There has been some debate over the naming conventions of Dominarian large cats. Internet, what is Aryel, Knight of Windgrace riding? A) WAR JAGUAR B) BATTLE PANTHER C) ASSAULT LEOPARD D) CARNAGE KITTEH The offical vote is on twitter: twitter.com/jumbocommander/status/994999334901985281
one of my friends made this deck, only he figured out a weird hack for swapping into control when needed with Haakon. changeling cards are considered knights, so cards like crib swap become reusable removal that doesn't stop since it doesn't exile itself when you cast it from the graveyard.
I think crib swap is really fun. I run it in my Horde of Notions deck but this seems like a better home for it if we can get Haakon going. I don't want to devote too much of my synergies around a single card ... but such an awesome card makes me think that all the trouble is worth it. GOOD STUFF!
I'm looking to build Aryel, and I'm basically playing Haakon as a hidden general. I'm running the likes of Entomb and a few other forms of search to grave effects specifically to get Haakon online. The synergy is so insanely good if it gets rolling. Throw in a reanimation package in case Haakon is hated out, and a discard package to serve double duty by getting him out of our hand. I think Aryel opens the game aggressively and needs to really start grinding for wins. She's rarely going to just overpower a player with aggro, we can't go wide and we can't go big, or at least at a rate comparable to other decks with those goals, so we're looking for recursive value engines to keep us in the game. This doesn't mean our creatures are weak, they're usually quite strong, but we need the engines to come online so we can just out value our opponents and allow our double striking pretties to attack. Aryel herself, Haakon, Planeswalkers (BW planeswalkers are AMAZING at grinding games), etc. Stick an Engine or two, and let it go to town. I'm very excited to build and play with Aryel, she seems incredibly fun to play.
It’s time to revisit the knight tribal theme in commander!! Soo many new knights! Also a new knight commander that is equipment and knights matters!! Please make a new video on the newer knights! Great video!
I don't think the knights you showed make a deck, that lacks identity. In fact, I think this versatility is exactly the identity of a deck like this. Think about it: almost all knights have something like vigilance and/or first strike. Vigilance lets them push the attack while allowing them to stay on the defense at the same time. First strike makes them effective when attacking and when blocking. I think the identity of knights isn't "aggressive" or "win slowly but steadily", but "being versatile and being able to adept to any situation. Which also is represented in the black/white color identity of many knights. Black and white are total opposites, attacking and blocking are opposites. Yet, knights seem to be able to do both.
I love the way you have of communicating your thought process. They way you present the informaction is so fun to follow. Recently i have been watching your videos and i'm definetly subscibing. I'm dying to build a Slimefoot deck after your video. It's power level fits right into my playgroup
Thank you. This is exactly what I'm trying to do so saying that you are liking it really means a lot. And I hope you crush your opponents under a flood of saprolings.
i appreciate that it's not necessarily a deck list but tech suggestions, also this video showed me GOAT RIDING KNIGHTS !! now there is a order of goat riding dwarf knights in me dnd campaign so thanks for that
finally someone who understands me, I have a commander deck of Aryel, and I've been trying to explain all this to my friends since I did it in April of last year!
Got this from a booster box and was waiting for your video on this. Love it. Josu Vess and Haakon (zombie tribe!!!) are must includes for me. Especially with the weird off-sacrifice theme that will passively follow this deck around. So happy to see them in here. There are a few knights that make you discard cards, and Marauding Knight + Stromgald Cabal are great opposites to Crusading Knight + Order of the Sacred Torch
I should have put Stromgald Cabal in the video as well. I have it in the list ... even though I think the art is far below my high standards for knights :)
Something you missed with Haakon, Jumbo, is that he says knight CARDS. Not creatures. This means he lets you cast stuff like Crib Swap and Nameless Inversion over and over again. Not to mention if you're looking to pitch him, there's things like that enchantment that lets you discard to make 1/1 Vampire Knights, that new sorcery Final Parting, Entomb, and Buried Alive. I built her last night and I'm waiting for the rest of the cards to come in the mail. She's not the best for knights, but she does work.
The onething I would probably avoid is color-specific hate. It's so awkward and almost feels like a dead card in hand unless you can either choose the color or have multiple color choices. Pentarch and the one riding the horse-rhino creature are really good choices; I would avoid the others unless you know your friends play those specific colors.
Knight of Obligation probably has my favourite art in all of Magic. I love that card, and have been waiting a long time to be able to reasonably play it in a deck ^^
GREAT VID! I was pretty anti Knight Tribal when I first saw they were a thing in Dominara. But then I went looking in my rare binders for the older ones and forgot about how much fun some of the older ones were. I think I'll be piling up a few cards and maybe put together a low budget knight tribal up soon!
I think mirror entity works swell here, 2/2s turn into 10/10 realll quick! Gotta love the flanking tho, I've always thought of it as a 'negative bushido'! PS: History of Benalia was my promo card and it worked so well in sealed! PSS: Arvad the Cursed looks strikingly familiar to Jamie Lannister in my opinion!
Awesome review, thanks for posting it! I pulled Aryel from a booster and immediately thought of the Knights vs Dragons duel deck I have. Your video highlights some of the best (the lords) cards from it, and I started building it almost immediately. Didn't know some of the cards that you've shown or looked at them too fast and dismissed them, so thanks for that too. Oh and you're right about History of Benalia. It's way too expensive and it's only played in standard right now. I expect it will drop to about $5. Perhaps even less.
Jumbo Commander Nah! The thought of using and abusing squee any which way possible to kill people sounds more hilarious. I am putting valduk in mine as part of the 99 though. Its gonna be a lot of equipment and auras I think still but with funny ways to abuse the fact that you can always count on squee to be there whether you need him or not haha
Jumbo Commander I just think valduk is a lot more linear than a squee deck would be since he relies on being enchanted or equipped. I'm gonna call my deck hot soup squee haha
I know a bit late but I had to look up how I would change the list to make it somewhat my own and that included adding my favorit Knight -Fiendslayer Paladin. Sure strong but also love the cape xD.
I've recently added On Serra's Wings to the deck (has lots of similarities with yours). Then sometimes I can use my Enlightened Tutor to fetch it and stick it to a non-legendary Knight so Arvad will boost it even more. I also run a lot of equipment cards, because knights on their own are kind of weak. They need swords, shields, lances etc. which Enlightened Tutor can fetch as well.
First time commenter, long time fan. So it's funny you bring this video up. I absolutely loved your deck tech on Elenda. I noticed very quickly that she was also a Knight and a great card to recur her is haakon also a Knight. So I went with a deck that's similar to this one but with the aristocrat engines from the Elenda video. I'm calling the deck Elenda's BOOgie knights.. I know it's a terrible pun. But thanks for all you do.
Thanks for commenting John. I really like this approach. It might even be better than forcing ourselves to play 2/2s for 2 just because they are knights. Good stuff
Jumbo Commander I'll definitely look into making a list and it actually has a huge legendary support so might even be able to run primeval return and urzas blast. 😁
I used to play a mono black knight deck - distorting lens puts in a lot of work with Eastern Paladin and Western Paladin. I'm sure Northern Paladin and Southern Paladin will be even stronger. Buried Alive works well Haakon, allowing you to grab two other creatures as a sort of toolbox package for whatever colour you want to hate on (Stromgald Cabal is also a Knight). Tortured Existence allows you to swap any knights in hand with the few non-knight creatures you run so you can reanimate anything. The changling cards crib swap and nameless inversion can also be replayed with Haakon so you can exile any creature on board and then kill the changeling the player gets. Finally Mirror Entity is a decent finisher but also can turn those vampire and soldier tokens into knights to take advantage of all the lords.
Although not a Knight....I like Angel of Glory's Rise in my Knight decks. Many of the Knights are Human you will often bring back multiple Knights with her. Its really nice if you can pull a handful of Knights + Knight Exemplar out of the yard at once.
It really does to me too. The old color hate, flanking, and the original iconic knights all the way from alpha. I really enjoyed looking at a history of knights.
Anointed procession may help with the whole "getting knight tokens onto the battlefield" issue. It's not ideal, but it does help that transition in the mid to late game.
He's good, but usually just relegated to defense due to no other real source of Infect synergy. Plus any source of Infect at a commander table, no matter how minor, tends to make you an instant target. It's not a fair thing, but it's a thing.
When I decided to build around Aryel I tried to get it to operate a little more closely around the commander. Puppet Strings, Roar of the Kha, Village Bell-Ringer. YOU FORGOT ABOUT WAYLAY! 2 and a white instant to create 3, 2/2 knights, they're exiled at the end of turn. Sudden Spoiling and some other responsive cards I find work really well with her. For $40nz I can beat decks 6x that price and still have a ton of fun!
When Wizards was making the Legends set, there was a plan to make cards based on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse but the plan got scraped. There was art for at least one of the horsemen (The Pale Rider, aka Death) and the art became the art for Lost Order of Jarkeld from Ice Age. And that card is a KNIGHT!!! I might have to build this deck with just because Lost Order is one of my favorite cards.
In doing research I looked at every knight and this one seemed old and underpowered ... but this history, the art, the corner case power of this knight might have me thinking differently. I'm so glad I know more about this Lost Order is supremely cool.
Haakon can be supported if you look a little harder. Call the Bloodline is a 1B cost enchantment with a discard mechanic that creates 1/1 vampire knights with lifelink for 1 colorless mana. Markov Dreadknight is a 3BB 3/3 vampire knight with a stupid expensive 2B cost discard that gets him two +1/+1 counters, but it discards Haakon and he's a flying knight. Cryptic Gateway is a 5 cost artifact that allows you to tap two creatures you control and put a creature from your hand into play that shares a creature type with them, subverting Haakon's text because you aren't casting him and allowing you to put him out as though he had flash.
I'm going to build this deck with a few differences like fiendslayer paladin and anointed procession to double up all those tokens and probably an Urzas Incubator.
I went with the Colors Matter subtheme in my deck by adding Eight-And-A-Half Tails, Scuttlemutt and Distorting Lens to manipulate colors to ones that my Knight either have protection from or can destroy. Eight-And-A-Half Tails and Stromgald Cabal together can basically counter any spell together, which is a good deal considering no Blue in the deck.
How about Entomb or Buried Alive to put Haakon in the graveyard? Patriarch's Bidding is a great addition to reanimate your knights and return to the offensive. Cover of Darkness also helps in the aggro plan, making your knights more evasive.
Looks fun, seems like a midrange deck or if you dont shy away from mld could be hyper aggressive with things like storm cauldron, armageddon, revenges of war ect.
Hey, Jumbo Commander, there's a criminally underappreciated Commander out of Dominaria that I would love to see your take on. I personally think that Tatyova, Benthic Druid has almost as much potential as Jhoira, and would love to see what you could create with her.
I think shes really good. The video I'm interested in making might not interest you. I want to make another budget deck with her. I think shes really good for beginners because she reinforces ramp and draw which will smooth out a game for a beginning player with out them noticing.
About the color hating strategy, there is a black enchantment that makes all creatures in the field black :P and another one that makes permanents white, this one i don't quite remember if it was like that or just made all your lands plains or something like that
Some people are mentioning Eight and a Half Tails to make spells/permanents white and then counter/killing them. I think this stuff sounds super-janky-fun-times.
There is also this weird old school orzhov enchantment that gives your black creatures protection from white and your white ones protection from black. I'm not sure if that's of any use in this strategy but might as well point it out xd
It's kinda funny, I have found amazing synergy with vampire knight tribal under Arvad the cursed. Tons of life gain opportunities and damage prevention. But throw in Lich's mastery with a Reliquary tower....jeebus. Black also has ways to make up for white's slow mana build up. So much flavor combining ixalan and dominaria with this theme, with a dash of Innastrad angels, can't go wrong.
I knew that there are people out there that will be frustrated by this. I think I can get over it but I also don't think I'll be adding any vampire token producers to my personal list.
If it helps, imagine you're a general for a giant Army. You can't have every soldier be Jamie Llanister, there's gotta be some nameless mooks along the way.
I do take suggestions. I have an ideas list that I add them to. The ideas list is massive now but you have a unique idea, great stuff, You have leveled up! oh, then you'd have to change your handle ... and... I don't ... just kidding ... forever a noob!
I'm happy with a vampires and knights having overlap. Then again, I do have a Game of Thrones themed EDH deck focusing on House Lannister. Edgar is my commander because he is similar in appearance and character to Tywin Lannister. Queen Marchesa is a secondary commander because she is essentially Cersei.
I'm a huge fan of capitalism on the idea of the color hating pairs of knights for this deck, one particularly spicy addition that isn't mentioned here that I thought fit incredibly well into the deck as well as being super flavorful is Righteous War, which functionally makes all of your knights into the color pair knights, as well as protecting them from some of the most effective spot creature removal spells.
Knight tribal! Hell yeah! Super excited to see what you do with Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive if you end up building her. Seems like a fun card, but I can't seem to find a cohesive deck to build around her.
Tetsuko is difficult. I found a small core of cards that feel really cool but then about half the deck doesn't synergize as well as I would like and I'm having trouble finding a way to close out the game. I'll keep working on this one.
Yeah, I agree with all of the above. It's really a shame she isn't Dimir colors, im sure there are a load of rogue cards from gatecrash that have one power that would love this ability, and it would work with the cipher mechanic!
It makes me sad sometimes that Mirror Entity is so good. It's among the best knights, kithkin, dwarves .... it's especially good here because we will have incidental soldiers that can suddenly become KNIGHTS! I made room in the decklist. cheers
I like Cathars' Crusade more than Door of Destinies, because you don't lose the value if it gets destroyed and there is a bunch of knights in its' picture.
I think whereas I do like Aryel, I don't think I'm tempted by making Knights until there is either an Abzan or Mardu coloured Legendary Knight or some combination of Partners that do it for me.
Get rid of it. It might jump around but it is a standard card (not for eternal formate) Dominaria is a popular set, it will be opened, prices will drop, this card might support more of the share of the price of a box as MANY other cards become truly bulk.
The two pieces of art off of the Dominaria knights were designed to go together but they ended up being too long to fit properly so I jammed them closer and did some editing. Magic card art does NOT fit on youtube very well so I often find myself digitally painting a little more background here or there so we can experience the art uncropped and undistorted.
you know, when you think about it, Flavor-wise it makes sense that Knights are both an aggro deck and a defensive deck. you're relying on your swords and shields. Also, card suggestions; Kabira Vindicator, 3w 2/4 with Level-Up 2w, at level 2 he's a 3/6 anthem, at 5+ he's a 4/8 double anthem, so he's a nice way to buff up the board Blade of Selves, honestly surprised you didn't a include this with your deck tech since it works with lords so well, it can make Knight Exemplar able to swing since the tokens will be making Exemplar Indestructible as well. it also makes Cavalry Master give an extra Flanking for each opponent so if token decks were worried about blocking before, how are they gonna fight into "blocking creatures get -3/-3"? And since you're running Blade of Selves, might as well look into Elesh Norn right? Also, you might as well get Monarch into play and use Knights of the Black Rose, since it's a nice way to draw cards without having to pay extra mana or life. Since you're playing a creature heavy deck you can still contest the crown even if you lose it. Riftmarked Knight is great since it also comes with it's black w/ pro W & flanking counterpart if you Suspended it. while Stillmoon Cavalier is both of them fused into one white/black pro W/B with 3 actives. if you want to run Order of the Sacred Torch, Stromgald Cabal is it's mirrored counterpart with tap pay 1 life: counter target white spell. that way NOBODY gets to have fun.
Cavalry (what a lot of the knights are) is designed to be a mobile shock force. Their forward charge and continued attack with war horses are a huge part of their success as a military force. I guess a dismounted knight would be very immobile and rely on their shield to have a more measured and vigilant/defensive attack. This furthers my resolve that knights are a confusing tribe! Great suggestions!
It is in the list .... but then I JUST cut him to move knights around. I'm not as drawn to him as other knights. He looks SO COOL but I can't not see him holding a lightsaber and that kinda ruins his awesome armor for me.
The second I saw the thumbnail for knight tribal, my first thought went to Haakon. He's one of my most favourite knights, even with the weird casting clause. One card I thought about that I saw wasn't in the deck was Kindred Dominance. It's a pretty good board wipe for knights.
I really love Haakon ... I just don't know if I have enough pieces to properly enable him. He's so good we need to all think of ways to get him in the deck. Also, kindred dominance is really solid. Good stuff.
Let me count ... no, I have under 10 in the list so the procession doesn't do enough IMO ... but that doesn't mean you can't make a list that takes better advantage of it. Knight tokens could be a fun strategy.
“It’s also riding a goat, which means it’s an auto include!”😂😂 ...... When are you go(at)ing to make a Goat Tribal deck for us, I am sure the world would be a happier place, if you could play goat tribal in Commander!😉
We need more goat support WOTC! We will return to Lorwyn because I think that was a pretty popular set and once we do MORE KITHKIN AND THIER GOAT FRIENDS!
I checked the list and I have less than 10 token makers. So it doesn't reach the utility threshold for that list but you can totally go a little heavier on tokens. Sounds fun.
It's timely that you talk about the deck having a sort of bipolar identity, with the weird mix of aggro and durdle knights and all. My experience with the Edgar Markov vampire tribal deck, even after heavily editing the list, is that it too had a very weird dichotomy between the control and aggro portions of the deck. But the weird thing, to me, was that it turned out, 95% of the time you really wanted to play the control game early, only committing to the board the minimal amount needed to be in the game. Let everyone else develop a bit, play a Barter in Blood or Damnation early, set everyone back a bit. Then commit just enough to your board to make everyone else feel comfortable starting to rebuild from your last board clear... THEN WIPE THE BOARD AGAIN. Basically you just try to efficiently answer things until everyone really starts to get low on resources, THEN you begin to go aggro and build up an army of vampires. The games where your draws sort of force you just just go aggro right out of the gate, you hardly ever win those. I feel like with the mix of odd-ball knights and the identity crisis you describe in your video an Aryel deck will have the same basic feel to it. In short you PROBABLY want to try and build for a very heavily controlling early game to attrition everyone down on resources, then have a more aggressive, beatdown-focused late game. And, being in W/B you probably need to put a LOT of emphasis on card advantage as well. Orzhov ain't the best at pure card draw, so you also have to rely on things like getting max-value out of a Barter in Blood, for instance. If you can get 5 or 6 of your opponents' real, actual creatures while only sac'ing a couple of soldier or knight tokens yourself, you're up on cards at that point. If you can follow that up with a high value Damnation or Toxic Deluge after 2 or 3 turns of everyone rebuilding, you should be miles ahead at that point. Of course, your opponents may be a bit gunshy after a time or two, and be very hesitant to extend their own hand into your sweepers... so my last point is that, even though I consider it to usually be a pretty terrible mechanic in EDH, DISCARD is actually really good here! Of course you want multi-player friendly discard only, no Duresses or Hymns to Tourach here. Syphon Mind, Unnerve and anything else that hits multiple players at once - those are what you want. Because sooner or later - probably sooner if your opponents are savvy players - they WILL start sandbagging threats, and if they are REALLY savvy they'll sandbag a wrath or two for when you do switch to your offensive plan. That can be bad for you. Once you get them low on cards, you can just hit 'em all with an unnerve or two, and then be safe to go on the attack. Or, you can hit 'em with just a dab of discard early on to put the fear of losing their hands to try and goad them into playing out their hand as fast as possible so as not to lose their bombs to further salvos of hand-destruction. Then you really get 'em good with the sweepers!
There has been some debate over the naming conventions of Dominarian large cats. Internet, what is Aryel, Knight of Windgrace riding?
A) WAR JAGUAR
B) BATTLE PANTHER
C) ASSAULT LEOPARD
D) CARNAGE KITTEH
The offical vote is on twitter: twitter.com/jumbocommander/status/994999334901985281
Technically, all leopards and all leopards are panthers, and all panthers are cats (kitties). SO, her mount is either A, B, and D, xor B, C, and D.
Play entomb and buried alive to get cards to your grave
Panther
It is an ARCHON goddamit
Love the deck tech. Aryel is definitely riding a Battle Panther.
By far the best deck tech videos out there!
Love your enthusiasm and the fun casual way you build decks
Keep it up man! and thank you
Your comment will propel me through my workday and into the weekend.
agreed, great vids. i love the enviorment ! and awesome fans :P
one of my friends made this deck, only he figured out a weird hack for swapping into control when needed with Haakon. changeling cards are considered knights, so cards like crib swap become reusable removal that doesn't stop since it doesn't exile itself when you cast it from the graveyard.
I hate your friend xD
Agreed, this is exactly what I did, and I also threw in Nameless Inversion, for the same reasons.
I think crib swap is really fun. I run it in my Horde of Notions deck but this seems like a better home for it if we can get Haakon going. I don't want to devote too much of my synergies around a single card ... but such an awesome card makes me think that all the trouble is worth it. GOOD STUFF!
Yeah my friend has a Mardu Knights deck and the crib swap/Haakon combo was really useful.
I'm looking to build Aryel, and I'm basically playing Haakon as a hidden general. I'm running the likes of Entomb and a few other forms of search to grave effects specifically to get Haakon online. The synergy is so insanely good if it gets rolling. Throw in a reanimation package in case Haakon is hated out, and a discard package to serve double duty by getting him out of our hand.
I think Aryel opens the game aggressively and needs to really start grinding for wins. She's rarely going to just overpower a player with aggro, we can't go wide and we can't go big, or at least at a rate comparable to other decks with those goals, so we're looking for recursive value engines to keep us in the game. This doesn't mean our creatures are weak, they're usually quite strong, but we need the engines to come online so we can just out value our opponents and allow our double striking pretties to attack. Aryel herself, Haakon, Planeswalkers (BW planeswalkers are AMAZING at grinding games), etc.
Stick an Engine or two, and let it go to town. I'm very excited to build and play with Aryel, she seems incredibly fun to play.
It’s time to revisit the knight tribal theme in commander!! Soo many new knights! Also a new knight commander that is equipment and knights matters!! Please make a new video on the newer knights! Great video!
I don't think the knights you showed make a deck, that lacks identity. In fact, I think this versatility is exactly the identity of a deck like this.
Think about it: almost all knights have something like vigilance and/or first strike. Vigilance lets them push the attack while allowing them to stay on the defense at the same time. First strike makes them effective when attacking and when blocking. I think the identity of knights isn't "aggressive" or "win slowly but steadily", but "being versatile and being able to adept to any situation. Which also is represented in the black/white color identity of many knights. Black and white are total opposites, attacking and blocking are opposites. Yet, knights seem to be able to do both.
Excellent analysis!
I made it and it works great. When ever its neccessary it can swing from aggressive to controlling whenever you want
There are so many creatures in this deck tech that I never realised were knights! Fantastic video!
I love the way you have of communicating your thought process. They way you present the informaction is so fun to follow. Recently i have been watching your videos and i'm definetly subscibing. I'm dying to build a Slimefoot deck after your video. It's power level fits right into my playgroup
Thank you. This is exactly what I'm trying to do so saying that you are liking it really means a lot. And I hope you crush your opponents under a flood of saprolings.
Another good tech dj, thanks for doing what you do! Thanks for the assist with our Kess deck as well :)
I hope it's working out. I have had a few more people ask me about Kess. I think she's really tricky.
i appreciate that it's not necessarily a deck list but tech suggestions, also this video showed me GOAT RIDING KNIGHTS !! now there is a order of goat riding dwarf knights in me dnd campaign so thanks for that
finally someone who understands me, I have a commander deck of Aryel, and I've been trying to explain all this to my friends since I did it in April of last year!
I just built this deck. Very good. Some knights are hard to choose because they're soo many good ones
Got this from a booster box and was waiting for your video on this. Love it. Josu Vess and Haakon (zombie tribe!!!) are must includes for me. Especially with the weird off-sacrifice theme that will passively follow this deck around. So happy to see them in here. There are a few knights that make you discard cards, and Marauding Knight + Stromgald Cabal are great opposites to Crusading Knight + Order of the Sacred Torch
I should have put Stromgald Cabal in the video as well. I have it in the list ... even though I think the art is far below my high standards for knights :)
Something you missed with Haakon, Jumbo, is that he says knight CARDS. Not creatures.
This means he lets you cast stuff like Crib Swap and Nameless Inversion over and over again. Not to mention if you're looking to pitch him, there's things like that enchantment that lets you discard to make 1/1 Vampire Knights, that new sorcery Final Parting, Entomb, and Buried Alive.
I built her last night and I'm waiting for the rest of the cards to come in the mail. She's not the best for knights, but she does work.
I love that crib swap trick! I have it in my Horde of Notions deck and I think you found a better home for it here!
You kidding me? I love me a good Flank Roast Deck! I've been wanting a Knight tribal deck.
Also, what about "Knight of the White Orchid"? It's great on turn three because it can get you an extra land out of the deal.
The onething I would probably avoid is color-specific hate. It's so awkward and almost feels like a dead card in hand unless you can either choose the color or have multiple color choices. Pentarch and the one riding the horse-rhino creature are really good choices; I would avoid the others unless you know your friends play those specific colors.
Knight of Obligation probably has my favourite art in all of Magic. I love that card, and have been waiting a long time to be able to reasonably play it in a deck ^^
I am so with you. The details are so amazing. I also really like extort but like you said it's just out of playability ... until now :)
I've been so excited for this commander for so long!!! Thank you!
GREAT VID! I was pretty anti Knight Tribal when I first saw they were a thing in Dominara. But then I went looking in my rare binders for the older ones and forgot about how much fun some of the older ones were. I think I'll be piling up a few cards and maybe put together a low budget knight tribal up soon!
I think mirror entity works swell here, 2/2s turn into 10/10 realll quick! Gotta love the flanking tho, I've always thought of it as a 'negative bushido'!
PS: History of Benalia was my promo card and it worked so well in sealed!
PSS: Arvad the Cursed looks strikingly familiar to Jamie Lannister in my opinion!
Would love to see you build a queen marchesa knight deck. Thats what im building and need help with it.
I have been waiting for this. I have been waiting for your particular brand of jank.
The True knight commander we've all been waiting for !
Yep, gonna try to make a tribal list on this as well.
Good job my dude, i think I'm gonna do a version on this deck. Thanks for the idea.
Awesome review, thanks for posting it!
I pulled Aryel from a booster and immediately thought of the Knights vs Dragons duel deck I have. Your video highlights some of the best (the lords) cards from it, and I started building it almost immediately.
Didn't know some of the cards that you've shown or looked at them too fast and dismissed them, so thanks for that too.
Oh and you're right about History of Benalia. It's way too expensive and it's only played in standard right now. I expect it will drop to about $5. Perhaps even less.
Angel Knight Tribal...that would be cool deck.
I'm playing a Mardu Knight Angels deck in standard and it's working amazingly well.
I came here to see about building it in EDH for my 1st EDH deck.
I got a fever.... and the only prescription is Squee voltron!!!!
Nathaniel Keller make it yourself. It doesn't seem complex
Brandon Butterfield I am but its fun to see someone elses spin on it. Thats the whole point of this channel.
How about Valduk instead?
Jumbo Commander Nah! The thought of using and abusing squee any which way possible to kill people sounds more hilarious. I am putting valduk in mine as part of the 99 though. Its gonna be a lot of equipment and auras I think still but with funny ways to abuse the fact that you can always count on squee to be there whether you need him or not haha
Jumbo Commander I just think valduk is a lot more linear than a squee deck would be since he relies on being enchanted or equipped. I'm gonna call my deck hot soup squee haha
I love it great deck Tec and also totally agree knights with their art are definitly great.
I even left out my favorite knight art - Kjeldoran Knight
They all look so GOOD.
I know a bit late but I had to look up how I would change the list to make it somewhat my own and that included adding my favorit Knight -Fiendslayer Paladin. Sure strong but also love the cape xD.
I've recently added On Serra's Wings to the deck (has lots of similarities with yours). Then sometimes I can use my Enlightened Tutor to fetch it and stick it to a non-legendary Knight so Arvad will boost it even more. I also run a lot of equipment cards, because knights on their own are kind of weak. They need swords, shields, lances etc. which Enlightened Tutor can fetch as well.
Great video. I might consider Odric Lunarch Marshall, even though he isn't a knight. Just for tricking out the knights at combat
There is someone in my playgroup who played Urborg/Crusading Knight in their mono-white deck, and it definitely won a few games lol.
Been waiting for this to come along!
im so happy for this video! ive been thinking about this
Another absolutely amazing vid!
First time commenter, long time fan. So it's funny you bring this video up. I absolutely loved your deck tech on Elenda. I noticed very quickly that she was also a Knight and a great card to recur her is haakon also a Knight. So I went with a deck that's similar to this one but with the aristocrat engines from the Elenda video. I'm calling the deck Elenda's BOOgie knights.. I know it's a terrible pun. But thanks for all you do.
Thanks for commenting John. I really like this approach. It might even be better than forcing ourselves to play 2/2s for 2 just because they are knights. Good stuff
Jumbo Commander I'll definitely look into making a list and it actually has a huge legendary support so might even be able to run primeval return and urzas blast. 😁
I used to play a mono black knight deck - distorting lens puts in a lot of work with Eastern Paladin and Western Paladin. I'm sure Northern Paladin and Southern Paladin will be even stronger.
Buried Alive works well Haakon, allowing you to grab two other creatures as a sort of toolbox package for whatever colour you want to hate on (Stromgald Cabal is also a Knight).
Tortured Existence allows you to swap any knights in hand with the few non-knight creatures you run so you can reanimate anything.
The changling cards crib swap and nameless inversion can also be replayed with Haakon so you can exile any creature on board and then kill the changeling the player gets.
Finally Mirror Entity is a decent finisher but also can turn those vampire and soldier tokens into knights to take advantage of all the lords.
Distortion Lens is so much fun when you play all the color hate knights.
THIS WAS AN AWESOME VIDEO
Although not a Knight....I like Angel of Glory's Rise in my Knight decks. Many of the Knights are Human you will often bring back multiple Knights with her. Its really nice if you can pull a handful of Knights + Knight Exemplar out of the yard at once.
I really love the art and theme of this deck. Going to build one for sure! I won't even feel bad about losing. :-)
I LOVE the art ... did I mention that in the video? ;)
This deck feels really nostalgic
It really does to me too. The old color hate, flanking, and the original iconic knights all the way from alpha. I really enjoyed looking at a history of knights.
Anointed procession may help with the whole "getting knight tokens onto the battlefield" issue. It's not ideal, but it does help that transition in the mid to late game.
Phyrexian Crusader is also a great knight creature
He's good, but usually just relegated to defense due to no other real source of Infect synergy. Plus any source of Infect at a commander table, no matter how minor, tends to make you an instant target. It's not a fair thing, but it's a thing.
When I decided to build around Aryel I tried to get it to operate a little more closely around the commander. Puppet Strings, Roar of the Kha, Village Bell-Ringer. YOU FORGOT ABOUT WAYLAY! 2 and a white instant to create 3, 2/2 knights, they're exiled at the end of turn. Sudden Spoiling and some other responsive cards I find work really well with her. For $40nz I can beat decks 6x that price and still have a ton of fun!
When Wizards was making the Legends set, there was a plan to make cards based on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse but the plan got scraped. There was art for at least one of the horsemen (The Pale Rider, aka Death) and the art became the art for Lost Order of Jarkeld from Ice Age. And that card is a KNIGHT!!! I might have to build this deck with just because Lost Order is one of my favorite cards.
In doing research I looked at every knight and this one seemed old and underpowered ... but this history, the art, the corner case power of this knight might have me thinking differently. I'm so glad I know more about this Lost Order is supremely cool.
Haakon can be supported if you look a little harder.
Call the Bloodline is a 1B cost enchantment with a discard mechanic that creates 1/1 vampire knights with lifelink for 1 colorless mana.
Markov Dreadknight is a 3BB 3/3 vampire knight with a stupid expensive 2B cost discard that gets him two +1/+1 counters, but it discards Haakon and he's a flying knight.
Cryptic Gateway is a 5 cost artifact that allows you to tap two creatures you control and put a creature from your hand into play that shares a creature type with them, subverting Haakon's text because you aren't casting him and allowing you to put him out as though he had flash.
Great tech! Thanks!
Blanket of Night is another Urborg, also Cover of Darkness is a great tribal evasion enchantment.
I'm going to build this deck with a few differences like fiendslayer paladin and anointed procession to double up all those tokens and probably an Urzas Incubator.
I went with the Colors Matter subtheme in my deck by adding Eight-And-A-Half Tails, Scuttlemutt and Distorting Lens to manipulate colors to ones that my Knight either have protection from or can destroy. Eight-And-A-Half Tails and Stromgald Cabal together can basically counter any spell together, which is a good deal considering no Blue in the deck.
Really fun idea. I didn't think of Tails' strong synergy. Really cool.
haakon + entomb really bothered me that you didn't mention that synergy
How about Entomb or Buried Alive to put Haakon in the graveyard? Patriarch's Bidding is a great addition to reanimate your knights and return to the offensive. Cover of Darkness also helps in the aggro plan, making your knights more evasive.
Ive been teying to build a great knight deck for a while now. The trbe has so much potential but its so hard unless you play control or esper.
Looks fun, seems like a midrange deck or if you dont shy away from mld could be hyper aggressive with things like storm cauldron, armageddon, revenges of war ect.
Coat of Arms is frigging great.
I know it's not a knight, but I'm definitely running deathbringer liege for so much value
Hey, Jumbo Commander, there's a criminally underappreciated Commander out of Dominaria that I would love to see your take on. I personally think that Tatyova, Benthic Druid has almost as much potential as Jhoira, and would love to see what you could create with her.
I think shes really good. The video I'm interested in making might not interest you. I want to make another budget deck with her. I think shes really good for beginners because she reinforces ramp and draw which will smooth out a game for a beginning player with out them noticing.
I just started building my knight deck
So far I just ordered a bunch of knights and looking to tweak it to what I want. I'm adding a removal package as well
About the color hating strategy, there is a black enchantment that makes all creatures in the field black :P and another one that makes permanents white, this one i don't quite remember if it was like that or just made all your lands plains or something like that
Some people are mentioning Eight and a Half Tails to make spells/permanents white and then counter/killing them. I think this stuff sounds super-janky-fun-times.
There is also this weird old school orzhov enchantment that gives your black creatures protection from white and your white ones protection from black. I'm not sure if that's of any use in this strategy but might as well point it out xd
It's kinda funny, I have found amazing synergy with vampire knight tribal under Arvad the cursed. Tons of life gain opportunities and damage prevention. But throw in Lich's mastery with a Reliquary tower....jeebus. Black also has ways to make up for white's slow mana build up.
So much flavor combining ixalan and dominaria with this theme, with a dash of Innastrad angels, can't go wrong.
I like the Lich's Mastery angle ... spicy.
Just be careful, you can accidentally mill yourself easily. Have a good number of recovery spells to play your graveyard if you gotta discard.
Was trying to make knight tribal and was so angry that soldiers and knights were in the mix, personally i dont play anything that isnt a knight
I knew that there are people out there that will be frustrated by this. I think I can get over it but I also don't think I'll be adding any vampire token producers to my personal list.
If it helps, imagine you're a general for a giant Army. You can't have every soldier be Jamie Llanister, there's gotta be some nameless mooks along the way.
If you take suggestions I'd like to see dimir rogue tribal. Seems like it would be fun but what do know I'm a noob. lol
I do take suggestions. I have an ideas list that I add them to. The ideas list is massive now but you have a unique idea, great stuff, You have leveled up! oh, then you'd have to change your handle ... and... I don't ... just kidding ... forever a noob!
I would love to see you play these decks on mtg online.
what card is used as the background at 23:36?
My take on her ended up being tons of spot removal, knight generators, and populate.
Im building this with Aryel for brawl then might swing with this for commander
Good job on video
First like and comment thanks Jumbo Commander for the videos! You’re doing an awesome job!
I'm happy with a vampires and knights having overlap. Then again, I do have a Game of Thrones themed EDH deck focusing on House Lannister. Edgar is my commander because he is similar in appearance and character to Tywin Lannister. Queen Marchesa is a secondary commander because she is essentially Cersei.
BUT ... WHO ... IS ... TYRION?
Jumbo Commander Sram, Senior Edificer. He is a dwarf advisor. I looked at the imps but there just weren't any that did Tyrion justice.
I'm a huge fan of capitalism on the idea of the color hating pairs of knights for this deck, one particularly spicy addition that isn't mentioned here that I thought fit incredibly well into the deck as well as being super flavorful is Righteous War, which functionally makes all of your knights into the color pair knights, as well as protecting them from some of the most effective spot creature removal spells.
I love knights as much as you 😍😄
7:49 “Knight of Meadowgrain is riding a goat so it’s an auto-include” my guy, that’s a chicken cross-bred with a bipedal ram
Umm... Skelitor just called, he wants his pet, Panthor back. :D
looks like a lot of things encourage attacking, and have ways to protect knights from dying n combat. there is also a sub-theme of removal.
Curious why Warrior en-Kor (Summon Knight) doesn't show up on anyone's knight lists. Any thoughts?
Knight tribal! Hell yeah! Super excited to see what you do with Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive if you end up building her. Seems like a fun card, but I can't seem to find a cohesive deck to build around her.
Fox i tried to make a deck but it didnt work out
i think shes more of an edric include then her own commander
Tetsuko is difficult. I found a small core of cards that feel really cool but then about half the deck doesn't synergize as well as I would like and I'm having trouble finding a way to close out the game. I'll keep working on this one.
Yeah, I agree with all of the above. It's really a shame she isn't Dimir colors, im sure there are a load of rogue cards from gatecrash that have one power that would love this ability, and it would work with the cipher mechanic!
Fox yeah and some cards like guilt feeder
I am seeing a lot of tokens in this too so also anointed procession? Lol
also maybe carathrs crusade?
Do you have a EDH version for Sir Gwyn?
Jumbo you're missing crusaders alter ego in phyrexian crusader..as for a cool land if ya don't want cabal coffers, why not use cabal stronghold?
I like Call the Bloodline to dump Hakkon into the yard.
Going to build a deck like it with Knight s
I think this deck has a ying yang subtheme with these diffrents styles on the knights
Gotta include mirror entity, pump those knights up to obscene amounts
It makes me sad sometimes that Mirror Entity is so good. It's among the best knights, kithkin, dwarves .... it's especially good here because we will have incidental soldiers that can suddenly become KNIGHTS! I made room in the decklist. cheers
This WB deck is looking pretty W ;)
It is. Makes me worried about playing the BB of Black Knight. But it's okay I always draw perfect mana.
Amazing
I like Cathars' Crusade more than Door of Destinies, because you don't lose the value if it gets destroyed and there is a bunch of knights in its' picture.
I totally agree. I know it's silly but I didn't realize how PERFECT the art on Cathar's Crusade is. Thank you
I think whereas I do like Aryel, I don't think I'm tempted by making Knights until there is either an Abzan or Mardu coloured Legendary Knight or some combination of Partners that do it for me.
Archetype of Courage? He's a soldier but this seems like the deck that wants the whole squad to have first strike. Especially with Kwende.
Archetype of courage is just a great card he could easily find a home here.
OK so I have a history of benalia right now, should I trade it in for store value and then get some other stuff I need, or what?
Get rid of it. It might jump around but it is a standard card (not for eternal formate) Dominaria is a popular set, it will be opened, prices will drop, this card might support more of the share of the price of a box as MANY other cards become truly bulk.
Jumbo where did you find the picture for your thumbnail?
The two pieces of art off of the Dominaria knights were designed to go together but they ended up being too long to fit properly so I jammed them closer and did some editing. Magic card art does NOT fit on youtube very well so I often find myself digitally painting a little more background here or there so we can experience the art uncropped and undistorted.
Jumbo Commander nice, you really put a lot of effort into your videos, it doesn't go unnoticed :)
you know, when you think about it, Flavor-wise it makes sense that Knights are both an aggro deck and a defensive deck. you're relying on your swords and shields.
Also, card suggestions;
Kabira Vindicator, 3w 2/4 with Level-Up 2w, at level 2 he's a 3/6 anthem, at 5+ he's a 4/8 double anthem, so he's a nice way to buff up the board
Blade of Selves, honestly surprised you didn't a include this with your deck tech since it works with lords so well, it can make Knight Exemplar able to swing since the tokens will be making Exemplar Indestructible as well. it also makes Cavalry Master give an extra Flanking for each opponent so if token decks were worried about blocking before, how are they gonna fight into "blocking creatures get -3/-3"? And since you're running Blade of Selves, might as well look into Elesh Norn right?
Also, you might as well get Monarch into play and use Knights of the Black Rose, since it's a nice way to draw cards without having to pay extra mana or life. Since you're playing a creature heavy deck you can still contest the crown even if you lose it.
Riftmarked Knight is great since it also comes with it's black w/ pro W & flanking counterpart if you Suspended it. while Stillmoon Cavalier is both of them fused into one white/black pro W/B with 3 actives.
if you want to run Order of the Sacred Torch, Stromgald Cabal is it's mirrored counterpart with tap pay 1 life: counter target white spell. that way NOBODY gets to have fun.
Cavalry (what a lot of the knights are) is designed to be a mobile shock force. Their forward charge and continued attack with war horses are a huge part of their success as a military force. I guess a dismounted knight would be very immobile and rely on their shield to have a more measured and vigilant/defensive attack. This furthers my resolve that knights are a confusing tribe!
Great suggestions!
How did you not mention fiendslayer paladin?! The knight with the most epic battle stance in all of Magic?!
It is in the list .... but then I JUST cut him to move knights around. I'm not as drawn to him as other knights. He looks SO COOL but I can't not see him holding a lightsaber and that kinda ruins his awesome armor for me.
Jumbo Commander lol, great, now you've ruined his image for me, too! "Lightsaber Paladin"... can't be unseen...
The second I saw the thumbnail for knight tribal, my first thought went to Haakon. He's one of my most favourite knights, even with the weird casting clause. One card I thought about that I saw wasn't in the deck was Kindred Dominance. It's a pretty good board wipe for knights.
I really love Haakon ... I just don't know if I have enough pieces to properly enable him. He's so good we need to all think of ways to get him in the deck. Also, kindred dominance is really solid. Good stuff.
Gonna try this out amongst my victims, uh, i mean friends. Will give credit to yoir channel of course.
No need to credit. This video can help you brainstorm your own build that you can crush your prey ... I mean play ... playgroup.
Ah, gotcha XD thanks Jumbo
Do you have infinite combos?
no northern eastern southern Western paladin?!
Thomas Omstead yeah I know none of the deck techs I've watched have played any of them. Also Pentarch Paladin.
Did you not watch all the way through? Those were the last 4 cards mentioned
With all those token generators why do you not have anointed procession in there?
Let me count ... no, I have under 10 in the list so the procession doesn't do enough IMO ... but that doesn't mean you can't make a list that takes better advantage of it. Knight tokens could be a fun strategy.
Knights EDH protec but also it attac.
“It’s also riding a goat, which means it’s an auto include!”😂😂
...... When are you go(at)ing to make a Goat Tribal deck for us, I am sure the world would be a happier place, if you could play goat tribal in Commander!😉
We need more goat support WOTC! We will return to Lorwyn because I think that was a pretty popular set and once we do MORE KITHKIN AND THIER GOAT FRIENDS!
I'm surprised there wasn't an annointed procession thrown in for good measure with the amount of token makers.
I checked the list and I have less than 10 token makers. So it doesn't reach the utility threshold for that list but you can totally go a little heavier on tokens. Sounds fun.
Oh wow my bad, suppose there just felt like more haha. Awesome vid though!
It's timely that you talk about the deck having a sort of bipolar identity, with the weird mix of aggro and durdle knights and all. My experience with the Edgar Markov vampire tribal deck, even after heavily editing the list, is that it too had a very weird dichotomy between the control and aggro portions of the deck.
But the weird thing, to me, was that it turned out, 95% of the time you really wanted to play the control game early, only committing to the board the minimal amount needed to be in the game. Let everyone else develop a bit, play a Barter in Blood or Damnation early, set everyone back a bit. Then commit just enough to your board to make everyone else feel comfortable starting to rebuild from your last board clear... THEN WIPE THE BOARD AGAIN.
Basically you just try to efficiently answer things until everyone really starts to get low on resources, THEN you begin to go aggro and build up an army of vampires.
The games where your draws sort of force you just just go aggro right out of the gate, you hardly ever win those. I feel like with the mix of odd-ball knights and the identity crisis you describe in your video an Aryel deck will have the same basic feel to it. In short you PROBABLY want to try and build for a very heavily controlling early game to attrition everyone down on resources, then have a more aggressive, beatdown-focused late game. And, being in W/B you probably need to put a LOT of emphasis on card advantage as well. Orzhov ain't the best at pure card draw, so you also have to rely on things like getting max-value out of a Barter in Blood, for instance. If you can get 5 or 6 of your opponents' real, actual creatures while only sac'ing a couple of soldier or knight tokens yourself, you're up on cards at that point. If you can follow that up with a high value Damnation or Toxic Deluge after 2 or 3 turns of everyone rebuilding, you should be miles ahead at that point.
Of course, your opponents may be a bit gunshy after a time or two, and be very hesitant to extend their own hand into your sweepers... so my last point is that, even though I consider it to usually be a pretty terrible mechanic in EDH, DISCARD is actually really good here! Of course you want multi-player friendly discard only, no Duresses or Hymns to Tourach here.
Syphon Mind, Unnerve and anything else that hits multiple players at once - those are what you want. Because sooner or later - probably sooner if your opponents are savvy players - they WILL start sandbagging threats, and if they are REALLY savvy they'll sandbag a wrath or two for when you do switch to your offensive plan. That can be bad for you. Once you get them low on cards, you can just hit 'em all with an unnerve or two, and then be safe to go on the attack.
Or, you can hit 'em with just a dab of discard early on to put the fear of losing their hands to try and goad them into playing out their hand as fast as possible so as not to lose their bombs to further salvos of hand-destruction. Then you really get 'em good with the sweepers!
HELL YES