Eduardo Borges and Raphael Toro showed up to Grand Prix Porto Alegre with their own take on the Knight of the Reliquary / Retreat to Coralhelm combo. EdB
finished 25th, while Raphael got 49th — Overall, not a bad couple of finishes. Last week, Tommy Ashton took their exact decklist to a Modern League and
went undefeated, proving their deck does indeed have some legs.
EdB described his deck as a Bant Hate Bears deck that can kill on Turn 3. If you untap with Knight of the Reliquary and Retreat to Coralhelm, you’re going
to be able to activate your Knight a bunch of times, searching up lands, floating mana off them, and eventually giving the Knight trample thanks to Kessig
Wolf Run.
If you have a Birds of Paradise or Noble Hierarch alongside your Retreat to Coralhelm but don’t have a Knight of the Reliquary in sight, at least the
Retreat turns your mana creatures into pseudo-Lotus Cobras, proving that it’s not necessarily a dead draw if you don’t have the combo. If you don’t need
the mana, you can try and scry your way into the combo. Retreat to Coralhelm is particularly disgusting with the Izzet Staticasters out of the sideboard.
Spellskite and Meddling Mage can help protect the combo, but they also mess up the other combo decks in the format. Amulet Bloom likes being able to cast
its Primeval Titans, and most other decks like being able to cast their Lightning Bolts.
For more info on this sweet deck, check out the article about it from the Grand
Prix Porto Alegre coverage.
Creatures (27)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Meddling Mage
- 1 Magus of the Moon
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Knight of the Reliquary
- 4 Spellskite
- 1 Scavenging Ooze
- 1 Fiend Hunter
- 4 Voice of Resurgence
Lands (22)
Spells (11)
