No offense, that list looks awful lol. I think the idea of centering bant around geist can indeed happen. That particular list would be rolled so hard against a ton of decks. YOu also mentioned SCM, which wouldn't fit at all into this thing. The SCM + bant + geist therefore has to be a pipe dream. I was wondering where they all came together (honestly curious how to pull that off). It can't be the above list.
I agree...snapcaster mage just doesn't belong in a midrange aggro deck with sfm and swords.
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Mother of Runes
3x Snapcaster Mage
3x Qasali Pridemage
3x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Geist of Saint Traft
3x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Jitte
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Stifle
4x Brainstorm
3x Ponder
We ran it against JUND and BUG. And surprisingly it held up, it never really lost steam. It was just constant threats turn after turn. Granted it was only against 2 decks. The SFM might come out, but the exalted triggers with geist works, and stifle works great with or without geist.
Hey guys, running off memory as the deck is in my teammates case. This was just throwing together over beers because my buddy has a super fetish with Geist of Saint Traft. The stone forges were super meh, I was thinking maybe spell snares as a catch all? Mother of runes were fatastic at punching geist thru defense and holding off goyfs. Played against Jund and Team America
4 noble
3 Geist
3 knight
3 pridemage
3 snapcaster
4 mother of runes
3 stone forge
4 stifle
4 brainstorm
4 swords to plow
2 jitte
Aside from 4x StP you have no real interaction spells in the deck; sure stifle, but that's a tempo card and severely diminishes in power as the game continues.
Basically, BS looks really, really weak when you're just digging up more dudes. Not having any form of CA or interaction with non-creatures in a heavily blue deck just seems....... non-ideal.
I'm also HEAVILY against the 0 basic land strategy. Without your own countermagic you're 100% belly up to early stifle/wasteland which seems like it'd be a huge issue as both cards are fairly popular atm.
-3 SCM
-3 SFM
-1 Jitte
and in all honesty -1/2/3 MOM
Fixing land base according to list alterations. for a start...
This deck looks like it would mulligan terribly and really has no reach. Like, if you don't have dominate board position by turn 3, you're kinda boned....
Notional thoughts:
Geist, SCM, and Batterskull are all T3 plays, which is a clunky curve.
Stifle+Geist is a fine synergy, but doesn't make a lot of sense if Stifle isn't a good card by itself. And my guess is, if you're playing Stoneforge Mystic, Stifle isn't a good enough card by itself. So if you're going for a "combo," Dreadnaught is much better.
This again, and:
-knight adds to 3 drops
-jitte is the worst for Geist
-stifle is your only real instant play, so leaving it up is terrible. This is the worst possible stifle arrangement
Tempo bant would want to curve out at 3cc. However, you want to be quite aggressive until then. There's 0 interaction in those 2 posted lists. SCM is awful because you're not "snapping" anything meaningful. As mentioned by other users, the "spells" in the deck just suck because there's no real value. Stifle is nice, but you need stuff around it to make it nice. Same idea with brainstorm and ponder. Just having them 'because' is awful. And I apologize for being so negative, but I can't see this thing winning.
If you want minimal "spells" with constant threats, play Maverick. That is the deck that just pounds and pounds. Bant should be better than Mav in the interactive department and I'd argue it's capable of doing a tempo/fast-aggro run.
UWR delver is a great model. Sure, we can't toss burn at the opponent's head, but that deck actually utilizes Geist as the centerpiece of the deck. Geist is a build-around me card.
Alternatively -- and I've tried to make lists do this but simply can't -- you could make UGw next level thresh. KotR supplements the wasteland-denial ideas originally crafted in that shell. Again, burn would be swapped for other things.
But at the end of the day, if you have blue, use it. Don't just toss in what appears to be random cards. The synergy is not there.
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I mean, hell, we're all on a forum for something that most people would describe as a "children's card game"...do what makes you happy. You are never too old to enjoy yourself.
This is a little light on disruption (3 Spell Pierce and a Clique) but I can understand why the pilot wanted the Maverick GW core of threats over the blue-card density needed for Force of Will and the low curve needed for Daze. Brainstorm is still fine because of all the Zeniths, 4x Geist, 2x Karakas, and the Pierce/Swords split ... there will be cards you want to put back in every matchup and there will almost always be a way to shuffle.
The second Karakas looks like it could do a TON of work in this list, saving Geist from sweepers or blockers and reusing Clique. I'm a Maverick player personally and using Karakas as protection for Thalia and Teeg is already very relevant, add Geist and Clique to the mix and you get some nasty potential plays.
I mean, clearly it worked for him, those European tournaments are pretty serious. This one was 10 rounds with no top 8 cut so 2nd seed out of 420 after 10 rounds of Swiss basically means 9-1 or 8-1-1, which is a healthy record for sure.
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Thanks to Gabgabdevo for the awesome sig image!
I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
I saw that today and kicked around the idea of using something like that for a tournament this weekend.
It's definitely more Maverick 2.0-ish (GWu) than Bant (UGw), to blur the line. It really looks like if you said "Say I want to make Maverick a Geist deck instead of a Knight deck, what would I do," then this is exactly what you'd end up with - no Mothers cause you don't need to protect Geist, 2 Pridemage for exalted, a few other uses of Blue, 2 Elspeth, 2 Karakas, limited counter-magic (similar successful lists omitted Brainstorm, which is fairly reasonable, with the speed Geist provides).
I like Revoker - if my understanding of the "as" is correct, a Show and Tell'd Revoker shuts off Sneak Attack or Griselbrand with no chance for activation, it shuts down Jace (which I would probably run, but it's nice to be able to address if you don't have it), and does fine hate work alongside Thalia for matches like Storm, as it can still hit artifact mana.
This is a little light on disruption (3 Spell Pierce and a Clique) but I can understand why the pilot wanted the Maverick GW core of threats over the blue-card density needed for Force of Will and the low curve needed for Daze. Brainstorm is still fine because of all the Zeniths, 4x Geist, 2x Karakas, and the Pierce/Swords split ... there will be cards you want to put back in every matchup and there will almost always be a way to shuffle.
The second Karakas looks like it could do a TON of work in this list, saving Geist from sweepers or blockers and reusing Clique. I'm a Maverick player personally and using Karakas as protection for Thalia and Teeg is already very relevant, add Geist and Clique to the mix and you get some nasty potential plays.
I mean, clearly it worked for him, those European tournaments are pretty serious. This one was 10 rounds with no top 8 cut so 2nd seed out of 420 after 10 rounds of Swiss basically means 9-1 or 8-1-1, which is a healthy record for sure.
Is there video of him playing? The Europeans are ahead of the curve with a lot of designs. His list and playstyle obviously killed the room. I'd love to see this in action. There's a lot of manipulation for the toolbox/singletons he has.
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I mean, hell, we're all on a forum for something that most people would describe as a "children's card game"...do what makes you happy. You are never too old to enjoy yourself.
Rules take affect on July 13. Game play around these cards will definitely be very different. The idea of jitte supremacy could be a thing. The idea of two of the same planeswalkers going back and forth is a strange one with a lot of play implications. Phantasmal image is now utterly useless outside of merfolk, and less good there. Karakas out of the sideboard is no longer a thing for show and tell players to protect themselves. Clearly a lot will change about legacy game play, and bant runs a ton of legends, no matter what form you run, so I would like to hear people's thoughts.
And Knight of the Reliquary can search for both ThesDepths parts (and Wasteland to kill Karakas and other Wastelands), and the blue splash is the best at keeping Jace TMS from arriving in the first place...
I think it's huge as you can just run Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage as a quick kill combo.
In Junk; not real exciting, without the Hexmage as well, here.
My thoughts:
1. I expect that the solitaire sides of this (recasting your own legend) will not be nearly as impactful as the interactive ones. Attacking with a legend and casting a second is still worse than playing another non-legend, so it's not like that's some format-defining combat trick. Getting an extra planeswalker activation is rarely worth the cost of the walker. The "legend rule myself" changes are not large, so while this slightly mitigates the disadvantage of running more copies of legendary cards, the deckbuilding effect is not that great (and I happily ran/run 3 Clique and 3 Jace anyway).
2. The more important cases are the changes to opposing legend rules. Accordingly, more rarely-played cards like Elspeth, and lower-board-impact cards like Clique, will not be affected as much either. Cards like Clique, Geist, and Thrun will often naturally balance each other out under the new rules anyway. So I don't expect very high impact gameplay changes with most of these cards as legends (though see "4b" below)
3. Jitte will probably be second-most-relevantly affected, as Jitte decks often soft to Jitte - they need many guys to support it, they're usually small guys to be playable en masse, and small guys get killed by -1/-1 or trumped by the pump. Different iterations of Bant have played Jitte, and often rightfully so. The new rules make the effects of Jitte marginally more pervasive in games where it's relevant, and Bant may be slightly better equipped to handle it - Knight/Geist are more resilient than (say) tribal guys to the removal, it has maindeck Pridemage for opposing equipment, and Pierce is capable of stopping it. The card isn't played enough, and isn't played in enough copies when it is played, that things will be much different after the rules change, but I think Bant might be slightly better off than before (though earlier active Jitte is still the bigger deal by far).
4. Jace is obviously the huge one, and probably the single biggest card affected by the changes in the format. One of the key, pillar cards of the format is literally going to have new text which no longer says "Kill target Jace" and now says "Can't just die bc opposing Jace." Like Jitte, Jace decks are often very susceptible to Jace - it's power in slow, low-creature, controlly decks also makes them weak to Jace. So Jace mirrors will be heavily affected, as Jace becomes much harder to answer with existing builds (vastly unlike, say, Thalia mirrors, which are not-at-all weak to Thalia). It's hard to say how this will change individual match-ups, much less the format, but I'm going to speculate that this has two major effects, which are both very good for Bant.
4a. First, your Jace is more resilient to opposing removal options, so Bant becomes an even better Jace deck. The fact that it can accelerate into a faster Jace than UWx was a big deal, and gets bigger - you can start to pull ahead and they can't just hit 4 mana and drop Jace. So what can they do? If they try to send dudes in, you're already rocking the best defensive creature in the format (Knight, especially Knight->Maze). Burn remains an answer, and Pulse/Vindicate remain answers, but the best grindy Jace mirror answer to Jace is your own Jace. (Beware Lingering Souls.)
4b. Second, your answers to opposing Jaces are comparatively strong. Bant is a comparatively aggressive Jace deck, and can bring more combat pressure than the mainstream alternatives. Interestingly, a lot of the list above comes back out here: Clique, Geist, Thrun, and Elspeth are all wonderful ways to deal with Jace (and Clique/Elspeth are quite good against Lily as well). It's quite possible that the metagame sees more use of newly-more-resilient planeswalkers (even if those sort of decks are increasingly open to planeswalkers) alongside far fewer answers to opposing planeswalkers (since they all just stopped answering themselves). In that case, solid multi-functional answers to the rising number of opposing walkers become very strong, and Bant is loaded with them.
This is all speculation, of course, and affects a comparatively small number of games and any given tournament - many matches remain completely unaffected by the rules changes, and feeling slightly safer about running an extra copy of Clique or Karakas or Jace will not change much against ANT or Jund. But in the matches which this does pertain to, I'm inclined to think that Bant is very well positioned to protect its Jaces and pressure opposing ones, so that it comes out on top overall. And as a consequence of the changes, the meta may shift so that Bant is in a better place against the growing Walker decks.
Except Junk doesn't run Jaces or countermagic. The ability to be a good Jace deck with a tutorable win con instead of Natural Order is definitely a step up.
Except Junk doesn't run Jaces or countermagic. The ability to be a good Jace deck with a tutorable win con instead of Natural Order is definitely a step up.
Junk remains a far, far better Depths deck. It has access to any of the Green tutors Bant could play (Knight, Wish, Crop Rotation), but Hexmage (itself and as Wish target) is much better as actual redundancy than blue card selection naturally run in Bant.
Do you just mean, by "tutorable," that you're likely running Knight already? I think I'd still rather have Natural Order. Progenitus doesn't require 2 Knight activations and doesn't lose to StP, Jace, and Lingering Souls. The matches which you're addressing with those strategies are usually in trouble if you have a Knight active for several turns anyway.
Junk remains a far, far better Depths deck. It has access to any of the Green tutors Bant could play (Knight, Wish, Crop Rotation), but Hexmage (itself and as Wish target) is much better as actual redundancy than blue card selection naturally run in Bant.
Do you just mean, by "tutorable," that you're likely running Knight already? I think I'd still rather have Natural Order. Progenitus doesn't require 2 Knight activations and doesn't lose to StP, Jace, and Lingering Souls. The matches which you're addressing with those strategies are usually in trouble if you have a Knight active for several turns anyway.
It is nice to be more compact..
Junk can't do much against topdecked answers, though. If Marit Lage already has to slog through a resolved Lingering Souls, Junk can't touch topdecked removal or Jaces. Heck, Junk can't really stop Terminus at all. However, Bant's counterspells can stop Terminus and hold off topdecked answers better.
Natural Order also eats up 3+ spell slots in your deck--compare to Dark Depths probably eating up 2 spell slots and Thespian's Stage eating land slots instead. I think NO is less compact than ThesDepths.
Junk can't do much against topdecked answers, though. If Marit Lage already has to slog through a resolved Lingering Souls, Junk can't touch topdecked removal or Jaces. Heck, Junk can't really stop Terminus at all. However, Bant's counterspells can stop Terminus and hold off topdecked answers better.
Natural Order also eats up 3+ spell slots in your deck--compare to Dark Depths probably eating up 2 spell slots and Thespian's Stage eating land slots instead. I think NO is less compact than ThesDepths.
How is NO less compact?
for NO, you need to run 3 NO's and Progenitus (4 cards). Only 1 card is dead in your hand (Progenitus).
for Dark Depths, you need some number of Dark Depths(2?), Thespian's Stages(2?), and Living Wish (3-4?). Dark Depths and Thespian's are terrible independent of one another. Even if you don't run Living wish you're dedicating 4 slots at a minimum (same as NO-Prog) except the combo is so much more fragile and slower (StP, Lingering Souls, Wasteland, and Jace all ruin your day plus its going to be multiple turns to tutor things up with KotR).
And its not nearly as consistent without black since Dark Depths can't tap for mana (Urborg really helps in this case), as well as no Hexmage for potential 20/20 turn 2. (Urborg T1, Dark Depths T2, play Hexmage, make 20/20 to swing for turn 3).
for NO, you need to run 3 NO's and Progenitus (4 cards). Only 1 card is dead in your hand (Progenitus).
for Dark Depths, you need some number of Dark Depths(2?), Thespian's Stages(2?), and Living Wish (3-4?). Dark Depths and Thespian's are terrible independent of one another. Even if you don't run Living wish you're dedicating 4 slots at a minimum (same as NO-Prog) except the combo is so much more fragile and slower (StP, Lingering Souls, Wasteland, and Jace all ruin your day plus its going to be multiple turns to tutor things up with KotR).
And its not nearly as consistent without black since Dark Depths can't tap for mana (Urborg really helps in this case), as well as no Hexmage for potential 20/20 turn 2. (Urborg T1, Dark Depths T2, play Hexmage, make 20/20 to swing for turn 3).
If I ran the deck, I would run 1 dark depths, 2 stages, 1 crop rotation.
Thats a total of 4 cards, the same number of NO prog. In this case, it is even better than NO prog because you don't need to sac a creature and you can't counter lands.
If I ran the deck, I would run 1 dark depths, 2 stages, 1 crop rotation.
Thats a total of 4 cards, the same number of NO prog. In this case, it is even better than NO prog because you don't need to sac a creature and you can't counter lands.
1. You need 2 pieces for the combo and all the pieces are useless without each other.
2. You can counter crop rotation which you also need to sacrifice a land for.
3. Wasteland is kind of a thing in Legacy
4. the token is actually very easy to deal with in retrospect. Only terminus and Verdict deal with Progenitus (also sac effects if its your only creature).
1. You need 2 pieces for the combo and all the pieces are useless without each other.
2. You can counter crop rotation which you also need to sacrifice a land for.
3. Wasteland is kind of a thing in Legacy
4. the token is actually very easy to deal with in retrospect. Only terminus and Verdict deal with Progenitus (also sac effects if its your only creature).
EDIT: So no, its not better.
1. you need 3 pieces with NO. the creature, the prog, another creature. The combo is not anywhere more useless than NO and prog. At least you can play a colorless land or copy another dual land.
2. You can counter - but lets not talk about what things can be countered and what not...same argument as "it dies to removal"
3. ok.
4. same
5. no need to shuffle away prog if it is in your hand.
6. playing combo requires tight play. You don't drop a land when there is a wasteland. You do it when you have priority.
7. Goes very very well with knights of the reliquary. Same cannot be said with NO and prog.
1. you need 3 pieces with NO. the creature, the prog, another creature. The combo is not anywhere more useless than NO and prog. At least you can play a colorless land or copy another dual land.
You don't need the Progenitus, its quite the opposite, you need to NOT have it (which is very likely, and you can always brainstorm/clique it back into your library...). And with Dryad Arbor, Noble Hierarchs, GSZ, etc. the chance you have a creature is pretty high since Bant wins by attacking with creatures.
Natural order also can just win you the game sometimes. You can be behind in board state and topdeck the NO and its pretty much like "oops I win", because its likely your opponent isn't going to waste removal spells on a mana dork, and if they do, then thats one less removal spell on a Goyf or KotR.
You can't "oops I win" with Depths/Thespians. The pieces are completely dead separate from each other (I guess tapping for 1 colorless mana isn't completely usless :P). Compare that to Prog where its only 1 dead card and you always brainstorm/clique it back into your library (You can't Clique ThesDepths pieces - slight disadvantage). What if you draw Depths? Do you brainstorm it back or no? Then you might draw a crop rotation after. Then what? It's never clear whether you should burn a spot in your hand to hang onto the lands. My point is NO is very synergistic with the strategy at hand. Drop a 3cc on turn 2 and then win with that or play NO the following turn.
How is this the same? Prog dies to board wipes and sac effects when you have no other creatures in play. Marit Lage dies to StP, any bounce effect (Jace, Karakas, etc.), can be chump blocked by lingering souls, path to exile'd, in addition to any effect that kills Prog. So clearly, the token is much more vulnerable than prog.
6. playing combo requires tight play. You don't drop a land when there is a wasteland. You do it when you have priority.
If they have an active wasteland theres no way to play around it, other than to play a wasteland of your own to waste their wasteland, forcing the interaction to occur.
7. Goes very very well with knights of the reliquary. Same cannot be said with NO and prog.
you're really trying to argue that the 1-2 extra lands that can hit the grave to pump KotR after you've created a 20/20 is a perk to running this combo? I'm not buying this one. The slight chance this narrow case ends up benefiting you is definitely outweighed by the fact that the ThesDepths combo is more fragile, slow, and narrow.
How is this the same? Prog dies to board wipes and sac effects when you have no other creatures in play. Marit Lage dies to StP, any bounce effect (Jace, Karakas, etc.), can be chump blocked by lingering souls, path to exile'd, in addition to any effect that kills Prog. So clearly, the token is much more vulnerable than prog.
Same as above.
If they have an active wasteland theres no way to play around it, other than to play a wasteland of your own to waste their wasteland, forcing the interaction to occur.
Untrue....you can play in response to their wastelands...very dangerous play for them if they wait.
you're really trying to argue that the 1-2 extra lands that can hit the grave to pump KotR after you've created a 20/20 is a perk to running this combo? I'm not buying this one. The slight chance this narrow case ends up benefiting you is definitely outweighed by the fact that the ThesDepths combo is more fragile, slow, and narrow.
Talking about fetching the combo cards. (easy to fetch with KOTR, don't need crop rotation)
Now that i thought more about it, you don't even need that many pieces to run the dark depths combo. Maybe 1 loam, 2 thespian, and 1 dark depths. loam is always the 61st card. So going this route might actually give you the opportunity to run it.
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I agree...snapcaster mage just doesn't belong in a midrange aggro deck with sfm and swords.
i rather run goyfs.
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Windswept Heath
3x Tropical Island
3x Tundra
2x Savannah
3x Wasteland
1x Karakas
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Mother of Runes
3x Snapcaster Mage
3x Qasali Pridemage
3x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Geist of Saint Traft
3x Stoneforge Mystic
2x Jitte
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Stifle
4x Brainstorm
3x Ponder
We ran it against JUND and BUG. And surprisingly it held up, it never really lost steam. It was just constant threats turn after turn. Granted it was only against 2 decks. The SFM might come out, but the exalted triggers with geist works, and stifle works great with or without geist.
RUG
Enchantress
Aside from 4x StP you have no real interaction spells in the deck; sure stifle, but that's a tempo card and severely diminishes in power as the game continues.
Basically, BS looks really, really weak when you're just digging up more dudes. Not having any form of CA or interaction with non-creatures in a heavily blue deck just seems....... non-ideal.
I'm also HEAVILY against the 0 basic land strategy. Without your own countermagic you're 100% belly up to early stifle/wasteland which seems like it'd be a huge issue as both cards are fairly popular atm.
-3 SCM
-3 SFM
-1 Jitte
and in all honesty -1/2/3 MOM
Fixing land base according to list alterations. for a start...
This deck looks like it would mulligan terribly and really has no reach. Like, if you don't have dominate board position by turn 3, you're kinda boned....
Maverick -- Storm
Click here for trade threadTrade thread under reconstruction.
Because you can't spell slaughter without laughter.
This again, and:
-knight adds to 3 drops
-jitte is the worst for Geist
-stifle is your only real instant play, so leaving it up is terrible. This is the worst possible stifle arrangement
If you want minimal "spells" with constant threats, play Maverick. That is the deck that just pounds and pounds. Bant should be better than Mav in the interactive department and I'd argue it's capable of doing a tempo/fast-aggro run.
UWR delver is a great model. Sure, we can't toss burn at the opponent's head, but that deck actually utilizes Geist as the centerpiece of the deck. Geist is a build-around me card.
Alternatively -- and I've tried to make lists do this but simply can't -- you could make UGw next level thresh. KotR supplements the wasteland-denial ideas originally crafted in that shell. Again, burn would be swapped for other things.
But at the end of the day, if you have blue, use it. Don't just toss in what appears to be random cards. The synergy is not there.
10th at SCG: Syracuse (2014), GP:NJ Last-Chance Grinder Winner (2014):: Former Legacy Mod
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Forest
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Plains
1 Tundra
2 Karakas
2 Savannah
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
2 Submerge
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Meddling Mage
2 Envelop
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Rest in Peace
1 Flusterstorm
1 Pithing Needle
This is a little light on disruption (3 Spell Pierce and a Clique) but I can understand why the pilot wanted the Maverick GW core of threats over the blue-card density needed for Force of Will and the low curve needed for Daze. Brainstorm is still fine because of all the Zeniths, 4x Geist, 2x Karakas, and the Pierce/Swords split ... there will be cards you want to put back in every matchup and there will almost always be a way to shuffle.
The second Karakas looks like it could do a TON of work in this list, saving Geist from sweepers or blockers and reusing Clique. I'm a Maverick player personally and using Karakas as protection for Thalia and Teeg is already very relevant, add Geist and Clique to the mix and you get some nasty potential plays.
I mean, clearly it worked for him, those European tournaments are pretty serious. This one was 10 rounds with no top 8 cut so 2nd seed out of 420 after 10 rounds of Swiss basically means 9-1 or 8-1-1, which is a healthy record for sure.
Thanks to Gabgabdevo for the awesome sig image!
I'm always looking for foil Madcap Skills and Ghitu Fire-Eater, [trade thread link forthcoming]
It's definitely more Maverick 2.0-ish (GWu) than Bant (UGw), to blur the line. It really looks like if you said "Say I want to make Maverick a Geist deck instead of a Knight deck, what would I do," then this is exactly what you'd end up with - no Mothers cause you don't need to protect Geist, 2 Pridemage for exalted, a few other uses of Blue, 2 Elspeth, 2 Karakas, limited counter-magic (similar successful lists omitted Brainstorm, which is fairly reasonable, with the speed Geist provides).
I like Revoker - if my understanding of the "as" is correct, a Show and Tell'd Revoker shuts off Sneak Attack or Griselbrand with no chance for activation, it shuts down Jace (which I would probably run, but it's nice to be able to address if you don't have it), and does fine hate work alongside Thalia for matches like Storm, as it can still hit artifact mana.
Is there video of him playing? The Europeans are ahead of the curve with a lot of designs. His list and playstyle obviously killed the room. I'd love to see this in action. There's a lot of manipulation for the toolbox/singletons he has.
10th at SCG: Syracuse (2014), GP:NJ Last-Chance Grinder Winner (2014):: Former Legacy Mod
None so far however.
Knight->Geist Maverick.
How does the new legend/planeswalker rule change your evaluation of:
Jace, the mind sculptor
Elspeth, knight-errant
Geist of saint traft
Vendilion Clique
Thrun, the last troll
Progenitus
umezawa's jitte
Karakas
Academy Ruins
Rules take affect on July 13. Game play around these cards will definitely be very different. The idea of jitte supremacy could be a thing. The idea of two of the same planeswalkers going back and forth is a strange one with a lot of play implications. Phantasmal image is now utterly useless outside of merfolk, and less good there. Karakas out of the sideboard is no longer a thing for show and tell players to protect themselves. Clearly a lot will change about legacy game play, and bant runs a ton of legends, no matter what form you run, so I would like to hear people's thoughts.
How close is ThesDepths to Natural Order?
In Junk; not real exciting, without the Hexmage as well, here.
My thoughts:
1. I expect that the solitaire sides of this (recasting your own legend) will not be nearly as impactful as the interactive ones. Attacking with a legend and casting a second is still worse than playing another non-legend, so it's not like that's some format-defining combat trick. Getting an extra planeswalker activation is rarely worth the cost of the walker. The "legend rule myself" changes are not large, so while this slightly mitigates the disadvantage of running more copies of legendary cards, the deckbuilding effect is not that great (and I happily ran/run 3 Clique and 3 Jace anyway).
2. The more important cases are the changes to opposing legend rules. Accordingly, more rarely-played cards like Elspeth, and lower-board-impact cards like Clique, will not be affected as much either. Cards like Clique, Geist, and Thrun will often naturally balance each other out under the new rules anyway. So I don't expect very high impact gameplay changes with most of these cards as legends (though see "4b" below)
3. Jitte will probably be second-most-relevantly affected, as Jitte decks often soft to Jitte - they need many guys to support it, they're usually small guys to be playable en masse, and small guys get killed by -1/-1 or trumped by the pump. Different iterations of Bant have played Jitte, and often rightfully so. The new rules make the effects of Jitte marginally more pervasive in games where it's relevant, and Bant may be slightly better equipped to handle it - Knight/Geist are more resilient than (say) tribal guys to the removal, it has maindeck Pridemage for opposing equipment, and Pierce is capable of stopping it. The card isn't played enough, and isn't played in enough copies when it is played, that things will be much different after the rules change, but I think Bant might be slightly better off than before (though earlier active Jitte is still the bigger deal by far).
4. Jace is obviously the huge one, and probably the single biggest card affected by the changes in the format. One of the key, pillar cards of the format is literally going to have new text which no longer says "Kill target Jace" and now says "Can't just die bc opposing Jace." Like Jitte, Jace decks are often very susceptible to Jace - it's power in slow, low-creature, controlly decks also makes them weak to Jace. So Jace mirrors will be heavily affected, as Jace becomes much harder to answer with existing builds (vastly unlike, say, Thalia mirrors, which are not-at-all weak to Thalia). It's hard to say how this will change individual match-ups, much less the format, but I'm going to speculate that this has two major effects, which are both very good for Bant.
4a. First, your Jace is more resilient to opposing removal options, so Bant becomes an even better Jace deck. The fact that it can accelerate into a faster Jace than UWx was a big deal, and gets bigger - you can start to pull ahead and they can't just hit 4 mana and drop Jace. So what can they do? If they try to send dudes in, you're already rocking the best defensive creature in the format (Knight, especially Knight->Maze). Burn remains an answer, and Pulse/Vindicate remain answers, but the best grindy Jace mirror answer to Jace is your own Jace. (Beware Lingering Souls.)
4b. Second, your answers to opposing Jaces are comparatively strong. Bant is a comparatively aggressive Jace deck, and can bring more combat pressure than the mainstream alternatives. Interestingly, a lot of the list above comes back out here: Clique, Geist, Thrun, and Elspeth are all wonderful ways to deal with Jace (and Clique/Elspeth are quite good against Lily as well). It's quite possible that the metagame sees more use of newly-more-resilient planeswalkers (even if those sort of decks are increasingly open to planeswalkers) alongside far fewer answers to opposing planeswalkers (since they all just stopped answering themselves). In that case, solid multi-functional answers to the rising number of opposing walkers become very strong, and Bant is loaded with them.
This is all speculation, of course, and affects a comparatively small number of games and any given tournament - many matches remain completely unaffected by the rules changes, and feeling slightly safer about running an extra copy of Clique or Karakas or Jace will not change much against ANT or Jund. But in the matches which this does pertain to, I'm inclined to think that Bant is very well positioned to protect its Jaces and pressure opposing ones, so that it comes out on top overall. And as a consequence of the changes, the meta may shift so that Bant is in a better place against the growing Walker decks.
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Sigarda
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Pierce
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
23 Land
4 Force of Will
1 Spell Pierce
3 Krosan Grip
2 Jitte
2 Path
3 Rest in Peace
Legacy: Strawberry Shortcake, Aggro Loam, DnT+b
Modern: Devoted Karn
Vintage: Survival
Junk remains a far, far better Depths deck. It has access to any of the Green tutors Bant could play (Knight, Wish, Crop Rotation), but Hexmage (itself and as Wish target) is much better as actual redundancy than blue card selection naturally run in Bant.
Do you just mean, by "tutorable," that you're likely running Knight already? I think I'd still rather have Natural Order. Progenitus doesn't require 2 Knight activations and doesn't lose to StP, Jace, and Lingering Souls. The matches which you're addressing with those strategies are usually in trouble if you have a Knight active for several turns anyway.
It is nice to be more compact..
Junk can't do much against topdecked answers, though. If Marit Lage already has to slog through a resolved Lingering Souls, Junk can't touch topdecked removal or Jaces. Heck, Junk can't really stop Terminus at all. However, Bant's counterspells can stop Terminus and hold off topdecked answers better.
Natural Order also eats up 3+ spell slots in your deck--compare to Dark Depths probably eating up 2 spell slots and Thespian's Stage eating land slots instead. I think NO is less compact than ThesDepths.
How is NO less compact?
for NO, you need to run 3 NO's and Progenitus (4 cards). Only 1 card is dead in your hand (Progenitus).
for Dark Depths, you need some number of Dark Depths(2?), Thespian's Stages(2?), and Living Wish (3-4?). Dark Depths and Thespian's are terrible independent of one another. Even if you don't run Living wish you're dedicating 4 slots at a minimum (same as NO-Prog) except the combo is so much more fragile and slower (StP, Lingering Souls, Wasteland, and Jace all ruin your day plus its going to be multiple turns to tutor things up with KotR).
And its not nearly as consistent without black since Dark Depths can't tap for mana (Urborg really helps in this case), as well as no Hexmage for potential 20/20 turn 2. (Urborg T1, Dark Depths T2, play Hexmage, make 20/20 to swing for turn 3).
If I ran the deck, I would run 1 dark depths, 2 stages, 1 crop rotation.
Thats a total of 4 cards, the same number of NO prog. In this case, it is even better than NO prog because you don't need to sac a creature and you can't counter lands.
1. You need 2 pieces for the combo and all the pieces are useless without each other.
2. You can counter crop rotation which you also need to sacrifice a land for.
3. Wasteland is kind of a thing in Legacy
4. the token is actually very easy to deal with in retrospect. Only terminus and Verdict deal with Progenitus (also sac effects if its your only creature).
EDIT: So no, its not better.
1. you need 3 pieces with NO. the creature, the prog, another creature. The combo is not anywhere more useless than NO and prog. At least you can play a colorless land or copy another dual land.
2. You can counter - but lets not talk about what things can be countered and what not...same argument as "it dies to removal"
3. ok.
4. same
5. no need to shuffle away prog if it is in your hand.
6. playing combo requires tight play. You don't drop a land when there is a wasteland. You do it when you have priority.
7. Goes very very well with knights of the reliquary. Same cannot be said with NO and prog.
You don't need the Progenitus, its quite the opposite, you need to NOT have it (which is very likely, and you can always brainstorm/clique it back into your library...). And with Dryad Arbor, Noble Hierarchs, GSZ, etc. the chance you have a creature is pretty high since Bant wins by attacking with creatures.
Natural order also can just win you the game sometimes. You can be behind in board state and topdeck the NO and its pretty much like "oops I win", because its likely your opponent isn't going to waste removal spells on a mana dork, and if they do, then thats one less removal spell on a Goyf or KotR.
You can't "oops I win" with Depths/Thespians. The pieces are completely dead separate from each other (I guess tapping for 1 colorless mana isn't completely usless :P). Compare that to Prog where its only 1 dead card and you always brainstorm/clique it back into your library (You can't Clique ThesDepths pieces - slight disadvantage). What if you draw Depths? Do you brainstorm it back or no? Then you might draw a crop rotation after. Then what? It's never clear whether you should burn a spot in your hand to hang onto the lands. My point is NO is very synergistic with the strategy at hand. Drop a 3cc on turn 2 and then win with that or play NO the following turn.
That's fine, I only said it because you pointed out the uncounterability of lands. Countering NO is akin to countering Crop Rotation
How is this the same? Prog dies to board wipes and sac effects when you have no other creatures in play. Marit Lage dies to StP, any bounce effect (Jace, Karakas, etc.), can be chump blocked by lingering souls, path to exile'd, in addition to any effect that kills Prog. So clearly, the token is much more vulnerable than prog.
huh? You mean Thespians?
If they have an active wasteland theres no way to play around it, other than to play a wasteland of your own to waste their wasteland, forcing the interaction to occur.
you're really trying to argue that the 1-2 extra lands that can hit the grave to pump KotR after you've created a 20/20 is a perk to running this combo? I'm not buying this one. The slight chance this narrow case ends up benefiting you is definitely outweighed by the fact that the ThesDepths combo is more fragile, slow, and narrow.
Same as above.
If they have an active wasteland theres no way to play around it, other than to play a wasteland of your own to waste their wasteland, forcing the interaction to occur.
Untrue....you can play in response to their wastelands...very dangerous play for them if they wait.
you're really trying to argue that the 1-2 extra lands that can hit the grave to pump KotR after you've created a 20/20 is a perk to running this combo? I'm not buying this one. The slight chance this narrow case ends up benefiting you is definitely outweighed by the fact that the ThesDepths combo is more fragile, slow, and narrow.
Talking about fetching the combo cards. (easy to fetch with KOTR, don't need crop rotation)
Now that i thought more about it, you don't even need that many pieces to run the dark depths combo. Maybe 1 loam, 2 thespian, and 1 dark depths. loam is always the 61st card. So going this route might actually give you the opportunity to run it.