Another variation of midrange junk with Knight of the Reliquary. The goal is too Control the early game with hand disruption and removal, then play some resilient creatures like Lingering Souls and Kitchen Finks and finish them off with some Siege Rhinos or your Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Knight of the Reliquary (KOTR) is central to you mid and late game, as she can be anywhere from a 4/4 to an 8/8 if you have been using her ability, cracking fetches, or discarding lands from your hand with Collective Brutality or Geier Reach Sanitarium. Furthermore, KOTR can get utility lands key to winning the game, such as Gavony Township, Vault of the Archangel, Sejiri Steppe, or just a
Shambling Vent
or a
Stirring Wildwood
if you are low on creatures.
A good starting hand has either hand disruption, removal, or both (with Collective Brutality you get both in one card!). Also one or two creatures to either play early and put pressure on you opponent, or to drop and stabilize versus aggro decks while you try to draw answers. The removal in this deck covers almost any card type, from lands(Ghost Quarter), to pretty much anything else(Abrupt Decay, Qasali Pridemage, Path to Exile, Collective Brutality, and Fatal Push).
Some good tips for playing with KOTR, since she is fairly complex to use properly are as follows:
If you want to block with her, but she is smaller than the creature she is blocking, block, then activate her ability to get any land you want and get an extra +1/+1 to her stats, OR find a fetchland, crack that, and now you have a knight that is +2/+2 bigger than your opponent forsaw.
When playing against a red deck that uses Lightning Bolt(pretty much everyone), DONT DONT DONT drop knight if she will be a 3/3 or less upon entering. Giving your opponent a 3 for 1 mana trade is nort worth the risk unless you absolutely must play a creature that turn.
Use KOTR to find Sejiri Steppe so she can be a Mother of Runes for a turn and get a lil bigger
If you tap the land that you are gonna sac to her, then use her ability to get a non tap land, she can ramp you 1 for the turn (although i can't think of a situation where this will be applicable, since you curve out at 4).
As far as the sideboard goes, it's constantly changing, but has proved pretty effective as is. It covers all the main decks this one has problems with, primarily fast, resilient decks like Titan Shift and powerful tron builds.
While $450 certainly isn't super budget, I put the tag on this deck because it is far below the $800 + that most tier 1 - 2 modern decks are. Furthermore, I don't use goyf, lili, bob, or the enemy fetches simply because I odn't have that kinda cash. (Plus I personally hate goyf :P) I have thought about adding Grim Flayer, but at $20 a piece, he's a large investment that I need to extensively test out first, and I feel like the deck may change too much with him in it.
I have been playing this iteration of junk since December, and am constantly learning new tricks, just like most magic players. It has done fairly decent at FNM, never going worse than 2-2, and even went 4-0 one night. Pleasee feel free to offer any advice, tips, suggestions, or just your thoughts on this archetype. It would be really cool if these midrange type decks became more popular outside of jund. Thank you so much, don't forget to +1 and have a great day:)
