Acclaimed Contender

Creature — Human Knight

When Acclaimed Contender enters the battlefield, if you control another Knight, look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal a Knight, Aura, Equipment, or legendary artifact card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (38)

Yogie on Yogie

1 year ago

lhetrick13 - Sounds like a sound plan. No need to rush to collect cards. I can recommend CardKingdom, especially for buying entire decks, I've bought all my decks from there. They have a large stock of cards so you don't have to worry about multiple shipment costs stacking up. TCGPlayer seems good as well if you are buying individual or a few cards. Cards like The Ozolith are insanely expensive and not worth the money in my opinion. It's definitely possible to build good decks on a budget. I've built a minotaur deck a while back for a friend (The Minotaur Horde). It's a pretty powerful deck with a 50-50 win rate against pretty much any of my decks, and the entire deck cost less than a single copy of The Ozolith.

I feel like Unearth's CMC makes it hard to beat, but I've actually considered playing more "return from graveyard cards", and Patch Up is a great suggestion. I've also looked at Kaya's Ghostform. It's an aura which means it can be found with Acclaimed Contender and it protects from exile, which is something my friends often use. If I make the switch, I'm dropping Hyena Umbra.

I'm glad to hear that your Haakon decks are improving! And I understand the feeling regarding your vampire decks. I've built many decks that had fun ideas but didn't perform well or consistently when I played them, and it's always a letdown. Both my knight and vampire decks were like that for the longest time, but I managed to turn them around, so keep working on them! For myself, what little time I spend on building right now is mostly spent on tweaking the knights or my new wizard deck.

lhetrick13 on Beyond the Grave (Abzan)

1 year ago

squiGGhetti - We will see about dropping Fiend Artisan. It was a recent addition as well so have not really felt it out yet. It is the only card that is not a knight in the deck so I would like to see it disappear for that reason but you know how it is...just takes time and games to feel out card combos. A possible replacement would be Acclaimed Contender as it is the only knight that provide a "searching" mechanic that I am aware of. If I do drop it, I would like to keep the creature count high for Collected Company too otherwise that because not as effective and would almost need to drop that :(

Yogie on lhetrick13

1 year ago

lhetrick13 - No worries! I almost view the conversations here at tappedout as letter correspondences and I don't expect immediate responses ;)

• I can definitely see why you like Acclaimed Contender and Collected Company. I imagine it helps a lot with finding the creatures you're looking for.

• The deck seems to play fine so far with just 20 lands. The low average CMC helps a lot and Knight of the White Orchid helped out as well during initial playtesting. The reason I tried dropping lands was that I couldn't make the deck fit together as 60 cards. When I was tweaking I ended up with 58, 59 or 62 cards and I wanted 60 :p

• Patch Up looks like a great card. I'll keep that one in mind for future decks! Unearth works for my deck since it's so cheap to play my creatures shouldn't be in the graveyard at all. But Patch Up could be a lot of fun for a deck where you sacrifice/utilize your creatures more freely.

lhetrick13 on lhetrick13

1 year ago

Yogei - Sorry for the delayed response, I have been traveling for work and play.

• Not surprised by the dropping of Aryel, Knight of Windgrace. She is decent but her ability is underwhelming for sure.

• Glad you like Acclaimed Contender. Her ability is pretty nice on top of her decent stats. Love dropping her after playing a Collected Company as that searches a good portion of the deck for a knight I am looking for!

• Dropped lands for Knight of the White Orchid…Interesting…I see the logic as he can be critical in helping find that third land or just ramp. Personally one of my favorite knights.

• I need to try out Unearth to see if that is something I should adopt into my decks. Another option I saw that interested me was Patch Up but that was more for the discard heavy Haakon deck I talked to you about…has merit there on discarding creatures to activate abilities and then cast them back for cheap!

Yogie on lhetrick13

1 year ago

Helloo lhetrick13! I got around and made the changes to Immortal Knights. The main changes are:

• Aryel, Knight of Windgrace got swapped out. It feels a bit sad to lose the deck's Legendary creature but she wasn't pulling her weight.

• I really like Acclaimed Contender and she's in the deck now.

• I took out a few lands and added Knight of the White Orchid instead and it seems to play well so far.

• History of Benalia had to go in favour of Unearth in the mainboard rather than the sideboard. But I have plans to play History of Benalia in other decks. Right now I'm focusing on "trimming" my five main decks, and thereafter I'm building a deck for a friend. But after that, I've got plans for a white and blue, knight and historic deck. Playing knights together with articafts and sagas.

Yogie on Immortal Knights

1 year ago

Hi again lhetrick13, I’d love to take a look at your decks. I’ve been very busy these last few days and it might take me a day or two before I get to it. That’s also why I’m late on replying :)

I’m looking forward to testing History of Benalia! It was a good suggestion and I think it will be a solid upgrade. I’ll keep Acclaimed Contender and Knight of the White Orchid especially in mind when I play in future. But, I’ll have to think about what I might change them for. Aryel, Knight of Windgrace is the most obvious choice but it feels kind of sad to lose the deck’s legendary creature. But then again, that is what’s fun about building decks, testing things out and finding a good overall balance.

Thanks again! I’ll take a look at your decks as soon as I’m able :)

lhetrick13 on Immortal Knights

1 year ago

Yogei - I apologize for the short message earlier. I was at work :)

My pleasure on the feed back. If it is not to self-serving, I would love to have your thoughts on any of my three knight themed decks (For Honor and Glory!!!, Beyond the Grave (Abzan), Beyond the Grave (Mardu)). I would appreciate another knight enthusiast insights!

Sigiled Sword of Valeron is an expensive card for vigilance, especially given you are running Brave the Sands for a fraction of the cost to play/equip Sigiled Sword. Hopefully History of Benalia meets expectations. I love that card but actually just removed it in For Honor and Glory!!! for Guardian of Faith based on some input from Lankhmar. Have not done enough playtesting to comment on that yet though.

I really like the play of Knight of Malice and Knight of Grace for your deck. Provide some evasion from popular removal colors, first-strike, and they pump each other a little. Very nice! I think you would not be disappointed with running either Knight of the White Orchid or Acclaimed Contender. Orchid's ability is so good that I try to get him into anything knight related as I love that ramp. Contender is also nice as it pretty much gives you a knight card back into your hand. I have found with knights I often struggle keeping enough cards in my hand so Acclaimed Contender helps with that a bit. I also think you will like Kinsbaile Cavalier over Kwende, Pride of Femeref. Kwende swings wider as he does not discriminate by creature type but since you are running tribal knights, can not beat Kinsbaile.

I also feel you on the protection from a color. It is so satisfying when it works out but so annoying when it is useless...Makes a good sideboard option though :)

Anyways, I like the deck and appreciate the thought and effort that went into it. Happy brewing and good luck!

Yogie on Immortal Knights

1 year ago

Thank you for the feedback lhetrick13, I always appreciate it!

My primary reason for playing Sigiled Sword of Valeron is actually its vigilance ability. But now that I think on it more, I see your point with History of Benalia. More Knight creature tokens that also have vigilance. I'll make that change to the mainboard.

I'm actually considering replacing Aryel, Knight of Windgrace with Kwende, Pride of Femeref to give double strike to Knight of Grace, Knight of Malice and anything enchanted by Hyena Umbra. But Knight of the White Orchid and Acclaimed Contender are both strong cards and valid replacements. I like Acclaimed Contender as it helps you find Knight Exemplar. Fiendslayer Paladin is a good card as well, but, I'm on the fence regarding cards with protection from colour. They're a bit too inconsistent for my taste.