I go back and forth between two courser's and two trackers....How has 2 trackers been working for you?

I've been experimenting and asking myself that same question, but I lean more towards the coursers.

Courser, generally, tends to stall quite well (good stats and lifegain). In most matchups, the card quality of knightfall exceeds my opponent and thereby the longer the game the more likely I am to win.

That said, tracker is one of the fastest ways to end the game as drowning in card advantage usually translates to a victory.

Couple of questions:

• How has the one of Eldritch Evolution in the board been working for you? What is its role as part of your board?
• Your board seems light on affinity hate, and that is a match-up that I have not played enough of to have a strong grasp on. Do you feel that the match up is favorable enough to just need a few Shatter or Disenchant type of effects?

While the main plan of knightfall is to out value and out tempo our opponent, some of the cards that are used for this purpose are pretty toolbox-y. However, this isn't the main theme of knightfall. Therefore, I definitely don't plan to play more than 1x Eldritch Evolution, but that 1x is Not the flex sideboard spot (That's Courser of Kruphix and Reclamation Sage).

Eldritch Evolution is reasonable against fair, non-blue decks, but mostly, it's there for combo decks (Knightfall's worst matchups). Due to the sheer number of creatures in this deck, there is usually some creature that helps out in the matchup and is worth tutoring for. While you could try something like Chord of Calling for this reason, Chord of Calling is usually at least 2 turns slower.

It might be a little easier to say a few matchups that I'd bring it in for (not a full list): Affinity, Burn, Jund, Junk, Tron, Lantern Control, Dredge, Infect, Elves, and Living End. If you look at that list, Burn, Tron, Elves and Living End can be some pretty challenging matchups. The card does a bit more than double duty.

Affinity is a pretty favored matchup. For reference at the Modern Open, I played 4 matches against them and lost 1 game (albeit, I usually lose a few more game 1s). This seems to happen for a few reasons.

The biggest reason is because of Spell Queller. Spell Queller stops a relevant spell while being bigger (before buffs) than their fliers. Of course, it can also be flashed in before blocks with no spell on the stack. Therefore, I can not stress enough how much of an all-star this card is.

Knight of the Reliquary is also quite good in this matchup. It can tutor up a Ghost Quarter for any of they're relevant man-lands, and a Gavony Township to make Birds of Paradise trade.

Between 2x Qasali Pridemage, 2x Reflector Mage, and 4x Path to Exile, there's typically a bit of removal to handle the first threat (and sometimes a few after the first one).

The main plan is just to stall as long as you can and make as many favorable trades as possible. Hopefully, you can create enough of a board state where they lose too much by attacking (aka a board stall) and Knightfall rarely loses from a board stall.

Therefore, so long as you don't draw too many Scavenging Ooze and Voice of Resurgence and they don't have a super speedy draw (Mox Opal...), then game 1 can be pretty close. Of course, post-board Knightfall becomes favored.

-3x Scavenging Ooze, -3x Voice of Resurgence, -2x Retreat to Coralhelm for +1x Eldritch Evolution, +2x Izzet Staticaster (Best Card and generally what Eldritch Evolution finds), +2x Kitchen Finks(The gain 2 life and +1 power sells me on it over Voice of Resurgence even at the cost of one mana (Mostly because both suck in this matchup)), +1x Manglehorn, +1x Reclamation Sage, +1x Reflector Mage

Post-Board, around 1/3 of the deck is removal. Of course, once again, the goal is to stall for as long as possible. Once again, the longer the game, the higher the probability that knightfall wins.

Have you considered Tamiyo, Field Researcher in the sideboard for grindy matchups? I've been happy with her, as she grinds well and can smoothly transition between tempo and midrange, something the core of the deck is also capable of doing well.

OOBS,

The sideboard is already full of good cards in grindy matchups (for example against control, I'd side in the counterspells, Vendilion Clique , and Jace, the Mind Sculptor ). As there are already a reasonable number of cards that do well in those matchups (and those matchups are already usually pretty good (see Tireless Tracker )), I don't want to add additional cards for those matchups.

This leads me to the conclusion that it is vying for the one dedicated grind card in the Sideboard (currently held by Jace). Tamiyo is quite powerful and there are definitely boardstates it will be better than Jace. To add to that, generally, I think Tamiyo's down-tick is a little stronger than Jace's.

However, there are a few things that sell Jace to me (in no particular order).

1. Jace is an alternate wincon. I played Whir-Prison and they landed a turn 2 Torpor Orb , cutting off my ability to remove an Ensnaring Bridge . That deck struggles to interact with Tireless Tracker so I could still dig to my one out of Jace
2. Jace is much better than Tamiyo on an empty board. Given Knightfall's ability to 2-1, it's usually better at grinding than most other decks, except against board wipes. Jace helps allivate that issue.
3. Usually when I drop Jace, I want to keep my creatures back to protect him. Tamiyo encourages me to attack which, frequently, would result in Tamiyo not lasting long or letting my opponent control my card advantage. Admittedly, this is probably the weakest point though.
4. Brainstorm digs me further. Knightfall is a deck that has all the answers, but doesn't always draw them in the right order. Jace greatly helps solve the problem.

In closing, I want to keep my Sideboard flexible (~8 cards in and out for every matchup) and so I don't want to dedicate more than one slot for specifically grindy cards. Given that, I think Jace serves that role better than the alternatives.

Interesting. If I ever have the chance to try out Jace I'll have to see how it feels!

On an unrelated note, how do you feel about the new card Blast Zone ?

OOBS,

Blast Zone falls in-line with exactly what the decks is doing. It's a card that trades with at least one of our opponent's cards. Of course, the fact that it does it on a tutorable land makes it even better. I eagerly look forward to testing it.

However, I don't think the card is a godsend. Simply said, Blast Zone is extremely slow. If you don't plan on just destroying 1-drops (most threats the deck cares about cost 2+ mana), then you probably have to take 1 turn off to fetch it up and place a counter(s). Then, you spend another turn blowing it up. Naturally, there are some threats that nessecitate taking this time off, and doing it slowly can force our opponent to skip playing too many cards of the same cmc. However, most modern decks are extremely efficient and aggressive. I struggle to see this consistently being too relevant before the late game. That said, most utility lands are designed to really only be relevant in the late game anyway.

TLDR: It's worth trying because it matches our grindy game plan, but it's slow.

In terms of what to blindly place it on for each matchup, I need to spend more time thinking about that.

Is this the list you plan on running post horizons? I like giver of runes, but seems very 1 drop heavy with all the dorks, path and giver. What do you think about dropping a path or 2 for reflector mages since you have removal in deputy that will be almost as permanent as path thanks to giver?