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Knights in the (Jank)Yard v.3.0

Modern Aggro GW (Selesnya) Jank Knights Tribal

NeverTheTwelve


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Maybeboard


What's more epic than Knights rushing in a charge, fearless and proud for their actions? Probably the fact that they let you win a game of magic! WELCOME in our (jank)yard, where everything is possible and where the aggro is not that much threatening. But fear not! Resilience and big bodies are on our side, with the gods of the cards. Let the crusade begin.

The Lords

Every tribe has its own lords. However, in this particular occasion, things are a bit different, more synergistic.

  • Benalish Marshal: First new entry for Dominaria, he's of course a Knight and makes all other creatures you control a bit bigger.
  • Knight Exemplar: The absolute best. Not legendary, pumps our team, grants Indestructibility and 2 of them are pretty broken. A must, full set for this splendid piece of a... dventurer. Not to mention that flashing her saves your tem from almost everything (but unfortunately not mass damage spells such as Anger of the Gods if your team isn't big enough).

Beaters

Other than those cards, we have the real army.

  • Knight of the Holy Nimbus: THIS IS THE REAL DEAL. At first it was meh, then I added this because he seemed to bean ok card. I was mistaking. In a format like modern where every mana is useful to something, spend to stop him from continuing regenerate is too much (and oftend the opponents forget about this feature, losing resources). Really I'm impressed how strong he can be and the shame-scoop rate after a wrong trade or kill spell is really high! Flanking is a nice addon.
  • Knight of the White Orchid: Honest bear with First Strike and that can grant extra land drop. Remeber that he can fetch the Temple Garden.
  • Mirran Crusader: Probably the strongest Knight ever printed. Automatically dodges cards like Abrupt Decay and Terminate, in defense can safely block and the Double Strike is a super fast clock.
  • Silverblade Paladin: We all love Double Strike, don't we?
  • Student of Warfare: Nice 1-drop that can grow dumping mana on her, useful with Aether Vial that leaves you mana open. Usually 2 Level counters are enough to transform her in a menace.

Cheating and Ramp

Knights are not the fastest tribe ever, so it's good to have some cards that grants you free and fast stuff.

  • Aether Vial: The basic for every aggro. The best would be having two of them on the battlefield setted at 2 and 3 counters respectively. Dodges counters and pesky things like "sorcery speed" (I mean who casts spells at sorcery speed these days?).
  • Collected Company: Nothing to say here. Double creature in the end step is super powerful.
  • Noble Hierarch: Super mana dork, exaltes our creatures to the battle and can add either and . But you can even feint ! None expects the spanish in.. knights! Probably they think it's the Knight of the Reliquary combo, and you make them pay for this mistake!

Removals

Oh dang! That x-card seems pretty bad against our full-janky-aggro! Let's do some removal!

  • Path to Exile: The best that Modern has to offer, Hard removal with a bit of downside. Sweet synergy with Knight of the White Orchid, minimizing your opponent advantage. Don't forget you can even use it on your own creatures, maybe to fetch your lands.
  • Oblivion Ring: Take cares basically of everything. That Ensnaring Bridge is pretty bad, for example.

Lands

The mana box is pretty solid, enough to face cards like Blood Moon and land destruction.

  • Cavern of Souls: Let's start with the superstar! A land that can dodge counterspells? In a Knight tribal? And which Tribal we will chose? Humans. Yeah. I know is a bit odd, but all our creatures are Humans (and Knights) except for Noble Hierarch. In this way we can add either or and land the noble as early as turn 1 with no problems.
  • 1 Forest and 8 Plains: The basic lands, we only run 1 forest because we have other ways to land the Noble Hierarch.
  • Temple Garden: Only 2? It's not essential to our strategy, and we can even cheat things with Aether Vial. Still useful, but we don't want to expose too much to color denial. Remember that you can add with the Noble Hierarch.
  • Windswept Heath: Basic for every two-color deck.

The SB is pretty simple and versatile, because other than Collected Company we have nothing to make advantage.
  • Angel's Grace: Still testing this, it helps against combo decks, preventing them from winning on the spot, and aggro decks to do lethal damage. Basically incounterable (unless Chalice of the Void at 1), it's a super unexpected card with almost no answers that lets you win multiple games.
  • Damping Sphere: For matches Like Tron and Storm, shuts down their engine an lets you rebuilt and finish the game fast enough.
  • Leyline of Sanctity: Super sideboard card, At first seems only an ok-card but it hepls you to face Burn, Scapeshift and other discard based decks.
  • Reclamation Sage: Neither a Human, nor a Knight. But who cares when you can rid of those game-losing enchantments (like Worship) or artifacts (like Cranial Plating).
  • Rest in Peace: Hate for everything that is in the graveyard.
  • Settle the Wreckage: New entry from Ixalan, it took the place of Day of Judgment for its instant speed and asimmetrical removal.
In this Box are all the cards that "didn't make it", but at least are worth considering.
  • Bow of Nylea: Toolbox of options, but is really bad if you don't rework your mana base.
  • Dawn Charm: In pauper I play this card in every Wx deck. But this is Modern, so... It's still good, in one card you have 3 powerful and versatile effects for only .c
  • Day of Judgment: Mass removal for nasty creatures. I'm sure you have already spotted that cards like this and Knight Exemplar have a super nice and asimmetrical synergy. But why Day of Judgment over Wrath of God? Obviously because even you forgot about the all-modern-staple (maybe not, but who cares) Knight of the Holy Nimbus! Imagine your opponent how can easily forgot this... Unfortunately cards like Thrun, the Last Troll still are a problem. -> CHANGED with Settle the Wreckage in SB.
  • Fiendslayer Paladin: If in your meta Rx is an actual thing or Jund is very played, you may change Mirran Crusader with this.
  • Gideon, Ally of Zendikar: Make tokens, pumps the team and he even smash your opponents' face.
  • Heroic Intervention: Saves your creatures from basically anything, Path to Exile included.
  • History of Benalia: This enchantment is broken in the actual standard. In this deck? It was part of the 60s, but unfortunately it is a bit slow for Modern, so everytime I was SBing out this for better stuff. Still pretty flavorwise.
  • Horizon Canopy: Mana and card draw? So good!
  • Knight of Meadowgrain: Too bad she's not a Human, and the in the mana cost makes her hard to cast throught Cavern of Souls. Still a pretty good creature.
  • Knight of the Reliquary: Yes, he's strong, but to support him you should run land tricks and change the manabase in a more way. Further testings pending.
  • Leonin Skyhunter: Too bad he's not a Human part 2. But he's evasive.
  • Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: The early version of this deck was mono and ran 4 of them. Then only 3, then only 2 when I added green. Now usually is a bad thing to see it in the first 7, so i cut it. Still powerful in other builds.
  • Stony Silence: Great card in SB, steals slots for something more useful. Meta dependat.
  • Worship: In G1 it can win the game alone, supported by our indestructible / regenerating creatures. On the other hand it's not fetchable with Collected Company.
Ok, ok. The deck is super expensive. But there are a few ways to cut the price. At last, unfortunately, there is no way to use something else in place of Aether Vial. It's too strong. My advice is to replace them with 4 other Knights.
Here are the match up I tested online, not as much to define a win-loss rating but you will get the idea.
  • 8 Moon (because "that red deck that plays Blood Moon and card:Magis of the Moon" is awful): Our manabase can resist can resist its color denial effect, but post side probably will bring in mass removals. Heroic Intervention is the way.
  • Abzan: Discard Spells are bad but not that bad for every creature we play is a threat. Lingering Souls is very annoying because is 4x1 with us having no Trample-like effect. The trade of creatures is still on our favor but watch out for Path to Exile hitting our beloved Knight of the Holy Nimbus. Mirran Crusader is the best card against them if not pathed and post side Day of Judgment + Heroic Intervention are usually enough.
  • Affinity: Not played yet.
  • BR Hollow One: Not played yet.
  • Burn: Oh my... The hell. They are faster and eventually have tons of spot removal. If the game is slow we can win, otherwise we can stop playing. Not even sure if Leyline of Sanctity is enough to face it. Probably one of the worst MU.
  • Colorless Eldrazi: Worse than Eldratron, it doesn't necessairly need a good mana base to run. Damping Sphere is basically useless in this MU, but the more creatures, the better Day of Judgment is. All Is Dust is a bad card as always.
  • Death's Shadow: We can race him unless it has the perfect hand. Usually we have to deal only 12-13 damages to win. Further sideboard testing pending.
  • Grixis Control: Grindy MU, but our aggro is near unbeatable for the opponent. We play well against their counters but, Cryptic Command is still bad.
  • Infect: Oh it's bad. The deck is really fast and we don't have enough removals. Good thing is that, aside from Blighted Agent and Blinkmoth Nexus, we can block pretty easily the other creatures and Mirran Crusader does a great job at this.
  • Jeskay Control: The same for Grixis Control but we face Path to Exile and Supreme Verdict this time.
  • Jund: They have more kill spells than Abzan but we won't have to face Path to Exile and Lingering Souls. On the topdeck we are stronger. Same side as Abzan, but in a meta full of Junds consider to run Fiendslayer Paladin maindeck..
  • Living End: Not played yet.
  • Mardu Pyromancer: KILL THE TOKEN GENERATORS (i.e. Young Pyromancer)! Lingering Souls is here too, but if you take care of those cards it's not too hard to face. Rest in Peace takes care of the graveyards for you.
  • Merfolk: Not played yet.
  • RG Ponza: Having the full sets of Aether Vial, Knight of the White Orchid and Noble Hierarch helps a lot in this MU, so mull to find at least one of these. Post side Heroic Intervention saves from basically every land denial and creature removal. They can still do a lot of damages with Bonfire of the Damned but at least we can stop Inferno Titan pretty good with our creatures so they can't deal so much damages with them.
  • Storm: Mid-Bad MU pre-side, unless we turn sideways very fast, and favorable post side because of Damping Sphere and Rest in Peace.
  • Tron: Equilibrate MU, as our deck it has to spend some (usually more) turns to set up and the play the real deals. U-Tron is a bit more favourable because its counters can't get past our Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls. We don't fears so much Eldrazi because of our First-Striking, regenerative and idestructible creatures and Path to Exile is always useful. In any case, side in Damping Sphere and go for the hard beat. Be aware for All Is Dust and card:Ugin, Spirit Dragon that can easily destroy our gameplan, flashing Knight Exemplar in response to Oblivion Stone is usually a game winning trick.
  • UW Control: as the same ol' borin' controls. Maybe they can use Settle the Wreckage that can reset the game at instant speed so be aware.

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Date added 6 years
Last updated 6 years
Exclude colors UBR
Splash colors WG
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.

Rarity (main - side)

37 - 10 Rares

14 - 5 Uncommons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.15
Folders Bant
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