Hey readers, this week we’re going to start off by taking a look at Stephen Pyatt’s Noble Knight deck.
monsters 25
3 noble knight artorigus
3 noble knight gawayn
2 noble knight medraut
2 noble knight gwalchavad
2 noble knight drystan
2 ignoble knight of black laundsallyn
2 photon thrasher
2 chaos end master
2 lightray gearfried
1 rescue rabbit
1 black luster soldier envoy of the beginning
1 honest
1 gorz the emissary of darkness
1 guardian of order
spells 15
1 dark hole
1 heavy storm
1 monster reborn
1 reinforcement of the army
1 foolish burial
1 mystical space typhoon
1 forbidden dress
2 noble arms - gallatin
2 noble arms - arfeudutyr
2 noble arms of destiny
2 noble arms - caliburn
traps 4
2 dimensional prison
2 bottomless trap hole
There was a time I would’ve said the Noble Knight theme had no potential at all. Then they printed Medraut. Then in JotL, they printed Drystan giving the deck yet more ways to attack, and making Medraut plays even more powerful. I haven’t gotten to play around with this theme as much as I want to, but it’s actually on my shortlist of decks to playtest before YCS Toronto. There are some odd choices in here, and I’ll be making more changes than I normally would in a deck doctor article on this deck. I’m building this for the September format, as I feel the deck is much more playable under that list, and it’s only a week or so away at this point.
From the monsters, there are a few cards I really don’t like. The Guardian of Order seems rather pointless, it’s nice to drop a 2500 beater on the field for free, but he doesn’t advance your gameplan aside from that. Chaos End Master seems equally out of place, you need to waste one of your valuable equip spells for it to really be able to attack over anything. Lightray Gearfried is much too difficult to summon for this deck as well.
Moving away from the out of place cards, I really don’t like the Rabbit engine in this deck, and from the looks of how you’re only running one copy of Rabbit yourself, you don’t seem to be a fan of it either. Cutting Rabbit and the normal clears up an easy 4 slots. After cutting the normal, I’m also going to give the axe to the Gawayns. That kind of stuff isn’t what this deck needs. You have a strong card advantage engine as it is.
I’m still conflicted on running the black noble knight. On one hand, he allows you to run BLS, and opens up a few volcasaurus game shots in combination with Medraut. On the other hand, he’s a horrible draw, and Drystan fills the same role in being removal to grab off Medraut (Not to mention Paladynamo access.) I’m leaning towards cutting Black Knight, so I’ll cut it in this list as well. This of course means we’re cutting Gorz as well.
Well, now that we’ve trimmed the monster section down, let’s fix the spells and traps. This isn’t a deck that wants Foolish Burial. Typically, if your deck runs Foolish Burial, you want to gain immediate card advantage from the card you’re sending, be it Zephyros, Dandylion, or Mezuki. In this deck, you don’t do any of that, and Foolish is going to end up dead more than live.
The 1-of Forbidden Dress isn’t something I’m very fond of. At first I thought it was cool, until I realized it prevented me from playing any Noble Arms the turn I used it. This deck also isn’t really trying to gain card advantage from battle, meaning you’re basically playing Dress as a bad My Body as a Shield.
The cuts in summary (16)
-1 Guardian of Order
-2 Chaos End Master
-1 Lightray Gearfried
-3 Noble Knight Artorigus
-1 rescue Rabbit
-3 Noble Knight Gawayn
-2 Ignoble Knight of Black Laundsallyn
-1 Black Luster Soldier ? Envoy of the Beginning
-1 Forbidden Dress
-1 Foolish Burial
The list was originally at 44, so we have 12 slots to add cards. Typically, I’d have cut Photon Thrasher from the deck, but keeping it in makes the Field-Commander Rahz copies I want to add even better. Rahz is just another way to search the most important card in your deck ? Medraut. Speaking of Medraut, this craziness of only running 2 has to stop! Medraut is the reason to play the Noble Knight deck, and I can’t see a valid reason to not run the maximum allowed copies. I also definitely want to be running the max number of Drysdans. He’s a solid monster to draw, while also being a light level 4 for your Thrashers.Being that we’re a little low on Noble Knight monsters after making all those cuts, I’m also going to add the 3rd copy of Gwalchavad.
My builds of this deck have been rather trap heavy. My goal is to just overwhelm my opponent with card advantage generated by Drystan , Medraut, and rank 4s. Playing protect-the-Medraut, or Protect-the-Drysdan can be a very effective gameplan, and traps help get there. I’m going to add 3 copies of Fiendish Chain both to help stay alive, and to help support the plan of protecting stuff. I’m also going to add 2 Mirror Force to match the Dimensional Prisons already in the deck.
Lastly, I want to add 2 copies of Pot of Duality, again, to help dig for Medraut mostly. Only reason I’m not adding the newly legal 3rd copy as well, is because this deck definitely does enjoy special summoning on the early turns occasionally, and I can definitely see the Dualities clogging up.
Additions in summary (12)
+2 Field-Commander Rahz
+2 Mirror Force
+1 Noble Knight Medraut
+1 Noble Knight Gwalchavad
+1 Noble Knight Drysdan
+3 Fiendish Chain
+2 Pot of Duality
Next up, we’re going to take a look at a pretty sweet brew from John Roberts
19
3 The Atmosphere
1 Lonefire Blossom
3 Evil Thorn
1 Dandylion
1 Spore
3 Destiny Hero Plasma
3 Lava Golem
3 Grinder Golem
1 Genex Ally Birdman
21
3 Scapegoat
3 Black Garden
3 Trade - In
1 Card Destruction
2 Mark of the Rose
3 Enemy Controller
1 One for One
1 Mind Control
3 Fragrance Storm
1 Heavy Storm
He didn’t give the deck a name in his submission, but it looks like a pretty sweet plasma control brew. There are a few choices I see immediately as suboptimal, but The Atmosphere is an extremely cool addition to this style of deck. With Scapegoat going to 3 with the new list, now seems like a great time to take a look at this deck.
To start, I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to do with Birdman. You can’t bounce tokens to summon him, and you don’t run anything that looks like it benefits from being bounced. Birdman doesn’t look to fill a role, so I’m going to cut it.
Black Garden, while it can generate tokens, isn’t a very reliable way to make tokens. Garden is better suited for control decks, aiming to prevent the opponent from summoning, than a deck trying to generate tokens and take the game over with Plasma or The Atmosphere. I’m going to cut all 3.
I’m also going to cut the Fragrance Storms. The card just doesn’t do enough to be worth it. It’s extremely situational, and provides very little payoff. There are better things to do with the tokens than to sac them to Fragrance Storm. Card Destruction doesn’t look like it does much of anything either, it puts a monster in the yard, but plenty of other cards do that as well, while not being net negative on card advantage.
With only 6 plant monsters in the deck, Mark of the Rose seems incredibly difficult to keep live, especially since you’ll be removing things to summon Atmosphere or Spore. I’m going to cut both.
The cuts in summary (10)
-1 Genex Ally Birdman
-3 Black Garden
-3 Fragrance Storm
-1 Card Destruction
-2 Mark of the Rose
Now, we cut Black Gardens, I’m going to add a different field spell into the deck. The single copy of The Seal of Orichalchos seems very strong in a deck with 3 Scapegoats. Seal has an ability that everyone always seems to forget about, where your opponent cannot target the lowest attack monster on your side of the field for an attack. When you have Scapegoat, you effectively brick wall their entire attack team until they’re able to remove 3 of the goats by means other than battle. Same idea with Grinder Golem tokens, or Evil Thorn copies. I’m also going to add in a single copy of Terraforming.
Adding in an Elemental Hero ? Stratos seems good to me. He’s a monster that goes to your graveyard for The Atmosphere, and searches out a card that at worst is a Trade-In target. As it is, your list doesn’t have a ton of normal summonable monsters, so adding the Stratos in seems pretty free.
Similar to adding Stratos, I’m going to add 2 Cardcar D to the deck. He’s a monster you can normal summon to help dig for your Atmospheres, or Scapegoats while also being a monster to remove from your yard for Atmosphere. Going on with the same theme, I’m going to add 2 copies of Maxx “C” This deck doesn’t have much going on during the opponent’s turn, having Maxx “C” as a point of interaction seems fine, and it synergizes well with Atmosphere.
Lastly, this deck is definitely lacking traps. Aside from the 3 Enemy Controllers, and the 2 Maxx “C”s we just added, you have no interaction at all on your opponent’s turn. Thankfully, now we can play 2 copies of Gorz, Emissary of Darkness, who not only provides both the required monsters for Atmosphere, but is also lv7 for Spore, and most importantly, helps keep you alive. Sure he conflicts pretty hard with the Seal of Orichalchos, but I feel like more often than not if you have Seal, you have a solid defense going on anyway. I’m also going to add 1 Tragoedia, for the staying alive factor.
Additions in summary:
+1 The Seal of Orichalchos
+1 Terraforming
+1 Elemental Hero ? Stratos
+2 Cardcar D
+2 Maxx “C”
+2 Gorz, Emissary of Darkness
+1 Tragoedia
If you have a deck for either Johnny or myself to doctor in one of our articles, send us a message https://www.facebook.com/ArgDeckDoctor
Until next time, remember to Play Hard or Go Home!
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