Just thought I would make a couple quick contributions to the mainboard discussion.

First, since your deck often may end up gunning for a longer game, I feel like you should include even just one manland. Once you find yourself top decking and/or you find you have a lot of extra mana, this is an excellent card to have. Stirring Wildwood may be your best bet, although Treetop Village , Mutavault and Forbidding Watchtower are also good (the last of which dodges bolts). Since black isn't the dominant colour here, then you could always swap out Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for one. Otherwise, or if you consider my more black-heavy suggestion below, then maybe leave the tomb in.

If you find that Fauna Shaman still isn't pulling her weight, it may be better to just up the Haakon count to 4 and add +1 lilianna. I would also cut one Mirran Crusader for this, so it would look like -3 shaman, -1 crusader for +2 Haakon and +1 lilianna. With this last extra spot, you should add another 1 or 2-drop, whether it's voice or Knight of the White Orchid or something else. A fourth Thoughtseize could free up a SB slot. I could really see Lightning Greaves being extremely useful, too. It forces your opponent's hand, and since you have so many 'glass cannons' (especially Haakon and Exemplar) it seems worthwhile (I.e same-turn surprise attack with Hero of Bladehold )!

Even better is if you have the mana for it, run a Sword of Fire and Ice or Sword of Feast and Famine (or maybe Sword of Light and Shadow for the pro-white). I have won countless modern games with a creature wielding a sword of x and y - they are also excellent for use with your man-lands if your field has been wiped. Or just add another Hero of Bladehold . 4 toughness is pseudo pro-red anyways.

If you do run 4 Haakon, then you should try running even just one Nameless Inversion , maybe for one 'decay. It's an easy discard target and when you get Haakon in play with it, it's honestly just completely unfair for your opponent. You can easily sweep the board and even boost your own creatures.

All just suggestions, but even if you don't do anything else I would still cut a Mirran Crusader for another Haakon, or less ideally an Exemplar. The fewer 'glass cannons' that you have to tutor to your hand (instead allowing you to tutor for more specific threats) is that much more consistent for junk strategy.

I definitely agree on the -1 Mirran Crusader , +1 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge . With 5 discard mechanics, having multiple Haakons means that you can use him much more effectively, and not have to discard a card you would rather use.

I'm also surprised no draw card with Sign in Blood or Night's Whisper . I find draw card is vital for the late game, for the obvious advantage reasons. What say you MetaphysicalxProdigy?

Femme_Fatale: My current feeling right now is to -1 Mirran Crusader . +1 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge , -2 Qasali Pridemage (to sideboard) and +2 Sign in Blood .

Although, with only 3 Aether Vials... I sorta get the feeling that there's not much point in having them if I don't have a full set- and it would open up another 3 slots...

I found that 4x AEther Vial ! ALL THE TIME! RIGHT NOW! sort of thing is just some weird hype. Many times, and this is just my personal experience, I have found that having it at 3x is much more efficient, because more often than not you get stuck with too many of them if you have 4x. Especially without lots of card draw, and 2 Sign in Blood s isn't enough to warrant having 4x vials either.

I also agree on the Qasali Pridemage going out. Of all your cards he is the weakest link. He made more sense when you had only 3 Abrupt Decay s, but now at 4 you don't really need them anymore.

Femme_Fatale I am afraid that I have to disagree (in my own and humble opinion) on the relevance of Sign in Blood or Night's Whisper in this kind of deck. While I see how it makes sense, and card draw is always useful, there are far better cards that could be using those slots.

Junk decks don't use spells for card draw. Generally as aggro or midrange decks, they win with attrition and grave mechanics. Attrition is accomplished with discard and versatile spot removal, where you break your opponent's board and discard their hand down to nothing, forcing them into topdeck mode early. Then, to pull ahead, the graveyards are utilized for power cards (normally goyf and scooze), primarily through dredge mechanics (Darkblast , Stinkweed Imp ) and/or indiscriminate discard (Liliana of the Veil , Smallpox ).

In this particular deck you are running more creatures than a normal junk deck, and with a bit of a maverick theme you can abuse Haakon to cheat powerful knights back into play. What you WANT to have happening is a Liliana in play, your hand AND your opponent's hand reduced to 0 sooner rather than later, and Haakon or someone else relevant dumped in the grave. For this reason I still have a hard time not seeing 4x Liliana and 4x Haakon, since they provide such a powerful crux for the deck (and by running 4 of each you maximize draw probability).

So, in short, you should be running additional discard engines rather than draw spells. You are already gaining crazy advantage by burning through their hand and field quickly. If you are looking for card draw, then you need to use dredge abilities - that's how junk gets its draw. You pile stuff into your graveyard and pull what you need from it. The quicker you can dredge into Haakon, the better. Knights that are also dropped in, or re-castable spells like Raven's Crime , Life from the Loam , Gravecrawler , Vengevine and Nameless Inversion (or Crib Swap ) are not lost cards.

Your most powerful permanent cards in this deck are Liliana of the Veil , Knight of the Reliquary , Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and Knight Exemplar . All of them give you a competitive edge in the modern meta, so you should focus on getting them in play as smoothly as possible.

Now, i'm not saying that you should play this like a traditional junk or retrace-loam deck. A retrace-loam list with Haakon would probably be using The Rack , and traditional junk doesn't use a ton of creatures. In fact, I would be very interested to see how this deck ran with lots of knights and dredge/Smallpox , but that would probably require a very different build. Thus I think your deck should look like a mix of these lists:

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=2494&d=216201&f=MO - A "DeathCloud" Burning Vengeance /Haakon, Stromgald Scourge deck.

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=5744&d=233280&f=MO - A "Dredgevine" list that shows how major dredge mechanics can work.

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=7375&d=242219&f=MO - This list looks VERY similar to your list, with the absence of AEther Vial and knight tribal.

I looked at a few other similar junk lists that made Top8, and a few used Sword of Light and Shadow - now THERE is an excellent card for late game.

So, since your list is creature focused, I would capitalize on that aspect of it. Your deck seems like it can win games as an aggro deck and as a midrange deck - some games you may only draw vial, path, and some beaters. Others you may get Liliana and Haakon. Just be sure to build things in a way so there is always synergy with the graveyard, and lots of good discard / spot removal against your opponent. You also need lots of discard-friendly stuff for liliana and the shaman - this is where lots of knights and haakon work well.

I truly think you should run 3x or 4x Liliana of the Veil (ideally 4 of her), and 4x Thoughtseize (or, better yet, just add 1 Raven's Crime for excess land or emergency Haakon discard). It would better suit the curve and "junk" tempo of your deck. What to take out for this to happen, however, is a tough call.

With Liliana ticking up each turn you can't properly use AEther Vial for opponent's turn combat tricks, and you don't have any way to return stuff from the grave to your hand (only directly to the field - the only decent cards I know that do this are Sword of Light and Shadow and Athreos, God of Passage ). Fauna Shaman does provide great Vial synergy and gives you an option for combat tricks, but the stars have to greatly align for this. So, with this in mind it seems plausible to try cutting the vials with the goal of plowing through cards quicker, but you would probably have to offset this with more grave-friendly cards in anticipation of counters and killspells. This could come at a great cost to the effectiveness of your creatures, though, and some games where you lack the mana to cast creatures and play spells you would be kicking yourself. And cheating Haakon into play early via vial is also extremely useful.

AEther Vial would also synergize well with Smallpox and lots of hatebears/D+T-esque land destruction with more Ghost Quarter + Tectonic Edge .

If you do cut vial, and you are going to completely cut Qasali Pridemage from the deck (which I think harms its tempo, IMO), then you should look at adding Stony Silence instead of Pithing Needle to your side for the insane wrecking power it has against tron and affinity. Unfortunately, this does conflict with Spellskite and would harm your game against Twin and UWR control.

Junk decks can afford Dark Confidant , but since he's not in the budget I would either look at just maximizing 2-for-1 exchanges with your creatures and the graveyard, or settle with Phyrexian Arena if you MUST have card draw. Dredge is a cheaper alternative to the confidant but you have to build around it more.

Finally, I think you should look at Stromgald Crusader . It's an incredible card, is a 2-drop, is safe discard material, is an easy re-cast for haakon, works with cavern, and can't get exiled since it has pro-white. It's excellent dredge material, and may even be more relevant than some of your other 2cmc spells.

TL DR; a junk deck would use Smallpox or Stinkweed Imp before it would use Sign in Blood .

MetaphysicalxProdigy: This is a lot of great feedback, thanks! I've continued to make tweaks- watchoo think? Also: I've actually had a real hard time getting to accurately play this deck against the various archetypes, as my current situation doesn't really allow for it.

I don't particularly like Path to Exile in an attrition heavy shell. Dismember and Slaughter Pact are probably better, and you could even play Maelstrom Pulse .

thispersonisagenius: I'm mostly using it as a cheapo Dismember , as my deck doesn't really have the lifegain to really utilize it as a 1 drop, what with all the fetches and shocks and whatnot. I do like Slaughter Pact though. I may -1 Path for it.

Also, I know it's been talked about, but 3 AEther Vial is just silly. You play 4, or you play zero. You want to play it on turn 1, so you need to maximize that likelihood.

Also, what happened to the Thalia, Guardian of Thraben / Voice of Resurgence idea? Thalia especially seems strong.

thispersonisagenius: The problem with Thalia is that the deck relies on a ton of control, itself. It'd kind of shoot myself in the foot to throw her in there.

The more I'm testing the deck, the more I'm finding that- while fun, I don't think it'll ever reach T1 status. Most of the recent changes have been trending towards the standard T1 deck-lists, and at a certain point, this one just can't compete. If Haakon were a 2 drop, it'd be a whole different story. But the amount of 3 drops that this deck needs to really get going is kind of prohibitive :c

Yeah, Goyf and Bob would make this better. :)

The issue is that you are playing cards with generally lower power levels, but it's as good as it can be given that limitation in my opinion.

thispersonisagenius: It's not even Bob. I can totally save up money to eventually splurge for a set. It's f#@$ng goyf that's the problem. Why is he so goddamn expensive T-T (That was moderately rhetorical- although, I don't see why he isn't, say, 80 bucks as opposed to nearly 200.)

Treetop Village and Stirring Wildwood KotR can fetch both :) & they'll help u vs Control.

This deck is pretty cool dude. Love me some knights!

Hallowed_Titan: Hey, thanks man =)

The deck is in a current state of flux, so things may change .

Currently thinking of taking out the AEther Vial s for something a bit more useful in this current stage.

APPLE01DOJ: omg how could I forget the manlands... thanks, man!

I'll keep my eye on it ; )

Has a good blend of competitiveness and FUN. I like decks that mix the 2. Actually a bunch of your decks are like that. Do you play modern alot? I sadly cannot until my lgs gets into it-no luck yet.

Hallowed_Titan: I'm in kind of a weird situation. My playgroup plays Modern, so we build our decks around that format. I'm actually still building my first T1 "tournament" modern deck tho, so I can't say I'm taken most of these through the tournament grind. :3

That deck is here, if you're interested: A Little Lesson In Recursion Theory

MetaphysicalxProdigy, Caligula, GlistenerAgent :3

So where is the obligatory Nameless Inversion?

RoarMaster: Very early versions of this deck had both that and Crib Swap. They proved excellent in theory, but could not top Path/Abrupt decay in terms of usefulness. If I ran nameless inversion, it'd be as a 1-of.

I would personally run the 1 of Nameless Inversion as it's reusable against zoo style decks. That's just my view however.

Looking good with GGT though!

Looks pretty good! I Like that you have gone heavy on Lily + Haakon + Gravecrawler. I always thought they had excellent synergy. Have you found 4x Lily to be a sufficient sack outlet? No use for a single Raven's Crime? I guess you may need more Loam to properly use it.

I have yet to encounter Golgari Grave-Troll (Boromir: "They've brought a GRAVE-troll!") but he seems like an absolute champ. He would have synergy with the extra Haakons that will sit in your yard and any other creatures there (especially gravecrawler, which will frequent your yard). He may not come in with a ton of counters but you can hold off attacks again, and again, and again. Then rinse and repeat. Pretty cool.

I similarly agree with safearus in adding a singleton Nameless Inversion, if you can. For the games where you get the combo off it's just game-breaking, and you already have a few dredge mechanics to help comb through your library. I wouldn't know what to recommend taking out at this point, since the list is so finely tuned. I don't think you should go any lower than your current creature count of 22. Maybe just run 61 cards? If you feel you end up with more than enough mana each game, then maybe consider cutting a fetchland.

Be sure to post results about how the Grave-Troll works!

MetaphysicalxProdigy That's certainly true about Inversion. I haven't tested the deck out yet, we'll see what happens! :3

How did Inversion work out??