Today, we have a community spotlight on the deck Black Knight with a massive amount of information provided by Teledadman, who has some innovative ideas and has piloted this deck to great success to top 150 on the leaderboard.
Black Knight
What essentially is the Black Knight deck?
So, the way I explained this to people before is I name the deck black knight, but as a whole, this is not a Black Knight deck; it’s a Sera deck. A mistake people don’t realize is they go all in on the Black Knight thing and think you can’t win when you're not doing the black knight combo. Realistically, you will only pull off the Black Knight combo in 4 out of 5 games, and most people know what Black Knight does, so that means you're only getting 1/2 cubes per win and retreating the rest when you're not doing the Black Knight thing. This is not good grounds to be a winning conquest or climbing ranks deck, and that is where Sera comes in. Sera lets you ride your power or find other win conditions with high stats Ghost Rider and Juggernaut. Once you understand that you are a Sera deck first and a Black Knight deck second, then when you high roll, you will find it is a lot easier to win and climb.
Why not play typical Sera Tech, then?
Sera Tech
First, if you look at this deck against the traditional sera deck by Revis. This one will always win on sheer stats. That matchup is very favoured, and they have to spend a lot of resources to fight the Ebony Blade lane. They also naturally want to drop priority and let you take it; even play the new buffed Ghost, so you can use Jugg very effectively to protect your sword if it’s under attack or to clog them up and mess their Ms Marvel. The only downside to this version of Sera to Sera tech is you sacrifice a bit on consistency for a high ceiling, and this can suck sometimes. Still, it lets you win matchups that you usually would not be able to, and, like I already said, have a favoured matchup into Sera tech, which is very popular now.
Why do you like Black Knight as a card?
I have a love/hate relationship with Black Knight. It’s great and fun when you get to pull off what you're trying to do with the deck, but it can be frustrating when you're missing something you need, or the cards are in the wrong order in your hand. But as long as you don’t let this tilt you between games and accept that there will be games you're going to retreat, you will get on just fine with the deck.
Card Breakdown
What is the purpose of each card? How do you use them effectively?
We are a Black Knight deck, so we must be playing Black Knight…. I’m sure most of you know what this little 1 drop does and how it can result in a crazy amount of uncontested amount of power, but how he is used is one of the biggest mistakes people make. I'll go into this later, but don’t play him out without getting his effect off simultaneously.
The second-best discard card that works with Black Knight. Sometimes, this guy will be your best friend. Other times, you will look at your hand and wish he was anything else, but he is needed, and so earns a spot in the deck
It's probably the most broken card in the game for core cards in most decks, but it also has additional synergy with the black knight package because the Ebony Blade you get from black knight and Ghost Rider are both 4 cost. Also, having Zabu allow you to go double 4 drops on the final turn means you can hold your ghost rider and sword until later, so dropping priority becomes much more manageable.
This card is not core, and its importance can vary depending on whether you’re playing ladder/conquest. This deck also has very different play styles in different formats, so depending on what you’re doing, you may want to change her and take notes from this guide. I think Quake is the best card in her slot, as she adds a level of play to the deck that allows you to win games when you’re not doing the black knight combo. Like many other discard decks, the deck has some consistency issues, so having a backup option like this to scam with locations goes a long way. This idea is more valuable when playing in conquest/tournaments because you play many games. You will usually find a few games where Quake can destroy your opponent with locations like Nexus, Mojoworld, and Rickety Bridge. Jeff can be a suitable replacement if you’re playing on the ladder. A generic good card that gives you access to restricted locations and counterplay to Professor X.
The most interesting and asked about card in the deck. This is usually the first card most people go to cut, and they don’t understand his value, but to me, he has no equal. There is not a single card in the game that can do what he does in this deck; only Alioth comes close, and he is a 6-cost card. I will explain this later as he needs his write-up, but if you are not sold on him, you can look into Gladiator/Caiera/Mobius/Enchantress or any tech card you like.
The number 1 discard card in the deck is the most consistent enabler for the deck. Not only does she have a great body being a 3/5, but always discarding your big 6 drops allows you to pull off the Black Knight combo for an easy 4/12 or 4/20. There is no replacement for her, and there is nothing else to say about her other than that.
The final part of the Black Knight package and probably the most important one, even more than Black Knight himself. This guy allows you to double down on your payoff for pulling off the black knight combo to get 40 power on the final turn! But for the games where you’re missing black knight, this is your guy allowing you to cheat out a power, hopefully alongside a Shang or Juggernaut, thanks to having Zabu and/or Sera.
Probably the most essential card in the game. The heavy storm to Yugioh. The card that defines how the game is played does not need an explanation for why he is in the deck and is crucial. Especially in this deck. He is not always needed, especially if you pull off the black knight combo. You can usually outpower anything, but for the games you don't, you become a Sera deck and use him the way you usually would drop priority and Shang.
The other most powerful card in the game and the perfect partner to Black Knight. Once again, being a discard deck means you are only sometimes going to be able to pull off the combo, so you need other ways to win, and this is what she does. Paired with Juggernaut and Quake, you have enough options to become a Sera-type deck with power and disruption to pull off a win without discarding a single card sometimes.
The most important card that allows this deck to pop off. Without her and Zabu, this deck would not work. Being able to energy cheat and drop your stuff on the final turns of the game is so essential, but having both Sera AND Zabu allows you to drop 3 cards together of your choosing! Think ebony Blade, Ghost Rider and Shang, or Shang, Ghost Rider and Juggernaut. So many options that allow for plays your opponents can never beat if they choose to stay.
Finally, we get to the big boys. This guy is the biggest guy you can play and has a helpful effect. Sometimes, even a busted OP effect! There are a lot of 3/4 drops in the game, this deck included, so playing this guy out right or bringing him back off Ghost Rider and being able to control where they all go is a massive swing.
Last but not least, the biggest boy in the game. This allows you to get the most significant high roll on Black Knight when the cards line up, whether for the 4/20 sword or to be summoned off Ghost Rider. Sometimes, games come up where you need to outright play him, usually when Limbo is in play or a Project Pegasus comes up, but other than that, it's mostly just for Black Knight/Ghost Rider.
How to play this Deck
What is the overall game plan for this deck?
So the plan is to draw Black Knight, discard a big boy and get a big Ebony Blade out. It’s as simple as that, but how you go about it is the leading result in where mistakes are made and why some people will put the deck down because they don't climb the ladder or win in conquest.
So, if it is that easy of a game plan, why is this deck so tricky?
Currently, as opposed to when I first shared this deck, black knight is a pretty know deck and what it will do, so if you are my opponent and I play my black knight out, draw for turn 2/3 and snap. You know why I'm snapping, so you’ll probably retreat most of the time. This means I only gained 1, maybe 2 cubes if you snapped first, and I’ll likely lose them again later on during my climb by the deck bricking and a forced retreat. So why play black knight out in the first place? This is the number one mistake! If we return to the same example, turn 2/3, and I snap, but this time I have nothing on my board, the opponent is much less likely to retreat and snap back since I look weak. Then the game plays out, and I go turn 2 Black Knight and Blade discarding a Magneto or Infinaut, and my opponent is now trapped for at least 2, probably 4 cubes. This is how you correctly climb as the black knight player by holding Black Knight in hand until you can get the effect off simultaneously alongside a snap. Sometimes this means holding until turn 2 to pair with Blade, this means holding as far as turn 4 to pair with Lady Sif, even turn 5 if you don't have Sera but by then you can do a Black Knight combo instead. By following this rule, you will find yourself playing for much higher stakes, meaning your wins to losses/retreats will be much more comprehensive and, therefore, be a much better black knight player.
Are there any other reasons why you want to hold Black Knight?
A card exists in the game which sees a lot of play, mostly in 2 decks, that can massively punish you for playing out your black knight early with no effect, and that is Killmonger! This is public enemy number 1 for players that do not follow the above rule and will result in you losing a potential 12/20 from not having the Ebony Blade…… that's a lot of stats to lose to 1 card! Especially when that card sees a lot of play. Sera Tech, one of the number 1 decks in the game, plays him 90% of the time and has done so since the first drafts during the beta. Furthermore, destroy also plays him 100% of the time. So unless you know what you’re playing against and there is no Killmonger, you should not be playing black knight out on 1 or until you can get the effect off.
What is a typical play for each turn in the game?
This is tough to answer because every situation is vastly different. But, if we are talking about the most simplistic of plays and we know there is no Killmonger, then:
1: Black Knight
2: Zabu
3: Lady Sif to hopefully discard Infinaut or Magneto
4: Ms. Marvel or Quake
5: Sera
6: Whatever wins, whether Ghost Rider, Shang Chi, Juggernaut, Ebony Blade, Quake, Blade, or a combination of the cards. Basically EVERYTHING!
However, I will say that this does break my number 1 rule of not playing Black Knight out before I have the combo.
Conquest vs Ladder
Do you play Conquest differently than Ladder?
Both formats have very different play styles, but mostly how you use the above rule. On the ladder, you face a new opponent every time, so you don’t know for sure what your opponent is playing unless you have already faced them a minute ago or they are a streamer, and you snipe them (boo). Because of this, you should not be playing Black Knight out early and following the rule. You can click on their picture to check if they have a larger deck size than you to see if they are playing Thanos, but even some of those builds play Killmonger with Death, so even in those match-ups, you should be following the rule. If you know what you are up against, however, and you know they likely do not have Killmonger. You can think about breaking the rule and playing him out early if the locations call for it or your hand is not great and you want to do the bluff snap: play Black Knight and snap turn after to try and bluff and get onto the next game.
Now, when it comes to conquest, however, the rule can change. Most importantly the very first round of the match, at the start they don't know what you are and likewise, you do not know if they have a Killmonger, you also may not have the best hand so why play Black Knight out, tell them what you are and get Black Knight destroyed? Destroy is also a lot more common in conquest due to being an affordable and pretty simple deck to play, so for the first round of the match, you should follow the rule. However as the game progresses you will gain information and know if your opponent has Killmonger or not, if they play a Nebula on turn 1 and end up being a high evo deck, pretty safe bet they don't have him. Let's say you go on to win the first round by doing the Black Knight thing; they also know what you are now, so holding Black Knight at this point becomes unnecessary unless you want to try and hide your snaps. But like mentioned before, playing him out early allows you to do some bluff snaps and try to get some free retreats just by having Black Knight, but if going for this, you need to be prepared; this does not always play out, particularly in conquest where a lot of players refuse to retreat.
Matchups
What about the various matchups in the meta?
The beauty of Black Knight is that when you get to do your thing, there is not a lot that can stop you! This leads to a lot of easy matchups. Some good examples of this involve Loki and Sera Tech. Sera Tech’s core is very similar to yours, but the big difference is they don’t have a 20-power Ebony Blade they can play, so you can go much taller, usually resulting in this match-up favouring you. Their biggest card is Gladiator, which also has a lot of risk for them as it could pull your Magneto or Infinaut out for free. Watch out if they use double tech cards on your Ebony Blade, like Enchantress to negate and Shadow King/Shang Chi to destroy. It can sometimes happen, but they need to teach cards and a Sera on 5, which is a lot of resources. If they snap you, this is likely what they are going for, so use Juggernaut to protect your ebony Blade! For Loki, it’s even worse for them, as a lot of your cards are bad for them to get. The discard cards are very awkward on their own, especially if they only get a couple of the pieces but no payoff, and Infinaut is usually always another dead card to get. Since the Nerfs to Collector and their total power level without going for Loki is so much lower, any playable hand for us will usually result in a win.
Thanos is the other big contender for the deck, and this match is pretty 50/50. It usually comes down to who high-rolls the early game first. This sets up who wins the late game. Do they draw their lockjaw with a mind or time stone? Or did you draw your black knight, discard and big guy? Since most of the Thanos decks don’t play Professor X anymore and have also gone away from Death/Killmonger, the match-up has become much more straightforward, but this still can go either way, as mentioned above. Juggernaut is a pretty important card here, as you can use it early to clog them when they start throwing stones, making it much easier to place your power down. Just watch out about Juggernaut not being able to move Blob!
What are some of the tough matchups?
All this being said, Black Knight is a solid deck with many favourable matchups. However, there are a few difficult ones and some cards you don't want to see. Mobius is the number one card you hate to see, even more than a Killmonger. The deck uses an energy cheat to hold its power and play your cards on the final turn, but a single Mobius can destroy this game plan, especially a turn 5 Mobius as you drop Sera. This is not the end of the world, but you must adjust your game plan and treat the match-up like you are under a Sandman. Drop an Ebony Blade on 4 into Ghost Rider on 5 into anything else like Quake and Juggernaut on 6.
One match-up is terrible, and borders on unwinnable, and that's Tribunal! So, the hela tribunal version is much more manageable as their ceiling is much lower and inconsistent. We are talking about the pure Tribunal deck. This deck as a whole really can not interact with the Tribunal deck, and if it comes down to both of you having the nuts and getting to do what your decks are made to do, they will always win. Your counterplay only comes from Jugg and Magneto being able to move their cards in and out of the Onslaught lane they start to make. You need to either clog their lane to limit their total Tribunal power to the 15-power average or get a challenging read and jugg punch the Iron Man and Onslaught away from each other. If this matchup rises again, or you see it in your pocket meta, you must consider including Enchantress in the build, as it's the only way to counter it.
Tribunal
Locations
Are there any locations that are instant snaps? or instant retreats?
Sokovia, if it discards and activates your black knight by forcing a discard on the wrong card, can be an instant retreat, but it can also be an instant snap if it discards the right card. Locations like Sanctum Sanctorum or Kyln can be tricky if they stop your access and you’re not playing Jeff; however, locations like Deaths Domain and Altar of Death are much better because the Ebony Blade can be played into them and live likewise, Ghost Rider goes down but the card you bring back, stays.
Also, all the negative locations minus power are very good for you as the Ebony Blade solos the lane without losing power. Then, finally, I would say any locations where you can do sneaky things with Quake and Jugg. Like Nexus, Mojoworld, Isle of Silence, Oscorp Tower, Nidavelir, and Fisk Tower. There are probably more, but those are some good ones.
Card Choices
What is the point of Juggernaut?
When I was building my first Black Knight decks and trying to find the winning 12 cards, I found winning a lane was easy when you had the Ebony Blade, but the question remained: how do you win a second? Even having Ghost Rider was not guaranteed because the 6 drops can die to Shang Chi. If you play out the Ebony Blade, your opponents will likely bail on that lane and play hard for the others, to the point where Ghost Rider is not even enough sometimes! So the question remained as to how to win a second lane. Those who played during Snap's beta/early days may remember pre-Nerf Aero and Leader and how powerful they were. They created a kind of checkmate state of the game whereby playing the card out in the right game state means you always win the game, a bit like how Alioth does now. This is precisely what Jugg also does and has done since the days of the beta! He just has never seen enough play to be changed!
Let's say I have my Ebony Blade in the left lane with a Ms. Marvel in the middle and a Sera on the right. The opponent can't win the left lane, so they have no choice but to play for the middle and right. What happens if I just put my Jugg now on the right? The answer is they lose! Jugg will push all the cards they played, if any, on the right into the mid and left lanes. I have too much power, and they can't destroy/reduce the Ebony Blade, so it does not matter what lands there, and I can bail on mid because I win left and right, and it's that simple! In this example, which happens a lot even without the Ebony Blade, I have activated my Ms Marvel buff on the right, and as long as that puts/keeps me in the lead alongside the 7 powers from Sera and Jugg, then there is nothing the opponent can do to win. Now add to the fact that this happens on the final turn of the game, and I’ve done the black knight combo, so at the very least, you know I have snapped, so I’m winning at least 4 cubes! If you have snapped, then Jugg just got me 8! As I mentioned earlier, only Alioth comes close to being able to do this level of power, and he is a 6-cost card, while Jugg is only 3 and even has more power! This is why Jugg is included and can not be replaced, in my opinion.
The other note to mention about Jugg is priority. The match-up will determine if you need priority for this line with Jugg to win. One example is Destroy; on the final turn of the game, they don't play cards that activate (on reveal). They usually aim to play Knull, Death and Deadpool, so whether their cards flip up first does not matter. You can aim to drop priority in this match-up to play Shang alongside your Jugg to push everything out of one lane into the Shang lane! However, in other matchups that play cards that activate, like Alioth in lockdown or 1 drop to move Werewolf by Night, this is not the case, and you need to try to take priority so you can push their cards before they activate. One final note which is very unknown and easily forgotten is in the Thanos match-up. Did you know that Blob has an ongoing effect and his average on-reveal effect? His ongoing effect is that this card can't be moved! So if the Blob flips up first, you can not Jugg it. So, in the Thanos match-up, if you want to try and go for the Jugg line, you need to try and play for priority if you suspect a Blob to come down! There is no correct yes or no answer to this, but I strongly suggest holding and not discarding, and it needs an explanation.
This deck might lead to awkward hands. When do I discard it or not?
Let’s say your opening hand is Blade, Zabu and Sera and you draw Magneto for the turn, do you play the blade turn 1 or not? There is no correct yes or no answer to this, but I strongly suggest holding and not discard, and it needs an explanation. Sure, you can get punished if you draw Ghost Rider, and now your hand feels awkward, but you could also get punished if you drew black knight and missed out on making a 4/12 Ebony Blade. Because of this you can't use Ghost Rider as your justification to discard, if he was in the opening hand then maybe it would be different but for this example, he is not. Information is the first thing to consider about playing out a Blade here. The moment you play a discard card, you instantly tell your opponent 50% of the cards in your deck and what to fear, making your snaps very obvious and, therefore, losing value, which I went through earlier. By holding, you tell them nothing so that when the cards line up, you can snap as you discard, so it’s too late for them to retreat if they stay in. The other note is that although your hand may become challenging to use if you choose not to take the discard when it's there. Usually, you can work the hand to set it up later or on the final turn. With a Zabu and Sera out, your hand will all be cheap, so you can usually play your cards out from the right; on the final turn, go Blade and Ghost Rider together and get the discard then. There is also a card advantage to think about. What if you need that Magneto? What if it turns out you don't draw the Ghost Rider, and you have qued into a dark hawk matchup where Magneto has a lot of value being able to move their cards around? Even if we swap Magneto for Infinaut in the above example, I still believe it to be correct not to discard it. What if you pass and the second or third location turns out to be Project Pegasus? You could have just played out the card for “free”. Something as little as this can be the difference between winning and losing, so there is a lot of value in being patient and holding your cards for the correct time to play them, even if that means passing the first 3 turns of the game!
Future Proof
What about the future of Black Knight?
Regarding OTAs and new cards, I don’t think this deck is in danger of being nerfed. They changed Black Knight a few balance patches ago to make it playable, and the deck has been in a good spot since then. I’m still praying for an OTA/patch to Moon Knight or sword master to discard the leftmost card! Please, Second Dinner, then we will be in tier 0 territory!
I’m very excited about Cull Obsidian. Cull will be a lovely card for Black Knight as you naturally play two 1 drops in Blade and Black Knight, but he also acts as a third big guy you can discard with Blade to activate black knight. It needs testing for sure, but I’m hopeful.
Conclusion
Final Thoughts?
Overall, this deck is simple to understand how you win but has very different play patterns from player to player. If you have played Phoenix Force before, you should be relatively easily capable of playing this, as it has many of the same principles by holding until you can do your combos. Hopefully, this has helped you use this knowledge to go from an excellent black knight player to a great one and maximise your climb/conquest runs.
Black Knight has been around for a while and will probably be around for a while. Teledadman has been playing this deck to great success and provided a wealth of information on how he pilots his version to compete with some of the best players in Marvel Snap. If you want to get more information or ask questions about piloting this take, join this thread on Discord, where he is more than happy to help. Thank you to Teledadman for all of the information. Let me know your thoughts on Black Knight down in the comments below.