Welcome back! The deck we’re taking a look at today isn’t necessarily a new one. It’s also a deck that I was almost positive I had played before in a previous Modern Monday, but alas, I was incorrect. We’re of course talking about the Knight of the Reliquary/Retreat to Coralhelm deck, often dubbed Knightfall. The deck basically acts as a midrange Bant deck, that also has a pretty sweet combo with Knight of the Reliquary, Retreat to Coralhelm, and Kessig Wolf Run where you sacrifice a bunch of lands, untap your Knight a bunch of times, float a bunch of mana, and attack for lethal with a huge, Kessig Wolf Runned Knight.
While it doesn’t use any new cards from Kaladesh, it does revolve around the blue Retreat from Battle for Zendikar, Retreat to Coralhelm, along with a couple of Selfless Spirits and a full set of Spell Quellers. The spirits make even more sense when you realize the deck is a Collected Company deck and you’re able to hit them with the over-powered green instant. Take a look.
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Loxodon Smiter
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
2 Spellskite
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
1 Breeding Pool
2 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
2 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
Sideboard
2 Blessed Alliance
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Dispel
1 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Izzet Staticaster
1 Kataki, War’s Wage
2 Negate
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Voice of Resurgence
1 Worship
If you’re looking for more new additions, Magic Online user Pandabeast24 also added a couple of Blessed Alliance to the sideboard. This actually marks a good deal of new cards in the deck, even if the strategy has been around since Battle for Zendikar. Let’s take a look at how the deck performs.
Yeah, kind of what I expected. The deck performs very much like your standard Collected Company deck. It has fantastic creatures at every point on the curve, but then it also utilizes Knight of the Reliquary better than any other deck in conjunction with Retreat to Coralhelm. While we didn’t get to perform the combo in any of our games, we still managed to crush; the combo is also kind of just a bonus as well.
One thing I was a little confused about, and still am really, is the inclusion of so many one-ofs. One Voice of Resurgence, Kataki, War’s Wage, Courser of Kruphix, and Geist of Saint Traft in the sideboard, one Loxodon Smiter in the main deck, things like that. I would totally understand if this were a Chord of Calling deck and we could search them out, but we simply have to hope we hit them off of a Collected Company or draw them naturally. This isn’t impossible by any means, but it did feel strange to have all these “silver bullets” and no gun.
While it’s probably correct, I always feel like seven one-mana creatures is too many. I always want to cut one, and I always hate top decking them later in the game. I mean, I’m sure it’s a necessary evil. I just thought I should mention it. I also get a little uncomfortable when decks outside of Burn have more fetch lands than lands to fetch with them. Here for example we have ten fetch lands and only eight total lands to fetch. We definitely ran into situations where these were literal blanks (aside from giving Knight of the Reliquary +1/+1 and us losing a life). Again though, I’m not sure it’s correct to load up on more non fetch lands, I’m just saying.
Just like you’d expect from a deck with Collected Company and Knight of the Reliquary, the deck is solid and Retreat gives us a nice little combo to end the game before things get grindy. Give it a shot if you’re looking for something more competitive. Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch ya next week!
Frank Lepore
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