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Main » Articles » Knightfall and B/G Tron

Knightfall and B/G Tron

Ali Aintrazi
Posted on February 10, 2017
 Reddit

This past weekend was Regionals and the format was Modern. I reached out to good friend of mine, Eli Kassis, for a deck list. Eli is also a brewer and he was the person that originally started playing Four Color Saheeli in Standard and has had other sweet decks. He recommended Knightfall to me which was a Bant Collected Company deck that abused Knight of the Reliquary with Retreat to Coralhelm to get most lands out of your deck, tap your opponent’s creatures down, generate a bunch of mana, and then attack with a huge Knight of the Reliquary that killed your opponent in one hit. The thing I liked most about this deck however, was that it didn’t even need Retreat to Coralhelm to win. The deck functions fine without it, it turns out casting Collected Company into Spell Queller to exile your opponent’s spell and then hitting any other creature is pretty good. I ended up placing in top sixty four with the deck and I could’ve done better if I had played the deck before. So today I want to talk about the Knightfall deck and the Tron deck I’ve been playing!

Let’s start off with the deck I played at Regionals.

Knightfall ? Modern | Ali Aintrazi, 63rd Place SCG Regionals Raleigh

So, this was list I played. I took the exact list Eli Kassis gave me and just added two Thalias in the Sideboard to combat the new Cheerios deck that started popping up. So, let’s talk about this deck.

What does the deck do?

Well . . .  It can do a lot of things but at its core it is still a Collected Company deck. Like other Company decks it will usually accelerate its resources with mana creatures and then overload on very good two and 3-drop creatures. The creature curve will stop at three and the Company decks try to abuse these creatures by having them synergize together. While this deck does have the synergy of Knight of the Reliquary and Courser of Kruphix, that’s where it ends. Instead of playing a bunch of creatures that will do something when you have a lot of them in play, the deck just plays very good creatures. The deck can recover from a board wipe easily because of this. Not only do we have Collected Company to refill our board but just one creature can threaten lights out for our opponent. Something like a Scavenging Ooze or a Knight of the Reliquary can spell game over, even after a board wipe.

Retreat to Coralhelm and the Combo

Knight of the Reliquary
Retreat to Coralhelm

Having Retreat to Coralhelm not being a creature is good and bad. It means one of your combo pieces can’t be removed by a creature removal spell but it also can’t be gotten by Collected Company. Again, not being able to be gotten by Collected Company is okay since the deck doesn’t fully focus on the combo anyway, it just plays good creatures and still has the, “Whoops turn two Knight of the Reliquary into Retreat to Coralhelm” games.

In case you don’t know how the combo works, it requires that you have a non-summoning sick Knight of the Reliquary on the battlefield and Retreat to Coralhelm. You then sacrifice a Plains or a Forest to the Knight and get a fetchland which will untap the Knight. You can then sacrifice the fetchland and use the new land that comes into play to tap down one of your opponent’s creatures so Knight can eventually attack and have no creatures to block it. Even if your opponent has a creature land all you must do is make sure you end up with a fetchland on the battlefield. You attack and after your opponent animates their creature land you can then sacrifice the fetchland to untap your Knight of the Reliquary and start the cycle again to ensure it can connect with your opponent’s face.

It may sound complex but I assure you it’s not that hard after you do it once. After playing the deck in a tournament there were some changes I would’ve like to make to it. It’s not many but just a couple different lands or even creatures can give the deck many more options. This is the list I would play if I was playing the deck tomorrow.

Knightfall ? Aether Revolt Standard | Ali Aintrazi

We don’t have many differences but they are still very big changes.

Nahiri Vs Tamiyo

Nahiri, the Harbinger
Tamiyo, Field Researcher

I’ve heard people talk about playing Tamiyo, Field Researcher over Nahiri. Both are 4 mana Planeswalkers; and, even though this deck could abuse Tamiyo more than Nahiri, Tamiyo requires you to have creatures to really abuse it where Nahiri can just come down and exile that Tarmogoyf or Reality Smasher and pose as a threat even if you just have mana creatures laying around. Nahiri is better suited against decks like R/W Prison where it can exile annoying enchantments like Blood Moon or even something like Worship after Game 1. I like Nahiri as a nice catch all that can also filter our hand. I think a lot of people are under the misconception that you need to play Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and that’s not the case. Nahiri is still a great Planeswalker in Modern, with or without Emrakul.

Kessig Wolf Run over Gavony Township

Kessig Wolf Run
Gavony Township

Sometimes you end up having a lot of mana creatures and I’d rather just threaten lethal with one instead of having to tap my mana and sometimes creatures to put +1/+1 counters on them so I can attack the following turn. Sometimes you just gotta swing your Exalted Birds of Paradise and threaten lethal by having Kessig Wolf Run on the battlefield and some other mana guys laying around. Look your opponent in the eyes as you sink all your mana to give your Birds of Paradise +6/+0 and Trample. Then ask them, “Who’s the mana dork now bucko?!” You ever see the movie The Birds? No? I’m just old? Well, whatever, it’s like that!

On top of killing your opponents with Birds of Paradise, it’s also nice to just give your 10/10 Knight of the Reliquary Trample because you can’t tap all their guys down since Retreat to Coralhelmhas retreated from you and is still in your deck.

Nobody likes Gavony. We are all moving to Kessig. Pack your bags kiddo!

I Don’t Like People Playing with Their Cereal

The last thing I want to hit on is the Sideboard. Yes, I have three Thalia, Guardian Thraben and an Eidolon of Rhetoric. Why you ask? Because of that darn Cheerios deck and spell based combo decks. Back in my day our parents didn’t let us play with our food. We ate our cereal then had to drink all the milk that was left in the bowl or we got nothing else to eat that day. But now? You people play with your cereal before throwing a bunch of grapes at us for lethal. Call me the fun police, but no thank you. Thalia, Mr. Rhetoric and I are having none of it. No more playing a bunch of 0 cost spells to draw your whole deck or playing Goblin Electromancer or Baral, Chief of Compliance to cast all the spells and then kill us. I want to draw Thalia or Eidolon of Rhetoric and that’s why we have a combined total of four. Thalia works well against other decks like Infect, Burn, and even Tron. Since we can’t Chord of Calling for her, we play multiples.

Speaking of Tron and toys . . . 

Golgari Tron ? Modern | Ben Friedman

Why Black?

Collective Brutality
So, this is what I’ve been playing when it comes to Tron. The main draw to Black mana is obviously Collective Brutality. Brutality is better against your bad matchups like Infect and Burn. Against Burn, killing a Goblin Guide, and having them discard a burn spell can be backbreaking. You won’t always use the drain against burn but sometimes you’ll have to and that’s perfectly fine. Against Infect you’ll get to kill a creature and remove a pump spell. Even if they use something like Blossoming Defense to save their creature you’ll still be able get another pump spell which should buy you more time.

By playing Black we also gained Fatal Push from Aether Revolt. Collective Brutality is still the better main deck card right now but Fatal Push is very good against small creatures like Death's Shadow, any infect creature, Puresteel Paladin, and Grim Flayer. Basically, being a better Path to Exile in that Scenario. The last card we gained for the board by playing Black is Consuming Vapors. Consuming Vapors is great against Hexproof creatures like Geist of Saint Traft or Slippery Boggle but it’s also fine to game winning against any creature deck like Death's Shadow or any Collected Company deck. The only Collected Company deck where you might not want this are decks that can generate tokens like Elves. It’s very hit or miss in the Elves matchup. The last thing you can do with Consuming Vapors is target yourself. You might laugh, but sometimes gaining six or seven life is what you need to do. Thankfully the creatures you’re sacrificing generate tokens or can be re-bought from the graveyard.

Planar Bridge

Planar Bridge

It might take a while for it to catch on but I have a feeling that all Tron decks will eventually run one Planar Bridge. The card is great in that it offers inevitably like Eye of Ugin did. Remember that you had to pay 7 mana and tap Eye of Ugin to tutor for a creature. It won’t do anything the turn you play it but untapping with it will spell game over since it will keep finding threat after threat.

Urza’s Factory

Urza's Factory

It’s the best thing I’ve could find that replaces Eye of Ugin. Control decks can counter all your spells and some creature decks can even Path to Exile your creatures and you’ll be in top deck mode. Now you can tutor up Urza's Factory and make a steady stream of 2/2s that will take over the game or buy you enough time to draw another threat. I didn’t like having to tutor up Sanctum of Ugin and then having to draw another 7-drop to activate it. I wanted a land that was a threat and this was the best I that I found. Yes, it’s better than the colorless creature lands like Gargoyle Castle.

That’s everything I have for you today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and as always thank you for reading and your support!

Until next time,

Ali Aintrazi

@Alieldrazi on Twitter

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TAGS articles, strategy, constructed, analysis, modern, ali aintrazi, decklist

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