We remade a purer version of knights in WB, and Squall is an excellent and worthy commander. A necromancer who also gets lands, a stand alone fighter who must be dealt with or win on his own, making room for Haakon to work in the dark. But now I wonder if we can push the limits further and explore a longtime curiosity of mine. I love legion concepts, and I've wanted to build a shadowborn apostle commander for awhile, but it's just sub worthy of building. I had discounted knight templar as a gimmick and not worth the space in a knight deck, but upon further consideration I realise it actually might take knight to another level. The cost, body, and vigilance are good for knights, and Haakon and templars flavorly work as well as being a great built in value engine. The activation is alos actually achievable with all the recursion, and as a secondary plan to Squall. You slay the commander, but can you deal with his army, knights keep fighting and inivigorated by death. The deck being a big tomb flavorly fills out more. And I know there is a ceiling to the Haakon knight package, and maybe this takes it further. I had assumed there would never be enough room, but an assumption that was built on was that Knights and Equipment are synonomous, as they had been. But the Templars say that relic can be our side package, and that flavorfully and ceiling wise expands knights significantly, and cuts the deck down to about the right size. What remains of the Haakon package still keep the core identity of what Haakon is, but adds the new angle of the Templars. Let us begin.

First, it is clear the deck will extremely tight and fine tuned. Squall has his requirements which largely dictate fixing and land, which is fine and leaves room for the rest of the deck. With how that functions, I think considering a functional deck size of 82 reasonable. This is important because we need to define what is enough Templar Knights, but that every added card is huge in deck construction. Coloqial wisdom on Apostles to be viable is 27-30 for the activation to be viable, and I have built advantages to see them often and increase deck saturation. Thrumming stone, an essential toy for the legion concept, reduires at least 1/4 of the deck but ideally 1/3 for peak efficiency. 27 happens to be a third of 82, so I land there.
Next is Haakon plus entomb variants. Entombs that are 3 or less still slap. 4-5 mana entombs are less clear, as following up a Squall attack with one of these might not be worth just casting two Templars anymore in our play pattern. Some may eek out for special considerations, but they are no longer auto includes. I believe gravebreaker Lamia makes the cut as it is a premier setup for Haakon or Haakon tech, and also the Templar recursion plan. I have to consider the others on a case by case basis, and in comparison to the strongest option that could occupy that spot otherwise.

At this point we have a ton of demands being made from Squall, Haakon, and the Templat Knights sitting at 34 cards (8 distinct!). To be able to meet those demands, we need to next figure out our manabase to understand what we have left space wise in the deck to work with.

We want 20 cards to make it incidentally easy to get two permanents in the graveyard when Squall first connects, and everything after that is gravy. We bake that into 20 lands that get themselves or something in the graveyard. We also have five entomb variants. Squall doesn't need any more than this, so everything improves consistency and options incidentally. At this point we balance for fetchable targets. 10 basics is the right amount to exceed our searches. We forgoe needing to search for lands and behind strategies. This also keeps the untapped white density high. The one leftover land to get us to 36 is emeria.

With two depletion lands, 8 more 2 drop ramps ensure a T3 Squall and T4 combat. Sol ring of course, and urza's wants two more targets, the juiciest being aether vial and skull lamp. We then do milikin, the mind stone, the soul stone, arcane signet, orshov signet, talisman of hierarchy, and pearl medallion as particularly good with Templar. This means the ful requirements of our mana base, Squall, and Haakon are met. We have strong want lists going forward for all these, but the base is here. We stand at 80. The last requirement that will be fulfilled is a legendary artifact to tutor, 3 for density. Thrumming Stone, Akroma's Memorial, The Chronicle of Victory, and Walls of Ba Sing Se all make the cut, bringing us to 84 and all requirements checked. Because for the base unmarked grace does not get vital cards And can not get Haakon, it's cut, 83. I also put aether vial on the desire list as it is strictly for Templars, bringing us exactly to 82. Now it's desire.