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7.29.2010

Standard Knights

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Good Day my MTG pickles,

In today's post, we wanted to yatter about just how awesome Knight Exemplar is. Like many of you, as soon as this M11 card was spoiled, we wanted to build a deck with it. Similarily, like many of you, as soon as we started thinking about it, we came to the conclusion that the standard-legal pool was somewhat shallow with only 3 knights in M11, 7 in Zendikar block, and 12 in Shards of Alara block, we would have to choose carefully what buddies Knight Exemplar should hang out with.

If we were playing extended, the auto-include in a Knight deck would be Kinsbaile Cavalier (giving all your knights double-strike) and the lifelinking Knight of Meadowgrain. Yeah - that would have been cool. Another hang-up is that we did not want to go back to Shards to buy cards that we did not already have (like Rafiq of the Many and Knight of the White Orchid unfortunately) which will rotating out of standard in just a few short months. So here is what is on the kitchen table for your consideration . . .

KNIGHTS available in standard : Caravan Escort, Cloud Crusader, Kabira Vindicator, Knight Exemplar, Knight of Cliffhaven, Knight of the Skyward Eye, Knight of the White Orchid, Knight-Captain of Eos, Lightwielder Paladin, Paragon of the Amesha, Sigiled Paladin, Student of Warfare, Talus Paladin, White Knight, Ethersworn Adjudicator, Outrider of Jhess, Arrogant Bloodlord, Black Knight, Dragonsoul Knight, Goblin Roughrider, Ethercaste Knight, Knight of New Alara, Knight of the Reliquary, Knotvine Paladin, Steward of Valeron and Rafiq of the Many.


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What we are presently thinking about is constructing a build with Knight of the Reliquary, Student of Warfare, and Steward of Valeron.


Knight of the Reliquary is able to fetch out lands such as Tectonic Edge, Sunpetal grove, Stirring Wildwood, and very importantly, Serjiri Steppe to provide protection against coloured threats.


Speaking of threats, our local meta-game as we are certain yours, is chocked full of red burn (usually of a Jund flavour) so we might consider using Mark of Asylum and Leyline of Sanctity.


After further thinking, we wished to pimp out knights with equipment meaning that Stoneforge Mystic would be needed and perhaps Behemoth Sledge, Sigil of Distinction, Basilisk Collar and perhaps Quietus Spike.


Anywhoos - we need your help to get a standard Knight deck to the games table, so please drop a comment in below - Friday Night Magic is tomorrow night so there's no pressure - THANKS!
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7 comments:

Norm said...

I like the stone forge mystic in any aggro deck that can fit her. You need to pick up that new Sword of Vengence. (I hope the next sword is called "out for justice").

As I said on twitter I don't like Steward of Valeron because if you are casting it on turn two you already have a green mana and you have better two drops. I would only play if your goal is to get a turn three Rafiq. And in that case you might need to be playing birds or noble higherarch to get the mana right.

Are you playing Elspeth? Don't you have a foil?

Xian T. said...

i kinda agree, i actually like stewards but besides being a body he wont go far to help. unless you are also running knotvine, in which case the vig can help.

i also concur with sword of vengence being really good. sigil of distinction isnt as good in this scenario because you have to hard cast it as opposed to using stoneforge. i say sword or sledge.

i would also run the elspeth or 2, maybe ajani goldmane with knotvine.

also im not sure what your meta is but unless its REALLY heavy with burn i wouldnt main mark. and just remember you only wanna protect your dudes till you get an exemplar or 2.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Anonymous said...

Here's the Knight package I would run (taking into consideration that you've said you don't have Knight of the White Orchid):

4 Student of Warfare
4 Sigiled Paladin
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Knotvine Paladin
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Steward of Valeron

Stoneforger Mystic isn't a Knight, so I'd only run 2 of her so as not to dillute the tribal theme too much.

That gives you 24 dudes, a good baseline for a white weenie style deck.

For the Equipment package, I'd run just a single copy each of Behemoth Sledge the new Sword of Vengeance and Basilisk Collar.

4x Honor the Pure is a must in this deck.

You'll likely want some number of Path to Exile, Brave the Elements (a vastly underrated alpha-strike card), and some planeswalkers. I'd go with 1x Garruk and 2x Ajani Goldmane. I don't like Elspeth as much here, but she's not terrible in ANY deck.

As for the Mana base, I'm sure you will manage, but if you can find room, try to squeeze in 1 or 2 Emeria, Sky Ruins and enough Plains to support it.

Mark of Asylum and the Leyline are great anti-red / anti-Jund cards, but I'd put 'em in the board unless you REALLY don't think you can live without 'em game one. With a double-Exemplar draw, Jund can't touch your guys anyway, so the Mark might be overkill.

Day of Judgement (seen in one of the photos) is probably not something you'd want as a dedicated Creature deck... if you find yourself being out-Creatured, your probably not going to win even with the Day.

Best of luck to you, though, and let us know what the final list looks like!

CopySix said...

Some other suggestions provided is to run black and use Arrogant Bloodlord (4/4 for 1bb) or get Cloud Crusader (2/3 flyer for 2ww).

Aace said...

Ran mono white with cloud crusader, and he's trash. Don't bother with him. If you're running Honor of the Pure, just run Baneslayer. Right now I'm running:

Creatures:
4x Knight Exemplar
4x White Knight
4x Knight of the White Orchid
3x Baneslayer Angel
3x Sun Titan

Planeswalkers:
3x Ajani Goldmane

Spells:
4x Path to Exile
4x Oblivion Ring
3x Martial Coup
4x Honor of the Pure
4x Brave the Elements

Lands:
21 Plains

SB:
3x Celestial Purge
3x Devout Lightcaster
3x Kor Firewalker
3x Rest for the Weary

The reason why you don't run Cloud Crusader is because you don't get recursion from it with Sun Titan, so you might as well play Baneslayer. Sun Titan recurs al of your knights, O-rings, and HoP with this list, and I top 8-ed at my local out of 48. List needs modification.

Notes about this deck:
List needs more work. Problems with it still are Eldrazi Ramp with All is Dust just destroys you. Valakut Ramp with Primeval Titan also destroys you.

Good luck Knights!
:)

Anonymous said...

I am trying to build this same deck. I'm waiting to see what they do with Elespth because I would love to add her in. But I like the idea of the above post. I'm trying to keep it from having cards from the Alara block just so nothing cycles out in October.

Anonymous said...

I'm currently working on a Black/White Knight deck that uses the legendary Knight Exemplar.

While a little unorthadox, knight decks with alot of protection from black can consider running Darkest Hour for a nasty combination. Despite Knight Exemplar being turned to black with Darkest Hour, the indestructability still transfers since it is not a targeted ability.