Is this your mono-white for the colour wheel game?

zur-taa:

Possibly. What's absolutely certain, though, is that it's the current state of my mono-white knights deck. Haven't decided whether I'm going to use this or make up a whole new deck.

ahk cool, was just wondering as I am in the process of sussing out a few cards to deal with campbell's bullshit mono-blue artifact deck that he'll be using

I'd swap out theKnight of the White Orchid the the knight in your sideboard Knight of Meadowgrain , and replace your 2x Emeria, The Sky Ruin with 1x Plains and 1x Mutavault ; and here's my reasoning why...

I get the impression that you want your Emeria, The Sky Ruin to bring back your dead and as a quick backup to ensure that your enchantment Worship keeps you alive, but for you to effectively have that much mana out to use that land's ability you're too deep into the game. Use your Mutavault when you're in a pinch to create a creature for the round which will allow Worship to do its job and keep you alive.

Obvious weakness is your inability to deal with flying creatures other than your 4x Path to Exile , that in mind you may want to play 4x Worship or squeeze in a few Enlightened Tutor to ensure that you get that life saving enchantment into play.

Thanks for the suggestions, Blackblade777.

Unfortunately, Enlightened Tutor is outside of Modern, although Idyllic Tutor would be the equivalent and is worth consideration.

I'm someone who swears by Knight of the White Orchid , especially since the deck has Basilisk Collar . It can save you when you're mana-starved, and you can do a play like this (with AEther Vial sideboarded in):

1. Play a Plains .

2. In response, tap AEther Vial with two charge counters and place Knight of the White Orchid on the battlefield.

3. Knight of the White Orchid will reference the amount of Plains you controlled before you played the one from Step 1. This way, you ramp into two mana during a single turn and get a little deck thinning out of it, too.

4. Optionally, you can play Path to Exile on one of your own creatures, gaining a third land for the turn.

I get what you mean about Mutavault , and you've got a strong point. Turning it into a creature at instant speed could save my bacon. On the other hand, I like Emeria, The Sky Ruin despite it's late-gameness because Knight Exemplar is a common removal target. If the game has gone on that long, I expect to have played at least one, and perhaps to have lost it to removal. By using Emeria, I can not only return the Exemplar to my board, but perhaps stack it on another one, or use AEther Vial to cheat in another at that junction as a survival trick.

Also, Emeria also synergises with Knight of the White Orchid ; if it's removed and you return it, that's another opportunity for its ETB ability to trigger.

As for flying, it's also true that I don't have many answers for it. That said, I usually damage ramp way harder than decks with significant amounts of flying. If they want to race for the 20 life, then knights will probably beat them to the punch unless they play a flying bomb.

Thanks once again for the suggestions. :)

Ah I didn't realize that Enlightened Tutor was outside of modern, that bums me out a bit :'(

Ok I see where are going with the Knight now, but you may not have realized that you can not tap AEther Vial in response to your step 1 move which is placing a plains on the battlefield. This is because placing a land into play is not a spell or an ability and does not use the stack. In fact you can only place a land into play if the stack is empty.

Step 1. Place plains into play. (Stack is empty).Step 2. Tap AEther Vial (Ability goes onto stack).Step 3. Players may respond with instants or abilities.

Correct you are, Blackblade777. I just had a look at the comprehensive rules and they support what you say. An interesting tidbit to note, though, is that "putting" a land onto the battlefield is considered different to "playing" a land -- the one-land rule applies only to "playing" and not to "putting". Therefore, I can play Knight of the White Orchid and play a land from my hand without issue, no Vialing required.

Yeah you can def do that because you are using the creature's triggered ability to do so. Yep right you are. It just seemed like you were attempting to play it like this.....1. Opponent has 2 lands in play and ends his / her turn.2. You place your second land into play, use AEther Vial to place the Knight into play in response to you placing a plains into play, which wouldn't work, but that's not really a problem for you because you can always play it this way.....

Assuming we are in round 3 and you have 2 counters on AEther Vial , and your opponent puts his/her 3rd land into play. Opponent now has more land than you. Tap AEther Vial place the Knight of the White Orchid into play and its ability will trigger.

Now looking at all this you really have me liking the Knight of the White Orchid

Blackblade777:

Yeah, consider this opening hand:

Plains , Plains , Plains , Student of Warfare , Knight of the White Orchid , Knight of the White Orchid , Knight Exemplar .

Turn 1 -- Plains ; AEther Vial .

Turn 2 -- AEther Vial ticks up one charge counter; Plains ; use AEther Vial to deploy Student of Warfare ; use both Plains to level up Student of Warfare .

Turn 3 -- AEther Vial ticks up to two charge counters; play Knight of the White Orchid ; in response, use AEther Vial to deploy the second Knight of the White Orchid ; both abilities go on the stack referencing the same amount of Plains in relation to your opponent's lands and you put two Plains onto the battlefield; play the last Plains from your hand; with three open mana, play Knight Exemplar .

That means your turn 3 ends with a 4/4, two 3/3s, a 2/2, all first-striking. Furthermore, AEther Vial is at 3 charge counters and you have 5 lands sitting on the board. This number of lands exceeds the casting cost of anything in the mainboard, so that means from turn 4 onwards, you have open mana to play things like combat tricks in addition to casting cards such as Kinsbaile Cavalier and Divine Reckoning .

Ha! I like to see the look of surprise you get as that plays out and your opponent is like, "Awwe crap!"

Yes that would be an ideal opening hand. Nasty!

Personally Silverblade Paladin beats Kinsbaile Cavalier. And don't Mirran Crusader.

vishnarg:

Silverblade Paladin is good, particularly in knight decks that use AEther Vial set to three for a range of three drops (such as, say, Mirran Crusader ), but I like the way Kinsbaile Cavalier throws down the gauntlet for a whole frontline of knights. I'd rather use a three mana play in other ways, too.

One of the problems with Silverblade Paladin in this case is that part of its value is giving double-strike to itself via soulbond, as well as another creature. That incentivises putting the Paladin in combat, but you probably don't want to provide interaction with such a powerful card if you can help it. Lords such as Kinsbaile Cavalier and Knight Exemplar can sit as defenders, opening themselves up less often to combat tricks and other pitfalls that depend upon declaring them as attackers.

Okay, I would also suggest cavern of souls and mutavault instead of emeria. Also I'm not sure about so many worships.

the Worship count looks good to me, and we had a little discussion about Mutavault and the Emeria up a bit higher around posting #4 if you want to take a peek at what was said and maybe follow up

Why no Mirran Crusader? I guess in my meta I have run into many games where the protection was relevant?

Yawathah:

It might be a case of preference, although I also tried to keep the creature curve for this deck as low as was reasonable. Mirran Crusader 's double-strike is fantastic, but it's dead in combination with Kinsbaile Cavalier , so all that's left is the protections. I'm not too concerned with protection from black or from green on my creatures, since I have other answers. With Brave the Elements in the deck, protections are also devalued somewhat, so Mirran Crusader has two abilities that both find some redundancy.

I don't think sky ruin is worth it anymore. You only run ten plains so the chances of seeing seven are pretty low.You could replace them with Cavern of Souls Also I notice you run Nykthos shrine to nyx, that seems like a wasted slot since you really have nothing to dump the mana into. And you should always have some mana open because you run aether vial. I would look at adding a mana dump or just dropping the shrines. I guess late game the shrine could allow you to level up student of warfare right away, but I don't know if that is a good enough reason to keep it around.

kintighd:

Thanks for the suggestions. I can see the logic with Cavern of Souls , and you're right that seven plains will rarely show up to work in conjunction with Emeria, The Sky Ruin . Seems like a pretty logical replacement to me. That said, I intend to keep Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for the Student of Warfare mana dump and some of the insane mid-game plays it can allow. There's also the prospect of using the flashback on Divine Reckoning earlier in the game if I need it a second time.

Keep in mind that, between things like AEther Vial , Knight of the White Orchid and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx , this deck can generate much more mana than one would expect of any white weenie deck at first glance. In a pinch, Path to Exile can be used to power out early plays above the tempo curve, too. This deck can usually play the creatures it wants to, then has mana left over for other spells or abilities.

Again, thanks for the suggestions. I'll see about putting in those Cavern of Souls .