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Saturday, October 27, 2012

Standard? Bant Control

I've been playing Legacy for the past few weeks and haven't played anything else much. This Saturday though is Return to Ravnica Game Day and that is one reason to build a type 2 deck.

I started with Jund colors. I took all dual lands I could, added Kessig Wolf Run twice and some basic lands. The cards that seemed obvious were Olivia Voldaren and Thragtusk so I put those in. I added Rakdos's Return because I really like the card, Rakdos Keyrune because I just find it good (and especially control), Farseek because that card seems pretty important if I want to play such cards and then I was a bit stuck. What other creatures to put there? There is Huntmaster of the Fells for sure but what else? Removal? Dreadbore (Annoying walkers+creatures), Mizzium Mortars (Entreat the Angels), Pillar of Flame(Zombies) .... and Bonfire (not entirely sure about this one)? I just put all those cards together and tried playing with it. It seemed strong and relatively working.

But still what bugged me was that Thragtusk and Restoration Angel is WAY better than any combination of creatures in Jund and I really missed something like Think Twice. So I switched to Bant. There is one more possibility and that is Grixis as that keeps the cards from Jund I like and eliminates green which I don't like (decklist can be found here -> Grixis Control).

What I did not like in Jund was the fact that it was quite slow and was unable to draw some cards. (I could have added Disciple of Bolas or Underworld Connections) So I tried to avoid these 'issues' in Bant. That's where Azorius Charm and Think Twice come in. There's also Jace, Architect of Thought and Tamiyo even though her role is many times different and I'm not really fond of the new Jace.

My Jund deck also had problem with late game. It did not have something AWESOME just something good. Bant has access to Angel of Serenity and to Entreat the Angels for example. Angel of Serenity is a really strong card. Not only it can work as removal so you can attack for lethal but you can also get your creatures from the graveyard and get them back when Angel of Serenity dies.

The deck starts slow, either draws cards during the first few rounds or tries to ramp a bit. Sometimes Centaur Healer shows up which can either be an attacking body or just something helping you to survive. But getting to 5-6 mana is quite fast and then you can really play some powerful spells which can usually kill aggressive decks. There's a lot of removal against aggro decks and a lot of life gain. None of these though help against true control. There the battle is a bit different - it has to be you to be the aggressive player even though that you still have to control the board. That requires some heavy sideboarding even though it seems my SB is not enough.

No matter what here's my decklist from yesterday's Return To Ravnica Game Day. Building this deck was fun and I'm glad that I started with that. Now I want to build more decks and see what works and what not. In the end it was useful for one more thing - I won the RTR Game Day, I have another play mat for my collection. I really like this one.

Bant Aggro/Control

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