parts of the deck we draw makes sideboarding difficult for the opponent and enables you to play the deck as if it had multiple 'combos': Either the standard knightfall interaction or by assembling an evasive hexproof beater. This bifurcation strategy when deck building and sideboarding was what I most loved about the old troll worship decks and I feel the knight fall combo enhances that group of Bant midrange decks considerably by allowing a second unfair line of play to accompany the first. I opt for this style over the more traditional tempo/disruption shell utilizing collected company/ queller.
Win conditions: The deck has a few central lines of play.
Combo: dork, knight, coralhelm.
Get geist through: dork, geist, planeswalker is nearly as strong as the combo itself and only a turn slower, typically. Similarly, geist + knight can find protection or unblockability via lands. In total there are 14 cards capable of allowing geist passage to the red zone (Elspeth, tamiyo, knight, steppe, rogues passage, coralhelm). Draws with multiple noble hierarch also allow geist easy passage via exalted.
Early ojutai with protection: ojutai is a difficult creature to use in modern. It is powerful and unexpected in a creature deck, but it requires a lot of enabling cards to be at its best. Dragonlord Retreat is the only deck that benefits from playing the 12+ enablers it needs. Lines include: dork, follower, ojutai; dork, knight, sac land with knight for t3 ojutai, make sure to grab minamo with the ability for protection; dork, coralhelm, 2 fetchs enables landing ojutai t3 with protection.
Finally, if a large number of dorks are drawn, gavony township is a good way to close the game. Knight can tutor for township.
Deck composition:
Ramp: we play 5 four drops and 3 five drops. This requires some ramp to play effectively. Plus, ramp synergies with a fast knight fall combo activation. Birds, nobles, follower, coralhelm, and knight can all ramp for us.
Protection: we need protection for the combo and for ojutai. Follower serves as ramp and ojutai protection, untaping the dragon in response to removal. Follower also interacts well with knight, boosting knight an extra 2/2 per turn by resetting it's ability. With a knight and follower on board, knight can attack or activate and still be untapped by follower to fetch sejiri steppe for protection, giving one turn of psuedohexproof. With minamo, or an untapped knight to search for minamo, and one u, you can protect ojutai at instant speed. Lastly, if you get a coralhelm and an ojutai on board, every fetch is an instant speed untap, and every land more generally is a 2ND main phase sorcery speed untap.
Lands: we have enough lands for a fatal knight with minimal life loss. Steppe and minamo protect our creatures. Rogues passage is put over kessig since it can act as a 6th planeswalker to help the geist plan. In my experience, there are few scenarios where I have a 20/20 knight with unblockable and wish I had used kessig for a 30+/xx knight with trample. Lumbering falls is very valuable in certain match-ups, but it doesn't synergize well with the ramp plan. Most importantly, it can act as an expensive to activate 5th geist. If you have an elspeth and falls, all you need is time. Falls could be wildwood if your looking to be more aggressive, colonnade gives more inevitably, or this land could be cut for a spell/other utility land. I wouldn't go above two tapped lands, below 24 total, or below 20 fetch/fetachable for the combo.
Weaknesses:
Turn 3 geist + planeswalker, knightfall combo, or protected ojutai is vicious, but the deck has drawbacks.
-keepability: the deck needs 2 lands and a dork to keep a hand g1. With 12 dorks, that's the same keep rate as infect, boggles, or delver. You have to be willing to mull to 6, 5, or 4. A 5, even a 4 card hand with the right combination can still achieve our t3 power plays. When stunted, play to your outs! If the only way you win your mull to 4 is by running out a t2 knight or geist with the hope of a top decked coral/elspeth, do it!
-wrong half syndrome: the opposite side of the same coin as bifurication is I-drew-the-wrong-half-of-my-deck syndrome. Take the typical R/B disruption suite: bolt, fatal push, thoughtseize, and inquisition. Our deck can crush or be crushed by this set of cards, depending upon our hand. Inquisition rips apart our knightfall hands, but with 8 high power misses and 25 lands, it can often fail to be effective. Similarly, bolt and push are great against the dorks and essential to keep knightfall at bay, yet nullified by geist and ojutai. Draw the wrong cards and you lose, the right ones and you will be uncontested. Knowing when to mulligan a seemingly good hand g2 is tough, but if you keep the wrong half for the match-up, you will be punished.
Sequencing: there are competing lines of play in both the decks spells and lands. Knowing when to lead with knight, geist, or coral is key. Knight is a good lead when your on the defensive, ramping into ojutai, or you are going for coralhelm to combo. Knight is also sequenced first with a geist in hand and no other evasion, setting up lands like Gavony or passage for geist's first attack step. Geist is the pressure applying lead of choice, especially good with a planeswalker, coralhelm, or utility land in hand to follow it up with evasion on the first attack. Coral helm is the lead when you need to find another half of the deck, especially when you expect removal. T2 Coral off a dork can also enable t3 ojutai, making it the best first play when holding the dragon and fetches/minamo. The lands don't make any of these sequencing choices easier. Knight wants you to play fetches early so that she lands a 4/4 and dodges bolt. Coralhelm ramping into ojutai demands the opposite, that play wants you to save fetches for ramp and protection. The knightfall combo wants you to crack a few then keep one fetch uncracked for protection with steppe. Geist into coralhelm asks you to save fetches till the later turns for their double tapdown effect. Knowing when to lead with which 3 drop requires evaluating your lands and playing them accordingly.
-Learning Curve: this deck is extremely linear, but possess complex decision trees. Many games will be won or lost based on the aforementioned sequencing of permanents. Further, the knightfall combo requires practice. Knight is also a difficult card to play. You have to know when to activate for utility or board presence, when to beat down quickly, and must recognize when these alternate over the course of the match as you and your opponent switch from aggressive to defensive roles. Small bits of corner case knowledge will increase your chances. For example, a 2 land/follower hand with flooded strand is excellent with an unknown opponent, despite seeming slow with no turn 1 play. This draw, preferably into a planeswalker, allows you to play strand, tapped fountain, baiting people into letting down removal or counters for the t2 follower by feigning a slow u/w deck.
Matchups and Sideboarding:
Sideboard is deliberately general, made as if it were for an unknown meta. Some refining for expected decks will be needed.
-Tron and Eldrazi tron: Traditionaly bad knightfall matchups, they are still bad. However, our version gains a lot of percentage points here. T3 knightfall or geist/Elspeth can win the game bar a t3 ugin or well timed pyroclasm. A t2 silence or t2 knight getting quarter t3 can also let us sneak by sometimes.
-Affinity: is often too fast for us. We cannot race certain hands. Nonetheless, all our best plays can stop them. T3 power plays can race them or an early knight + other knights/ followers can clog the board, letting us turn the corner to beat down. Stony silence comes in obviously.
-G/b Midrange: these can stomp us or lose quickly based on which side of the deck we draw. Jund can't stop flying geists or ojutai, abzan can't stop rogues passage + geist (geist + knight), but can stop geist/planeswalker or ojutai with souls. Knightfall kills them both, but decay, push, path, and discard ruin knightfall's day. Geist blanks all the removal needed for stopping knightfall, but loses to the same discard. Suffice it to say that the matchups can go either way. Some blessed alliance or command can be right, but often very little sided.
-Grixis: This match-up can go either way. If you have not caught on yet, the deck's linear plays give us decent game in most match-ups, something creature goodstuff decks like ours often loose out on. Geist and elspeth are real winners here. Knight can get bigger than angler or tasigur, but is weak to their removal. Ojutai can be too slow against counter heavy hands or be a powerhouse that grinds you to victory, all depending on the speed at which he is played. Elspeth can often stall out anglers, tasigurs, or shadows for a long time with a stream of tokens. Dorks can serve the same in the lategame, buying time to assemble a winning set if cards. Negates are good here and we keep the paths in for their few big threats. The lack of sweepers in any control deck makes us happy, just watch for anger.
-U/w centered Control: the deck is weak to sweepers, so verdict is a must play around. Stagger your threats! Yet, our deck has amazing cards against control like Elspeth, geist, and lumbering falls. Negate will help post board, path cut.
-Burn: we're weaker to burn g1 than most knightfall or gwx lists but we can race them in ways those decks often cannot. G2 we get a better sb than typical knightfall lists that avoid non-creature spells. We bring in a load - alliance, command, and negate.
-Bloodmoon decks: like u/r moon, 4 moon burn sideboards, and pizza - give up. Really, it's hopeless. I do have a strategy, which involves boarding out the most expensive blue cards and bringing in commands and negates. This is almost always insufficient. Big knightfall decks and troll decks get punished by moon for wanting lots of utility lands, fetches, and because the knightfall combo resists running basic island. All these features make blood moon killer. Often times I think I'd be better off just playing the games without much alteration, hoping for t3 geist or knightfall wins, like against tron. Suggestions welcome.
-Creature Beatdown: we crush other large creature lists. We fly over Bant eldrazi, zoo, and coco decks. Often we can grind just as well as them too. Ojutai is a godsend, being the best for soaring over clogged battlefields while getting value and dodging removal. Additionally, the knightfall combo gives us an oops win option while at boardstall. Path to exile shines here. Command also since the put counters and fight modes are much stronger on hexproof creatures or geist tokens mid or post combat.
-Creature Combo: other knightfall, melira, or vizier decks can give us trouble. Only path and command serve as removal, drawing these or one of our t3 power plays is vital. Recklessly using coral and ojutai to dig for removal or tap down is often the right play.
-non-creature combo: storm and ad nauseam can race us, but we can race them. Ojutai and tamiyo are too slow, replace with negates.
-Final note on blessed alliance: It's worth saying that Blessed alliance is an all-star, despite its disynergy with geist. It comes in versus aggro, creature lists, and occasionally bgx. All three modes have good uses in our deck. It can heal us, slow our opponents creature based pressure, give our knights pseudo-vigilance, 1-time-steppe-protection, or another untap trigger, and it can protect ojutai. As an added benefit, it scales well with our ramp plan of dorks and lots of lands, allowing a mana dump later in the game.
Thanks for reading, leave a comment or ask a question freely.
Tags: Knightfall Big Knightfall Bant Troll Worship Kiora's Follower Dragonlord Ojutai Bant Geist of Saint Traft Bant Geist Elspeth Knight Errant 2016 2017 2018 Modern Midrange Combo Tamiyo, Field Researcher
