Currently re examining the affinity matchup. I'm looking at stony silence thinking I have had too many scenarios where I have had stony and worship but still eventually lose to a ghirapur aether grid with 2-3 ee stuck in hand.
The nonbo is pretty significant because this play pattern has happened multiple times. I find that EE is usually how I can win game 1.
Either stony should be cut in favor of other hate like kataki, which doesn't make too much sense when stony is good vs etron, adnaus, and tron, or your sb HAS to have an answer to aether grid in the form of naturalize effects or pithing needle.
Phyrexian revoker could ba a good answer, maybe you could test -2 stony silence and +1 pithing needle and +1 revoker. Stony is very good but stops EE and needle/revoker can be "tutored" with ancient stirrings.
Against affinity i'm using in SB 2 reclamation sage, she + displacer is GG.
Found an interesting card - what about retaliate? It's a potential unilateral board wipe against elves, affinity, merfolk, and the like. It has the problem of requiring creatures to do damage to you though, and needing to support WW... but it has some potential.
Interestingly, it actually works through worship too, since worship doesn't prevent damage, only reduces it.
I think a sideboard that includes it needs some form of massive lifegain, though, like thragtusk or batterskull.
This list gives you tons of postboard reliability since you can find your hate with both stirrings and trinket mage. You get to cut stony silence, since the trinket mages allow you to find ee for affinity and needle for tron. You also get to cut RIP in lieu of more easily findable but softer grave hate. Against fair decks you can trinket mage for relic to gain card advantage and destroy their graveyard, or basilisk collar for attrition and to trade effectively against bigger creatures than you like shadoe. It even combos with displacer to give you a potential soft lock against creature decks (tutoring up mulitple ee).
I am not particularly worried. There is such thing as fotm and it appears that people think etron is strictly better than bant... but I'm like 17-3 in my most recent records with my only losses to gifts storm and so I think we're in a fine place. The trinket mage plan I'm going to try also fills that hole since it effectively increases our hate density.
Reflector mage has been great in my testing as it gives draws that basically just beat any cheap creature deck in the form of turn 3 displacer/mage combo. Of course this only happens to maybe 50% of hands with mage, but usually those matchups are bad anyway.
Any thoughts on rhonas? Saw it do some work against grixis shadow the other day because of how hard it is to answer... and the fact that it makes even tokens and dorks real threats
Did some testing with the trinket mage, and it is definitely powerful, but it is slow. It cannot entirely replace early hosers like stony silence or RIP. The best you can do is dork-mage-tormod's crypt against a graveyard deck, or dork-mage and EE and turn 3. This sequence is too slow against the likes of dredge or affinity (on the draw).
However, what the mage does is provide a quick means towards a soft lock against these kinds of decks. It allows you to find lock pieces once you've stabilized after turns 2-3. Comboing with displacer allows you to set up chalice + needle + EE in such a way that your opponent cannot possibly win.
Here's version 2 of my sideboard with trinket mage:
- 1x Chalice
- 1x Grafdigger's
- 1x Pithing Needle
- 1x Tormod's Crypt
- 2x Trinket Mage
- 1x Stony Silence
- 1x Rest in Peace
- 2x Worship
- 5x Flex (Recommend 2x Disdainful, 1x Batterskull, 2x Reflector Mage)
Uses for Trinket Mage
Vs Elves: EE, Pithing Needle, or Grafdigger's
Vs Affinity: EE, Pithing Needle, Chalice (on 1 for the soft lock once displacer is live)
Vs Merfolk: EE, Chalice (on 1 for the soft lock against vapor snag)
Vs Tron: Pithing Needle
Vs Druid combo: EE, Pithing Needle, Grafdigger's
Vs Gifts storm: EE, Chalice, Tormod's, Grafdigger's
Competed in a GPT Las Vegas and went top8 with a 3-1-1 score, in a field of 31 players. The breakdown for the matches:
R1: Affinity 2-1 (1-0)
G1: Opp won after a strong start with Ornithopters, Signal Pest, Moths and Cranial Plating. Nothing much i can do when they slam almost an entire hand down.
G2: -4x Thought-Knot Seer, -1x Talisman of Progress, +2x Stony Silence, +1x Dismember, +1x Naturalize, +1 Worship. Slammed a T2 Stony Silence with 2 removal in hand and a Displacer. Opp got stuck on 1 land. Game was over in a jiffy.
G3: No changes to the mb. Opp mulled to 5 and i don't remember much of the game. Just remembered him showing me 2x Ceremonious Rejection after he lost. Couldn't play against my Caverns.
R2: RG Tron 2-0 (2-0)
G1: I had a strong hand with a Hierarch, 2x TKS, Path, Temple and 2 other lands. Played Hierarch T1, got bolted and played TKS on T3. Opp had an Ulamorg, Wurmcoil and a Karn. Took the Karn, opp played the WE, pathed the WE. Played another TKS on the next turn, took Ulamorg and just went for the beatdown.
G2: -4x Reality Smashers, -1x Drowner of Hope. +2 Stony Silence, 1x Naturalize, 2x Stubborn Denials, 1x Negate. Opened a hand with 1x Denial, TKS, Path, and lands. Played very slow and drew into a Negate. Opp had gotten Tron in T4, used his Burnwillows for G to cast Ancient Stirrings, cast Karn. I cast a Stubborn Denial. My T4 i cast a TKS, took an emrakul and saw that opp has no other wincons, just Sylvan Scrying and a Sphere. Opp couldn't get anymore gas and lost.
R3: GW Creatures 1-1 (2-0-1)
G1: Very grindy matchup. Got a win thru, Reality Smasher and TKS. He had 2x paths in hand and i had enough gas.
G2: Paths and Linvala won him the game.
G3: Both of us went defensive after throwing removals, game ended in a draw.
R4: Grixis Delver 0-2 (2-1-1)
G1: Had a good hand, cast TKS on T3, he mana leaked it and followed it up with surgical extraction. Played an EE for 0 to stop him from swarming with his tokens. He killed me from the air with a flipped delver. Kept drawing lands and not a single cavern.
G2: Again no Cavern, played to a standstill when i had 1x Path and 1x Smasher in hand and 1x on the board. He had a Tasigur, unflipped Delver and a token. Our life were both in single digits by this time. I Path the Tasigur and it resolved. Thinking that he was out of counterspells, i cast the 2nd Reality Smasher, he responded with a Mana Leak. He killed my Smasher in the next 2 turns and proceeded to win with 1x token and 1x unflipped Delver.
R5: Scapeshift 2-0 ( 3-1-1)
Paired down to meet a 6 pointer. He let me had the W and i got through with 10 points.
Quarters: Living End 0-2
G1: Living End looks like it has been going to the gym for the past 1 year. The deck is beefy now with new additions from AKH. He cycled 2x Street Wraiths and cycled a Cerodon. Next turn he cycled a Horror of the Broken Lands. T3 he cascaded for Living End. Killed my board and had 16 power otb in T4.
G2: Brought in Relics and counterspells. Managed to counter his first cascaded Living End. Shriekmaw killed my Displacer on his 2nd Living End and he just steamrolled past me. Had a Path but couldn't deal with his remaining creatures. Really impressed with the Living End deck. Maybe i should have added in RIP in the sb but yeah, that's magic.
I have fallen into the Tron trap. after over 200 competitive games of Bant and countless testing games I was getting a little complacent and invested in Chalices ! purely because the deck is unfair and is better for the current meta.
I want to make bant great again but I need to find a way to beat the big guys in the format.
I have had the opportunity to test a lot against the vizier combo and even with a cage & counterspells I struggle, I just seems so much better and more resilient than the old version !
living end, Elves, merfolk, Titanshift, Shadow, ETC.
i'll be trying my hand at the BW Eldrazi list that won GP Kobe. Looks decent for the meta.
A 1 of chalice is basically required for any competitive bant sideboard. It is not always set on 1. The right number is often 0 such as against living end or 2 against gifts storm or burn. Against adnaus, 1 or 3 are both good. Against affinity, 0, 1 or 3. I can't tell you how many games I've won off of a chalice... It is a highly overlooked sb option.
I think Rhonas is worth another look. It does a lot of work in any ground-based midrange matchup. Yeah, it's a pretty bad topdeck on an empty board, buts true power lies in the ability to make your wimpy creatures (like skyspawners) must-remove creatures. Skyspawner + Rhonas + 3 mana alone represents 9 "evasive" damage since Rhonas is hard to block profitably. The fact that it can't be destroyed means that all subsequent creature draws after it are extremely live draws that can stabilize most boardstates. Also, the fact that Rhonas can enable true Turn 4 kills (turn 1 dork, turn 2 rhonas, turn 3 smasher) is icing on the covfefe.
Secondly, it has some great interactions with other things in our deck. Namely, it synergizes with worship. Some matchups like affinity can win through a worship by still being able to kill all your creatures, but this isn't true with Rhonas. It also provides an immediate clock after stabilizing with worship. For example, skyspawner can turn into a 3 turn clock with 6 mana and a Rhonas, closing the window for, for example, merfolk to draw to their outs. Also, it turns on stubborn denial. Finally, this one is a stretch, but if you're running a SB batterskull like me, you'll always be able to create an effectively insurmountable board presence
Just did 15 games with it in the opener against Burn, Grixis DS, and Merfolk, and went 11-4... the damage it can present is ridiculous and you can sometimes just flat out outrace other aggro decks. I think I will be cutting 1 drowner for it soon. I almost want 2 if it weren't for the legendary rule. Janusfcb, any thoughts on batterskull?
Some aggro play patterns with rhonas:
Turn 1 Noble, Turn 2 Rhonas, Turn 3 TKS swing for 6, Turn 4 Rhonas pump swing for 11 = 17 damage
Turn 1 Noble, Turn 2 Rhonas, Turn 3 Smasher = 20 damage by turn 4
Turn 1 Noble, Turn 2 Rhonas, Turn 3 Skyspawner, pump skyspawner, swing for 6, Turn 4 pump skyspawner, swing for 9 = 15 damage
Turn 1 no dork, Turn 2 Skyspawner or displacer, Turn 3 Rhonas swing for 3, Turn 4 Smasher swing for 12 = 15 damage
Hey guys, long time lurker here. Finally got around to making an account on here and wanted to share the list I've been running and how I've been doing with it. Im welcome to any suggestions/ criticisms. I'm planning on attending the Charlotte Open and am trying to get a win for us Bant players. Ive recently had this list at an IQ and got 6th place, and placed 4th at a con event a few months prior minus recent updates. I've enjoyed running mainboard Rhonas and find him to be quite useful.
I actually don't bring it against burn for that very reason. I find it too slow for that matchup anyway, thragtusk is better for the immediate lifegain.
thragtusk and batterskull I usually interchange depending on the meta and only have both if I expect a lot of slow decks or if I am on 3 drowners mb and need more bomb density. batterskull is mainly if I'm expecting a lot of eldrazi tron, abzan, uw control, and blood moon decks(! no need to run islands), ie any slow deck not running kolaghans. It has the capability of singlehandedly winning against these kinds of decks which is not true with thragtusk. in my experience it's also a bit better in the worship dependent matchups like merfolk, elves, and dredge because of being able to close more quickly with skyspawner. thragtusk is better against burn, the mirror, and shadow decks. regardless, I wouldn't have a sideboard without at least one of them. I make room by cutting all planeswalkers from the sb as I feel they are too slow and narrow.
I agree with you, i think both are a little clunky for the mainboard
update with an anecdote: just played at a small 30-person modern event and split 1st/2nd. batterskull won me 2 games, 1 against an insurmountable board state (4 lingering souls, 1 goyf, 1 shambling vent) when I was topdecking, and 1 against merfolk (with the god-draw of turn 3 batterskull with skyspawner)
Whoa... no issue here.. just that i didn't realised it.
The nonbo is pretty significant because this play pattern has happened multiple times. I find that EE is usually how I can win game 1.
Either stony should be cut in favor of other hate like kataki, which doesn't make too much sense when stony is good vs etron, adnaus, and tron, or your sb HAS to have an answer to aether grid in the form of naturalize effects or pithing needle.
Against affinity i'm using in SB 2 reclamation sage, she + displacer is GG.
Interestingly, it actually works through worship too, since worship doesn't prevent damage, only reduces it.
I think a sideboard that includes it needs some form of massive lifegain, though, like thragtusk or batterskull.
3x ee main
..
3x trinket mage
2x chalice
2x grafdigger
2x relic
1x pithing needle
1x basilisk collar
4x flex (recommend 2x worship 2x disdainful)
This list gives you tons of postboard reliability since you can find your hate with both stirrings and trinket mage. You get to cut stony silence, since the trinket mages allow you to find ee for affinity and needle for tron. You also get to cut RIP in lieu of more easily findable but softer grave hate. Against fair decks you can trinket mage for relic to gain card advantage and destroy their graveyard, or basilisk collar for attrition and to trade effectively against bigger creatures than you like shadoe. It even combos with displacer to give you a potential soft lock against creature decks (tutoring up mulitple ee).
Reflector mage has been great in my testing as it gives draws that basically just beat any cheap creature deck in the form of turn 3 displacer/mage combo. Of course this only happens to maybe 50% of hands with mage, but usually those matchups are bad anyway.
Any thoughts on rhonas? Saw it do some work against grixis shadow the other day because of how hard it is to answer... and the fact that it makes even tokens and dorks real threats
However, what the mage does is provide a quick means towards a soft lock against these kinds of decks. It allows you to find lock pieces once you've stabilized after turns 2-3. Comboing with displacer allows you to set up chalice + needle + EE in such a way that your opponent cannot possibly win.
Here's version 2 of my sideboard with trinket mage:
- 1x Chalice
- 1x Grafdigger's
- 1x Pithing Needle
- 1x Tormod's Crypt
- 2x Trinket Mage
- 1x Stony Silence
- 1x Rest in Peace
- 2x Worship
- 5x Flex (Recommend 2x Disdainful, 1x Batterskull, 2x Reflector Mage)
Uses for Trinket Mage
R1: Affinity 2-1 (1-0)
G1: Opp won after a strong start with Ornithopters, Signal Pest, Moths and Cranial Plating. Nothing much i can do when they slam almost an entire hand down.
G2: -4x Thought-Knot Seer, -1x Talisman of Progress, +2x Stony Silence, +1x Dismember, +1x Naturalize, +1 Worship. Slammed a T2 Stony Silence with 2 removal in hand and a Displacer. Opp got stuck on 1 land. Game was over in a jiffy.
G3: No changes to the mb. Opp mulled to 5 and i don't remember much of the game. Just remembered him showing me 2x Ceremonious Rejection after he lost. Couldn't play against my Caverns.
R2: RG Tron 2-0 (2-0)
G1: I had a strong hand with a Hierarch, 2x TKS, Path, Temple and 2 other lands. Played Hierarch T1, got bolted and played TKS on T3. Opp had an Ulamorg, Wurmcoil and a Karn. Took the Karn, opp played the WE, pathed the WE. Played another TKS on the next turn, took Ulamorg and just went for the beatdown.
G2: -4x Reality Smashers, -1x Drowner of Hope. +2 Stony Silence, 1x Naturalize, 2x Stubborn Denials, 1x Negate. Opened a hand with 1x Denial, TKS, Path, and lands. Played very slow and drew into a Negate. Opp had gotten Tron in T4, used his Burnwillows for G to cast Ancient Stirrings, cast Karn. I cast a Stubborn Denial. My T4 i cast a TKS, took an emrakul and saw that opp has no other wincons, just Sylvan Scrying and a Sphere. Opp couldn't get anymore gas and lost.
R3: GW Creatures 1-1 (2-0-1)
G1: Very grindy matchup. Got a win thru, Reality Smasher and TKS. He had 2x paths in hand and i had enough gas.
G2: Paths and Linvala won him the game.
G3: Both of us went defensive after throwing removals, game ended in a draw.
R4: Grixis Delver 0-2 (2-1-1)
G1: Had a good hand, cast TKS on T3, he mana leaked it and followed it up with surgical extraction. Played an EE for 0 to stop him from swarming with his tokens. He killed me from the air with a flipped delver. Kept drawing lands and not a single cavern.
G2: Again no Cavern, played to a standstill when i had 1x Path and 1x Smasher in hand and 1x on the board. He had a Tasigur, unflipped Delver and a token. Our life were both in single digits by this time. I Path the Tasigur and it resolved. Thinking that he was out of counterspells, i cast the 2nd Reality Smasher, he responded with a Mana Leak. He killed my Smasher in the next 2 turns and proceeded to win with 1x token and 1x unflipped Delver.
R5: Scapeshift 2-0 ( 3-1-1)
Paired down to meet a 6 pointer. He let me had the W and i got through with 10 points.
Quarters: Living End 0-2
G1: Living End looks like it has been going to the gym for the past 1 year. The deck is beefy now with new additions from AKH. He cycled 2x Street Wraiths and cycled a Cerodon. Next turn he cycled a Horror of the Broken Lands. T3 he cascaded for Living End. Killed my board and had 16 power otb in T4.
G2: Brought in Relics and counterspells. Managed to counter his first cascaded Living End. Shriekmaw killed my Displacer on his 2nd Living End and he just steamrolled past me. Had a Path but couldn't deal with his remaining creatures. Really impressed with the Living End deck. Maybe i should have added in RIP in the sb but yeah, that's magic.
i'll be trying my hand at the BW Eldrazi list that won GP Kobe. Looks decent for the meta.
About chalice I dont like it so much, we use 4 paths, 4-5 dorks and 4 ancient stirrings, so chalice on 1 could destroy our game.
Secondly, it has some great interactions with other things in our deck. Namely, it synergizes with worship. Some matchups like affinity can win through a worship by still being able to kill all your creatures, but this isn't true with Rhonas. It also provides an immediate clock after stabilizing with worship. For example, skyspawner can turn into a 3 turn clock with 6 mana and a Rhonas, closing the window for, for example, merfolk to draw to their outs. Also, it turns on stubborn denial. Finally, this one is a stretch, but if you're running a SB batterskull like me, you'll always be able to create an effectively insurmountable board presence
Some aggro play patterns with rhonas:
Turn 1 Noble, Turn 2 Rhonas, Turn 3 TKS swing for 6, Turn 4 Rhonas pump swing for 11 = 17 damage
Turn 1 Noble, Turn 2 Rhonas, Turn 3 Smasher = 20 damage by turn 4
Turn 1 Noble, Turn 2 Rhonas, Turn 3 Skyspawner, pump skyspawner, swing for 6, Turn 4 pump skyspawner, swing for 9 = 15 damage
Turn 1 no dork, Turn 2 Skyspawner or displacer, Turn 3 Rhonas swing for 3, Turn 4 Smasher swing for 12 = 15 damage
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/593137#paper
I agree with you, i think both are a little clunky for the mainboard
update with an anecdote: just played at a small 30-person modern event and split 1st/2nd. batterskull won me 2 games, 1 against an insurmountable board state (4 lingering souls, 1 goyf, 1 shambling vent) when I was topdecking, and 1 against merfolk (with the god-draw of turn 3 batterskull with skyspawner)