-1 Wand
+1 Obelisk

Variety is the spice of life. Plus five life per turn makes you basically invulnerable.

The wand IS the wincon here. If I added a obelisk (which I did consider, I don't think it would be wise to lower the odds of getting my biggest wincon asap) I may sub in obliesk in place of the lone thassa's for a bit. Or a land potentially..

Just put this together based on an idea from another thread so realize that it's completely untested. Let me know what you think!

Am 6-0 with the Bant control deck so far Hakeem but I haven't faced any aggro or quality decks yet. Almost lost to a rainbow deck but drew into Planar with a protected Warmonk on the board. Really like permission based decks (as annoying as they can be to face sometimes). Good job. Still wonder if we could squeeze a one of Palisade Giant though.

The first place to cut would probably be the fourth Inspiration or the second Obelisk. I may actually cut an Obelisk for a Talrand, actually, because making him Indestructible would be pretty cool.

hahaha awesome!

I made a Bant deck bc I wanted to play Rhox War Monk and he is AWESOME. I love him. I did a 10 games and went 8-2.. which I will post in that thread. I'd love to hear the opinions of you guys. It curves out well, draws well, mana is excellent, removes almost as good as I'd like. I tried to squeeze red in for Ground Assault but the mana was awful.

747 Soul of Bant

1cmc
4x Prey Upon

2cmc
4x Elvish Visionary
3x Wall of Omens

3cmc
3x Cultivate
3x Rhox War Monk
1x Brimaz

4cmc

1x Rafiq of the Many
3x Inspiration

5cmc
1x Baneslayer Angel
4x Angelic Edict
2x Arbor Colossus

6+cmc
1x Soul of Ravnica
1x Soul of Zendikar
2x Terra Stomper
3x Pelakka Wurm

Land
5x Plains
5x Islands
5x Forest
3x Seaside Citadel
2x Azorious Guildgate
2x Selesnya Guildgate
2x Simic Guildgate

I'm on my phone and it's getting hard to type so I will include some thoughts in the next post.

The deck runs really smooth.. but I'd like to tweak it. My removal package is.. meh at times.. mostly bc of Prey Upon. Don't get me wrong.. it's good 80% of the time, but I just wish I could interact with my opponents board a little easier, and without using more white removal. I ran into Stormbreath several times while playing, one of them he beat me single-handedly. Right now I can only Prey Upon him or nuke him with Arbor Colossus's monstrosity ability.

Rafiq has been excellent. He turn even Elvish Visionary into a real threat.. let alone War Monk. If he is on the field and I stick a Terra Stomper or Pelakka Wurm it's GG.

My turn 2 and 3 plays are excellent consistently. I draw into land and then into real threats or cultivate into super seriousthreats. The deck starts well 80-90% of the time. I wish iI could fit in some more early game, but there isn't any room.. and the good value creatures aren't there either. Everything in the deck has good power/toughness vs cost ratios except Rafiq and Visionary.. and I don't want to ruin that with bears.

The Soul cards were the last additions. They both have good power/toughness vs cost and their mana sink abilities are relevant. I have flooded or slightly flooded in about 1/3 of games and the Souls have been excellent protection from flooding.

I toyed with Time Warp and Planar Cleansing, but Time Warp was just 5-cost Explore and Cleansing was a dead draw 100% of the time bc I had a good board consistently. There was only one game where I wished I had it.. a loss to Stormbreath Dragon w/ Burning Anger on it.

Anyway.. try it out. Glance over it.. whatever. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I like Rafiq with the tramplers, seems good. Could you run Voyage's End over Prey Upon? I think Gods Willing could be good here, too. Four Angelic Edict feels like a lot.

I'm out on the go, I'll have a closer look when I get back home.

I posted the 10 games in a row.

Rafiq let Terra Stomper run over Kozilek for lethal.. he's awesome.

I thought about Voyages End quite a bit.. but it doesn't solve the problem, it just postpones it. I'd do anything for Ground Assault in this deck.. it would just be so damn perfect. I've considered Divine Verdict and Arrest.. but being weak vs Stormbreath has scarred me for life! I really wish there was an answer outside of white. Hmmm.. I just had an epiphany. Hunt the Weak would make my 3/4s turn into 4/5s.. so they could win the fight vs Stormbreath. Maybe that's the answer.. I'll try it later.. I've been up all night.

I feel like I could probably drop an Inspiration for something. My hand is almost always loaded with the goods.

4 Edicts is a lot.. but I'm always happy to see one. On turn 6-8 when your opponent plays his bombs you can catch him off guard with an Edict and a Prey Upon in the same turn.. decimating him and letting you go in big. It is my 'answer all the problems' card.

Bant Good-Stuff-dot-Deck that has been performing really well for me:

Creatures (21):

3x Wall of Omens
2x Genesis Hydra
1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos
3x Rhox Monk
1x Rafiq of the Many
3x Skymark Roc
1x Baneslayer Angel
2x Mercurial Pretender
2x Arbor Colossus
1x Soul of Ravnica
2x Terra Stomper

Spells (15):

4x Prey Upon
3x Reprisal
2x Arrest
4x Cultivate
2x Hunter's Prowess

Lands (24):

3x Seaside Citadel
4x Selesnya Guildgate
4x Simic Guildgate
7x Forest
2x Island
4x Plains

I've been testing a 4 player deck. I enjoy playing multiple people at once.


[FFA] "Infinite Turns"
A deck for Bant 2015
60 Cards. 37 nonlands (15 creatures, 22 spells). 23 Lands (8 7 5; 3 other).
Open this deck in MisterP's deck planner. (Learn more)
Cost
-- 3x Cloudshift
-- 1x Elixir of Immortality
-- 3x Vapor Snag
Cost
-- 4x Elvish Visionary
-- 1x Jade Mage
-- 3x Wall of Omens
-- 1x Armillary Sphere
-- 2x Courier's Capsule
Cost
-- 4x Cultivate
-- 1x Darksteel Ingot
-- 2x Dissolve
Cost
-- 3x Archaeomancer
-- 2x Inspiration
Cost
-- 1x Mercurial Pretender
-- 1x Species Gorger
-- 1x Time Warp
Cost
-- 2x Planar Cleansing
Cost
-- 1x Pelakka Wurm
Cost
-- 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Land
-- 3x Seaside Citadel
-- 8x Forest
-- 7x Island
-- 5x Plains

I've been trying to prefect this deck for some time and it seems to do decent in 4 player since most people don't play aggro there, and no one tries to make enemies early. I also play it in 1v1 but I seems a little to slow there, but it is fun once you get to 9 lands and can combo off with infinite turns and win at your leisure or just abuse ETB effects.

Hey guys!

I'm fairly new to magic, only been playing for about a year. And REALLY new to deckbuilding, so this is the first deck I've built.
It runs fairly well, it feels very flexible and can potentially go infinite, although that's not required for win-con. Basically just a cloudshift/archaeomancer-exploiting deck, abusing ETB-effects.
My win con is usually the wurms, or talrand, with a fair amount of archaeomancer-cloudshift abuse.

[1v1] "Bant ETB"
A deck for Bant 2015
60 Cards. 36 nonlands (22 creatures, 14 spells). 24 Lands (5 5 4; 10 other).

Cost
-- 4x Cloudshift
-- 3x Cloudfin Raptor
-- 2x Fog
Cost
-- 4x Think Twice
-- 2x Elvish Visionary
-- 3x Wall of Omens
Cost
-- 2x Mentor of the Meek
-- 1x Dissolve
Cost
-- 4x Archaeomancer
-- 2x Séance
-- 2x Talrand, Sky Summoner
Cost
-- 3x Species Gorger
-- 1x Time Warp
Cost
-- 3x Pelakka Wurm
Land
-- 3x Seaside Citadel
-- 3x Azorius Guildgate
-- 2x Selesnya Guildgate
-- 2x Simic Guildgate
-- 5x Island
-- 5x Plains
-- 4x Forest

I've considered maybe dropping fog, but I've found it has saved my ass a few times. But would love to maybe include a planar cleansing or two maybe. Would also really like to have more counterspells in there.. Maybe one pelakka is enough?

Also kind of on the fence about the cloudfins, although they do work pretty nicely. It feels very safe to get a T1 cloudfin and a T2 wall. I kind of miss vapor snag or voyage's end though, it's a bit more flexible, reliable and cheaper than the species gorgers. And it can be used offensively if need be, which would be nice, since I don't really have any removal.

And am I running too many gates?

Would also love to be able to squeeze a doubling season in there.. Can just imagine talrand with doubling season.. Works really nice with séance aswell.. But it's a bit too "perfect draw"-ish.. I really want to make this a reliable, consistent deck.

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

I've found three copies of Species Gorger to be a bit excessive in the decks that I've used him in, settling on two copies in most lists. How often do you draw that second copy and how often is it a dead draw? It also seems like you don't have a whole lot of stuff in the deck that you want to bounce repeatedly; I only see eight creatures that I would want to be picking up all the time, eleven if you count Pelakka Wurm (I don't).

I remember fiddling around with Species Gorger in Temur colors because of the interaction with Warstorm Surge, but I wanted to go into Bant for Mentor of the Meek and never did get around to building it. A couple of cards that were great in my Temur build were Pestermite and Frost Lynx, have you considered those? They're fine on their own, they trigger Mentor, and if you get a Gorger into play then you can "permanently" lock down the opponent's biggest threat every turn.

As far as other cards, I really don't see what Fog is doing for you here. You shouldn't play Fog in any deck that isn't a Fog deck, in my opinion.

I also don't see Seance doing a whole ton of work here, and definitely not enough to warrant two copies. If you add some more creatures a singleton could be playable, but in the deck as-is I think you could cut them both.

I also think that if you're set on abusing Cloudshift/Archaeomancer that you should have a singleton Sphinx-Bone Wand in your list.

Okay, so you've reminded me that I always wanted to build a Bant deck with Species Gorger, so I'll start here:



For one-drops, I like the Cloudfin Raptors with all the bouncing going on to repeatedly evolve them and Cloudshift is great in an EtB-focused deck.

For two-drops I've chosen all the cantrip creatures because they defend well, keep you hitting your drops, and are fantastic with a Species Gorger in play.

For three-drops I like Chasm Skulker with all the card draw going on here, I like Brimaz because he's built like a tank, and I like Mentor because for each copy there are 23 other cards that will trigger it (not counting Brimaz tokens) and we also have the Cloudshifts and Gorgers to extract even more value. I also like the full package of Pestermites and Lynxes to slow the opponent down and eventually lock them out through Species Gorger if necessary.

My only four-drop is a singleton Rafiq because he's nuts with fliers and trampling Wurms.

At the top of the curve I've got the two Gorgers, the Baneslayer, the Wurm Package, and a singleton Resolute Archangel. Like I said, I think two Gorgers is enough, the Baneslayer is auto-include in a white deck, the Wurms are possibly the best card in the format, and Resolute Archangel is a nice combo with Species Gorger to just reset your life total every turn if necessary.

It's not the Archaeomancer and spell plan, but rather it's chock full of creatures as more of a Species Gorger value plan. Thoughts?

Thanks for the reply! That definitely looks alot more focused than my build. But I kind of have a hang-up with Archaeomancer, hehe.. It's just so incredibly fun to loop archaeomancer and cloudshift with f.ex talrand or guttersnipe (in Jeskai anyway) in play. Or the sphinx-bone wand as you mentioned. But it can feel kind of vulnerable. But a archaeomancer-cloudshift-talrand deck is probably better with just plain azorius? Your deck looks alot safer, with the constant tapping going on. Though, I do feel counterspells are mandatory in any bluedeck, care to elaborate why you've not included any? As I said, I'm fairly new to magic, but find it's probably the most enjoyable game I've ever played. So would love to learn as much as possible of all the nuances and intricacies, especially in regard to the somewhat daunting prospect of deckbuilding.

Yeah, I think the Cloudshift combo is better as just straight Azorius control; mobius (a former poster on these forums) built a combo deck built around that strategy and Monk (a current poster) and I just tweaked a few cards slots. I posted it in the Azorius thread and Monk piloted it to a victory in his first NGA tournament, so the deck is quite good. You can check it out over in that thread and if you can't find it, let me know and I'll try to dig it up for you.

As far as my build, I just played five games and went 4-1 and have made a few tweaks. The Resolute Archangel just wasn't necessary and I had so many low drops that Species Gorger was pretty much always castable on T5 and I usually was hoping to draw a copy, so I added the third.

I also cut a Pelakka Wurm for a copy of Hunter's Prowess because in the game that I lost, I got stymied by Guard Gomazoas despite having a Gorger and a huge Chasm Skulker in play. Prowess is also a great spell to cast if you have a Rafiq on board because granting trample to something is huge if you're able to also give it double-strike. This deck draws buckets of cards so just a pair of Wurms seems like enough to me. My other thought was to cut a Frost Lynx or a Pestermite, and that could be correct, but for now I'm trying two Wurms.

EDIT - Okay, so after some more testing the deck really does need a few more wincons. It can annoy the hell out of people for quite a while, but at a certain point you just need to close the game. I'm adding back the third Wurm and I'm also adding a Genesis Hydra to go on an expedition for Rafiq because he is just a one-shot kill with a Wurm or a Hunter's Prowess. Genesis Hydra is also really good with Species Gorger on some boards, letting you rip through your deck to snag the Baneslayers and Wurms that you need to win. I'm cutting Brimaz because he's not that great off-curve in this deck since it's a defensive deck in the early game and I'm cutting one Frost Lynx because I think seven tap effects should be fine.

EDIT 2 - I'm getting away from Cloudfin Raptor for the same reason as Brimaz, the deck wants to play defensively early and set up its pieces. I've added a pair of Archaeomancers to recover my Cloudshifts, a singleton Void Snare that is also recoverable through Archaeomancer, and the Time Warp because I have to if I'm playing the Gorgermancer. It should probably just be a 25th land, but the combo is too enticing to stay away from!

Ohh, now that just looks sexy! I have to try that second edit there!

If you do give it a shot let me know how it plays for you. I'll be playing it a bit more tonight after work.