Brave Sir Robin (Bant Knight Retreat)

[monovfox]

So, big-picture, I hopefully can slow combo decks with counters (and I guess Clique) to the point of doing something more winning-y - either GSZ'ing an effective win-con, landing a Knight that can tutor out the right land, or combo'ing off. This can go poorly, and my T8 match ended quickly after mull'ing to mediocre disruption was beaten by his disruption->fast combo in all 3 games (I should have lost game 2 as well). Storm can be okay (9 counters, 2 cliques, grave hate, teeg), but those games weren't close.
Take, e.g., Show and Tell. I don't have any dedicated board slots for it, but post-board I have 9 counters, 2 Cliques, Karakas, and Crop Rotation + 4 Knight + 4 Zenith to find Knight->Karakas. That's 21 slots I'm very happy to see, and resolving Show and Tell while I'm holding Knight probably (not always) favors me.

Envelop is fantastic. When considering Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, Envelop, and Swan Song, I prefer the latter 2 when (a) Miracles is prominent, (b) it hits the main pieces of the top-tier combo decks, and/or (c) recent prominence of Pierce means its getting played around more. The third one is hard to judge, but most SnT decks accept some number of sol lands, so that's fine. The first two leave it perfectly-timed: Miracles is quite common (and Terminus is terrible with all the mana dorks), and hitting SnT, storm's tutors, NO/GSZ in Elves, and most reanimation spells is perfect. Many of those are coming from decks with the ability to pay through soft counters if they expect them, and an unconditional counter for their most important spells is huge. You leave behind the ability to counter Jace or random things (blood moon), and miss the parts of some combo decks (infect), but I'm mostly fine with that. I've considered a split with flusterstorm. As gravy, Envelop hits Ancestral Visions, Hymn, Thoughtseize, Pulse, and Deluge from Shardless. Again, Pierce/Flusterstorm on Visions is terrible. It comes in for Miracles, Shardless, and sorcery-driven combo.

This points toward a lot of my fair-deck boarding plan, which is to cut force against most fair decks and not worry too much about protecting Knight. Daze sometimes usually stays on the play, but I see so many Knights/Zenith that I'd rather make them have it repeatedly than lose cards to Force. This could be wrong. I'm going to at least consider dropping the number of maindeck FoW, maybe to 0, though I dodged a lot of combo this weekend, so that's skewed.

I've totally split on miracles, and whether I want the combo. Probably I think they can stall for long enough to just win with terminus if I go all in, so if I keep it, it might mean not activating for such a large swing (since ending with Taiga+KWR in place of real lands, with no lands left in my deck, and my guys on the bottom of my deck, is brutal). I want Envelop, Pridemage, Teeg, Grip, and Needle (6) at least, and probably EE and Judgment. I either cut the package (4 retreat, 1 steppe, 1 kwr) and 2 swords OR -3 Daze -2 Force -3 Swords on the play, -4 Force -1 Daze -3 Swords on draw.

Not sure about staticaster. It is good, and good against a lot (tokens, elves, dnt, infect), combos with retreat, and isn't terrible on the mana. I only know, for changes, that I want Maze and a 2nd Crop Rotation.

Practice combo turns, and (like with storm or something) assume they have creature removal, enchantment removal, flash blocker, 25 life, etc. See first post.

Thanks ^_^! How do you shortcut the combo process in a legal way?

[Echelon]

Streamlined from?
Some one mentioned that they saw some dailies, but I haven't seen other (legacy) lists. Would love to compare.

There had been some brewing a bunch of pages back in the Maverick topic (page 306 and the first bit of 307). There was some overlap with your build, though I believe the brew there missed the blue part. Might be something you'd like to look at, but it's probably not all that relevant anymore .

[monovfox]

tested for like, 8 hours today with this decklist:

1 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
1 Karakas
4 Retreat to Coralhelm
1 Sylvan Library
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Izzet Staticaster
SB: 1 Qasali Pridemage
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Path to Exile
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Council's Judgment
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog
SB: 2 Swan Song
SB: 1 Submerge
SB: 2 Misdirection
SB: 1 Crop Rotation


don't know about the 61 card mainboard (and I am not sold on Jaces, though he has won me some games.), but I definitely want to have some even better game 1 against storm (storm is actually kinda rough. You need to have dork + clique and 2nd land in hand or you've basically lost), shardless, and delver. Therefore mainboard scooze (has some other applications, generally good card), allowing me to play them sideboard bojuka bogs. I like swan song over envelop, just because it has slightly more applications (and the 2/2 rarely matters when you're swinging in for 26 trample pro-green), but envelope also seems like a good option, and I think the 2/2 can make a huge difference in certain matchups (read: shardless bug). I think this deck is good enough for me to play it at GP Seatac, and I will be testing it extensively for the next week. The deck is really, really fucking good. Excellent job brewing it Stephen ^_^ . I feel like it's well positioned right now just because it's still kind of rogue, and you can fake being on maverick for the first two turns (that, and your force of wills are twice as good as other people's due to the nature of the deck.)

[hofzge]

I agree with what has earlier been said about the Retreat. It does little alone and thus I would play something like this:

Land (23)
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Forest
1x Karakas
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Savannah
1x Sejiri Steppe
1x Taiga
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
3x Wasteland
4x Windswept Heath

Planeswalker (1)
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Creature (13)
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Gaddock Teeg
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Noble Hierarch
1x Qasali Pridemage
2x True-Name Nemesis

Instant (15)
4x Brainstorm
3x Daze
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares

Enchantment (4)
3x Retreat to Coralhelm
1x Sylvan Library

Sorcery (4)
4x Green Sun's Zenith

Sideboard (15)
1x Containment Priest
1x Council's Judgment
2x Envelop
1x Flusterstorm
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Izzet Staticaster
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Krosan Grip
1x Path to Exile
1x Pithing Needle
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Vendilion Clique

Lately I played a lot of 4color Loam and I always liked the fair Knight game and thus would play at least 3 Wastelands. The wastes also make your Dazes much better.
I would like some True Name Nemesis in the maindeck with all the exalted triggers. Against control or Sneak Show you can board in the Cliques.
Against Storm you have qa solid game with 4GSZ and maindeck Gaddock Teeg, as well as the counters and Wastelands. Teeg is the best game1 answer (it is usually a autoloss, as they almost never play maindeck bounce or Abrupt Decay) and with Dryad Arbor or with a manaelf and a turn 2 GSZ we have lots of scenarios where we can play it turn 2.

[Echelon]

Retreat isn't all that bad on its own or in multiples. Each Retreat allows you to tap down an attacker by fetching a land. Nice Emrakul/Griselbrand/Merit Lage token/Batterskull/Tarmogoyf ya got there!

Or, you know, use its scry mode to dig for business.

I do think a Life From the Loam could be awesome in this deck. It could turn Retreat + Wasteland into a nice CA engine. Waste your opponent, scry a card, waste your opponent, scry a card and so on. Also, it'd allow you to fill your yard for a nice big Knight to the face without Retreat.

[hofzge]

About Retreat: Yeah it can tap Emrakul for only 3 mana and having to have an open fetchland! This will from time to time occur, but you cannot count on it, especially as you need a uncracked fetchland to begin with.

Let's be honest - this is not really standard and a 3 mana enchantment should win you the game or do something great when it enters the game (both of which Retreat does not -> you need additional land drops, so it will only work on turn 4). Therefore I think it's better to have more of the card that is good alone (KotR) and then accidentally hit the combo from there.

Clearly it would be nice to have Loam and i think it is a good card to sideboard in grindy matchups, but it is mainly good if you have lands that do something (Cycle lands, Maze of Ith, Karakas), that interact with the graveyard (Grove-Punishing Fire) or ways to get value out of discarding cards/lands (Mox Diamond, Liliana of the Veil, Punishing Fire) - ergo I think it isn't great here, especially if you only play 2 Wastelands.

[Echelon]

Meh, no guts no glory!

I'm just saying it isn't as bad as it seems. Subpar, perhaps. Utterly hopeless? Nope.

[HSCK]

I'm really enjoying this deck. I'm trying something wonkier like Titania in the Sigarda slot, have you tried it before?

[maharis]

The fact that Retreat pitches to Force isn't nothing, I had lots of trouble getting to the right amount of blue cards for my deck. It may be a slow sorcery-speed permanent, but at least when that's a drawback, you have it as Force fuel (Or Brainstorm fodder).

Steven, did you ever get it in multiples? That's where I think you can start doing some insane stuff.

[anwei]

Thanks ^_^! How do you shortcut the combo process in a legal way?

A judge could advise better, but I usually get a fetchland and untap then activate again and say, "I'm going to do this several times, can I shortcut and do these at once, without reshuffling each time?"

There had been some brewing a bunch of pages back in the Maverick topic (page 306 and the first bit of 307). There was some overlap with your build, though I believe the brew there missed the blue part. Might be something you'd like to look at, but it's probably not all that relevant anymore .

Oh, yeah, I saw that, though it seemed like a couple people put a Trop, 2 Retreats, and maybe Rogue's Passage into their GWb Maverick lists. I didn't get the sense that anyone was really testing/developing anything.

On changes/thoughts people are listing:

• I was playing a 1-off DRS as a mana dork instead of Scavenging Ooze, which wasn't great, but is a way to save a slot. Ooze is a fine meta call. I obviously cut the DRS.
• I forgot to mention in the Envelop comments above, but I play Envelop over Swan Song whenever I'm playing Clique. That big a non-bo is usually not worth it in the most important matches.
• 3 Retreat is probably right/fine. I got multiples constantly, and it's terrible. It's obviously hard to balance/evaluate the trade-off between, "The redundant copy of this card is almost worthless unless I pitch to Force or Brainstorm away" happening more often and "Oh good, I was losing, but now I win off my topdeck" more often. The 4th is definitely on my under-consideration list, but I had to play 4 this weekend since, you know, playing a brew was what I decided to do. Though, don't forget that it can ramp into big turns. T2 Retreat, T3 Brainstorm, Jace, Brainstorm, Swords your guy is awesome. That's a real thing..
• Loam has long been on the 61st card list, and I haven't spent long enough developing the idea. Particularly with the utility lands like Steppe/Bog, that you *could* waste yourself to recur them if needed. Playing a single Intuition also provides more access to utility lands, develops the Wasteland plan, and serves as a combo-piece tutor. It's clunky, but might be good. (I also had begun working on this in an Aggro Loam shell with Mox Diamond and Challice, but it wasn't very good.)
• 3rd (even 4th) Wasteland is at the top of my 61st card list, but the mana is seriously strained. I was down at 1, often during testing. In my test version that has 3-4 (4 right now), I'm running (3) Ponder, (3) Goyf, and no red splash at the moment, with the (miserable) plan of cycling through the whole deck and Wasting out my final lands to go all-in, if needed. Hopefully, with a better aggro plan, that's not necessary, and swinging for 16 or whatever is fine.
• Part of the value of Retreat is supposed to be accelerating, and Jace/Sigarda are intended to play nice with Retreat in the absence of Knight. This has come up a lot more in testing than practice, and has moved very low on my list of common synergies. I may move Sigarda to the board, especially if I go to 3 Retreats.
• I am very likely going to run True-Name, hopefully with another Pridemage and probably going to the 4th Hierarch. Clique is often disappointing as both a threat and disruption, and I'd rather go to something stronger in more ways.

So tentatively, -2 Clique, -1 Sigarda, -1 Bird, -1 Retreat, +2 TNN, +1 Pridemage?, +1 Hierarch, +1 Stifle?/Waste?/Ponder?

[HSCK]

Titania! How about E Tutor?

[anwei]

Titania is probably a judgment call. I don't love that it can get StP'd with the trigger on the stack, and the card's role is "super resilient tutorable threat that ignores the graveyard", with emphasis on the resilient. EE/Maelstrom Pulse are also not super obscure.

I play 1 E Tutor as a toolbox, from the board, often. I would not want it as a combo tutor in this deck unless you were already really deep on other targets (very different deck).

[HSCK]

That sounds reasonable enough. I've always had Elspeth as a 1-of in my Bant 75s, not sure how high you are on that card though?

[anwei]

That sounds reasonable enough. I've always had Elspeth as a 1-of in my Bant 75s, not sure how high you are on that card though?

I like her lots, especially in Knight-heavy decks, but, I was close on the blue count so I liked having clunkier slots be blue (fow) when possible. Also, Jace is a more different angle, which I probably over value.

[mistercakes]

it might not be the worst idea to run a deathrite shaman over the 4th hierarch. not sure how important the exalted is, and it gives you a maindeck out to reanimator and possibly snapcaster (if you have out the retreat + fetch)

[TnA_Will]

watching this deck perform and seeing this thread is why I LOVE legacy!!! Congrats on the finish man and I agree with EVERY point you have about the naming conventions and the "creative " aspect of all of it! Long live Brave Sir Robin!

[ironclad8690]

Hey guys, not sure if this belongs here but what the heck.

X post from Maverick:

Going hard in the legacy daily event tonight:


1 Dryad Arbor
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Mother of Runes
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Scryb Ranger
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Rafiq of the Many

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Retreat to Coralhelm
2 Sylvan Library
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Karakas
3 Wasteland
1 Maze of Ith
1 Cavern of Souls

Sideboard:
3 Meddling Mage
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Containment Priest
2 Path to Exile
2 Armageddon
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Sword of Feast and Famine


I ended up 3-1 vs TES, Infect (loss), Grixis Delver, and Elves.

[wizard_of_gore]

Hey guys, not sure if this belongs here but what the heck.

X post from Maverick:

Going hard in the legacy daily event tonight:


1 Dryad Arbor
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Mother of Runes
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Scryb Ranger
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Rafiq of the Many

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Retreat to Coralhelm
2 Sylvan Library
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

4 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Karakas
3 Wasteland
1 Maze of Ith
1 Cavern of Souls

Sideboard:
3 Meddling Mage
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Containment Priest
2 Path to Exile
2 Armageddon
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Sword of Feast and Famine


I ended up 3-1 vs TES, Infect (loss), Grixis Delver, and Elves.

Deck looks fantastic with nobles, mother of runes, KOTRs and even stoneforge mystics as they work fine with retreat to coralhelm, However, i would find room for 1x horizon canopy and 1 more wasteland, and swap flooded strands with misty rainforests.

[anwei]

This looks awesome. Mother frees you to use steppe to dodge blockers, easing mana a lot, though I'd still worry about coming up short on damage in some situations.
I'd try to fit one more forest/plains, since 8:8, after drawing natural lands, leaves fetches stranded mid-combo if you need more lands. Though maybe cavern/waste/karakas/steppe/maze are all too important to cut.

How was Rafiq?
Was SFM worth it?
Is combo terrible?


Edit: From Maverick Thread:

Edit: I will explain some choices:

1) Rafiq: I just have the most fun playing this guy. You can win out of nowhere and sometimes 1 attack step is all it takes vs Miracles or something like that. The original Brave Sir Robin list ran Kessig Wolf Run, but I think with Mom in the deck you don't really need to worry about trample or a 4th color, just protect and win (you will have extra coralhelm untap triggers by the time your knight is lethal anyways, not to mention uncracked fetches in play, so using mom super proactively is not a problem with coralhelm).

2) Retreat to Coralhelm might be able to replace Sylvan Library. They are sort of in the same category, and scrying can be sometimes act as a replacement for drawing at the cost of life. Also, it might be nice to have 4 just for the combo factor.

3) Lack of Thalia: I am the least sure about this. I think she is actually a necessity, but I wanted to streamline the combo plan. This is too costly in a lot of matchups though.

4) Maverick instead of Bant Midrange: Meh, hatebears are way more effective vs combo than countermagic from my experience. I would rather resolve a hatebear than a force of will 9 times out of ten vs most combo decks anyways, and like Steve said FOW does have it's negative connotations in the fair matchups.

I am not sure what to do with the list, Rafiq actually came in really handy vs combo by speeding up my clock by basically a million, but I don't know if it is worth a slot.

Sejiri Steppe randomly got a creature through with a Jitte in the elves matchup, so there is some natural power there. It is pretty nice to have a literal instant win by untapping with knight and playing a coralhelm.

I've said this in a couple places, but it's certainly possible that Maverick is a better Retreat deck - Mom is real good and the counter-magic is usually not really how I fight against fair decks (which are often running Decay anyway, where Mom really shines, or I don't want too many FoW and Daze isn't great at beating their removal).

That said, Maverick already has a huge edge in many fair matches, and may not need the help of potentially-clunk cards. On the archetype "wheel", inserting a slowish combo into a midrange deck is a great way to crush the midrange decks, but Maverick already positions itself as one of the midrangey-est of the midrangey decks, which could use help against Terminus and combo, but doesn't really need to go over-the-top of fair decks. More controlling decks do need the help against midrange, which makes the combo stronger there.

[ironclad8690]

I think Mistys would definitely be better. Horizon canopy would be nice as would wasteland 4, but I have been a fan of cutting wasteland when you are trying to resolve expensive permanents like Coralhelm. I might try 4.

I ended up cutting a strand for a Plains.

Rafiq was actually a bomb by turning an otherwise negligible clock into something opponents had to worry about immediately, and I don't even need to mention how good he is with jitte/sword triggers/double lifelink batterskull in the dream scenarios. You would not think this guy would be good against combo, but traditional maverick lists have a tough time closing out the game quickly after landing a hateful creature. Depths Stage helped this a little bit, but both Rafiq and Retreat to Coralhelm really mitigate this weakness. Against some combo decks you will just get the nut Noble > Knight > Coralhelm draw and turn 3 them. This played a role in the elves matchup, which maverick otherwise struggles with.

Stoneforge mystic package was kind of thrown in because I needed a way to shore up aggressive creature matchups that attack mana like Delver. It is sort of the backup plan that can be utilizeed when short on mana, as you only really need a forest and a plains to get a batterskull in play. I will say, if you go for a cavern of souls > stoneforge line, please play a basic plains first so you can be using your land drops later to disrupt as well as put the equip into play. This cost me vs infect last night, where I had to choose between putting jitte into play and wastelanding them/maze of ith etc (only green from forest and colorless from cavern of souls, and I had the plains option all along).

I think the manabase could certainly use a little work, and it is quite possible cavern is unnecessary. I just wanted to hedge in the long games vs miracles where resolving humans is really important.

I think moving forward I will try to make some cuts for Thalia, because the game 1 vs combo is not really where you want it to be and that frees up a couple of sideboard slots.