Tribal Deck: Knights

Modern tempest

SCORE: 9 | 22 COMMENTS | 19256 VIEWS | IN 9 FOLDERS


Ahh flanking. I think it was the second pre-constructed deck I bought, and my friends HATED it. Let's see... I'll bullet out some suggestions to keep it brief.

  1. Some cards to consider: Knight of the Holy Nimbus, Honor of the Pure, Path to Exile/Swords to Plowshares, Mirran Crusader, Silverblade Paladin, Student of Warfare, and Wilt-Leaf Liege
  2. I'd try to keep your avg. CMC a little lower than it is. I'd drop Pentarch Paladin to a 2-of and Knight of Sursi down to 3 or 4.
  3. I'm not sure if I like Knight of Meadowgrain in here, drop her in my opinion.
  4. I'm not sure how well Emeria, The Sky Ruin will do in here, as you're only running 10 plains. Also with a lower avg. CMC, 4x Windbrisk Heights isn't necessary.

I hope this helps! OH! Door of Destinies is perfect for any tribal deck.

March 8, 2013 4:53 p.m.

tempest says... #2

I run 4 Flagstones of Trokair to get my plains needed for emeria. You mentioned a lot of cards with first strike and double strike but I was actually relying on Kinsbaile Cavalier to give them double strike. I agree that I should drop a few pentarchs so I will probably add in 2 Knight of the Holy Nimbus. Why take out Knight of Meadowgrain? it's one of my lower costing creatures that prevents the opponent from attacking. I like being able to use windbrisk as a combat trick. Attack, they declare blockers, and poof play a Cavalry Master to screw with their math or poof play a Knight Exemplar to give them indestructibility.

March 8, 2013 5:20 p.m.

Ahh a lot of the suggestions I made are irrelevant/useless now. Just in my opinion Knight of the Holy Nimbus > Knight of Meadowgrain, but you'd have to determine that through playtesting. Everything else I agree with :P

March 9, 2013 12:47 a.m.

tempest says... #4

didn't think of it that way. i will make the changes.

March 9, 2013 12:48 a.m.

Oh! I do have an Ooze deck... Forgot about that :P

March 9, 2013 12:49 a.m.

tempest says... #6

how does it look now?

March 9, 2013 12:50 a.m.

Like the changes!

March 9, 2013 12:57 a.m.

I would take out Supreme Verdict . Your deck is basically creatures, so your really only hurting yourself. You can if your really want Phyrexian Metamorph in the deck, keep it in.

I would add more targeted removal like Oblivion Ring or Journey to Nowhere instead.

March 29, 2013 9:05 p.m.

tempest says... #9

Supreme Verdict and 2 Knight Exemplar takes care of that.

March 29, 2013 9:06 p.m.

sillywhiteboy says... #10

I would replace Path to Exile with Oblivion Ring because Supreme Verdict + Knight Exemplar takes care of opponent's creatures, so you need noncreature removal. You might want to lose Knight-Captain of Eos because soldiers might take away from the whole "tribal" thing. Kinsbaile Cavalier could be very powerful. War Falcon is a good one-drop. If you don't care about splashing soldiers, then Martial Coup could also be detrimental in this deck because you could stay within one color and lose the verdict.

March 29, 2013 9:24 p.m.

I just play tested your deck a few times and either I'd end up being able to cast Supreme Verdict and have no Knight Exemplar or have Knight Exemplar in the battlefield and Supreme Verdict with no blue mana.

Also, instead of Hallowed Fountain , how about Glacial Fortress ?

March 29, 2013 9:32 p.m.

tempest says... #12

Thanks for the comments guys!

@sillywhiteboy- I would prefer to keep Path to Exile for early game removal and it's Permanent removal since o-ring can be destroyed. I don't mind the extra especially since they're just tokens. In addition, Hero of Bladehold produces soldier tOkens so why not? Kinsbaile Cavalier seems good, but many of the creatures in here already have first strike or double strike. Still, what do you suggest I remove? War Falcon is not a knight so even though it is a good one drop, it becomes rather weak later On.

@ sillywhiteboy and TheSeventhNinja- Knight of the White Orchid and Flagstones of Trokair both help me find Hallowed Fountain to get the blue mana I need. It's a shame Emeria, The Sky Ruin doesn't benefit. :P

March 30, 2013 1:32 a.m.

I like the style of your deck, you have some interesting choices. I like that you have integrated Supreme Verdict , it's a great card and deserves to see more play. When you compose a sideboard, you should make one similar to my own Knights deck The Western Way of War but add in some Detention Sphere instead of the O-rings. The sideboard I use is very tested in a competitive meta and has worked for me.

The inclusion of Hero of Bladehold and Knight-Captain of Eos means you can create infinite fogs. This mass token production could also be paired with an Eldrazi Monument if you ever try adding one or two in; you would probably need a few other support cards like Elspeth, Knight-Errant and/or Militia's Pride to help keep producing more tokens to feed your Knight-Captain and the Monument. With 3 verdicts, a monument would be great in here.

With so many 4cmc cards and even some 5cmc cards and only 20 lands your curve is way too high. You should chop the Light from Within for Honor of the Pure to better suit your curve, your tokens and your Hero of Bladehold . Not to mention granting the same +1/+1 bonus to Student of Warfare and the Knight-Captain as the Light would have.

Also if you are having land troubles, and want to keep the Plains theme for Emeria, The Sky Ruin , I would first add another Emeria and then add in 2 or so Ghost Quarter ; you can use these to nuke your Flagstones prematurely, replacing these two lands with two new ones. They Quarters can also obviously be useful against enemy lands.

April 9, 2013 8:05 p.m.

Either way this still looks awesome, +1 from me!

April 9, 2013 8:05 p.m.

tempest says... #15

i will be adding a sideboard after this post. thanks for the +1!

if i do go about the token route you suggested, i would really want to include all 3 of those cards. that would mean taking out a lot of the cards already in here and making it no so much tribal knights, but half tribal soldiers. and, if i do do that, i thin indestructibility would become repetitively redundant with Eldrazi Monument , Elspeth, Knight-Errant , and the Knight Exemplar in which i would probably drop the Phyrexian Metamorph and in result, dropping blue (Supreme Verdict ) altogether. should i add in Elspeth Tirel for the possible repetitve board wipe? it also helps stall with the lifegain and can produce tokens if i ever need them...

i do agree that my mana curve is a bit wacky. i will switch out the lights for the honors. again, if i add tirel, i would probably cut Knight of Meadowgrain opening up the slot for Honor of the Pure .

honestly, i have no problems with the mana base right now. this is only T/O's playtester though. Knight of the White Orchid and Flagstones of Trokair help a lot

April 9, 2013 11:32 p.m.

I wouldn't worry too much about indestructbility becoming redundant - it spells doom for your opponent and they will be working as hard as they can to get rid of it, with killspells and attacks against your Exemplar and Elspeth. Eldrazi Monument is a bit harder for them to dislodge - they would likely have to sub in artifact hate in round 2.

You can still keep the tribal knights theme and have a means to generate numerous soldier tokens. I wouldn't drop the Supreme Verdict if you in turn choose to drop the Phyrexian Metamorph : I ran two metamorphs in my own mono-white deck for a long time, paying their cost with 2 life each time. It's a small cost to pay for a 3cmc clone card. Try and keep Supreme Verdict in, it's strictly better than Day of Judgment and generally more reliable than Wrath of God , as it can't be countered and you won't often face creatures with regeneration.

I would personally not run Elspeth Tirel , run Elspeth, Knight-Errant instead. She still can make a token each turn, or can give knights a power boost - both are +1 abilities. Her ultimate is game-ending. If you run the other Elspeth, you begin going down a token-focused path that strays from knight tribal cohesiveness. If you want, try doing this:

-4 Light from Within , -1 Knight of Meadowgrain , -3 Phyrexian Metamorph .

+4 Honor of the Pure , +2 Militia's Pride , +2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant .

The metamorph is great for cloning exemplars or duplicating an opponent's legendary creature but is more relevant if you have equipment out. It's your choice to do either the Monument or the Knight-Captain. Both are combo cards and with only 20 lands and limited slots your deck shouldn't try to do both (at least in my opinion). I would probably try the monument.

I know you haven't had issues with the mana base via the Tapped playtester, but believe me, you want to be safe when actually playing this without Tapped's digitalized deck shuffling in a serious setting against other people. Not to mention you have no idea what you will go up against each time and you don't want a lack of lands to be holding you back. Just try using one or two Ghost Quarter with all of your other lands.

April 10, 2013 2:54 a.m.

One other note - you should switch the format to Modern. Everything in here is modern-legal. You do not wants knights as a Tier 1.5 tribe operating in the soul-crushing depths of legacy.

April 10, 2013 3:07 a.m.

tempest says... #18

i'll be substituting the suggested cards but with Eldrazi Monument instead of elspeth. i was thinking of making the monument indestructible with elspeth :P

i don't have this deck in paper so i will add in lands just in case. (don't have enough money to buy all of the tribal decks) if i do add in lands, should i drop Knight of the White Orchid , Knight of Meadowgrain , or something else?

whoops. i forgot to switch it to modern after changing this deck from flanking. thanks

April 10, 2013 9:58 a.m.

HexproofHarry says... #19

I'm surprised you missed Kinsbaile Cavalier , other than Knight Exemplar he's the best choice for a knight deck, and Lightwielder Paladin is a good sideboard choice. Also, I'm seeing no flying. Other than the removal you have you could use Spectral Flight .

June 8, 2013 8:19 p.m.

tempest says... #20

not that i overlooked Kinsbaile Cavalier . rather, almost all of my knights have first/double strike so i thought it was unnecessary especially because i don't want too many 4 cmc cards. i would much rather play a creature then Spectral Flight . flying shouldn't be a problem anyways. they will either be wiped or my knights will force them to block or die (hopefully). haven't earnestly playtested this deck so i'm not completely sure of this strengths and weaknesses.

June 8, 2013 10:09 p.m.

tempest says... #21

i really like Lightwielder Paladin as a sideboard card though. thanks for that!

June 8, 2013 10:10 p.m.

micah1 says... #22

Knight of the Holy Nimbus and Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers are both great options.

October 23, 2015 9:48 a.m.

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