“or another Ally enters the battlefield”.

I had planned to put him and Hada Freeblade in my soldier deck but then I saw that and I nearly flipped out. obviously still a great card but there are a lot of ally cards with the same ability (not with first strike, vigilance though).

Unless I’m completely wrong and “Soldier” types count as “Ally” to, if that is the case, WOOHOO!!!

My original line up by the way, if anyone’s interested.

2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Darien, King of Kjeldor
4 Captain of the Watch
4 Kazandu Blademaster
4 Elite Vanguard
3 Preeminent Captain
4 Sigil Captain
4 Hada Freeblade
4 Raise the Alarm
3 Mobilization
2 Spidersilk Armor
4 Armored Ascension

4 Selesnya Sanctuary
2 Razorverge Thicket
14 Plains
—————————–
4 Palace Guard
1 Spidersilk Armor
4 Nature’s Spiral
3 Darksteel Plate

also in the sideboard, luminarch ascension against control decks.
and again in SB, day of judments against things like the bloodwitch and sphinx of jwar isle. it would clear the board but your deck, like you said, can recover from a sweep.
having 3 elspeth is a bit much, i would trim to 2 for BtE or path/journey.

this deck seems alot more control to me, idk why.
but i would trim 1 captain, add some Knight of the white orchid for speed.

also, only if you wanted, you can add some evasion soldiers to make it easier to hit your opponent, kor skyfisher helps with that AND mana trouble, kor aeronaught is great late game because of the kicker, and aven squire would be ok.

i like your deck alot though because of the massive token drops which are win in most cases

I don’t like Knight of the White Orchid because he is neither a soldier nor as board-aimpacting as other potential 2 drops. I’d rather have pro-black or vigilance on my 2 drops rather than the ability to get myself an extra land. However, I will test him, but I just don’t think he does enough.

I am fully against putting Silence in the board, because it simply doesn’t do enough. I would definitely consider running a set of Canonists in the board, but Silence just doesn’t do it for me. It may buy us one turn, and if it does, we’re down a card. At least Ethersworn has an impact on teh board, and is also quite viable aginst the Jund matchup.

Brave the Elements is one of the best cards in the deck. It just blows out so many opponents that it would be very hard to convince me to take it out. I am always happy to draw one, and it is one of the best ways this deck has to outright win a game. Even if your opponent’s playing multiple colours, it is still quite relevant.

Regarding Pacifism:
I really don’t like it. If I were to play a 2 drop removal spell I would choose Journey to Nowhere, because it does a better job of removing something like Sprouting Thrinax and anything with an activated ability. Even then though, the deck can usually get by relatively well without excess removal. It becomes a matter more of playing your removal selectively than just blasting out everything in sight. Remember that too much removal will not give this deck enough push to win as fast as it can, and I always want to be dropping threats.

In short, if you think that your local metagame calls for the measures you described, go for it. However, personal experience has shown me that the Bushwacker matchup is in our favour to begin with, as a single Honor of the pure makes combat in your favour, and your first strikers can really win the game for you.

Cheers,

Zak

What do you do against super-aggressive landfall decks? The most infamous around me are red-white landfall decks that just pour out landfall creatures, lightning bolts, and other removal, and then start to trigger two landfalls a turn for a little while around turn 4 or 5. If they’re smart, they will be running knights of the white orchid and other tricky cards. The deck you are using seems to be just a little too slow to handle this; worse, it has little to answer it. I watched my deck suffer a turn 4 kill as he dealt me around 20 damage in one turn. Path to Exile only accelerates such a fast deck while Celestial Purge seems expensive enough to actually slow my deck down as much as it slows theirs.

As a general recommendation, I advise dropping in some knights of the white orchid. Path to Exile your opponent into having more land than you, then play Knight of the White Orchid to pop out a solid, cheap white creature and make up the land disadvantage caused by your Path to Exile. Even if the combo doesn’t pan out, it can seriously save your butt if you happen to have hit a mana dry spell (As happens to ALL decks at some point), and if the only thing that is wrong is that you played second instead of first, it accelerates you to your powerhouse captains and pledges a turn earlier (for any readers wondering on this strategy, you play the knight, it drops out a land to catch you up on the turn difference, and then you play your land for the turn. It’s a vile play that powers some nasty landfall decks.).

Before I get to the specifics on how to handle those high-speed aggro landfall decks, first let me admit that these solutions are hypothetical – I haven’t gotten to test them yet.

I’m looking to see exactly what is best to sub out, but I think that running a full complement of 4 silences and 2-3 ethersworn cannonists is a given. Remove all the paths to exile and replace them with pacifisms / and harm’s ways. Consider removing the Brave the Elements (if your are facing 2-3 colors, it becomes less effective, although it might still counter a lightning bolt or two). I’m not sure what else to remove.

The effects of such a substitution are easy to see. Silence slows both decks down, but with luck (and skill), your opponent is hurting much more than you. Sure, it’s a card for no direct card removal, but that’s fine. The key is not to gain card advantage eventually here; it’s to build enough momentum that when the landfall creatures do finally start to multiply, there’s no point. You’ve already won. The Ethersworn Cannonist does much the same thing, slowing things down less but building you up more. Since Path to Exile accelerates the enemy deck, leaving it out and replacing it with pacifisms allows for spot removal of their creatures that will work for most cases, and it allows you to remove any color of creature. Or, if you prefer, the Harm’s Ways will do the same thing while saving one of your creatures… but only if you’ve dropped a LOT of buffing or your opponent has only dropped one land this turn. If they are good, though, they will probably wait to strike with a huge army and a double land drop all at once… and unless they are slowed significantly, that may come as soon as turn 4/5.

Alright, these are just my guesses… what do you think? I’m not the most expert of players, so I’d really like some input on this. I’m determined to make a deck that can stand up a just a little better.