No clue what forum it should go in; Bant has about as much results as Grixis Delver (which also straddles Developing Competitive and Deck Creation) in the Modern Dailies and can probably be as tuned to be Tier 1(.5).
UW Polymorph Tokens, Living End (4 Faerie Macabre!), and Twin Pod win, while Esper Teachings, that Boros Midrange deck, Jund, two "Mono-White" Tokens, another Twin Pod, Boros Deck Wins, two UR Storm (part Swathstorm), Tribal Blue Zoo, Rakdos Deck Wins, Gruul Deck Wins (unusually includes Bloodbraid Elf and Molten Rain), Exarch Twin, and UW Tron get close.
Melira Pod, Tribal Blue Zoo, Mono-Blue Merfolk, and Martyr Proc win, while Tezz Affinity, Jund, another two Mono-Blue Merfolk, Esper Reanimator Gifts, Twin Pod, another Martyr Proc, RUG Tempo Thresh, Grixis Tempo, Boros Midrange, and Bant Aggro get close.
White Splash Merfolk and Mono-Blue Merfolk win, while Melira Pod, two Mono-White Tokens, two Exarch Twin, UW Control (with 4 Squadron Hawk and some pretty tempo creatures--I'll call it Caw-Go), Twin Pod, another Mono-Blue Merfolk, RDW, RG Ramp, RUG Tempo Thresh, and UB Tempo get close.
Mono-Blue Merfolk, "Mono-White" Tokens, and Esper Reanimator Gifts win, while Martyr Proc (fat, with 2 Sun Titan), Red Affinity, two Jund, UW Control (Caw-Go again), two Soul Sisters (nice Martyr Proc shell for one of them, and egads about the 8 removal spells for the other), some Soul Sisters and Mono-White Tokens hybrid, Rakdos Deck Wins, White Splash Merfolk, and two UR Storm (one boards into Exarch Twin) get close.
UB Tempo, Mono-Blue Merfolk, and Martyr Proc (Linvala, Keeper of Silence maindeck--sick of losing to Pod decks and possibly the mirror?) win, while three Jund, Seismic Swans, Tezz Affinity, Exarch Twin, and Esper Reanimator Gifts get close.
Gather the Townfolk looks like a wonky version of Raise the Alarm that, however, makes even more tokens if Tokens.dec is in trouble.
Also, there has to be a use for Thraben Doomsayer's ability to churn out the tokens (and potentially pump them if the team's in trouble).
Increasing Confusion looks like the start of a rare cycle MaRo refers to in his article.
Also, Undying and Fateful Hour look very promising as new keywords. I look forward to seeing how competitive cards with Undying can get and how helpful cards with Fateful Hour will be against aggro. (At least Fateful Hour triggers when you're not within Bolt range, but it's still within Tribal Flames range...)
Gravecrawler just might finally make Zombie Tribal a deck--or it could fizzle like Champion of the Parish. At the very least, it's wonky, cheaper Bloodghasts 5-8.
Sulfur Elemental has been invading MTGO Modern Daily sideboards en masse. It doesn't actually hit D&T too hard--it hits Martyr Proc, Soul Sisters, and Tokens decks much harder, as they love playing white 1/1s.
Yeah, Rise//Fall is the nuts. Use Fall early (double random discard is fun, although sometimes it is a cruddier Distress) and Rise late. If all else fails and you're against something like 5- Creatures Control, flash back Rise with a Tiago and return a Bob (say) and bounce Tiago.
It hits Bob for 4, but so does Cryptic Command, and we don't also run 4 Bloodbraid Elf like Jund (which complains about the bleeding).
Tribal Flames does require a heavier shockland base. You generally play 1 of each Naya shock, 1 of each Naya-Primary Splash shock, and 1 Naya-Secondary Splash shock to fully support Tribal Flames.
Tribal Blue Zoo, for example, would play 1 Blood Crypt and 1 shock each for WURG.
Trouble is, Grixis Charm just doesn't seem good enough.
"Return target permanent to its owner's hand"? I'd rather cantrip with Cryptic Command or do it on the cheap with Boomerang.
"Target creature gets -4/-4 until end of turn"? I'd rather play Dismember.
Unlike with Bant Charm, I'm really not certain how good the two options bundled together are. I'd imagine this card shines much more against aggro and blows much more against combo, unlike Bant Charm's usability in all match-ups.
Unless you've hit the late game, don't get me started on Grixis Charm's third option.
All artifact lands that produce coloured mana (e.g. Ancient Den) are banned. Affinity would use them in a heartbeat and probably all hop on the Tezz Affinity bandwagon if they weren't.
Onto other thoughts, can someone sell me into Squadron Hawk in this deck. I am comparing them to 3 Baneslayer Angel and 1 Felidar Sovereign. The angel and sovereign can win you the game on their own and are impossible to attack into profitably. They serve as another way to survive if martyr is stopped somehow. The hawks just seem to make martyr better, which seems vastly unnecessary as we usually have more than enough white cards to martyr good. Not sure how good Mistveil Plains shenanigans are with the hawks. Not too mention recurring Baneslayer angel or felidar sovereign with emeria will pretty much ensure you win in the late game, unless they run a bunch of Paths and O-rings. But maybe i'm undervaluing the hawks. Any comments?
In this deck, I love Squadron Hawk. Four chump blockers are great. That they're also four tiny flying win cons to boot is even better. You'd be surprised how often the fact they fly wins board stalls when you keep chump blocking with Martyrs and Ranger of Eoses. Mistveil Plains just turns the last one in hand into another Hawk caller (and when you cast Hawk after Hawk with a Mistveil, you'll always have at least one in hand).
Since I run 3 Rise//Fall and 4 Blightning, the one thing I like about Cryptic Command is that it's a hard counter to everything, and you need hard counters to catch what discard doesn't. That and the random Fog occasionally wins games.
Then again, I'm also accentuating the LD theme with 2 Tectonic Edge and 1 Trickbind (admittedly, Trickbind has been about as good to me as Suffer the Past has).
3rd Modern Daily on 1/8/2012: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/3253779
UW Polymorph Tokens, Living End (4 Faerie Macabre!), and Twin Pod win, while Esper Teachings, that Boros Midrange deck, Jund, two "Mono-White" Tokens, another Twin Pod, Boros Deck Wins, two UR Storm (part Swathstorm), Tribal Blue Zoo, Rakdos Deck Wins, Gruul Deck Wins (unusually includes Bloodbraid Elf and Molten Rain), Exarch Twin, and UW Tron get close.
4th Modern Daily on 1/8/2012: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/3253787
Melira Pod, Tribal Blue Zoo, Mono-Blue Merfolk, and Martyr Proc win, while Tezz Affinity, Jund, another two Mono-Blue Merfolk, Esper Reanimator Gifts, Twin Pod, another Martyr Proc, RUG Tempo Thresh, Grixis Tempo, Boros Midrange, and Bant Aggro get close.
5th Modern Daily on 1/8/2012: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/3253792
White Splash Merfolk and Mono-Blue Merfolk win, while Melira Pod, two Mono-White Tokens, two Exarch Twin, UW Control (with 4 Squadron Hawk and some pretty tempo creatures--I'll call it Caw-Go), Twin Pod, another Mono-Blue Merfolk, RDW, RG Ramp, RUG Tempo Thresh, and UB Tempo get close.
1st Modern Daily on 1/9/2012: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/3253804
Mono-Blue Merfolk, "Mono-White" Tokens, and Esper Reanimator Gifts win, while Martyr Proc (fat, with 2 Sun Titan), Red Affinity, two Jund, UW Control (Caw-Go again), two Soul Sisters (nice Martyr Proc shell for one of them, and egads about the 8 removal spells for the other), some Soul Sisters and Mono-White Tokens hybrid, Rakdos Deck Wins, White Splash Merfolk, and two UR Storm (one boards into Exarch Twin) get close.
2nd Modern Daily on 1/9/2012: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/3253812
Mono-Blue Merfolk and UB Tempo win, while Twin Pod, Jund, another Mono-Blue Merfolk, another UB Tempo, Exarch Twin, and RDW get close.
3rd Modern Daily on 1/9/2012: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/3253821
UB Tempo, Mono-Blue Merfolk, and Martyr Proc (Linvala, Keeper of Silence maindeck--sick of losing to Pod decks and possibly the mirror?) win, while three Jund, Seismic Swans, Tezz Affinity, Exarch Twin, and Esper Reanimator Gifts get close.
Also, there has to be a use for Thraben Doomsayer's ability to churn out the tokens (and potentially pump them if the team's in trouble).
Increasing Confusion looks like the start of a rare cycle MaRo refers to in his article.
Also, Undying and Fateful Hour look very promising as new keywords. I look forward to seeing how competitive cards with Undying can get and how helpful cards with Fateful Hour will be against aggro. (At least Fateful Hour triggers when you're not within Bolt range, but it's still within Tribal Flames range...)
Losing Mangara and sometimes Student of Warfare and turning Flickerwisp into a blink effect does hurt, though.
It hits Bob for 4, but so does Cryptic Command, and we don't also run 4 Bloodbraid Elf like Jund (which complains about the bleeding).
Tribal Blue Zoo, for example, would play 1 Blood Crypt and 1 shock each for WURG.
"Return target permanent to its owner's hand"? I'd rather cantrip with Cryptic Command or do it on the cheap with Boomerang.
"Target creature gets -4/-4 until end of turn"? I'd rather play Dismember.
Unlike with Bant Charm, I'm really not certain how good the two options bundled together are. I'd imagine this card shines much more against aggro and blows much more against combo, unlike Bant Charm's usability in all match-ups.
Unless you've hit the late game, don't get me started on Grixis Charm's third option.
In this deck, I love Squadron Hawk. Four chump blockers are great. That they're also four tiny flying win cons to boot is even better. You'd be surprised how often the fact they fly wins board stalls when you keep chump blocking with Martyrs and Ranger of Eoses. Mistveil Plains just turns the last one in hand into another Hawk caller (and when you cast Hawk after Hawk with a Mistveil, you'll always have at least one in hand).
That and they give the middle finger to flying dudes with tiny buttocks like Vendilion Clique, Spellstutter Sprite, and Inkmoth Nexus. (All right, Delver of Secrets is a pain.)
What with Emeria (Weathered Wayfarer to go get it), Proclamation, Serra Ascendant with Martyr, Elspeth, Student of Warfare/Figure of Destiny, Ranger to go get most of them, and maybe Spectral Procession, this deck has a good enough long game already. The trick is surviving until you hit that long game.
Then again, I'm also accentuating the LD theme with 2 Tectonic Edge and 1 Trickbind (admittedly, Trickbind has been about as good to me as Suffer the Past has).
I suppose you could Stifle a Tidehollow Sculler trigger, but then it sort of did its job.
Stifling Liliana of the Veil's -2 actually has promise.
Other than that, I Stifle Wasteland surprisingly often.