The Source thread on Bant had a lot more discussion of that build whatever 4-6 months ago. When comparing with Death Blade, you're shoring up a couple downsides to the TNN plan (especially speed, with extra dorks+Daze), but become more vulnerable to the -1/-1 effects against fair creature decks (where Geist needs a good bit of setup to be really good). I'm not sure that's worth the reduced versatility of the planeswalkers plan, when the threats don't seem strong enough in a lot of fair matches.
With lots of fair matches with lots of removal and attrition (Jund, Miracles, BUG), where you're not really fast enough to make Daze better than Thoughtseize, I think I like the slightly slower, more-stable plan of Deathblade better right now.
I wrote a huge text (or a rant) of how I came to the deck and changes I've made based on experience for you to read through streetMage
My current decklist
Almost a year ago I had been working on a bant brew, juggling between different ideas, including tarmogoyfs. One of my better lists would run 3-4 Geists with GSZ package and it had been doing decent. Then few months later True-Name Nemesis was spoiled and this deck seemed like just the deck that was begging for it, then a few weeks after Reid Duke ran a list he worked on at a SCG Invitational legacy, in preparation for a TNN list he was working on, which Sam Black then played at a few GPs. I built and played with that list, and keeping an eye out for other tweaks players made over the net, most notably a sword of fire/ice in the sideboard.
After siding in the sword so often and the new metagame being flooded with true-name decks, I left it maindeck and its just been the MVP of the deck since. There are many decks that cannot beat a sword of fire and ice on a TNN in game one. The damage is massive and the card draw makes it very hard for anyone to come back.
The deck was doing pretty well against most fair decks, people weren't effective at dealing with a turn 2 True-Name Nemesis yet. All I had to do was constantly tweak with the sideboard for the different combo matchups, and it was a ton of fun. But after a while people just figured out how to play against it, mainly by attacking my mana (turning lightning bolts into sinkholes on my Noble Hierarchs) while putting pressure would make this deck crumble. Sometimes they would draw the Grafdigger’s Cage they usually have in their Sideboard for GY decks and elves, and suddenly our ability to get the creature for the game state with Green Sun's Zenith is just a couple of dead cards in hand.
The deck also had trouble against other TNN decks that packed extra removal (mainly UWR delver), so I eventually added a Deathrite Shaman and a Bayou to splash 2 Zealous Persecution in sideboard, which was good against elves as well and other creature matchups.
A few weeks after Sam Black showed up with the bant list at the first GP, some-one had gone 4-0 at a Daily event on mtgo with a different twist on the deck, who went with a mix of TNN and Geist of Saint Trafts. I liked the idea of the list but I didn’t want to abandon the bant list Duke/Sam have been on until I gave it more practice.
I loved the utility of green sun's zenith, especially the sideboard silver bullets, but it did make some of the topdecks or opening hands really weak or inconsistent. Every time I had dryad arbor in my opening hand it would either almost force a mulligan or have the deck play a turn behind, which is the opposite of the idea of adding mana dorks in your U/W stoneblade deck. So after a few months I decided I’d go back to constantly brewing the deck till I hit what I’m more comfortable with and completely cut off green sun from it. I still cringe about the memories of a few opening-hands with a dryad arbor + karakas + wasteland, I’m always looking for ways to tune a deck to reduce the chances of needing to mulligan hands.
Cutting GSZ opened up so much room that it took some time to figure out what I’d want to do with the open card spots, so started with doubling the mana creatures by adding the full set of deathrites, and then I recalled that Bant Deathblade list from earlier with Geist.
Geist of Saint Traft is a concession to miracles and other controlling decks like deathblade. Against some decks hes much more threatening than a TNN could be, and having double the clock is great against combo decks. Nothing like playing a turn 2 Geist and Miracles spin their Sensei's divining top, fetch, spin top again, turn passes to them, another fetch to spin the top again, because that 3 turn clock really puts em to it. However a fair amount of matchups he's just there to be pitched to force of will and sided out afterwards, mostly decks with good blockers or when you play a defensive/controlling strategy.
I had started with 4 TNN and 3 Geists. My friends we’re commenting that the deck had turned into a form of combo deck in the sense that X into Y had to happen to make the deck threatening, which was mana dork into a 2nd turn 3-drop, so might as well push for it by finding ways to add more. Increasing the chances of having 2 big threats in opening hand has its advantages. Some match ups where I might expect them to have a daze in hand, I would lead with Geist (or clique) to run into it and have them get behind on their land drop, just to resolve a true name the next turn.
One thing I've noticed is in nearly all of my games I would side out my Jace, the Mind Sculptors for better cards to the aggro strategy, and I eventually decided to leave them in the sideboard because he is still great against some matchups, like the obvious Miracles (I love landing a jace after they use their top to miracle a terminus, and shoving said Top on bottom of their library). I did however put the Sylvan Library in its place in the maindeck for the amazing card advantage, since I can't recall a game where I wasn't excited to have it in opening hand. The only time its bad is against very aggressive deck where spending a turn not advancing your board or defending yourself can cost you a game (rug delver, burn), but at least a resolved library will insure that keep hitting land drops so wastelands/stifles don’t take you out of the game, as a resolved TNN is likely the only goal of the game sometimes.
Miracles had started to be a decent chunk of the metagame after its success in GPs and SCGopens, so I moved the 2 Vendilion Cliques in my sideboard to the main, upping the 3mana threats count to 9, and that ended up working pretty well. Being able to cycle the terminus they just miracle’d really changed the game one approach to that match up. Over time one of those geists turned into a 3rd Clique instead. It is such a flexible card, being able to flash it in on their 2nd turn’s draw step against combo is great. But most of the time I’d do it at the end of their turn in case they decided to play a stoneforge or just to have a threat played around sorcery removal or the likes (ambushing a jace is pretty sweet too).
At this point Karakas became a pretty potent land instead of just a safety valve against Show and Tell. There is the obvious option repeating Clique activations against combo or protecting him against removal to secure your threat, but I also like attacking with Geist to send the angel at their face/planeswalker in game one (in matchups where I’d side him out after game one) and bouncing him after hes blocked, to replay him in the next main phase.
This also opened up room in sideboard to play around with. Tried adding more counters, but I prefer proactive cards against combos like Ethersworn canonist. Combo decks have become less and less popular around my meta, so I haven’t put as many SB slots to it atm. Eventually added some Abrupt Decays for removal. For rug delver your strategy should be to pave a way to resolve a TNN and be patient with it, having abrupt for their tarmogoyf or delver of secrets could buy you the time you need to get your mana set up through wastelands and stifles. I generally only fetch up one of my black sources (or play the one in my hand) as I am ready to cast it, since relying on deathrite shaman won’t get you far in the matchup and I don't want to lose it early to wasteland. I always loved humility but stopped running it in my lists now that reanimator/sneak and show became a less common sighting in my meta, I might try it out in sideboard again but it’s certainly a card I enjoyed in the original list.
My list started off with 3 or 4 wastelands depending on versions, as it’s a pretty powerful card after you’ve played your main threat, but it usually doesn’t do all that much against my bad match ups, not to mention my deck can still make use of extra mana when flooding (it is pretty common to hard cast a force of will around a daze). Outside of the matchup where you go with a turn 1 dork into turn 2 stoneforge mystic to play around daze and then waste their land, this deck will rarely even bother playing wasteland on turn 2, where its most effective, so over time I went down to 1 to see how that pans out and I feel its an improvement. I’ve found that when it comes to my greedy manabase, I’m always on the defensive, being more susceptible to wasteland, and anytime my mana wasn’t bothered too much I’d always pull ahead. Most of the time the deck does poorly is when my opponent uses a removal on a mana dork followed by a wasteland, mainly delver decks, but Lands and Jund had that play as well. This is of course a side-effect of a greedy mana-base, so I swapped the wastelands for more color producing lands to power through the land destruction I suppose.
It’s generally best to view wasteland as a spell, so in a sense I’ve increased my land count. I’ve left one in at the moment so some games I can occasionally find it with brainstorms/library when the need rises.
One thing on my mind recently is figuring out changes to have a more resilient mana base (lost to rug delver in finals in a Tarmogoyf Legacy Tournament), for the moment swapped in an Island instead of a fetchland. I’m also always hoping to refine my sideboard, mainly for different combo decks. 5 removal spells in sideboard is certainly taking a lot of room, but is mainly for my current meta.
The Source thread on Bant had a lot more discussion of that build whatever 4-6 months ago. When comparing with Death Blade, you're shoring up a couple downsides to the TNN plan (especially speed, with extra dorks+), but become more vulnerable to the -1/-1 effects against fair creature decks (where Geist needs a good bit of setup to be really good). I'm not sure that's worth the reduced versatility of the planeswalkers plan, when the threats don't seem strong enough in a lot of fair matches.
With lots of fair matches with lots of removal and attrition (Jund, Miracles, BUG), where you're not really fast enough to make daze better than thoughtseize, I think I like the slightly slower, more-stable plan of Deathblade better right now.
Deathblade is far better equipped to beat combo decks with all their disruption spells, and is a well-rounded deck at this point. I feel that this is the main reason you very rarely see bant show up anywhere.
But I think I have a better matchup against other control/slowish decks than Deathblade can ever wish for, it feels like our endgame potential is better while also having accelerants to go aggro. Having a geist of saint traft with exalted triggers paired with our sword of fire and ice is a scary clock against decks like deathblade.
As Anwei40 pointed out, one weakness of the deck are efficient -1/-1 effects like golgari charm / Zealous Persecution or the one I fear the most, toxic deluge. Junk or maverick decks will always side in a few copies of Zealous Persecution, one of my main hopes is to be able to clique it away when they don't have the mana up to cast it, at least until I can get a sword on a threat. Sometimes you accidentally play around it by only drawing deathrites and stoneforges into a batterskull. If we were to counter it then it would be pretty straightforward, but force of will is sided out against nearly all fair decks since it’s an overall bad card against them and you want to bring in abit of extra removal against dark confidants, especially since if they don’t draw their persecution (either by preventing bob from triggering or being lucky) your True-Name will win the game on its own.
Another problem is against shardless bug (which is probably my worst match up) where they have toxic deluges in sideboard (sometimes in maindeck). The game will revolve around a counter-war for that field wipe (or be lucky and clique it away). If it resolves with you having enough on the board they will bury you in card advantage, so you have the decision of keeping a threat in hand until they do so, but they have a good way of enticing you to commit to the board with the incoming suspended Ancestral Vision. I haven't found a effective plan for that front yet (Jace isn’t too effective against Baleful Strix for example, but is one thing I side in). The players who play with that deck tend to rotate decks all the time and I just haven't played against it enough to figure out a solution for my list.
I’m also soft to Supreme Verdict but that hasn’t been too bad an issue since I swapped to 3 cliques and by playing more conservatively.
I wrote a huge text (or a rant) of how I came to the deck and changes I've made based on experience for you to read through streetMage
My current decklist
Almost a year ago I had been working on a bant brew, juggling between different ideas, including tarmogoyfs. Then few months later TNN was spoiled and this deck seemed like just the deck that was begging for it, then a few weeks after Reid Duke ran a list he worked on at a SCG Invitational legacy, in preparation for a TNN list he was working on, which Sam Black then played at a few GPs. I built and played with that list, and keeping an eye out for other tweaks players made over the net, most notably a sword of fire/ice in the sideboard.
After siding in the sword so often and the new metagame being flooded with true-name decks, I left it maindeck and its just been the MVP of the deck since. There are many decks that cannot beat a on a TNN in game one. The damage is massive and the card draw makes it very hard for anyone to come back.
The deck was doing pretty well against most fair decks, people weren't effective at dealing with a turn 2 yet. All I had to do was constantly play around with the sideboard for the different combo matchups, and it was a ton of fun. But after a while people just figured out how to play against it, mainly by attacking my mana (turning into sinkholes on the nobles) while putting pressure would make this deck crumble. Sometimes they would draw the Grafdigger’s cage they usually have in their Sideboard for GY decks and elves, and suddenly our ability to get the creature for the game state with green sun is just a couple of dead cards in hand.
The deck also had trouble against other TNN decks that packed removal (mainly UWR delver), so I eventually added a and a bayou to splash 2 , which was good against elves as well.
A few weeks after Sam Black showed up with the bant list at the first GP, some-one had gone 4-0 at a Daily event on mtgo with a different twist on the deck, who went with a mix of TNN and Geists. I liked the idea of the list but I didn’t want to abandon the bant list I’ve been on til I gave it more practice.
I loved the utility of green sun zenith, especially the sideboard silver bullets, but it did make some of the topdecks or opening hands really weak or inconsistent. Every time I had in my opening hand would either almost force a mulligan or have the deck play a turn behind, which is the opposite of the idea of adding mana dorks in your u/w stoneblade deck. So after a few months I decided I’d go back to constantly shifting the deck till I hit what I’m more comfortable with and completely cut off green sun from it. I still remember a few opening-hands with a + karakas + wasteland, I’m always looking for ways to tune a deck to reduce the chances of needing to mulligan hands.
Cutting GSZ opened up so much room that it took some time to figure out what I’d want to do with the open card spots, so started with doubling the mana creatures by adding , and remembering that Bant Deathblade list from earlier with Geist.
Geist is a concession to miracles and other controlling decks like deathblade. Against some decks hes much more threatening than a TNN could be. Nothing like playing a turn 2 Geist and having them spin top, fetch, spin top again, turn passes to them, another fetch to spin the top again, because that 3 turn clock really puts em to it. A decent amount of matchups he's just there to be pitched to force and sided out afterwards, mostly decks with good blockers or when you play a defensive/controlling strategy.
I had started with 4 TNN and 3 Geists. My friends we’re commenting that the deck had turned into a form of combo deck in the sense that X into Y had to happen to make the deck threatening, which was mana dork into 3drop, so might as well push for it by finding ways to add more. Increasing the chances of having 2 big threats in opening hand has its advantages. Some match ups where I might expect them to have a daze in hand, I would lead with Geist (or clique) to run into it and have them get behind on their land drop, just to resolve a true name the next turn.
One thing I've noticed is in nearly all of my games I would side out for better cards to the aggro strategy, and I eventually left them in sideboard because he is still great against some matchups, like the obvious Miracles (I love landing a jace after they use their top to miracle a terminus, and shoving said Top on bottom of their library). I did however put the in its place in the maindeck for the amazing card advantage, since I can't recall a game where I wasn't excited to have it in opening hand. The only time its bad is against very aggressive deck where spending a turn not advancing your board or defending yourself can cost you a game (rug delver, burn), a resolved library will insure that keep hitting land drops so wastelands/stifles don’t take you out of the game, as a resolved TNN is likely the only goal of the game sometimes.
Miracles had started to be a decent chunk of the metagame after its success in GPs and SCGopens, so I moved the 2 Cliques in my sideboard to the main, upping the 3mana threats count to 9, and that ended up working pretty well. Being able to cycle the terminus they just miracle’d really changed the approach to that match up. Over time one of those geists turned into a 3rd Clique instead. It is such a flexible card, being able to flash it in on their 2nd turn’s draw step against combo is great. But most of the time I’d do it at the end of their turn in case they decided to play a stoneforge or just to have a threat played around sorcery removal or the likes (ambushing a jace is pretty sweet too).
At this point became a pretty potent land instead of just a safety valve against . There is the obvious protecting or repeating Clique activations against combo or against removal to secure your threat, but I also like attacking with Geist to send the angel at their face/planeswalker in game one (in matchups where I’d side him out after game one) and bouncing him on blockers step, to replay him in the next main phase.
This also opened up room in sideboard to play around with. Tried adding more counters, but I prefer proactive cards against combos like . Combo decks have become less and less popular around my meta, so I haven’t put as many SB slots to it atm. Eventually added some for removal. For rug delver your strategy should be to pave a way to resolve a TNN and be patient with it, having abrupt for their goyf or delver could buy you the time you need to get your mana set up through wastelands and stifles. I generally only fetch up one of my black sources (or play the one in my hand) when I am ready to cast it, since relying on deathrite won’t get you far in the matchup. I always loved humility but stopped running it now that reanimator/ became a less common sighting in my meta, I might try it out in sideboard again but it’s certainly a card I enjoyed in the original list.
My list started off with 3 or 4 wastelands depending on versions, as it’s a pretty powerful card after you’ve played your main threat, but it usually doesn’t do all that much against my bad match ups, not to mention my deck can still make use of extra mana when flooding (it is pretty common to hard cast a around a daze). Outside of the matchup where you prefer to go with a turn 1 dork into turn 2 stoneforge to play around daze, this deck will rarely even bother playing wasteland on turn 2, where its most effective, Over time I went down to 1 to see how that pans out and I feel its an improvement. I’ve found that when it comes to my manabase, I’m always on the defensive, being more susceptible to wasteland, and anytime my mana wasn’t bothered too much I’d always pull ahead. Most of the time the deck does poorly is when my opponent uses a removal on a mana dork followed by a wasteland, mainly delver decks, but lands and Jund had that play as well. This is of course a side-effect of a greedy mana-base, so I swapped the wastelands for more color producing lands to power through the land destruction I suppose.
It’s generally best to view wasteland as a spell, so in a sense I’ve increased my land count. I’ve left one in at the moment so some games I can find it with brainstorms/library when the need rises.
With the recent print of , Council’s Judgement replaced the as answers to true-name and to add extra removal against other matchups. The card is flexible and sometimes you just need a vindicate. The opponents have to bounce their batterskull in response to your even casting it, and any card that can kill a gets a few extra points.
One thing on my mind recently is figuring out changes to have a more resilient mana base (lost to rug delver in finals in a Legacy Tournament), for the moment swapped in an island instead of a fetchland. I’m also always hoping to refine my sideboard, mainly for different combo decks. 5 removal spells in sideboard is certainly taking a lot of room, but is mainly for my current meta.
Superb write up, will be reading over and over as I adjust my deck!
The Source thread on Bant had a lot more discussion of that build whatever 4-6 months ago. When comparing with Death Blade, you're shoring up a couple downsides to the TNN plan (especially speed, with extra dorks+), but become more vulnerable to the -1/-1 effects against fair creature decks (where Geist needs a good bit of setup to be really good). I'm not sure that's worth the reduced versatility of the planeswalkers plan, when the threats don't seem strong enough in a lot of fair matches.
With lots of fair matches with lots of removal and attrition (Jund, Miracles, BUG), where you're not really fast enough to make better than , I think I like the slightly slower, more-stable plan of Deathblade better right now.
Thanks awei40, that article was just what I was looking for, watched Glenn's matchups and they helped alot!
Deathblade is far better equipped to beat combo decks with all their disruption spells, and is a well-rounded deck at this point. I feel that this is the main reason you very rarely see bant show up anywhere.
But I think I have a better matchup against other control/slowish decks than Deathblade can ever wish for, it feels like our endgame potential is better while also having accelerants to go aggro. Having a geist with exalted trigger paired with is a scary clock against decks like deathblade.
Yea, what I feel we can accomplish is that this becoming the strongest fair deck against fair decks in the format.
Geist solves the problem of the -1/-1 rath effects and I will be adding him to my list.
As far as combo decks our best bet is to rely on countermagic game one. But white gives access to some of the best sideboard cards for combo.
As Anwei40 pointed out, one weakness of the deck are efficient -1/-1 effects like or the one I fear the most, . Junk or maverick decks will always side in a few copies of , one of my main hopes is to be able to clique it away when they don't have the mana up to cast it, at least until I can get a sword on a threat. Sometimes you accidently play around it by only drawing deathrites and stoneforge. If we counter it then it would be pretty straightforward, but is sided out against since it’s an overall bad card against them and you want to bring in abit of extra removal for their , especially since if they don’t draw their persecution (either by preventing bob from triggering or being lucky) your True-Name will win the game on its own.
Some of your post are missing words...for example above you have "-1/-1 effects like or the one I fear the most, ". But I'm guessing you are talking about Zealous Persecution or maybe Toxic Deluge.
Another problem is against shardless bug (which is probably my worst match up) where they have in sideboard (sometimes one in maindeck). The game will revolve around a counter-war for that field wipe (or be lucky and clique it away). If it resolves with you having enough on the board they will bury you in card advantage, so you have the decision of keeping a threat in hand until they do so, but they have a good way of enticing you to commit to the board with the incoming suspended recall. I haven't found a effective plan for that front yet ( isn’t too effective against for example). The players who play with that deck tend to rotate decks all the time and I just haven't played against it enough to figure out a solution for my list.
You board out countermagic against bug? Interesting, like I said I have close to zero practice with this deck so Im not too sure how I'd sideboard. When I played against it at the one tournament I figured boarding in Rest In Peace was one of the best cards to bring in...and I boarded out the Knights. Now I figure I'd board out the 2 Deathrites for 2x RIP. But Decay is uncounterable...maybe Misdirection is a good sideboard against them?
What do you think of Elspeth, Knight-Errant as a SB option vs Miracles and even BUG?
She gets around board wipes and can't be decayed.
Also what do you think about Leyline of Sanctity? Can help vs Burn, Ad Nauseam, Belcher, High Tide, Painter...etc.
Might be too narrow..esp if we only ran one...but it does help with combo matchups.
Superb write up, will be reading over and over as I adjust my deck!
Thanks! Love any talk or discussions about the brew, nothing like changing a single card and noticing a difference in it’s performance.
Quote from "streetMage” »
Some of your post are missing words...for example above you have "-1/-1 effects like or the one I fear the most, ". But I'm guessing you are talking about Zealous Persecution or maybe Toxic Deluge.
Yep, I fixed up that post, and the one before…and some a few back… Recently cards would disappear from my posts, I think it has to do with my AutoCardAnywhere addon messing up with it whenever I go to edit a post, I've had to fix up a few of the previous posts I did as well. Will be cleaning up the posts so its cleaner when you read through it again.
Quote from "streetMage” »
You board out countermagic against bug? Interesting, like I said I have close to zero practice with this deck so Im not too sure how I'd sideboard. When I played against it at the one tournament I figured boarding in Rest In Peace was one of the best cards to bring in...and I boarded out the Knights. Now I figure I'd board out the 2 Deathrites for 2x RIP. But Decay is uncounterable...maybe Misdirection is a good sideboard against them?
Nah I keep the countermagic, I need it for the mass removal in their sideboard. As long as they can’t wipe away my board presence their card advantage don’t mean much, so I’m keeping in the forces. RIP is certainly good against all BUG decks, but if they stabilize they can abrupt the RIP and get their Goyf up in no time. I usually still leave all my Deathrites as he still helps me accelerate into a threat since I only play 1 RIP and it is not always a card I play on turn 2, I’d much rather land it after I put pressure on and they played a goyf.I think Misdirection might be too cute, but if it’s the only “counterspell” in my hand it won work on their field wipe, and I doubt I’d have enough blue cards in hand for both my force of will and a misdirection. If my deck was extremely weak to abrupt decays then it would be justified in sideboard, I don’t think I can make room for a situational card like that, but I can’t say I gave it much of a try either. On the other hand it is however effective against hymn. Abrupts aren’t much of an issue against me since I no longer run knight, and they don’t generally have a threat on the table when they are stuck to using it for misdirection to shine in.
What do you think of Elspeth, Knight-Errant as a SB option vs Miracles and even BUG?
She gets around board wipes and can't be decayed.
She excellent against BUG, I’m not quite sure she’s worth the spots against Miracles. I had tried her plenty before TNN came out and liked her primarily because of the evasion she gave for me to close out a game, and I’m not sure I want her with my evasive threats. I prefer Jace over her in almost all other matchups, but I can eventually test her again to see if she works against different decks. If she is only good against BUG lists then I might not bother unless I becomes a constant issue that I can't find another solution for.
Also what do you think about Leyline of Sanctity? Can help vs Burn, Ad Nauseam, Belcher, High Tide, Painter...etc. Might be too narrow..esp if we only ran one...but it does help with combo matchups.
For painter the removal in my sideboard meant for creature matchups are great against them as well. Having 5 spells that remove their combo/bridge/chalice puts us in a good spot I’d say.
High tide is not a matchup I’ve played against, altho I’ve played it a long while back. Ethersworn Canonist puts a nice choke on their plan until they can Wipe Away it. Spell Pierce with Vendilion Clique might be enough disruption.
Altho leyline is great against burn, it’s not quite enough against storm and belcher as they will have time to assemble a large Empty the Warrens to go around it, and the combo decks are built to be able to return it to your hand before going off if given enough time. I’ve tried it but felt it was horrible unless you went with a full 3-4. Cards like that have to be in your opening hand, while other low cost pre-emptive cards have been more successful as you can draw it later or find it with a brainstorm. I want to be able to keep a good opening hand that drew none of my sideboard cards knowing they will likely show up when I need them. Since I’ve sided out the below average cards for game 2/3, most of my topdecks are promising.
When it comes to cards in my sideboard, I want them to be extremely flexible and be effective against a wide variety of decks. Altho every card is put in for a particular scenario, the more varied your sideboard is the better your sideboarding is against the overall wide amount of decks you can face. I don’t need my sideboard cards to win me the game by their own (like leyline could), my deck is already built to eventually build into a threat they can’t deal with, but to instead help me with my goal by slowing down their strategy or forcing them to play a fair game until I close the game.
The way I see it, if I don’t side in at least 5 cards in a matchup, it’s likely because I’m already favored. Some people approach sideboard slots by dedicating strong cards, but those same cards will rarely come in for other matchups so their game isn’t improved as much in game 2/3, especially since you have to fight through their sideboard as well. Diversifying your sideboard is also useful, such as splitting up 2 RIP into a RIP+Grafdigger’s Cage so one of my dredge/reanimator/storm sideboard can also hit elves by disabling Green Sun's Zenith/ Natural Order. I often see decklists with 3 surgical extraction, 3 krosan grips and a lot of flusterstorms in their sideboard and they just end up hurting when they face say merfolk/maverick or Elves. There just isn’t enough room for powerful yet linear cards to beat every deck you need help with. Legacy is a diverse format and your sideboard is your main tool to help you navigate through it.
I’m a huge fan of pre-emptive cards that will stop or slow the motion of their deck giving you more time to interact with them while pressuring their life total. I really liked Gaddok Teeg when I had GSZ, since he can be brought in for so many matches, but stopping my force of wills was something that occasionally hurt me (unless I drew karakas). I Won 2 matches today thanks to Ethersworn canonist, one against enchantress (I also got to Council's Judgment a Argothian Enchantress ) and against Elves. She’s also good against storm, since they are stuck to only playing a single cantrip a turn until they find their sideboard or burning wish and the odds aren’t too good since by then I can back her up with counterspells. Now of course she won’t stay in play long, but it easily buys you a couple of turns to make sure you can put down a big threat and then be able to leave up mana for removal/interactions, not to mention every draw step against combo can get you another interactive spell or sideboard card. I’ll have to say Canonist has been my best decision as a dedicated combo sideboard since she’s still effective against all the rare combo decks you sometimes hear about as well.
I personally prefer to have multiple cards that each help optimize my deck and are great when you draw several of your sideboard cards together. Once you refine your sideboard so that most of your sideboard cards are flexible and useful enough to be brought in against more decks, in a way you increase the size of your sideboard. This is mostly by playing a great number of matches and figuring out the cards you like and those you feel are too clunky or unrealistic. A sideboard should always be a work in progress and it is something I love to work on in all formats.
I personally prefer to have multiple cards that each help optimize my deck and are great when you draw several of your sideboard cards together. Once you refine your sideboard so that most of your sideboard cards are flexible and useful enough to be brought in against more decks, in a way you increase the size of your sideboard. This is mostly by playing a great number of matches and figuring out the cards you like and those you feel are too clunky or unrealistic. A sideboard should always be a work in progress and it is something I love to work on in all formats.
I agree... on another note, where do you get your dual lands?
I've gotten some from ebay, but with all the counterfeit talk around I wonder if this is wise....
Is there a way to make sure they are real?
I agree... on another note, where do you get your dual lands?
I've gotten some from ebay, but with all the counterfeit talk around I wonder if this is wise....
Is there a way to make sure they are real?
I got most of mine from different buylist opportunities (at a GP I managed to trade 2 scalding tarns for a underground sea to a store).
Fortunately my local store has a good inventory of cards and have all the duals on hand so after amassing store credit from tournaments/buylists I have access to them.
As for fakes, there is little way of telling when purchasing online outside of making sure its a reputable seller. To note, you won't find a damaged or heavy/mild play fake card, they will usually be in very near mint condition (since its recently made), and usually when starting to amass dual lands for legacy you don't buy near-mint to start anyway.
From what I hear, there is a big difference in the feel of the cards in person with your fingers, its not completely the same material/make so you should be able to easily tell if you compare with any old revised duals.
A list like this did really well in our store recently. I think it has lots of potential to take down a large event.
4x Noble Hierarch
4x True-Name Nemesis
3x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Scavenging Ooze
4x Force of Will
3x Spell Pierce
3x Daze
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Brainstorm
2x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Batterskull
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
1x Forest
1x Island
1x Dryad Arbor
4x Windswept Heath
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Flooded Strand
3x Wasteland
1x Karakas
1x Maze of Ith
Looks like my old list without the Spell Pierce.
Maze, Wasteland and Karakas are pretty nice with Knights!
Would probably want one Savannah somewhere in there..
I wrote a huge text (or a rant) of how I came to the deck and changes I've made based on experience for you to read through streetMage
Since the legacy seen here is non-existent I had no choice but to build this deck on mtgo.
After playing for about a week I realized that everything you said was spot on.
I got rid of the Green Sun's and now have a full set of Deathrite Shamans.
I also had Humility in but removed it for a Zealous Persecution.
So main focus is clearer and more aggressive, will move the Jace back to the sideboard for another sword...maybe fire and ice.
Also debating if I should make the island a basic plains instead.
Here is the list.
Deck performs drastically better. Elves can sometimes be an issue, especially because of Reclamation Sage targeting Jitte early on.
The mana is still a little tricky. I completely took out my Savannahs so that every fetchland could get any dual I wanted.
But sometimes I feel pressed for white mana. Havent been able to use Zealous yet against elves, but its been good against some other decks...but I wonder if making it a Stifle instead will make that spot more versatile and still stop Craterhoof Behemoth's trigger.
Anyway, will do more testing, thanks for the advice!
Since the legacy seen here is non-existent I had no choice but to build this deck on mtgo.
Awesome! That's something I eventually want to do so I can push in testing. Just remember that the
meta on mtgo is quite different than say a GP, mostly for budget reasons (so you'll find alot more
graveyard decks on MODO), so those surgical extractions could be replaced for Jersey if you feel comfortable without them.
To answer your question from a long while back I am indeed planning on going to the New Jersey GP.
By the way I tried out Elspeth, knight-errant again now that my meta has a couple of Bug decks, and she's
awesome against both delver and shardless bug! For the moment leaving her in the maindeck to see how she is in other
matchups, but so far she is still decent elsewhere.
but I wonder if making it a Stifle instead will make that spot more versatile and
still stop Craterhoof Behemoth's trigger.
There might be other tweaks to try for elves, probly in sideboard. One thing I'd suggest is to get
a Grafdigger's cage in the sideboard, it stops their Green sun's zenith, natural order, and
(as minor as it is) stops their fetchland from grabbing dryad arbor. If you replace Rest in Peace
by it, your deathrite shamans suddenly become a tiny bit better, but with the meta on MODO maybe replace
a surgical or another card you feel you don't need.
In my sideboard I have 5 spot removal I bring in so elves is easier to manage but I haven't found
something I really like outside of the zealous persecution.
Since the legacy seen here is non-existent I had no choice but to build this deck on mtgo.
Awesome! That's something I eventually want to do so I can push in testing. Just remember that the
meta on mtgo is quite different than say a GP, mostly for budget reasons (so you'll find alot more
graveyard decks on MODO), so those surgical extractions could be replaced for Jersey if you feel comfortable without them.
To answer your question from a long while back I am indeed planning on going to the New Jersey GP.
By the way I tried out Elspeth, knight-errant again now that my meta has a couple of Bug decks, and she's
awesome against both delver and shardless bug! For the moment leaving her in the maindeck to see how she is in other
matchups, but so far she is still decent elsewhere.
but I wonder if making it a Stifle instead will make that spot more versatile and
still stop Craterhoof Behemoth's trigger.
There might be other tweaks to try for elves, probly in sideboard. One thing I'd suggest is to get
a Grafdigger's cage in the sideboard, it stops their Green sun's zenith, natural order, and
(as minor as it is) stops their fetchland from grabbing dryad arbor. If you replace Rest in Peace
by it, your deathrite shamans suddenly become a tiny bit better, but with the meta on MODO maybe replace
a surgical or another card you feel you don't need.
In my sideboard I have 5 spot removal I bring in so elves is easier to manage but I haven't found
something I really like outside of the zealous persecution.
I've been having issues against Titan Post. Usually I try to go for the Wasteland/Surgical Extraction route... but eventually they just overwhelm. Have you played against it? Here's a sample list http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=8216&d=247292&f=LE.
I've been having issues against Titan Post. Usually I try to go for the Wasteland/Surgical Extraction route... but eventually they just overwhelm. Have you played against it? Here's a sample list http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=8216&d=247292&f=LE.
I think I've played against it only once when someone was testing tier 2 lists, so I haven't gotten to plan out a tactic against it yet, but I can see how its a bad matchup for us. The good news is the deck is extremely rare on paper so I don't think you should adjust your list/sideboard around it (I'd be surprised if more than like 3 people came to New Jersey with it), candles being cheap on MODO makes it tempting to build for alot of people. Wasteland is your best weapon but their maindeck pithing needles are there just for that.
Nice legacy scene in my area. Here is my pet bant list. Won a GPT and some other smaller events with it. Discussed this list a bit on the source, haven't been over here in a while. I like this against the delver decks since stoneforge and TNN are excellent late game and the mana is hard to disrupt. Against combo the clock plus many counters is solid. Miracles is pretty even, but deathblade is tough since they are basically the slightly bigger version of this deck. Pretty good in an open metagame. I like this creature suite a lot as it plays through -1/-1 hate well. Don't play basics, always be able to cast your spells. Those are my quick thoughts.
Nice legacy scene in my area. Here is my pet bant list. Won a GPT and some other smaller events with it. Discussed this list a bit on the source, haven't been over here in a while. I like this against the delver decks since stoneforge and TNN are excellent late game and the mana is hard to disrupt. Against combo the clock plus many counters is solid. Miracles is pretty even, but deathblade is tough since they are basically the slightly bigger version of this deck. Pretty good in an open metagame. I like this creature suite a lot as it plays through -1/-1 hate well. Don't play basics, always be able to cast your spells. Those are my quick thoughts.
lots of room for metagaming in the board: Meddling Mage, Humility, Firewalker, Hydroblast, path, loam, etc.
I've been trying to revive this thread as I believe Bant is versatile in any meta...its has because blue for counters and white for sideboard/stoneforge tech. Really interested in some of your card choices:
Treasure Cruise, I would think this is too slow in Bant. We run a lot of conditional instants and don't fill the yard as fast as I would think to full take advantage of it. Also, its somewhat a nonbo with Deathrite when relying on our gy for his mana ability. I haven't tested it, so just thinking out loud.
With all the creatures, including Judge's Familiar I'd main an additional another Sword or Batterskull for them to wear....possibly Feast and Famine.
Ultimately, I prefer Rest In Peace as my gy hate of choice along with Surgical Extraction.
I see you run Grafdigger's Cage and Relic...why not Nihil Spellbomb over Relic, you keep your own gy to Treasure Cruise.
Either way, just hoping to get some conversation started again with this deck, wish there was a local a legacy scene here, but I had to build the deck on mtgo to get any practice.
I'm hoping I have time this weekend to list up a few of my changes with khans and the metagame. Not getting much testing in before New Jersey :S
That and the decklist in my signature changes all the time until I figure out my exact 75 for the GP.
With khans I did try treasure cruise but it was just miserable. You cast it and draw a land, a dork, and a daze. Not exactly what I am looking for on turn 5. But since then I've swapped to 2 maindeck Dig Through Times and they've been doing great. Finding 2 high impact cards out of a new hand of 7 is far better for us than 3 random draws, and being an instant is a good upgrade. With the amount of mana dorks we have you don't have to empty the whole graveyard, I usually end up doing half/half
@ streetmage
TC: I have really liked Treasure cruise. I was on 2 when I first tested in and went up to 3 shortly their after. We don't fill the yard as quickly as UR delver, but fill the yard quickly enough. 9 fetches is, I think, the right number for enabling. I think, generally, Dig will prove to be a better card, but in this deck, like most delver decks, raw resources are more important than specific ones. This changes a bit in game 2/3 as we have more situational cards. I could see putting 1 dig in the board for that reason. Deathrites are almost exclusively pulling out of the opponent's yard, and the occasions when you pull from your own, you are doing so for value. This deck has enough mana that I have never felt limited in my ability to cast TC.
JF: The on board daze that can carry a sword is quite nice. I like it a lot as a T1 play, even with a dork in hand. JF makes daze so much better. Even as a late game draw, JF plus the plethora of mana we have access to allows you to successfully force through spells. The ability to block a delver or clique is also frequently relevant. I am testing other cards in this spot, but like them a great deal.
SoFaF: I had one in for a few weeks when I brought this deck back. I very rarely fetched it and frequently when I drew it just wanted about any other spell. There are far fewer geese and goyfs floating around and this deck has enough permission to interact well with combo, so I have just been leaning on the other swords.
RiP: Because I like the delve cards and deathrites I don't want RiP. It is the best hate for graveyard decks but doesn't fill as many roles and is not a T1 play (when you really need hate v dredge or reanimator, etc). Cage is excellent against elves and various rouge decks and relic is solid against delve decks and cycles without forcing me to get early game black mana (like spellbomb). The anti-synergy of relic's exile is a down side. I could see extraction in that spot.
Played in a 20 person event this weekend. Ran a decay and a pierce in place of the familiars to test them out, as well as a few other changes. They are very strong as one might expect. Running those does make you take a more controlling approach. If you want those in your main, I think the deck needs to be rebuilt a bit as a midrange deathblade deck plus dorks rather than a tempo deck. If you like tempo, the familiars are definitely strong. If you want to be more aggro focused, voice of resurgence is very strong in that spot along with some other mods. My (obvious) advice is pick your style and build around that.
Played in a 20 person event this weekend. Ran a decay and a pierce in place of the familiars to test them out, as well as a few other changes. They are very strong as one might expect. Running those does make you take a more controlling approach. If you want those in your main, I think the deck needs to be rebuilt a bit as a midrange deathblade deck plus dorks rather than a tempo deck. If you like tempo, the familiars are definitely strong. If you want to be more aggro focused, voice of resurgence is very strong in that spot along with some other mods. My (obvious) advice is pick your style and build around that.
Care to share a tourney report?
Did you reliably have black mana when needed?
Ran the list from post 417 with the following changes: MD -2 judge's familiar, -2 geist, -1 SoFaI, +1 pierce, +1 decay, +1 TNN, +1 Clique, +1 Batterskull; SB -1 Batterskull, -1 C Judgment, -1 Pierce, -1 KGrip, -1 Notion Theif, -1 Karakas, -1 pithing needle, +1 SoFaI, +1 hydroblast, +1 Z Persecution, +1 scrubland, +1 decay, +1 Scavenging Ooze, +1 Rhox War Monk.
I changed all these cards to get a feel for them. General thoughts on these changes: The main deck was a bit less aggressive. Decay was generally a nice spell, since it meant I didn't have to play around daze and knew the treat would go away. Pierce was nice for setting up safe spells or picking off important ones. With pierce hands I was more likely to hold open blue mana rather than playing out a dork, or mystic, etc. So it slowed me down. Generally that is fine, but it is a big stylistic change. Because I thought this build would be a bit slower and more interactive, I switched out the geists for the a clique and TNN and swapped the SoFaI for the batterskull. I think all these cards are strong but I think this build of the deck was a bit too middle ground, not really aggro not really midrange-control.
I changed a bunch of the board cards including adding some more black spells, hence the karakas becoming a scrubland. Over the course of 5 rounds and 3 fun matches, I never had trouble with my maindeck or sideboard black spells, and I never actually put the scrubland into play. I have definitely been happy to have the karakas as a white source in the previous version, so I think this land is probably a good include, but not strictly necessary. I loved the ooze. He gained a bit of life and disrupted graveyards against UR delver and burn and also ate removal spells which didn't get pointed at my face. I never drew the war monk. Of note, the war monk is a 3 cmc spell, the ooze is often a 3 or 4 cmc spell if you are playing around forked or lightning bolts. The only thing the red decks bring to the table to deal with War monk is fireblast or multiple cards. As such he should be strong, but I think 2 ooze is probably better than the 1:1 split unless you run GSZ. If you are not putting it in the main to force through damage, I don't think SoFaI is worth including. I often pick it when it is in the deck in game 1s but never sided it in. Batterskull main was fine in the slightly slower version of the deck, but I definitely want SoFaI in the more aggressive version. Didn't miss the needle.
Matchups:
1) Br Welder Reanimator (W: 2-0; 1-0) He mulled to 5 both games but kept strong hands, reanimating sundering titans in both games and a wurmcoil in the first. TNN with jitte and a timely plow got me through game 1. Deathrites and abrupt decay were affective disruption. Noble + Clique took the second game.
2) UR Delver (W: 2-1; 2-0) Game 1 I was able to disrupt him early and get TNN + batterskull. I was quite low before getting the batterskull in play, but his TC didn't draw him gas. During game 2 after I resolved a second ZP he commented that this was probably not a good matchup for him. In this game I got a bit greedy, I fetched down to 9 life with 3 lands and a noble in play and tapped out to cast and equip a jitte to TNN. I hit him, killed off his pyro and token. I had pierce in hand and because I tapped out lost to price plus bolt. Should have held the TNN back on D for a turn to keep pierce live, then equiped the next turn. Bad play, got punished. Game 3 I overwhelmed him with removal and eventually assemble batterksull and jitte.
3) Lands (L: 1-2; 2-1) This is one of the matchups where not having geist is a big deal (also true of many control and combo matchups). Game 1 my TNN + jitte was doing a good job clocking him, but my only counters were 2 dazes, so I couldn't counter the crop rotation that allowed him to make a Marit Leige. I survived 1 hit by burning jitte counters. The deathrite in play would have allowed me to take over if I found a plow, but couldn't find it and died to the second hit. Game 2 he mulled and I was able to keep him off of colored mana through a combination of wasteland and counter magic to kill him with relative ease. Game 3 I mulled to 5 and he had early and complete control including tabernacle, maze, loam and PFire + grove. I was able to keep my head above water including finding my sylvan library. He never found the dark depths and I was able to build some pressure. As we went to time he was burning me down with 2 Pfire a turn. I was able to get batterskull into play via mystic activation with tabernacle trigger on the stack. Then on T4 (my last turn) he P-fired me down to 3. I had a swords in hand, with the plan to swords my germ to gain 4 and preserve the draw. I punted by not doing so on my turn. Instead, I waited until he put the lethal fire on the stack on his turn. I then went for the plow and he had Kgrip in response. I hadn't seen it from him in either previous game, but I should not have allowed that to be a live draw. So second stupid play gets punished.
4) UWR Helm Miracles: (L: 1-2; 2-2) Game 1 I mulled to 6 but did well keeping him off of 2 counterbalance and a terminus. He was able to resolve a top and a RIP. Turn before I could kill him and with all my counters exhausted he found the helm with the top. Game 2 I won largely off of clique + noble. Clique pulled an entreat from his hand with miracle trigger on the stack then finished him off a few turns later. Game 3 I mulled to 6 and was simply over powered. I fought an early counter fight over a mystic (my only treat in hand) and lost. Then he was able to stick a jace and lock me out. I could have let the mystic go, but I don't know what my line to win would have been if I had. This is another match where the faster clock of giest makes a huge difference.
5) Burn: (W: 2-0; 3-2). He mulled to 6 game 1, used a bolt to kill my T1 noble and never had enough resources to threaten me after that. Game 2 was closer, as he got me to 1 the turn before I started hitting with jitte. His next draw was a land and he was never able to threaten me after that.
I really liked having abrupt decay. I didn't like this particular construction of the deck (not really aggressive but not quite equipped to properly play control). I would either run it as the tempo version with geist and JF but add 2 decays to the board, or I would make it into a deathblade + dorks deck by adding lands, digs, walkers, and a few spells while cutting dazes, 2 TC, a noble, two TNN and 1 clique. I think all of these constructions have favorable UR delver matchups which is nice given the expected metagame in NJ. Not sure if i will go with aggro or deathblade variant this weekend. Will post a report some time next week either way.
______________
Edit:
How do people feel about Grafdigger's Cage verses Containment Priest? While I recognize the increase in mana cost is significant, the added value of being a body and interacting with Sneak and Show is appealing.
How do people feel about Grafdigger's Cage verses Containment Priest? While I recognize the increase in mana cost is significant, the added value of being a body and interacting with Sneak and Show is appealing.
I made a change to have 2 Cages (instead of 1 cage 1 RIP) and 1 Priest in sideboard. Anytime a sideboard card also has the option of wielding an equipment is a nice bonus (some matchups is only about sticking an equipment on anything you can find). Cage is almost necessary on the draw against some decks like dredge and reanimator, and can curve better with your draw. I liked the extra flexible card against elf/reanimator/S&T/Dredge.
We hosted a big tournament 2 weeks ago and I came in 7th out of 33 which scored me my 5th Savannah (lost first round of the top8 to Enchantress, I didn't know how the matchup goes well enough at the time)
After a few tweaks, this is the current list I'm going with for New Jersey
U/R Delver was piloted by quite a few players over my couple last tournaments so I had to make firm changes to sideboard. The matchup revolved alot around them getting value out of young pyromancer so Zealous Persecution came back into the sideboard (and improving elf matchup alongside it!) so I can clean up the field. The price of progress they run in sideboard has been a huge beating against me, so I can't side out the forces yet the matchup tends to become grindy and is usually about me equipping Umezawa's Jitte or batterskull and trying to make it stick, so Kor Firewalker came in there too. With a decent chunk of the meta turning into burn and U/R meta you can appreciate seeing the little guy in your opening hand. Finally since their whole deck is cantrips and Ancestral Recalls I decided I should try siding in Aethersworn Canonis against U/R and its been doing insanely good in some games. They have to bolt Stoneforge Mystic, they usually bolt Deathrite Shaman, then you land this guy and their turn consists of: brainstorm, go, Treasure Cruise, go. If I can equip the Canonist then it's usually over since they can't value their way back in the game after a treasure cruise with a pyromancer or with enough burn.
@Streetmage you should probably try a couple of treasure cruise or dig through time in your list, you'll find 2 delve cards is rather easy to feed. Way I saw it, now that I tweaked it to include 11 fecth lands, my graveyard fills pretty quick from mana dorks and stoneforge mystic hitting the bin to removal, or there was a little counterspell war. If none of those happened, I'm probably winning anyway and don't need to cast the dig, not to mention the mana dorks in play still help cast the thing. It can be a non-bo with deathrite shaman in a few rare games, but it's usually just fine, both are great enough that I don't mind them sharing the graveyard (altho deathrite is usually using the opponent's graveyard to deny delve resource). I tried treasure cruise but with my currect configuration it nearly always just insanely floods me with more lands. But casting a dig through time at a end step and picking up 7 cards and watching the look on my opponents face as I comb through a new hand is pretty sweet.
I've been playing a bant Edric deck for quite a while now and i'm having good sucess with it. I'm not running deathrite shaman and i'm running the full set of judge's familiar (way better than it looks).
I don't think treasure cruise should be in this deck. sylvan library as a 1-of does an excellent job at drawing and filtering every turn.
I tried treasure cruise but with my currect configuration it nearly always just insanely floods me with more lands. But casting a dig through time at a end step and picking up 7 cards and watching the look on my opponents face as I comb through a new hand is pretty sweet.
I think you would do well to shave 1 tundra for the 4rth daze or another delve card. I played with 20 for a while but in the 8 dork deck I also frequently felt flooded. 19 is smoother. Other than that, I like the smoothness and overall makeup of your deck.
As for price getting you, wasteland is an out. I see you moved away from them. I really like them with the dorks and, like fetches, they quickly fill the yard.
@mordraid
I don't know how you have come to the conclusion that TC does not belong. Can you elaborate? Raw resources have a lot of value. Some games you don't get what you want, but more often than not you get something good. And any raw resource you draw gives you more options. Even lands when you are flooding have value as cards in hand. I think you are being short sighted to think that a regular draw 3 isn't improving your overall performance. You are, afterall, running 3 edric, a conditional raw card draw spell. I don't understand the disconnect on this. I do understand that TC would likely necessitate swapping RiP for a different hate card, but their are plenty.
Cards don't get that much to the graveyard. Treasure cruise for 3 mana means you already have 5 cards in your graveyard, wich usually comes by turn 4-5. Edric on the other hand, can come down on turn two and by turn 4-5 he has drawn more than 3 cards. Don't get me wrong, i love treasure cruise, but i just think it's not the best in a bant deck with stoneforge mystic and deathrite shaman.
It's nice to see some increased discussion here on these forums. I've been tinkering with the Dark Bant version quite a bit as well (at least Deathrites and a black sideboard.) From playtesting, the Treasure Cruise and the Deathrite Shaman really don't conflict noticably. Not only because the DRS is targeting the opponent's yard, but because TC is usually a turn 4+ play, so you can put a couple of mana into it while saving one or two to cast what you get.
In mine, I've foregone the Stoneforge package and don't really miss it, going with 2 Jittes instead. For the sideboard, it's -based destruction and an Enlightened Tutor package. I'm often boarding in 6+ cards, which makes most opponents very nervous. The most recent change has been going up to three Cruises, splitting Deluge/Persecution for testing purposes, and going -1 Relic, +1 Spellbomb. It's a T1 play, it doesn't disrupt our GY, and I have the to draw the card from it sometimes.
I haven't done any testing with the Judge's Familiar. I expect it does better in a deck with a full 4 Wastelands, Stoneforges, and a general tempo style.
For anyone considering deathbant for the weekend, I think you should run a few matches with this straightforward base list. There is nothing cute here. It will give you some prospective on your own builds:
There is room for adjustment, clearly. SoFaI is not for everyone. Some people prefer Dig to TC. Geist, clique and JF are options. Everybody has their own graveyard hate preferences. ETC. That said, take some time with this very straight forward list. We all get too far down the rabbit hole of 1-ofs, 2-ofs, play style adaptations, etc. If you like deathbant, run 2-3 matches this week with this list to help you reassess your own build.
@Xavier RE: JF, wasteland, and tempo --> exactly correct analysis.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The Source thread on Bant had a lot more discussion of that build whatever 4-6 months ago. When comparing with Death Blade, you're shoring up a couple downsides to the TNN plan (especially speed, with extra dorks+Daze), but become more vulnerable to the -1/-1 effects against fair creature decks (where Geist needs a good bit of setup to be really good). I'm not sure that's worth the reduced versatility of the planeswalkers plan, when the threats don't seem strong enough in a lot of fair matches.
With lots of fair matches with lots of removal and attrition (Jund, Miracles, BUG), where you're not really fast enough to make Daze better than Thoughtseize, I think I like the slightly slower, more-stable plan of Deathblade better right now.
My current decklist
Almost a year ago I had been working on a bant brew, juggling between different ideas, including tarmogoyfs. One of my better lists would run 3-4 Geists with GSZ package and it had been doing decent. Then few months later True-Name Nemesis was spoiled and this deck seemed like just the deck that was begging for it, then a few weeks after Reid Duke ran a list he worked on at a SCG Invitational legacy, in preparation for a TNN list he was working on, which Sam Black then played at a few GPs. I built and played with that list, and keeping an eye out for other tweaks players made over the net, most notably a sword of fire/ice in the sideboard.
After siding in the sword so often and the new metagame being flooded with true-name decks, I left it maindeck and its just been the MVP of the deck since. There are many decks that cannot beat a sword of fire and ice on a TNN in game one. The damage is massive and the card draw makes it very hard for anyone to come back.
The deck was doing pretty well against most fair decks, people weren't effective at dealing with a turn 2 True-Name Nemesis yet. All I had to do was constantly tweak with the sideboard for the different combo matchups, and it was a ton of fun. But after a while people just figured out how to play against it, mainly by attacking my mana (turning lightning bolts into sinkholes on my Noble Hierarchs) while putting pressure would make this deck crumble. Sometimes they would draw the Grafdigger’s Cage they usually have in their Sideboard for GY decks and elves, and suddenly our ability to get the creature for the game state with Green Sun's Zenith is just a couple of dead cards in hand.
The deck also had trouble against other TNN decks that packed extra removal (mainly UWR delver), so I eventually added a Deathrite Shaman and a Bayou to splash 2 Zealous Persecution in sideboard, which was good against elves as well and other creature matchups.
A few weeks after Sam Black showed up with the bant list at the first GP, some-one had gone 4-0 at a Daily event on mtgo with a different twist on the deck, who went with a mix of TNN and Geist of Saint Trafts. I liked the idea of the list but I didn’t want to abandon the bant list Duke/Sam have been on until I gave it more practice.
I loved the utility of green sun's zenith, especially the sideboard silver bullets, but it did make some of the topdecks or opening hands really weak or inconsistent. Every time I had dryad arbor in my opening hand it would either almost force a mulligan or have the deck play a turn behind, which is the opposite of the idea of adding mana dorks in your U/W stoneblade deck. So after a few months I decided I’d go back to constantly brewing the deck till I hit what I’m more comfortable with and completely cut off green sun from it. I still cringe about the memories of a few opening-hands with a dryad arbor + karakas + wasteland, I’m always looking for ways to tune a deck to reduce the chances of needing to mulligan hands.
Cutting GSZ opened up so much room that it took some time to figure out what I’d want to do with the open card spots, so started with doubling the mana creatures by adding the full set of deathrites, and then I recalled that Bant Deathblade list from earlier with Geist.
Geist of Saint Traft is a concession to miracles and other controlling decks like deathblade. Against some decks hes much more threatening than a TNN could be, and having double the clock is great against combo decks. Nothing like playing a turn 2 Geist and Miracles spin their Sensei's divining top, fetch, spin top again, turn passes to them, another fetch to spin the top again, because that 3 turn clock really puts em to it. However a fair amount of matchups he's just there to be pitched to force of will and sided out afterwards, mostly decks with good blockers or when you play a defensive/controlling strategy.
I had started with 4 TNN and 3 Geists. My friends we’re commenting that the deck had turned into a form of combo deck in the sense that X into Y had to happen to make the deck threatening, which was mana dork into a 2nd turn 3-drop, so might as well push for it by finding ways to add more. Increasing the chances of having 2 big threats in opening hand has its advantages. Some match ups where I might expect them to have a daze in hand, I would lead with Geist (or clique) to run into it and have them get behind on their land drop, just to resolve a true name the next turn.
One thing I've noticed is in nearly all of my games I would side out my Jace, the Mind Sculptors for better cards to the aggro strategy, and I eventually decided to leave them in the sideboard because he is still great against some matchups, like the obvious Miracles (I love landing a jace after they use their top to miracle a terminus, and shoving said Top on bottom of their library). I did however put the Sylvan Library in its place in the maindeck for the amazing card advantage, since I can't recall a game where I wasn't excited to have it in opening hand. The only time its bad is against very aggressive deck where spending a turn not advancing your board or defending yourself can cost you a game (rug delver, burn), but at least a resolved library will insure that keep hitting land drops so wastelands/stifles don’t take you out of the game, as a resolved TNN is likely the only goal of the game sometimes.
Miracles had started to be a decent chunk of the metagame after its success in GPs and SCGopens, so I moved the 2 Vendilion Cliques in my sideboard to the main, upping the 3mana threats count to 9, and that ended up working pretty well. Being able to cycle the terminus they just miracle’d really changed the game one approach to that match up. Over time one of those geists turned into a 3rd Clique instead. It is such a flexible card, being able to flash it in on their 2nd turn’s draw step against combo is great. But most of the time I’d do it at the end of their turn in case they decided to play a stoneforge or just to have a threat played around sorcery removal or the likes (ambushing a jace is pretty sweet too).
At this point Karakas became a pretty potent land instead of just a safety valve against Show and Tell. There is the obvious option repeating Clique activations against combo or protecting him against removal to secure your threat, but I also like attacking with Geist to send the angel at their face/planeswalker in game one (in matchups where I’d side him out after game one) and bouncing him after hes blocked, to replay him in the next main phase.
This also opened up room in sideboard to play around with. Tried adding more counters, but I prefer proactive cards against combos like Ethersworn canonist. Combo decks have become less and less popular around my meta, so I haven’t put as many SB slots to it atm. Eventually added some Abrupt Decays for removal. For rug delver your strategy should be to pave a way to resolve a TNN and be patient with it, having abrupt for their tarmogoyf or delver of secrets could buy you the time you need to get your mana set up through wastelands and stifles. I generally only fetch up one of my black sources (or play the one in my hand) as I am ready to cast it, since relying on deathrite shaman won’t get you far in the matchup and I don't want to lose it early to wasteland. I always loved humility but stopped running it in my lists now that reanimator/sneak and show became a less common sighting in my meta, I might try it out in sideboard again but it’s certainly a card I enjoyed in the original list.
My list started off with 3 or 4 wastelands depending on versions, as it’s a pretty powerful card after you’ve played your main threat, but it usually doesn’t do all that much against my bad match ups, not to mention my deck can still make use of extra mana when flooding (it is pretty common to hard cast a force of will around a daze). Outside of the matchup where you go with a turn 1 dork into turn 2 stoneforge mystic to play around daze and then waste their land, this deck will rarely even bother playing wasteland on turn 2, where its most effective, so over time I went down to 1 to see how that pans out and I feel its an improvement. I’ve found that when it comes to my greedy manabase, I’m always on the defensive, being more susceptible to wasteland, and anytime my mana wasn’t bothered too much I’d always pull ahead. Most of the time the deck does poorly is when my opponent uses a removal on a mana dork followed by a wasteland, mainly delver decks, but Lands and Jund had that play as well. This is of course a side-effect of a greedy mana-base, so I swapped the wastelands for more color producing lands to power through the land destruction I suppose.
It’s generally best to view wasteland as a spell, so in a sense I’ve increased my land count. I’ve left one in at the moment so some games I can occasionally find it with brainstorms/library when the need rises.
With the recent print of conspiracy, Council’s Judgment replaced the Zealous Persecutions as answers to True-Name Nemesis and to add extra removal against other matchups. The card is flexible and sometimes you just need a vindicate. The opponents have to bounce their batterskull in response to your even casting it, and any card that can kill a nimble mongoose gets a few extra points.
One thing on my mind recently is figuring out changes to have a more resilient mana base (lost to rug delver in finals in a Tarmogoyf Legacy Tournament), for the moment swapped in an Island instead of a fetchland. I’m also always hoping to refine my sideboard, mainly for different combo decks. 5 removal spells in sideboard is certainly taking a lot of room, but is mainly for my current meta.
Deathblade is far better equipped to beat combo decks with all their disruption spells, and is a well-rounded deck at this point. I feel that this is the main reason you very rarely see bant show up anywhere.
But I think I have a better matchup against other control/slowish decks than Deathblade can ever wish for, it feels like our endgame potential is better while also having accelerants to go aggro. Having a geist of saint traft with exalted triggers paired with our sword of fire and ice is a scary clock against decks like deathblade.
As Anwei40 pointed out, one weakness of the deck are efficient -1/-1 effects like golgari charm / Zealous Persecution or the one I fear the most, toxic deluge. Junk or maverick decks will always side in a few copies of Zealous Persecution, one of my main hopes is to be able to clique it away when they don't have the mana up to cast it, at least until I can get a sword on a threat. Sometimes you accidentally play around it by only drawing deathrites and stoneforges into a batterskull. If we were to counter it then it would be pretty straightforward, but force of will is sided out against nearly all fair decks since it’s an overall bad card against them and you want to bring in abit of extra removal against dark confidants, especially since if they don’t draw their persecution (either by preventing bob from triggering or being lucky) your True-Name will win the game on its own.
Another problem is against shardless bug (which is probably my worst match up) where they have toxic deluges in sideboard (sometimes in maindeck). The game will revolve around a counter-war for that field wipe (or be lucky and clique it away). If it resolves with you having enough on the board they will bury you in card advantage, so you have the decision of keeping a threat in hand until they do so, but they have a good way of enticing you to commit to the board with the incoming suspended Ancestral Vision. I haven't found a effective plan for that front yet (Jace isn’t too effective against Baleful Strix for example, but is one thing I side in). The players who play with that deck tend to rotate decks all the time and I just haven't played against it enough to figure out a solution for my list.
I’m also soft to Supreme Verdict but that hasn’t been too bad an issue since I swapped to 3 cliques and by playing more conservatively.
RUGTarmo Twin Modern Combo deck
Superb write up, will be reading over and over as I adjust my deck!
Thanks awei40, that article was just what I was looking for, watched Glenn's matchups and they helped alot!
Yea, what I feel we can accomplish is that this becoming the strongest fair deck against fair decks in the format.
Geist solves the problem of the -1/-1 rath effects and I will be adding him to my list.
As far as combo decks our best bet is to rely on countermagic game one. But white gives access to some of the best sideboard cards for combo.
Some of your post are missing words...for example above you have "-1/-1 effects like or the one I fear the most, ". But I'm guessing you are talking about Zealous Persecution or maybe Toxic Deluge.
You board out countermagic against bug? Interesting, like I said I have close to zero practice with this deck so Im not too sure how I'd sideboard. When I played against it at the one tournament I figured boarding in Rest In Peace was one of the best cards to bring in...and I boarded out the Knights. Now I figure I'd board out the 2 Deathrites for 2x RIP. But Decay is uncounterable...maybe Misdirection is a good sideboard against them?
What do you think of Elspeth, Knight-Errant as a SB option vs Miracles and even BUG?
She gets around board wipes and can't be decayed.
Also what do you think about Leyline of Sanctity? Can help vs Burn, Ad Nauseam, Belcher, High Tide, Painter...etc.
Might be too narrow..esp if we only ran one...but it does help with combo matchups.
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
Thanks! Love any talk or discussions about the brew, nothing like changing a single card and noticing a difference in it’s performance.
Yep, I fixed up that post, and the one before…and some a few back… Recently cards would disappear from my posts, I think it has to do with my AutoCardAnywhere addon messing up with it whenever I go to edit a post, I've had to fix up a few of the previous posts I did as well. Will be cleaning up the posts so its cleaner when you read through it again.
Nah I keep the countermagic, I need it for the mass removal in their sideboard. As long as they can’t wipe away my board presence their card advantage don’t mean much, so I’m keeping in the forces. RIP is certainly good against all BUG decks, but if they stabilize they can abrupt the RIP and get their Goyf up in no time. I usually still leave all my Deathrites as he still helps me accelerate into a threat since I only play 1 RIP and it is not always a card I play on turn 2, I’d much rather land it after I put pressure on and they played a goyf.I think Misdirection might be too cute, but if it’s the only “counterspell” in my hand it won work on their field wipe, and I doubt I’d have enough blue cards in hand for both my force of will and a misdirection. If my deck was extremely weak to abrupt decays then it would be justified in sideboard, I don’t think I can make room for a situational card like that, but I can’t say I gave it much of a try either. On the other hand it is however effective against hymn. Abrupts aren’t much of an issue against me since I no longer run knight, and they don’t generally have a threat on the table when they are stuck to using it for misdirection to shine in.
She excellent against BUG, I’m not quite sure she’s worth the spots against Miracles. I had tried her plenty before TNN came out and liked her primarily because of the evasion she gave for me to close out a game, and I’m not sure I want her with my evasive threats. I prefer Jace over her in almost all other matchups, but I can eventually test her again to see if she works against different decks. If she is only good against BUG lists then I might not bother unless I becomes a constant issue that I can't find another solution for.
For painter the removal in my sideboard meant for creature matchups are great against them as well. Having 5 spells that remove their combo/bridge/chalice puts us in a good spot I’d say.
High tide is not a matchup I’ve played against, altho I’ve played it a long while back. Ethersworn Canonist puts a nice choke on their plan until they can Wipe Away it. Spell Pierce with Vendilion Clique might be enough disruption.
Altho leyline is great against burn, it’s not quite enough against storm and belcher as they will have time to assemble a large Empty the Warrens to go around it, and the combo decks are built to be able to return it to your hand before going off if given enough time. I’ve tried it but felt it was horrible unless you went with a full 3-4. Cards like that have to be in your opening hand, while other low cost pre-emptive cards have been more successful as you can draw it later or find it with a brainstorm. I want to be able to keep a good opening hand that drew none of my sideboard cards knowing they will likely show up when I need them. Since I’ve sided out the below average cards for game 2/3, most of my topdecks are promising.
When it comes to cards in my sideboard, I want them to be extremely flexible and be effective against a wide variety of decks. Altho every card is put in for a particular scenario, the more varied your sideboard is the better your sideboarding is against the overall wide amount of decks you can face. I don’t need my sideboard cards to win me the game by their own (like leyline could), my deck is already built to eventually build into a threat they can’t deal with, but to instead help me with my goal by slowing down their strategy or forcing them to play a fair game until I close the game.
The way I see it, if I don’t side in at least 5 cards in a matchup, it’s likely because I’m already favored. Some people approach sideboard slots by dedicating strong cards, but those same cards will rarely come in for other matchups so their game isn’t improved as much in game 2/3, especially since you have to fight through their sideboard as well. Diversifying your sideboard is also useful, such as splitting up 2 RIP into a RIP+Grafdigger’s Cage so one of my dredge/reanimator/storm sideboard can also hit elves by disabling Green Sun's Zenith/ Natural Order. I often see decklists with 3 surgical extraction, 3 krosan grips and a lot of flusterstorms in their sideboard and they just end up hurting when they face say merfolk/maverick or Elves. There just isn’t enough room for powerful yet linear cards to beat every deck you need help with. Legacy is a diverse format and your sideboard is your main tool to help you navigate through it.
I’m a huge fan of pre-emptive cards that will stop or slow the motion of their deck giving you more time to interact with them while pressuring their life total. I really liked Gaddok Teeg when I had GSZ, since he can be brought in for so many matches, but stopping my force of wills was something that occasionally hurt me (unless I drew karakas). I Won 2 matches today thanks to Ethersworn canonist, one against enchantress (I also got to Council's Judgment a Argothian Enchantress ) and against Elves. She’s also good against storm, since they are stuck to only playing a single cantrip a turn until they find their sideboard or burning wish and the odds aren’t too good since by then I can back her up with counterspells. Now of course she won’t stay in play long, but it easily buys you a couple of turns to make sure you can put down a big threat and then be able to leave up mana for removal/interactions, not to mention every draw step against combo can get you another interactive spell or sideboard card. I’ll have to say Canonist has been my best decision as a dedicated combo sideboard since she’s still effective against all the rare combo decks you sometimes hear about as well.
I personally prefer to have multiple cards that each help optimize my deck and are great when you draw several of your sideboard cards together. Once you refine your sideboard so that most of your sideboard cards are flexible and useful enough to be brought in against more decks, in a way you increase the size of your sideboard. This is mostly by playing a great number of matches and figuring out the cards you like and those you feel are too clunky or unrealistic. A sideboard should always be a work in progress and it is something I love to work on in all formats.
RUGTarmo Twin Modern Combo deck
I agree... on another note, where do you get your dual lands?
I've gotten some from ebay, but with all the counterfeit talk around I wonder if this is wise....
Is there a way to make sure they are real?
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
I got most of mine from different buylist opportunities (at a GP I managed to trade 2 scalding tarns for a underground sea to a store).
Fortunately my local store has a good inventory of cards and have all the duals on hand so after amassing store credit from tournaments/buylists I have access to them.
As for fakes, there is little way of telling when purchasing online outside of making sure its a reputable seller. To note, you won't find a damaged or heavy/mild play fake card, they will usually be in very near mint condition (since its recently made), and usually when starting to amass dual lands for legacy you don't buy near-mint to start anyway.
From what I hear, there is a big difference in the feel of the cards in person with your fingers, its not completely the same material/make so you should be able to easily tell if you compare with any old revised duals.
RUGTarmo Twin Modern Combo deck
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
Looks like my old list without the Spell Pierce.
Maze, Wasteland and Karakas are pretty nice with Knights!
Would probably want one Savannah somewhere in there..
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
Since the legacy seen here is non-existent I had no choice but to build this deck on mtgo.
After playing for about a week I realized that everything you said was spot on.
I got rid of the Green Sun's and now have a full set of Deathrite Shamans.
I also had Humility in but removed it for a Zealous Persecution.
So main focus is clearer and more aggressive, will move the Jace back to the sideboard for another sword...maybe fire and ice.
Also debating if I should make the island a basic plains instead.
Here is the list.
4 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Bayou
1 Polluted Delta
1 Karakas
1 Forest
1 Island
Creatures
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 True-Name Nemesis
2 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Qasali Pridemage
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
1 Ponder
Artifacts
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Planeswalker
1 Jace, the Mind sculptor
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Rest In Peace
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sylvan Library
1 Path to Exile
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Spell Pierce
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Krosan Grip
1 Council's Judgment
Deck performs drastically better. Elves can sometimes be an issue, especially because of Reclamation Sage targeting Jitte early on.
The mana is still a little tricky. I completely took out my Savannahs so that every fetchland could get any dual I wanted.
But sometimes I feel pressed for white mana. Havent been able to use Zealous yet against elves, but its been good against some other decks...but I wonder if making it a Stifle instead will make that spot more versatile and still stop Craterhoof Behemoth's trigger.
Anyway, will do more testing, thanks for the advice!
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
Awesome! That's something I eventually want to do so I can push in testing. Just remember that the
meta on mtgo is quite different than say a GP, mostly for budget reasons (so you'll find alot more
graveyard decks on MODO), so those surgical extractions could be replaced for Jersey if you feel comfortable without them.
To answer your question from a long while back I am indeed planning on going to the New Jersey GP.
By the way I tried out Elspeth, knight-errant again now that my meta has a couple of Bug decks, and she's
awesome against both delver and shardless bug! For the moment leaving her in the maindeck to see how she is in other
matchups, but so far she is still decent elsewhere.
There might be other tweaks to try for elves, probly in sideboard. One thing I'd suggest is to get
a Grafdigger's cage in the sideboard, it stops their Green sun's zenith, natural order, and
(as minor as it is) stops their fetchland from grabbing dryad arbor. If you replace Rest in Peace
by it, your deathrite shamans suddenly become a tiny bit better, but with the meta on MODO maybe replace
a surgical or another card you feel you don't need.
In my sideboard I have 5 spot removal I bring in so elves is easier to manage but I haven't found
something I really like outside of the zealous persecution.
RUGTarmo Twin Modern Combo deck
I've been having issues against Titan Post. Usually I try to go for the Wasteland/Surgical Extraction route... but eventually they just overwhelm. Have you played against it? Here's a sample list http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=8216&d=247292&f=LE.
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
I think I've played against it only once when someone was testing tier 2 lists, so I haven't gotten to plan out a tactic against it yet, but I can see how its a bad matchup for us. The good news is the deck is extremely rare on paper so I don't think you should adjust your list/sideboard around it (I'd be surprised if more than like 3 people came to New Jersey with it), candles being cheap on MODO makes it tempting to build for alot of people. Wasteland is your best weapon but their maindeck pithing needles are there just for that.
RUGTarmo Twin Modern Combo deck
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Deathrite Shaman
2x Judge's Familiar
4x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Geist of Saint Traft
3x True-Name Nemesis
1x Vendilion Clique
Instant (16)
4x Brainstorm
4x Daze
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Treasure Cruise
Artifact (2)
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
Land (19)
1x Bayou
1x Flooded Strand
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
4x Wasteland
4x Windswept Heath
1x Batterskull
1x Council's Judgment
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Flusterstorm
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Notion Thief
1x Karakas
2x Krosan Grip
1x Pithing Needle
1x Relic of Progenitus
2x Spell Pierce
1x Sylvan Library
1x Zealous Persecution
lots of room for metagaming in the board: Meddling Mage, Humility, Firewalker, Hydroblast, path, loam, etc.
I've been trying to revive this thread as I believe Bant is versatile in any meta...its has because blue for counters and white for sideboard/stoneforge tech. Really interested in some of your card choices:
Treasure Cruise, I would think this is too slow in Bant. We run a lot of conditional instants and don't fill the yard as fast as I would think to full take advantage of it. Also, its somewhat a nonbo with Deathrite when relying on our gy for his mana ability. I haven't tested it, so just thinking out loud.
With all the creatures, including Judge's Familiar I'd main an additional another Sword or Batterskull for them to wear....possibly Feast and Famine.
Ultimately, I prefer Rest In Peace as my gy hate of choice along with Surgical Extraction.
I see you run Grafdigger's Cage and Relic...why not Nihil Spellbomb over Relic, you keep your own gy to Treasure Cruise.
Either way, just hoping to get some conversation started again with this deck, wish there was a local a legacy scene here, but I had to build the deck on mtgo to get any practice.
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
That and the decklist in my signature changes all the time until I figure out my exact 75 for the GP.
With khans I did try treasure cruise but it was just miserable. You cast it and draw a land, a dork, and a daze. Not exactly what I am looking for on turn 5. But since then I've swapped to 2 maindeck Dig Through Times and they've been doing great. Finding 2 high impact cards out of a new hand of 7 is far better for us than 3 random draws, and being an instant is a good upgrade. With the amount of mana dorks we have you don't have to empty the whole graveyard, I usually end up doing half/half
RUGTarmo Twin Modern Combo deck
TC: I have really liked Treasure cruise. I was on 2 when I first tested in and went up to 3 shortly their after. We don't fill the yard as quickly as UR delver, but fill the yard quickly enough. 9 fetches is, I think, the right number for enabling. I think, generally, Dig will prove to be a better card, but in this deck, like most delver decks, raw resources are more important than specific ones. This changes a bit in game 2/3 as we have more situational cards. I could see putting 1 dig in the board for that reason. Deathrites are almost exclusively pulling out of the opponent's yard, and the occasions when you pull from your own, you are doing so for value. This deck has enough mana that I have never felt limited in my ability to cast TC.
JF: The on board daze that can carry a sword is quite nice. I like it a lot as a T1 play, even with a dork in hand. JF makes daze so much better. Even as a late game draw, JF plus the plethora of mana we have access to allows you to successfully force through spells. The ability to block a delver or clique is also frequently relevant. I am testing other cards in this spot, but like them a great deal.
SoFaF: I had one in for a few weeks when I brought this deck back. I very rarely fetched it and frequently when I drew it just wanted about any other spell. There are far fewer geese and goyfs floating around and this deck has enough permission to interact well with combo, so I have just been leaning on the other swords.
RiP: Because I like the delve cards and deathrites I don't want RiP. It is the best hate for graveyard decks but doesn't fill as many roles and is not a T1 play (when you really need hate v dredge or reanimator, etc). Cage is excellent against elves and various rouge decks and relic is solid against delve decks and cycles without forcing me to get early game black mana (like spellbomb). The anti-synergy of relic's exile is a down side. I could see extraction in that spot.
Care to share a tourney report?
Did you reliably have black mana when needed?
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
I changed all these cards to get a feel for them. General thoughts on these changes: The main deck was a bit less aggressive. Decay was generally a nice spell, since it meant I didn't have to play around daze and knew the treat would go away. Pierce was nice for setting up safe spells or picking off important ones. With pierce hands I was more likely to hold open blue mana rather than playing out a dork, or mystic, etc. So it slowed me down. Generally that is fine, but it is a big stylistic change. Because I thought this build would be a bit slower and more interactive, I switched out the geists for the a clique and TNN and swapped the SoFaI for the batterskull. I think all these cards are strong but I think this build of the deck was a bit too middle ground, not really aggro not really midrange-control.
I changed a bunch of the board cards including adding some more black spells, hence the karakas becoming a scrubland. Over the course of 5 rounds and 3 fun matches, I never had trouble with my maindeck or sideboard black spells, and I never actually put the scrubland into play. I have definitely been happy to have the karakas as a white source in the previous version, so I think this land is probably a good include, but not strictly necessary. I loved the ooze. He gained a bit of life and disrupted graveyards against UR delver and burn and also ate removal spells which didn't get pointed at my face. I never drew the war monk. Of note, the war monk is a 3 cmc spell, the ooze is often a 3 or 4 cmc spell if you are playing around forked or lightning bolts. The only thing the red decks bring to the table to deal with War monk is fireblast or multiple cards. As such he should be strong, but I think 2 ooze is probably better than the 1:1 split unless you run GSZ. If you are not putting it in the main to force through damage, I don't think SoFaI is worth including. I often pick it when it is in the deck in game 1s but never sided it in. Batterskull main was fine in the slightly slower version of the deck, but I definitely want SoFaI in the more aggressive version. Didn't miss the needle.
Matchups:
1) Br Welder Reanimator (W: 2-0; 1-0) He mulled to 5 both games but kept strong hands, reanimating sundering titans in both games and a wurmcoil in the first. TNN with jitte and a timely plow got me through game 1. Deathrites and abrupt decay were affective disruption. Noble + Clique took the second game.
2) UR Delver (W: 2-1; 2-0) Game 1 I was able to disrupt him early and get TNN + batterskull. I was quite low before getting the batterskull in play, but his TC didn't draw him gas. During game 2 after I resolved a second ZP he commented that this was probably not a good matchup for him. In this game I got a bit greedy, I fetched down to 9 life with 3 lands and a noble in play and tapped out to cast and equip a jitte to TNN. I hit him, killed off his pyro and token. I had pierce in hand and because I tapped out lost to price plus bolt. Should have held the TNN back on D for a turn to keep pierce live, then equiped the next turn. Bad play, got punished. Game 3 I overwhelmed him with removal and eventually assemble batterksull and jitte.
3) Lands (L: 1-2; 2-1) This is one of the matchups where not having geist is a big deal (also true of many control and combo matchups). Game 1 my TNN + jitte was doing a good job clocking him, but my only counters were 2 dazes, so I couldn't counter the crop rotation that allowed him to make a Marit Leige. I survived 1 hit by burning jitte counters. The deathrite in play would have allowed me to take over if I found a plow, but couldn't find it and died to the second hit. Game 2 he mulled and I was able to keep him off of colored mana through a combination of wasteland and counter magic to kill him with relative ease. Game 3 I mulled to 5 and he had early and complete control including tabernacle, maze, loam and PFire + grove. I was able to keep my head above water including finding my sylvan library. He never found the dark depths and I was able to build some pressure. As we went to time he was burning me down with 2 Pfire a turn. I was able to get batterskull into play via mystic activation with tabernacle trigger on the stack. Then on T4 (my last turn) he P-fired me down to 3. I had a swords in hand, with the plan to swords my germ to gain 4 and preserve the draw. I punted by not doing so on my turn. Instead, I waited until he put the lethal fire on the stack on his turn. I then went for the plow and he had Kgrip in response. I hadn't seen it from him in either previous game, but I should not have allowed that to be a live draw. So second stupid play gets punished.
4) UWR Helm Miracles: (L: 1-2; 2-2) Game 1 I mulled to 6 but did well keeping him off of 2 counterbalance and a terminus. He was able to resolve a top and a RIP. Turn before I could kill him and with all my counters exhausted he found the helm with the top. Game 2 I won largely off of clique + noble. Clique pulled an entreat from his hand with miracle trigger on the stack then finished him off a few turns later. Game 3 I mulled to 6 and was simply over powered. I fought an early counter fight over a mystic (my only treat in hand) and lost. Then he was able to stick a jace and lock me out. I could have let the mystic go, but I don't know what my line to win would have been if I had. This is another match where the faster clock of giest makes a huge difference.
5) Burn: (W: 2-0; 3-2). He mulled to 6 game 1, used a bolt to kill my T1 noble and never had enough resources to threaten me after that. Game 2 was closer, as he got me to 1 the turn before I started hitting with jitte. His next draw was a land and he was never able to threaten me after that.
I really liked having abrupt decay. I didn't like this particular construction of the deck (not really aggressive but not quite equipped to properly play control). I would either run it as the tempo version with geist and JF but add 2 decays to the board, or I would make it into a deathblade + dorks deck by adding lands, digs, walkers, and a few spells while cutting dazes, 2 TC, a noble, two TNN and 1 clique. I think all of these constructions have favorable UR delver matchups which is nice given the expected metagame in NJ. Not sure if i will go with aggro or deathblade variant this weekend. Will post a report some time next week either way.
______________
Edit:
How do people feel about Grafdigger's Cage verses Containment Priest? While I recognize the increase in mana cost is significant, the added value of being a body and interacting with Sneak and Show is appealing.
I made a change to have 2 Cages (instead of 1 cage 1 RIP) and 1 Priest in sideboard. Anytime a sideboard card also has the option of wielding an equipment is a nice bonus (some matchups is only about sticking an equipment on anything you can find). Cage is almost necessary on the draw against some decks like dredge and reanimator, and can curve better with your draw. I liked the extra flexible card against elf/reanimator/S&T/Dredge.
We hosted a big tournament 2 weeks ago and I came in 7th out of 33 which scored me my 5th Savannah (lost first round of the top8 to Enchantress, I didn't know how the matchup goes well enough at the time)
After a few tweaks, this is the current list I'm going with for New Jersey
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x True-Name Nemesis
3x Vendilion Clique
Instant (17)
4x Brainstorm
3x Daze
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Dig through Time
Others(4)
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Batterskill
1x Sylvan Library
1x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
1x Savannah
3x Tundra
3x Tropical Island
3x Flooded Strand
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Windswept Heath
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Containment Priest
2 Council’s Judgment
1 Krosan Grip
1 Pithin Needle
1 Spell Pierce
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
U/R Delver was piloted by quite a few players over my couple last tournaments so I had to make firm changes to sideboard. The matchup revolved alot around them getting value out of young pyromancer so Zealous Persecution came back into the sideboard (and improving elf matchup alongside it!) so I can clean up the field. The price of progress they run in sideboard has been a huge beating against me, so I can't side out the forces yet the matchup tends to become grindy and is usually about me equipping Umezawa's Jitte or batterskull and trying to make it stick, so Kor Firewalker came in there too. With a decent chunk of the meta turning into burn and U/R meta you can appreciate seeing the little guy in your opening hand. Finally since their whole deck is cantrips and Ancestral Recalls I decided I should try siding in Aethersworn Canonis against U/R and its been doing insanely good in some games. They have to bolt Stoneforge Mystic, they usually bolt Deathrite Shaman, then you land this guy and their turn consists of: brainstorm, go, Treasure Cruise, go. If I can equip the Canonist then it's usually over since they can't value their way back in the game after a treasure cruise with a pyromancer or with enough burn.
@Streetmage you should probably try a couple of treasure cruise or dig through time in your list, you'll find 2 delve cards is rather easy to feed. Way I saw it, now that I tweaked it to include 11 fecth lands, my graveyard fills pretty quick from mana dorks and stoneforge mystic hitting the bin to removal, or there was a little counterspell war. If none of those happened, I'm probably winning anyway and don't need to cast the dig, not to mention the mana dorks in play still help cast the thing. It can be a non-bo with deathrite shaman in a few rare games, but it's usually just fine, both are great enough that I don't mind them sharing the graveyard (altho deathrite is usually using the opponent's graveyard to deny delve resource). I tried treasure cruise but with my currect configuration it nearly always just insanely floods me with more lands. But casting a dig through time at a end step and picking up 7 cards and watching the look on my opponents face as I comb through a new hand is pretty sweet.
RUGTarmo Twin Modern Combo deck
I don't think treasure cruise should be in this deck. sylvan library as a 1-of does an excellent job at drawing and filtering every turn.
4x swords to plowshare
4x brainstorm
4x daze
4x force of will
1x sylvan library
1x batterskull
1x sword of fire and ice
1x umezawa jitte
Creatures:
4x stoneforge mystic
4x noble hierarch
4x judge's familiar
3x edric, spymaster of trest
3x true-name nemesis
1x island
1x plains
4x tundra
3x tropical island
1x savannah
4x flooded strands
4x misty rainforest
4x wasteland
2x rest in peace
2x grafdigger's cage
1x misdirection
1x manriki-gusari
1x meddling mage
3x spell pierce
1x scavenging ooze
1x gaea's blessing
3x thalia, guardian of thraben
I think you would do well to shave 1 tundra for the 4rth daze or another delve card. I played with 20 for a while but in the 8 dork deck I also frequently felt flooded. 19 is smoother. Other than that, I like the smoothness and overall makeup of your deck.
As for price getting you, wasteland is an out. I see you moved away from them. I really like them with the dorks and, like fetches, they quickly fill the yard.
@mordraid
I don't know how you have come to the conclusion that TC does not belong. Can you elaborate? Raw resources have a lot of value. Some games you don't get what you want, but more often than not you get something good. And any raw resource you draw gives you more options. Even lands when you are flooding have value as cards in hand. I think you are being short sighted to think that a regular draw 3 isn't improving your overall performance. You are, afterall, running 3 edric, a conditional raw card draw spell. I don't understand the disconnect on this. I do understand that TC would likely necessitate swapping RiP for a different hate card, but their are plenty.
In mine, I've foregone the Stoneforge package and don't really miss it, going with 2 Jittes instead. For the sideboard, it's -based destruction and an Enlightened Tutor package. I'm often boarding in 6+ cards, which makes most opponents very nervous. The most recent change has been going up to three Cruises, splitting Deluge/Persecution for testing purposes, and going -1 Relic, +1 Spellbomb. It's a T1 play, it doesn't disrupt our GY, and I have the to draw the card from it sometimes.
I haven't done any testing with the Judge's Familiar. I expect it does better in a deck with a full 4 Wastelands, Stoneforges, and a general tempo style.
3x Noble Hierarch
3x Deathrite Shaman
2x Vendillion Clique
3x True-Name Nemesis
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Rhox War Monk
Spells (23)
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Brainstorm
3x Spell Pierce
3x Daze
3x Treasure Cruise
4x Force of Will
2x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Umezawa's Jitte
Lands (20)
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Marsh Flats
2x Verdant Catacombs
2x Windswept Heath
2x Tundra
2x Savannah
1x Tropical Island
1x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
1x Wasteland
1x Island
1x Plains
1x Forest
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Zealous Persecution
2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Rest in Peace
1x Pithing Needle
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Engineered Plague
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Flusterstorm
1x Bayou
1x Flooded Strand
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
4x Wasteland
4x Windswept Heath
Artifact (3)
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Deathrite Shaman
2x Geist of Saint Traft
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x True-Name Nemesis
Instant (16)
4x Brainstorm
4x Daze
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares
Sorcery (4)
4x Treasure Cruise
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Containment Priest
2x Scavenging Ooze
2x Spell Pierce
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Krosan Grip
1x Sylvan Library
1x Vendilion Clique
1x Zealous Persecution
1x Scrubland / Karakas
There is room for adjustment, clearly. SoFaI is not for everyone. Some people prefer Dig to TC. Geist, clique and JF are options. Everybody has their own graveyard hate preferences. ETC. That said, take some time with this very straight forward list. We all get too far down the rabbit hole of 1-ofs, 2-ofs, play style adaptations, etc. If you like deathbant, run 2-3 matches this week with this list to help you reassess your own build.
@Xavier RE: JF, wasteland, and tempo --> exactly correct analysis.