So the basic principle of this deck is that all of your cards game 1 are either lands, Scapeshifts to kill your opponent, or replace themselves. Your 8 ramp spells put a land onto the battelfield. Repeal, Remand, Electrolyze and Cryptic Command all cycle. Snapcaster buys back another spell that replaces itself. Finally, Clique is used in most fair non-blue matchups to target yourself, so it essentially cycles a card as well. It can also be used to check if the coast is clear to combo off vs. blue opponents
About some of the non-standard inclusions and omissions in the deck:
-Repeal is really good in this deck. Older versions played it and I honestly don't understand why people don't anymore. I've bounced Cranial Platings, Birthing Pods, Deceiver Exarchs with Splinter Twin on the stack, Kor Spiritdancers with 6+ enchantments on them, Blood Moons, germ tokens, Leonin Arbiters, Spellskites, Pyromancer's Ascensions and probably countless other bothersome permanents I'm forgetting about. In matchups where it's dead it can even bounce your own Snapcasters back. It is worth mentioning that this card would be unplayable if it didn't draw a card.
-No Sakura Tribe Elders: I only wanted 8 ramp spells in the deck, and I liked Farseek more since it can get Breeding Pool in addition to being found off of Peer Through Depths and being able to be flashed back by Snapcaster Mage. Not being able to block isn't a huge issue since Affinity mostly has flyers and your primary route to victory vs.Zoo is by looping Cryptic Commands, which this version of the deck does very consistently.
-No maindeck Lightning Bolts or sweepers: I was just never happy when I drew a Firespout or even a bolt game 1 vs. Storm or Splinter Twin. I understand the argument is that Lightning Bolt can always target your opponent, but I never like the idea of playing Lava Spike in any deck, especially this one. This version of the deck is geared to execute it's game plan as efficiently as possible, and Lava Spike doesn't add to the game plan significantly. Electrolyze makes the cut because I wanted some way to deal with a game 1 Gaddock Teeg, Leonin Arbiter or Aven Mindcensor, and at least Electrolyze cycles. Admittedly removal is needed in some matchups, which is why the Bolts and Anger of the Gods are in the sideboard.
About the other sideboard choices:
Ancient Grudge: Obviously against Affinity but sometimes blowing up Spellskites and Birthing Pods also matters.
Swan Song: Against fast combo where having a one mana answer is more important than giving your opponent the token. There is also the mostly irrelevant but cute interaction between Swan Song and Repeal.
Scavenging Ooze: Graveyard hate, lifegain, blocking and extra beatdown potential all rolled into one. Nice like that for compacting sideboard slots.
Counterflux: Against Blue decks and Storm.
While I'm unsure about some of the sideboard slots I really like the maindeck as it stands right now. I hope this was interesting enough to read and I'd be glad to get some opinions on my take on my favorite archetype in modern.
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Thanks! To break down the sideboard by card:
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Yes, I'm quite familiar with this archetype-Mythic Bant is probably my favorite deck of all time.
I am testing a Sovereigns list, but don't own Lotus Cobras. That kind of invalidates the Cobra/Knight/Fetchland engine, so I'm currently trying out configurations of other "dorks" like Sylvan Caryatid, Coiling Oracle, Sakura-Tribe Elder, and Courser of Kruphix alongside 4-8 one-drops. Courser has really impressed me so far, its an all-around solid card.
This does fundamentally change the way the deck plays though. You don't have access to explosive Lotus Cobra openings, which I believe necessitates playing some more reactive cards. The upside of this is greater robustness against aggressive strategies or removal. I did some brief testing online against Jund with a Lotus Cobra list and found that the deck became really bad when all your dorks got killed. However, that might be a risk worth taking because of how huge the payoff can be.
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I really hope Inquisition of Kozilek makes its way into the set too. It doesn't see Eternal play now anymore that Esperblade is kind of dead, but this would be great for Modern players, and its functional in Limited unlike a lot of other cards that need a reprint.
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I sympathize with your inclination to try and return to the "core" Bant cards, but the unfortunate reality is that Bant lacks a true identity in Modern.
Legacy Bant, despite being a Tier 2 deck these days, still very much has a unique advantage other Blue goodstuff midrange decks like Esper Deathblade and Shardless BUG can't match: acceleration. With Hierarch and Green Sun's Zenith affording 6-8 turn 1 ramp spells, a Bant deck can leverage a mana advantage to disrupt the opponent with Wasteland/Daze or cast powerful spells like Jace, the Mind Sculptor better than any other Blue midrange deck.
Modern is obviously a totally different format, and is one where Bant doesn't offer that kind of unique advantage. There are plenty of good cards in Bant colors, but a Bant deck can never seem to become greater than the sum of its parts.
Noble Hierarch is a great aggressive card that is begging to be played with Geist, but we lack the removal options a WUR deck has to push him through. Tarmogoyf is another great Green card, but we're a much worse Tarmogoyf deck than Jund or Junk.
Access to Blue should theoretically give access to cantrips and permission, but Serum Visions is appallingly bad, and the permission available is expensive and/or narrow.
Basically, I'm not enthusiastic about Bant aggro-control in Modern. However, there are two cards in our shard that I am enthusiastic about playing: Gavony Township and Celestial Colonnade.
(As an aside, neither are great right now with all the Ghost Quarters around, BUT I'm confident Eldrazi will be hit by a banning at some point and we will see fewer Ghost Quarters)
Most of my brewing in Modern Bant has centered around ramp-oriented lists that can utilize these lands alongside big, stupid spells that are (hopefully) a pain for many Modern decks to deal with. I think the banning of Splinter Twin was a huge boon for this style of deck (tapping out for expensive spells and basically on only 4 Paths for efficient, instant-speed interaction), and that is what inspired me to come back to this archetype.
I may crash and burn miserably, but I am determined to try SOMETHING along these lines in paper soon.