Knights are heroic, stalwart, and honorable warriors who exist in many worlds across theMagic: The Gatheringuniverse. While the Knight creature type has been around since some of the earliest days of Magic, more recent sets including Throne of Eldraine, Ixalan, and Dominaria have added many new cards to the Knight card pool.
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As a result, a proper Knight deck has become a reliable creature type for you to build around. Make no mistake, Knights are some of the most powerful low-cost creatures in all of Magic.
10Knight Of The Ebon Legion
This particular one-mana Knight was a key player in black aggro and midrange strategies during its tenure in Standard, and still sees play in Pioneer and Explorer. While Knight of the Ebon Legion might seem underwhelming at first glance, the active and passive abilities found on this creature make it pack quite the punch.
It’s also nice that the activated power and toughness boost on this creature triggers its passive counter gains as long as you connect with an opponent. Long story short, one-mana creatures that are good later in the game are hard to come by.
9Grey Knight Paragon
While this is a bit on the expensive side for aremoval spell, Grey Knight Paragon still offers an inherent two-for-one trade against most decks. The situational need for the opponent’s creature to be attacking is also somewhat problematic, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Notably, the exile attacking Demons clause on this card is more relevant in Commander than you might think. It’s also good synergy to be able to pack removal onto a Knight creature card for reasons we’ll see later in this list.
8Knight Of Autumn
Prior to the days of Modern Horizons, Knight of Autumn used to see play in thesideboardsand mainboards of some Modern decks. Collected Company decks in particular made use of this creature as an answer for both artifact and enchantment cards.
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While enchantment and artifact destruction is certainly the best use case for this card, Knight of Autumn can also function perfectly well as a threat through its counters. In addition, the life gain effect can come in clutch against especially aggressive opponents.
7Cavalier Of Dawn
Like Grey Knight Paragon, Cavalier of Dawn functions as both removal and a threat for a relatively high mana cost. However, Cavalier is much better than Grey Knight thanks to its ability to destroy any nonland permanent instead of just attacking creatures.
Yes, it provides opponents with a 3/3 Golem creature token in exchange. However, you may be surprised to discover that the Golem token rarely ends up mattering in the larger scheme of the match. Cavalier also has a great death trigger that combos incredibly well with an enchantment we’ll look at later.
6Aryel, Knight Of Windgrace
Here’s a proper threat that your opponents will be forced to answer if they don’t want you to run away with the game. Aryel works especially well in a Knight-themed deck thanks to her ability to pump out Knight creature tokens.
In addition, her removal ability becomes better and better the more Knights you have in play, making each Knight card in your deck more valuable when Aryel is on the battlefield. In case you missed it, Aryel’s access to the Vigilance keyword allows her to attack, play defense, and also make use of her activated abilities each and every turn.
5Acclaimed Contender
Acclaimed Contender is our first source ofeasy card advantagefound on this list while also acting as a small filter for finding our best cards. Thanks to Contender’s enter the battlefield trigger, we are able to select the best Knight, Aura, Equipment, or legendary artifact card from the top five of our deck and add it to our hand.
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Of course, you need to have another Knight in play in order for this ability to trigger. Thankfully, that’s next to no problem in a dedicated Knight deck. Aside from just filling your hand with more great Knights with this trigger, it can also be used to find powerful cards like Sword of Feast and Famine and Animate Dead.
4Adeline, Resplendent Cathar
Anyone familiar with recent Standard formats knows the power of this creature. Adeline is an incredible curve topper in an extremely aggressive deck, but she also functions quite well as an additional must-answer attacker in a Knights deck build.
It’s unfortunate that the tokens Adeline makes aren’t Knights as well, but additional Human creature tokens are certainly useful either way, especially considering that each one pumped out will add to Adeline’s own power.
3History Of Benalia
This is one of the biggest payoff cards for playing Knights currently available. History spits out multiple Knights on its own while also providing your entire board with an anthem effect providing you are playing Knights.
An anthem effect of this magnitude typically costs four mana, so getting it for free here on top of producing Knights turn over turn is an incredible deal. Especially good Knight deck players will know when to drop their History so that they can take maximum advantage of its anthem effect by using it for a game-winning alpha strike.
2Knights' Charge
Speaking of payoffs for playing Knights, here’s another enchantment you’ll be happy to get back with Cavalier of Dawn. Knights' Charge provides a huge boon for simply turning each of your Knights sideways, causing all opponents to lose 1 life while you gain 1 life.
As if that wasn’t already good enough, you can also sacrifice Knights' Charge in the late game to return every Knight creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. Yes, you read that right. Your entire graveyard of Knights returns to the field and at instant speed, we might add. This allows your Knights to even get around wrath effects for at least one combat.
1Knight Exemplar
What creature-type deck is complete without at least one lord? Knight Exemplar is a Knight lord that provides all of your Knights with the typical lord boon of +1/+1, while also giving all of your Knights the incredibly powerful indestructible keyword.
Did we mention that she also comes with first strike herself? Truly, this is a leader that Knights would follow into the most dangerous of lands. Only one question remains: are you prepared to fulfill your oath for the good of the realm?
