White Knights and Hot Fire

Dude.. Eldrazi Monuments in a Knight deck = awesome! Also, White Sun's Zenith is such a great "surprise!" card. Elspeth fits nicely. Good job.

The only thing I'd add is Day of Judgment. Pop down an exemplar or monument, and blow everything up! Everything on their side of the board that is.

Thanks for the comment, I should preface this with the deck is untested. I will be testing it soon, just waiting for my mirran crusader to come by mail. Other than that though, my only concern are the following:

Leonin Skyhunter > Accorder Palladin (for two drop) ??
Any room for true conviction (maybe a 1 of) or is it too slow ?? i was having it in there instead of white sun, but white sun is just that a surprise end of turn bomb in this deck

if you are going to put in even 1x True conviction...consider dropping Victory's Herald in instead. honestly if you need the lifelink at that point it might be too late.

i figured it would be too slow. Thanks for the comment. or if i am looking for some game changing bomb at that much mana, i might just put in a conquerors pledge. thanks for the comment

I don't think you're running enough red, in all honesty it seems to be hindering your deck as I would suggest Emeria, the Sky Ruin to bring back things sac'd off by the Monument but the chances of getting 7/13 plains is entirely too slim.

Thanks for posting Ghost. I thought about emeria a little, but at 7 plains to activate, i think it is too slow for what the focus of the deck is. In Tier 1 constructed, i think the only way it is viable is for the aggro plan. if my opponent isnt dead by turn 7 then i have already lost, most likely. Turns 1-5 is crucial against UB control and valakut for example, because after that, it is almost unwinnable. The focus is to do as much damage in those turns as possible, and then what damage i cannot do before my board gets wiped, (day of judgement, massacre worm) then i have red burn to finish off the last amount. or get rid of early blocker/accellerants.

Update 3/4/2011 - Just took this deck to local FNM. Only 18 participants, but piloted it to 4-0.

Matchups -
1. Kuldotha Red. Game 1 was insane with nuts draw for Red. Game 2 and 3 Brought in Kor Firewalkers and Pyroclasms for easy wins.

2. U/B Tezz/Forgemaster. Game 1 was all Knights, until forgemaster combo'd into Emperion. Preboard i have only 1 answer to this guy. Thankfully Elspeth lands, wipes the board with ultimate with still 3 tokens on board. 1 Honor of the pure later, and we are shuffling for game 2. Game 2 U/B was never in it. Paladin, Crusader, Exemplar, Honor of the pure. Game. Post board Celestrial Purge or 2 for Tezzerett. Journey's come in for Emperion.

3. B/G Ramp. Grave Titans, Rampaging Baloth, etc. Game 1. B/G has turn 4 Grave Titan, followed by turn 5 Baloths, turn 6 Titan. Board is 2 Titans, Baloth, Battlement, 6 Tokens vs. Paladin. Paladin, Bladehold. He Swings in with baloth and 2 titans, and gets alphastriked with a brave the elements - Black. Game 2, he Mulligans to a 1 land, overgrown battlement hand on the play. misses 2 land drops, then plays battlement turn 3, which takes a journey to nowhere, earning a scoop.

4. U/B Tezz/Forgemaster. Game 1, he mulls on the play, i keep Student of Warfare, Lightning bolt, 5 land. (was feeling pretty cocky at this point, should not keep obv.) I draw 4 lands and all lightning bolts. Killing a tezz, and killing 2 forgemasters after first strike damage. Eventually 4/4 double strike Student is too much.
Game 2. U/B Mulls to 6, keeps one land hand and never draws another. Too many people are afraid to go down to 5 :)

I like it, my only thing is I don't like contested war zone. It has potential to backfire.

Yes it does. especially against aggro decks, but aggro decks are few, and you can always steal it back, remember if you use it to attack it is tapped by the time they can steal it back. Which means you have one more turn to grab it back for yourself before it is used on you.

i.e. you swing in all in, with warzone tapped. their turn it is still tapped because you have it on your side, they swing, get it, (still tapped), your turn. Land is still tapped, you swing in get it back, etc. Also, against aggro decks remember they have them too, so you will be stealing theres just as much :)

To my experience it only became dicey ONCE. against a kuldotha red deck, but it killed so many more things, like got me through damage against things i would normally never be able to, like forgemasters, planeswalkers with 4 loyalty counters, etc. a must include.

I would like to take this moment to thank you. Sure, I was unoriginal and used your deck idea, so sue me... however since I didn't have the money for 3 Elspeth's I just simply used 1 elspeth, 1 ajani, 1 gideon.. cards I already had in my collection.

I went to a Tuesday Night Magic tournament (kind of like the lame little brother of FNM) and out of a good 25 participants, I piloted the deck to a 3-1. The only deck I really lost to was one that I conceded, because I didn't have anything in my sideboard. Allow me to elaborate.

Match 1: Green/Red/Black Deck (Dunno what it was called... wasn't a cookie cutter deck.)
Game 1: All he had out was green and black creatures. Couple Honor of the Pures and 3 Mirran Crusaders later, he was dead on turn 5.
Game 2: Mana-Screwed. Got Pwned. Nuff said.
Game 3: Closer match than the last two... Came down to turn 7 with both of us around 5 life. Honor of the Pure + Mirran Crusader + Knight Exemplar + Brave the Elements to get past all three of his creatures. Match Me (2-1)

Match 2: Green/White Stall Deck.
This was the one I conceded. I had every single one of my creatures. He spent 45 minutes getting me to mill my deck while protecting his life points with things like Tanglestep, Fog, and the white card that does the same. Incredibly retarded If I might say.

Match 3: Green/White Deck
Game 1: Day of Judgment saved my ass, dude kept discarding vengevines and then dropped like 3 1 or 0 drop artifacts to get all the vengevines out. Thank god for DoJ... Smeared him with a hero, an accorder, a mirran with a Honor of the Pure and a Exemplar.
Game 2: Mana-Locked... Had 10 lands out with no hope of creatures. Got run the hell over.
Game 3: Decent Balance of Lands and Creatures in my hand, managed to win with only three mana (thank god for most of my creatures having 3 mana.) Match Me (2-1)

Game 4: Red Artifact Burn (Not Kuldotha Red or RDW)
Game 1: Guy only ran burn spells, with a boatload of Chandra variants. Managed to squeak 2 exemplars out and then just had fun for the rest of the game hitting his life with no defenders to stand in my way.
Game 2: Mana-Locked yet again, got burned to death by a pair of wyrmcoil engines.
Game 3: Nothing he could do. All lands, a couple burn spells, and a couple of little creatures that were easily taken care of lighting bolts/burst lightning, Mirran Crusader once again helped me win. Match Me (2-1)

So overall... I won 3 out of my 4 matches, and in terms of games went 6-5. Not bad in my books... because I don't really count the dude who was running the time-out deck... Thinking about sideboarding a Felidar Soverign just in case I see him at another tournament because I was at 45 Life by the end of the first game, before I drew my last cards. I would have played that thing and won. Figures. But thanks again for the great Ideas, hopefully (even though i stole it, and was unoriginal) this gives you some more data to look at.

only thing I'm not understanding is why burst lightning? Without it you could add your 4th lightning bolt and somthing more usefull I would think