Young knight, learn to love god and revere women; thus your honor will grow.
Practice knighthood and learn the Art that dignifies you, and brings you honor in wars.
Be a good grappler in wrestling; lance, spear, sword, and messer handle manfully, and foil them in your opponent's hands.
Strike in and hasten forth; rush to, let it hit, or go by.
Thus those with wisdom, the ones who are revered, will envy him.
This you should grasp:
All arts have length and measure.
The poem above is attributed to Johannes Liechtenauer, a 14th century knight and master of combat. His teachings, which were later adopted by Germany nearly as whole through the Brotherhood of St. Mark, taught students of the sword and lance to adopt an aggressive approach towards combat. The essence of Liechtenauer's combat style is in using aggression as a means of control; force an opponent to miscalculate under pressure and use that opening to strike freely.
That philosophy is reflected in this deck. It aims to use speed, calculation and appropriate force to put opponents in a defensive position, where they can be more easily controlled and influenced by various plays. While this deck is capable of simply beating down, it can also use its resources more carefully in order to set up a singular, overwhelming combat phase to end the game.
Currently, I'm finding Knight of Meadowgrain somewhat low impact. As a result, I'm considering replacing at least two of them with Silverblade Paladin and/or
Mirran Crusader
. The sideboard is also a work in progress; the current contents reflect the kind of things I'd like to answer. Linvala, Keeper of Silence answers many combos; Kataki, War's Wage answers Affinity; Silence answers Storm; Spirit of the Labyrinth answers general control; and Oblivion Ring answers individually problematic permanents. Feedback on the ratio of these cards, or others, would be appreciated.
