Just wanted to give a heads up for transparency. The mod team is looking to eventually merge this thread and the UW Spirits thread into once "Modern Spirits" thread once a primer is made for it. It is in an attempt to consolidate discussions and clean up the forums a bit. If anyone has large problems with this eventual merge please message the mod team.
"With Caleb Durward's win at SCG Milwaukee last year and a finals appearance at SCG Philadelphia, Bant Spirits should get more consideration as a tier one deck in Modern.
Jim Davis: Fiction. Modern is a format where knowledge is everything. We hear a lot that knowing your deck inside and out is by far the most important skill in the format, which is why you see good players playing the same deck week in and week out constantly doing well. They know both the ins and outs of their deck, as well as how it lines up with all the important matchups in the field.
As such, there's a ton of value in Modern to be gained by playing a deck that your opponents will be unfamiliar with. Exploiting this lack of knowledge on your opponents' behalf makes things much more difficult for them, as it invalidates a lot their practice with the deck and forces them to make difficult choices on the fly.
Caleb's deck is a prime example of this.
I don't think Bant Spirits is a particularly good deck, but Caleb is a great player and Collected Company is a hell of a Magic card. The deck has a lot of play to it, many proven cards--like Spell Queller and Geist of Saint Traft--and it excels at putting its opponents into tough spots. It's not surprising to see the deck do well, but I doubt it could put up consistent results.
Gerry Thompson: Fiction. There's the whole "ham sandwich theory" going on here.
Caleb can play good Magic and basically never plays "real" decks, so eventually he's doing to do well, even if he were playing a ham sandwich. If literally no one else can win with a deck but him, it probably means the deck isn't very good.
Merfolk got some new tools in Ixalan block, but you rarely see the deck because it's a worse version of Humans. Any tribal deck is probably going to fail the same comparison, and Bant Spirits is no different. »
It made me very sad ... snif... I had some hopes after Caleb performance for this deck in the GP Lyon .... but now I’m afraid ...
So Jace is back which is relevant, as is BBE which is not as relevant to us. I wanted to discuss which cards gain and lose value for Bant Spirits, as I believe spirits is in a good position in the Mind Sculpted meta that will be modern for a while. First, my opinion on the likely Jace decks:
Grixis and U/W control: already stellar matchups for us with CoCo being very strong and GoST being a silver bullet against grixis while Spell Queller + Selfless Spirit winning out versus U/W handily. Expect 2-3 Jace being a probable finisher for each deck. U/W may have to drop a Supreme Verdict and a Cryptic to stay on curve. Versus Jace in these builds, I believe GoST gains value as a sticky threat that can't be bounced while Queller catches it. The hexproof and protection from Spirits versus Bant Value decks is a distinct advantage to Queller since control decks always have a handy answer. Additionally, Rattlechains gains value here by preventing the unsummon clause and providing cards to stay in hand to flash in at end step to take out Jace with a mostly tapped out opponent. Remand becomes very valuable for U/W, so a Cavern of Souls would improve the match.
B/U/X midrange- Hand disruption + early kill spells are already problematic, especially on the draw. This Jace shell may be more problematic that current black based midrange decks. Here, Kira, Great Glass Spinner gains value as a way to ensure enough pressure to attack into a Jace. GoST may be good too since there will likely be fewer Goyf type threats set up as blockers than in B/G/X decks as the double blue on Jace and double black on Lilliana may stress their mana base.
Miracles- This could be very problematic as a single angel blocks our attacks pretty well and Selfless Spirit and Spell Queller can't touch Terminus. Hopefully it just ends up being a bad deck that mulligans poorly and is inconsistent. 4 Remand and 4 Path are the only early interaction, so it would be a bit of a race. This deck is looking to Turn 4 Jace mostly, so perhaps Spell Queller and luck are our best outs. Cavern of Souls would help out with early remands.
Jeskai- Already a very difficult match since it plays draw go like we prefer, but has better removal against our small creatures than U/W and Grixis. Jace makes this deck much better and it probably receives the biggest boost. So again, sticky threats like GoST and Kira with support from Drogskol Captain will be cards that gain value when more people move towards Jace.
Jace Creature Midrange- Jace is a good enough card value creature decks would want him. There will be builds with 6-8 Mana dorks looking to turbo into 3 drop followed by T3 Jace. Cards like Knight of the Reliquary and Courser of Kruphix help control the draw alongside Jace. Perhaps new Nissa can play things for free. For Bant Spirits, this would be a race and one where flying is likely a boon.
Meta Reaction- Fingers crossed for less Eldrazi since TKS being unsummoned is rough. Delve creatures take a hit. Faster decks will rise to get under Jace like Bogles (especially with the 3 Leylines in the main), Infect, Burn, etc. Gains from Jund with BBE/K-Command loops should actually hurt affinity, but may make up for it with gains versus Jace decks. Tron may get out-controlled and lose some ground.
Big Question: Should Spirits pick up 1-2 Jace? We have flex slots in Phantasmal Image/ Nebelgast Herald or could cut 1 CoCo for curve considerations. Each mode is pretty good in a vacuum and it effectively gains us 3-5 life. Being a reactive deck, fate sealing + Spell Queller/Rattlechains is always good. Bouncing a creature allows it to be quelled later too, or at least buys a turn from it's attack. Very handy against go-tall creature decks. Maybe not the best since we block so poorly though. May be worth a try!
That's a very good point about tapping out. Really not where an aggro deck wants to be. Perhaps I'm overzealous on how powerful Jace actually is. It seems Bant Spirits matches up well with him and his expected decks with all the flash and hexproof. My LGS is allowing Jace and BBE for modern tomorrow. Will be fun to see how it goes. I'll be running Caleb's SCG Philly main board with 2 phantasmal image and 1 Geist being replaced by a BoP, Kira, and a Qasali Pridemage.
JTMS/BBE Update- My LGS had their first unbanned game night and allowed 10 proxies for maximum diversity. 18 players showed up to test the new cards and play against them too. Of the 18 there were 3 Jace decks and 1 BBE deck that I could tell. Of the matches I saw when I was done with my rounds, only one had Jace. In it, Miracles did poorly against Jeskai control (no Jace) mostly due to difficulty protecting him. Dead cards like Terminus didn't help either. He seemed okay in the second match as an early threat, but couldn't win that game either. I did glance over at one point and saw Jace in U/W control beat a Lantern deck 2-0.
I underestimated BBE and found a new brew piloted by one of the better players in town. It was a Naya Big Zoo deck. From what I can tell, the curve goes Bolt, Path, Wild Nacatl, Noble Heirarch at 1, Voice of resurgence, scavenging ooze at 2, Loxodon Smiter, Knight of the Reliquary, Renegade Rallier at 3 and topped off with BBE. The Rallier is there to bring back Voice, Seal of Primordiam, and Ghost Quarter. A few utility cards I saw included Dromoka's Command and Blood Moon.
The final round ended up with two Bant Spirit decks and the BBE deck at 3-0. I was 6-0 in matches (Mono W Taxes, bant Eldrazi, Mardu Pyromancer) and played versus the BBE deck while the other spirits player went against Mono U Tron. He lost in 2 and I won in 3 for the 4-0 and only undefeated on the night. Overall the BBE deck resembled a CoCo deck with a little more pressure from having haste. It felt very stompy but still with some valuable interaction with removal and Ghost Quarter tricks. I honestly should have lost game 3, but he didn't see the line of play he needed, I assume since it was his first time playing the deck in paper.
Overall I would say Jace is a good card but will not wreck the format. It may well kill lantern for what it's worth. BBE will bring a few new decks but will need to be in a high pressure shell because a 3/2 haste isn't that great on it's own. In the right build she actually could compete with Coco. I wouldn't be surprised to see a G/R haste deck similar to the naya build pop up soon.
Hi guys, new to this thread. I did a writeup on reddit a couple of days ago about a tempo-oriented build of Bant Spirits with 4x Curious Obsession which you can find here. I was up on last Tuesday's MTGO deck dump and just 5-0ed another league this afternoon, so should hopefully be up on Friday. Meanwhile there was a UW list with Curious Obsession in today's deck dump. I'll post my current list and that one here for easier reference:
I wrote a bunch of words about my deckbuilding choices in the Reddit post and the list hasn't changed too much since (just been tweaking and experimenting a bit over the last week), but I'm happy to answer any questions about the deck/my results so far if people are interested. I think Curious Obsession can be a really big boon for this deck archetype, and if my results hold up I'll be taking a list like this to GP Phoenix and hoping to Day 2 with it.
Great list and a nice read in your reddit thread. I used to run a near copy of Ultimar's list with Geist of St. Traft and a few Favorable Winds in the place of Curious Obsession which didn't exist at the time. It was quite clunky. Emptying my hand in a timely manner for pressure and dead Vial draws were too much of a problem. Moving to Bant and swapping out vial for Birds made a huge difference even before adding CoCo. Tamiyo makes a lot of sense in your build too.
My biggest curiosity is what do you consider the competitive advantage of Curious Spirits over CoCo spirits? Does it shore up a particular matchup? Does it come from behind better?
I can see the low curve is real and the focus on 1 attacker allows you to better slow roll Rattlechains to blank removal instead of using it as an offensive threat. It would seem to favor grindier matches. Little Thalia seems to be a beater versus Combo and Burn and a card that Coco would not want to run. Good stuff!
I will give the caveat that I haven't played the CoCo spirits list for a little while, so some of my info may be outdated. But my feeling is that the matchups improve where the added disruption in Thalias/Clique/etc. is relevant (because we have more disruptive tools and snowball nicely with Curious Obsession), and get worse where the disruption isn't as relevant and we're largely trying to race/commit lots of P/T to the board (because we don't have CoCo or Drogskol Captain). So, for example, while I believe Dredge/Affinity to be not great matchups with CoCo Spirits already, they're even worse with this build. On the other hand, I think a lot of the decks that will be big in the new Modern, like Jace decks and Burn, improve with access to the better disruptive tools. I'm not sure where the new BBE Jund/big zoo-esque decks will end up. The added disruption is nice against their KCommand/Lili/Decay/Bolt hands, but the decreased top-end via Captain/CoCo is probably worse against their creature-heavy draws. I'm not 100% sure how to evaluate that as I haven't been playing with the CoCo list recently.
I'm grinding out a bunch of leagues and recording stats in an Excel spreadsheet so I can give myself a bit of objectivity in making a deck choice for GP Phoenix. My results to this point have been fantastic overall against the control decks, which right now are largely UWx Jace-y decks (6-2 Blue Moon variants, 5-1 UW Control, 3-0 Esper Control, 3-1 Grixis Control, 0-2 Jeskai Control). I've also been fantastic against the spell-based combo decks, where Thalia and friends are obviously great (3-0 UR Storm, 2-0 Grishoalbrand, 1-0 Living End, 1-0 Ad Nauseam). Against creature aggro I'm middling - the slightly slower decks I do okay against (2-2 Humans, 3-3 RG Eldrazi, 2-0 Merfolk) but the faster go-wide stuff is rough (1-2 Affinity, 0-1 Bushwhacker Naya, 0-1 Tribal Zoo, 2-0 RG Hollow One, 1-3 BR Hollow One). And then midrange is mostly in the middle (3-3 Jund variants, 2-0 GDS, 1-4 Traverse Shadow, 0-1 GW Valuetown, 2-0 Bant Coco, etc).
Your results seem similar to my typical results with Bant which is unsurprising. Non-Jeskai Control should normally be a bye as should living end and Goryo's vengeance decks. My blue moon matches have been rough, but mostly due to mana issues. The one match I was able to draw normally, I was able to fight through 2 Anger of the Gods and Jace. The ultra aggro matches are a problem for me too and midrange being 50/50 is consistent. It makes me want to make Geist more of a primary win con. I may move try 4 geist, 6 dorks, and 2 Steel of the Godhead to turbo win more often.
I played a 58 player $1k cash prize tournament today, got to top 4 and split with the other semifinalists. I wrote up a report on Reddit, here. Decklist is almost identical to the one I posted above: -1 Path +1 Birds of Paradise in the main, -2 Unified Will +1 Qasali Pridemage +1 Ceremonious Rejection in the side. As I said near the bottom of the post, I'm gonna be testing a few things: going down to 2 Canopies for a Cavern, testing some cards in my flex slots (Blessed Alliance/Simic Charm/Dromoka's Command/some Swords/Ajani Steadfast are on my docket), and doing more work on the sideboard. Any advice there is greatly appreciated.
@Kizzel, Noble Hierarch is the best card in the deck, and the games with T1 Hierarch are so much better than the games without it. There are serious downsides to playing Bant over UW (primarily in the manabase: more painful + can't play Ghost Quarters like the UW list), but I think Noble and the smattering of other useful green cards make up for it. I may be wrong, though.
Just wanted to update that I added Nissa, Steward of Elements to the sideboard versus control and she is a monster. In the match with Jeskai control, between scrying to the bottom and putting free cards on board, she gained about 8 cards, took 7 damage, and overkill won with the ultimate. In fairness Rest in Peace, Eidolon of Rhetoric, and 2 negate all showed up in timely manners too. Ended up with only about 20 cards left in the deck match 2.
Hi guys, new to this thread. I did a writeup on reddit a couple of days ago about a tempo-oriented build of Bant Spirits with 4x Curious Obsession which you can find here. I was up on last Tuesday's MTGO deck dump and just 5-0ed another league this afternoon, so should hopefully be up on Friday. Meanwhile there was a UW list with Curious Obsession in today's deck dump. I'll post my current list and that one here for easier reference:
I wrote a bunch of words about my deckbuilding choices in the Reddit post and the list hasn't changed too much since (just been tweaking and experimenting a bit over the last week), but I'm happy to answer any questions about the deck/my results so far if people are interested. I think Curious Obsession can be a really big boon for this deck archetype, and if my results hold up I'll be taking a list like this to GP Phoenix and hoping to Day 2 with it.
Took pretty much your list, with some slight tweaks for my collection and 4-0'd modern event at my LGS. Cheers dude, list felt fantastic!
Below is my 4-0 record. I went up against some pretty stock stuff. Abzan, 5C humans, Burn and then UW control. This list performed incredibly well. If I were to change the sideboard I'd add 2 Blessed Alliance in place of 2 collected companies. I'd probably swap out the elder deep-fiend (which was to be brought in for combo to tap down lands/dudes, or aggro to tap down large aggressors and eat a critical attacker) and the Dusk // Dawn for 2 engineered explosives. I don't have the explosives though, so probably something else that can clean up a bit. I sorely missed the basic forest, but I'm not sure what I'd cut for it. Probably one of the duals like breeding pool? I'd have to test that. I'd also like to find space for a Nissa, steward of elements based on Will's suggestion. She seems like gas and if I flood and resolve her it's going to be gross. I'd like to swap of Thalia 2.0 for something else, but I don't know what that something else is. I like that she is 4-5 power with exalted triggers or obsessions on her...I don't like what else she brings to the table. Not sure what I'd put in the slot though.
I really felt like I could grind with the deck or set up a super fast clock. t1 hierarch -> t2 geist -> t3 spell queller backup or curious obsession is the truth.
Matchups:
Match 1: Abzan, won 2-0. Game one was pretty uneventful and Curious obsession on a Geist of Saint Traft took it home. Game two I stuck an early Rest in Peace and followed it up with a Thalia 1.0, put him on the back foot and he never really came back.
Match 2: 5C Humans, won 2-1. Game 1 was pretty brutal, he won the die roll and then looked into the window of my soul with a meddling mage blanking my two Spell Quellers in hand. Game 2 he mulled to 5 and I ran him over with air beats. Game 3 he didn't play around settle, I blew him out at 1 life and stabilized to win 2 turns later. In game 3 he drew both copies of kessig malcontents which got in for 9 damage just off ETB collectively. As soon as his shields were down I pathed the last one so he couldn't copy it with phantasmal image.
Match 3: Burn, Won 2-1. Game one I had T1 Hierarch into T2 Geist; unfortunately had to fetch/shock a bit to get there and two Lightning Helixes later gave him the game...12 point life spread was rough. Game 2 he fumbled around Rattlechains and Mausoleum Wanderer's for too long before I just closed out. Game 3 was interesting. I had a rattle chains on board with 3 lands and a fetch (so 4 lands total). Opponent has 3 cards in hand and a monastery switftspear on board. He moves to combat, I respond during attackers and flash in a selfless spirit. He lets selfless resolve, and then cracks a fetch he had sitting on the battlefield and targets it with searing blaze. Searing blaze on the stack, I crack my other fetch...which he lets resolve and I flash in a 2nd rattle chains and target it to give it hexproof. 2nd rattlechains trigger on the stack he searing blazes the selfless spirit AGAIN, which I just sack in response. I take no damage off the blazes, he already committed to attacks and he loses his swiftspear to a double block (it was a 3 four with the two prowess triggers). If he had responded to the fetch crack, he could have blazed the other rattlechains and forced me to pop selfless spirit to reduce my damage. This ended up mattering alot, because I was also able to get swiftspear off the table AND get around taking searing blaze damage.
Match 4: UW Control, Won 2-1. So this is a UW control deck with snapcaster mage, Spell Queller, Restoration angels, and colonnades. The guy who plays it is a judge, and is really good generally. Games were super duper grindy and back and forth, and I finally won the last game because of collected company. He resolved a settle the wreckage and 5 path to exiles on me this game...it was brutal but really rewarding.
I'm 6-2 at GP Phoenix right now heading into Day 2. I'm pretty disappointed to not be 7-1 (feels a bit bad to sneak it at the bottom), but I can't really complain too much about my matches so far. If I don't super crash out tomorrow I'll write up a report later this week so I'll just give the decklist and a quick result list rn:
R1: bye
R2: 2-0 Burn (W roll)
R3: 2-1 Jund (L roll)
R4: 0-2 Humans (W roll) (Gerry Thompson)
R5: 2-0 Ad Nauseam (W roll)
R6: 2-1 Eldrazi Tron (L roll)
R7: 2-1 Jund (W roll)
R8: 0-2 Affinity (W roll)
The list has felt pretty good so far, I made some manabase and sideboard tweaks recently that have mostly worked out today. Affinity I knew was a pretty bad matchup and the Humans games were fine. Hoping to hit some combo/control decks in day 2 and end up with a positive record tomorrow.
Finished up at 10-5, going 4-3 on Day 2. I'm a bit bummed just because I was hoping to push for a cash/better finish, but I really can't complain too much. Here were my results:
R9: 2-0 BR Hollow One (W roll)
R10: 0-2 Affinity (L roll)
R11: 0-2 Bogles (W roll)
R12: 0-2 Traverse Shadow (L roll)
R13: 2-1 Eldrazi Tron (W roll)
R14: 2-1 G Tron (L roll)
R15: 2-0 RG Eldrazi (L roll)
That stretch of three straight losses to drop to 7-5 really took the wind out of my sails, but I'm happy to have finished strong and gotten to a respectable result. Some retrospective thoughts:
Ultimately, the reason I don't feel too bad is this is that this is about what I would have predicted as a result if I knew I was going to face these matchups. I knew coming in that aggro decks were where I was worst, but I was counting on facing combo, control, Jund, and then primarily Burn and Hollow One as the aggro decks, and hoping to dodge Affinity (which I knew was quite bad) as much as possible. I didn't lose any matchups that I was favored in or punt away a bunch of games. I was just sad to not play against any Storm/Grishoalbrand/Jace decks, and based on the preliminary results and what I saw at the top tables, it seems these decks were not performing.
What would I change. In the manabase, the switch I recently made to more fastlands and cutting Misties was great. I don't think I took more than 4 damage from my manabase in a game and in many games I was between 0 and 2, which is sweet. Two lands that were terrible today were Cavern of Souls and Gavony Township. I didn't activate Township once, compared to Moorland Haunt which was fantastic all day. And Cavern was mostly a Seachrome Coast that didn't cast any of my non-creature spells or humans. Admittedly, I didn't play against any counterspell decks, but those matchups are largely good regardless. Going forward I would start by swapping Cavern for either a 3rd Coast or a Razorverge Thicket, and swapping Township for a second Haunt. I had a bit of trouble casting the double white cards out of the sideboard (Gideon and Settle), but otherwise was mostly running fine.
In the flex slots, both Thalias and Spell Snare were very good today, and I didn't draw my one Rhox War Monk once. I'm gonna potentially keep thinking about some flex options that could help out in some of my worse matchups. One thing I'm thinking about is potentially maindecking a copy of Qasali Pridemage. The exalted can contribute to the fliers plan, and it would randomly give me outs in G1 matchups that can otherwise be really bad.
In the sideboard, obviously this is meta dependent. But I saw a lot of both Affinity and KCI at the top tables as well as G Tron, which makes extra copies of Ceremonious Rejection or Stony Silence very appealing. The worst performing cards in my board were Blessed Alliance (which just feels too medium in a lot of matchups) and the second Detention Sphere. Flashfreeze/Dispel were also medium, but not terrible. There's some room for me to play around there and if the metagame is going to stay in this direction I would possibly do things like add a 3rd Settle and various other anti-aggro cards.
Overall, I'm happy with how the deck played and my performance, even if I wish I could have eked out a bit better result. Absent some very negative meta shifts, I'd be very comfortable playing this going forward, and am likely to rotate between this/Amulet Titan/some aggro deck until my next big tournament.
I've been playing the deck off and on for a while now because i like some variety, but it's the deck i do best with and i enjoy playing it alot.
So i've made the decision that this will be my main deck and will be playing it most of the time to improve my game with it.
Now I've read about the turbo Geist version and want to try it out, because a geist coming in for a 14 point lifeswing total on T3 is usually game over
This is my regular list:
Main Board (60)
2 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Gavony Township
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
2 Windswept Heath
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Phantasmal Image
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Drogskol Captain
3 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Spell Queller
1 Steel of the Godhead
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
Sideboard (15)
2 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
1 Steel of the Godhead
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Negate
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
And this is the Turbo Geist version:
Main Board (60)
2 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Gavony Township
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
2 Windswept Heath
2 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds Of Paradise
1 Phantasmal Image
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
2 Drogskol Captain
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Spell Queller
3 Steel of the Godhead
I Shifted the part i cut to the sideboard because i know that part works very good against alot of decks so i wanted the option to go back to it after boards.
What do you guys think about both lists?
ps sorry for the ugly lists, how do you make the nice frames correcly btw? If i past either the link or the list bewteen the [/deck] brackets it just shows a little frame without a deck in it.
Hey all! First time poster in this thread, though I've been monitoring it the past few months. I've had some decent success with Bant Spirits as of late - last three FNM's were 4-1 (2nd Place out of 33); 4-1 (3rd Place out of 36); and 1-3 drop (I hate Affinity and Tron). I'm going to be doing the SCG Milwaukee Open this weekend and considering running Spirits. I do have two questions in preparation, though:
1) I notice a lot of lists are running 1-2 Rhox War Monk. Why is that? I mean, I know he's great to bring in against Zoo and Burn, but isn't that why we run Blessed Alliance, which is also very effective in those MU's but has broader application? Are there other tasty MU's for which I should consider bringing in our rhino friend?
2) (a) What is your overall strategy for beating Jund and (b) how to you SB against them? Regarding (a), do you try to ignore their strategy and go over them with flyers ASAP? With regard to (b), I really don't know what to bring in. I have 2 Rest in Peace in the SB which is nice for neutering Tarmogoyf and Scavenging Ooze, but other than that it's a bunch of "meh" cards - e.g., Negate, that are okay but not great versus them. I do not run Unified Will in my SB. I bring in Negate with the thought that I counter the "oh-crap" cards that can really hurt us like Liliana of the Veil, Damnation, Anger of the Gods, that sort of thing. Otherwise I try to ignore their creatures and just swing over the top ASAP.
2) (a) What is your overall strategy for beating Jund and (b) how to you SB against them? Regarding (a), do you try to ignore their strategy and go over them with flyers ASAP? With regard to (b), I really don't know what to bring in. I have 2 Rest in Peace in the SB which is nice for neutering Tarmogoyf and Scavenging Ooze, but other than that it's a bunch of "meh" cards - e.g., Negate, that are okay but not great versus them. I do not run Unified Will in my SB. I bring in Negate with the thought that I counter the "oh-crap" cards that can really hurt us like Liliana of the Veil, Damnation, Anger of the Gods, that sort of thing. Otherwise I try to ignore their creatures and just swing over the top ASAP.
Right now I have 3 Kitchen Finks in my sideboard for Jund - basically as an aggressive creature, some life gain, but mostly because they have to 2-for-1 my guy and it is great Liliana of the Veil fodder.
Though I also have a question - how do you guys feel about Hollow One? What do you think is the best plan against that deck? Any specific sideboard cards? With the most recent data from the April 1st MOCS Metagame, it looks like that deck was very popular while also over-performing.
I like it more than Phantasmal Image mostly because I play the Collected Company version of the deck and it kind of feels bad to hit Drogskol Captain and Phantasmal Image at the same time.
Why does it feel bad? Both creatures enter the battlefield at the same time "seeing" each other so you can copy the captain with the Image and both have Hexproof right away.
That's not correct.
The Phantasmal Image doesn't see it since it isn't on the battlefield. The decision to "choose" what it becomes happens before it enters the battlefield. So the captain isn't there yet to see.
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Staff- Torpf
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
A little bit surprising , with the four geist et 3 image ! What do you think of it ?
Jim Davis: Fiction. Modern is a format where knowledge is everything. We hear a lot that knowing your deck inside and out is by far the most important skill in the format, which is why you see good players playing the same deck week in and week out constantly doing well. They know both the ins and outs of their deck, as well as how it lines up with all the important matchups in the field.
As such, there's a ton of value in Modern to be gained by playing a deck that your opponents will be unfamiliar with. Exploiting this lack of knowledge on your opponents' behalf makes things much more difficult for them, as it invalidates a lot their practice with the deck and forces them to make difficult choices on the fly.
Caleb's deck is a prime example of this.
I don't think Bant Spirits is a particularly good deck, but Caleb is a great player and Collected Company is a hell of a Magic card. The deck has a lot of play to it, many proven cards--like Spell Queller and Geist of Saint Traft--and it excels at putting its opponents into tough spots. It's not surprising to see the deck do well, but I doubt it could put up consistent results.
Gerry Thompson: Fiction. There's the whole "ham sandwich theory" going on here.
Caleb can play good Magic and basically never plays "real" decks, so eventually he's doing to do well, even if he were playing a ham sandwich. If literally no one else can win with a deck but him, it probably means the deck isn't very good.
Merfolk got some new tools in Ixalan block, but you rarely see the deck because it's a worse version of Humans. Any tribal deck is probably going to fail the same comparison, and Bant Spirits is no different. »
It made me very sad ... snif...
Grixis and U/W control: already stellar matchups for us with CoCo being very strong and GoST being a silver bullet against grixis while Spell Queller + Selfless Spirit winning out versus U/W handily. Expect 2-3 Jace being a probable finisher for each deck. U/W may have to drop a Supreme Verdict and a Cryptic to stay on curve. Versus Jace in these builds, I believe GoST gains value as a sticky threat that can't be bounced while Queller catches it. The hexproof and protection from Spirits versus Bant Value decks is a distinct advantage to Queller since control decks always have a handy answer. Additionally, Rattlechains gains value here by preventing the unsummon clause and providing cards to stay in hand to flash in at end step to take out Jace with a mostly tapped out opponent. Remand becomes very valuable for U/W, so a Cavern of Souls would improve the match.
B/U/X midrange- Hand disruption + early kill spells are already problematic, especially on the draw. This Jace shell may be more problematic that current black based midrange decks. Here, Kira, Great Glass Spinner gains value as a way to ensure enough pressure to attack into a Jace. GoST may be good too since there will likely be fewer Goyf type threats set up as blockers than in B/G/X decks as the double blue on Jace and double black on Lilliana may stress their mana base.
Miracles- This could be very problematic as a single angel blocks our attacks pretty well and Selfless Spirit and Spell Queller can't touch Terminus. Hopefully it just ends up being a bad deck that mulligans poorly and is inconsistent. 4 Remand and 4 Path are the only early interaction, so it would be a bit of a race. This deck is looking to Turn 4 Jace mostly, so perhaps Spell Queller and luck are our best outs. Cavern of Souls would help out with early remands.
Jeskai- Already a very difficult match since it plays draw go like we prefer, but has better removal against our small creatures than U/W and Grixis. Jace makes this deck much better and it probably receives the biggest boost. So again, sticky threats like GoST and Kira with support from Drogskol Captain will be cards that gain value when more people move towards Jace.
Jace Creature Midrange- Jace is a good enough card value creature decks would want him. There will be builds with 6-8 Mana dorks looking to turbo into 3 drop followed by T3 Jace. Cards like Knight of the Reliquary and Courser of Kruphix help control the draw alongside Jace. Perhaps new Nissa can play things for free. For Bant Spirits, this would be a race and one where flying is likely a boon.
Meta Reaction- Fingers crossed for less Eldrazi since TKS being unsummoned is rough. Delve creatures take a hit. Faster decks will rise to get under Jace like Bogles (especially with the 3 Leylines in the main), Infect, Burn, etc. Gains from Jund with BBE/K-Command loops should actually hurt affinity, but may make up for it with gains versus Jace decks. Tron may get out-controlled and lose some ground.
Big Question: Should Spirits pick up 1-2 Jace? We have flex slots in Phantasmal Image/ Nebelgast Herald or could cut 1 CoCo for curve considerations. Each mode is pretty good in a vacuum and it effectively gains us 3-5 life. Being a reactive deck, fate sealing + Spell Queller/Rattlechains is always good. Bouncing a creature allows it to be quelled later too, or at least buys a turn from it's attack. Very handy against go-tall creature decks. Maybe not the best since we block so poorly though. May be worth a try!
I underestimated BBE and found a new brew piloted by one of the better players in town. It was a Naya Big Zoo deck. From what I can tell, the curve goes Bolt, Path, Wild Nacatl, Noble Heirarch at 1, Voice of resurgence, scavenging ooze at 2, Loxodon Smiter, Knight of the Reliquary, Renegade Rallier at 3 and topped off with BBE. The Rallier is there to bring back Voice, Seal of Primordiam, and Ghost Quarter. A few utility cards I saw included Dromoka's Command and Blood Moon.
The final round ended up with two Bant Spirit decks and the BBE deck at 3-0. I was 6-0 in matches (Mono W Taxes, bant Eldrazi, Mardu Pyromancer) and played versus the BBE deck while the other spirits player went against Mono U Tron. He lost in 2 and I won in 3 for the 4-0 and only undefeated on the night. Overall the BBE deck resembled a CoCo deck with a little more pressure from having haste. It felt very stompy but still with some valuable interaction with removal and Ghost Quarter tricks. I honestly should have lost game 3, but he didn't see the line of play he needed, I assume since it was his first time playing the deck in paper.
Overall I would say Jace is a good card but will not wreck the format. It may well kill lantern for what it's worth. BBE will bring a few new decks but will need to be in a high pressure shell because a 3/2 haste isn't that great on it's own. In the right build she actually could compete with Coco. I wouldn't be surprised to see a G/R haste deck similar to the naya build pop up soon.
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Plains
2 Island
3 Botanical Sanctum
3 Horizon Canopy
2 Gavony Township
Creatures (29)
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Spell Queller
3 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4 Path to Exile
4 Curious Obsession
1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Rest in Peace
2 Settle the Wreckage
1 Disenchant
3 Unified Will
3 Rhox War Monk
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Seachrome Coast
3 Hallowed Fountain
3 Adarkar Wastes
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Shefet Dunes
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
Creatures (28)
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Phantasmal Image
4 Drogskol Captain
4 Spell Queller
4 Aether Vial
4 Curious Obsession
3 Path to Exile
3 Unified Will
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Settle the Wreckage
2 Rest in Peace
2 Eidolon of Rhetoric
2 Spirit of the Labryinth
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Stony Silence
I wrote a bunch of words about my deckbuilding choices in the Reddit post and the list hasn't changed too much since (just been tweaking and experimenting a bit over the last week), but I'm happy to answer any questions about the deck/my results so far if people are interested. I think Curious Obsession can be a really big boon for this deck archetype, and if my results hold up I'll be taking a list like this to GP Phoenix and hoping to Day 2 with it.
My biggest curiosity is what do you consider the competitive advantage of Curious Spirits over CoCo spirits? Does it shore up a particular matchup? Does it come from behind better?
I can see the low curve is real and the focus on 1 attacker allows you to better slow roll Rattlechains to blank removal instead of using it as an offensive threat. It would seem to favor grindier matches. Little Thalia seems to be a beater versus Combo and Burn and a card that Coco would not want to run. Good stuff!
I'm grinding out a bunch of leagues and recording stats in an Excel spreadsheet so I can give myself a bit of objectivity in making a deck choice for GP Phoenix. My results to this point have been fantastic overall against the control decks, which right now are largely UWx Jace-y decks (6-2 Blue Moon variants, 5-1 UW Control, 3-0 Esper Control, 3-1 Grixis Control, 0-2 Jeskai Control). I've also been fantastic against the spell-based combo decks, where Thalia and friends are obviously great (3-0 UR Storm, 2-0 Grishoalbrand, 1-0 Living End, 1-0 Ad Nauseam). Against creature aggro I'm middling - the slightly slower decks I do okay against (2-2 Humans, 3-3 RG Eldrazi, 2-0 Merfolk) but the faster go-wide stuff is rough (1-2 Affinity, 0-1 Bushwhacker Naya, 0-1 Tribal Zoo, 2-0 RG Hollow One, 1-3 BR Hollow One). And then midrange is mostly in the middle (3-3 Jund variants, 2-0 GDS, 1-4 Traverse Shadow, 0-1 GW Valuetown, 2-0 Bant Coco, etc).
@Kizzel, Noble Hierarch is the best card in the deck, and the games with T1 Hierarch are so much better than the games without it. There are serious downsides to playing Bant over UW (primarily in the manabase: more painful + can't play Ghost Quarters like the UW list), but I think Noble and the smattering of other useful green cards make up for it. I may be wrong, though.
Took pretty much your list, with some slight tweaks for my collection and 4-0'd modern event at my LGS. Cheers dude, list felt fantastic!
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Temple Garden
2 Breeding Pool
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Plains
2 Island
2 Botanical Sanctum
2 Gavony Township
2 Seachrome Coast
Creatures (29)
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Spell Queller
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Restoration Angel
4 Path to Exile
4 Curious Obsession
1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
4 Collected Company
2 Rest in Peace
2 Settle the Wreckage
1 Dusk // Dawn
1 Negate
1 Elder Deep-Fiend
2 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
Below is my 4-0 record. I went up against some pretty stock stuff. Abzan, 5C humans, Burn and then UW control. This list performed incredibly well. If I were to change the sideboard I'd add 2 Blessed Alliance in place of 2 collected companies. I'd probably swap out the elder deep-fiend (which was to be brought in for combo to tap down lands/dudes, or aggro to tap down large aggressors and eat a critical attacker) and the Dusk // Dawn for 2 engineered explosives. I don't have the explosives though, so probably something else that can clean up a bit. I sorely missed the basic forest, but I'm not sure what I'd cut for it. Probably one of the duals like breeding pool? I'd have to test that. I'd also like to find space for a Nissa, steward of elements based on Will's suggestion. She seems like gas and if I flood and resolve her it's going to be gross. I'd like to swap of Thalia 2.0 for something else, but I don't know what that something else is. I like that she is 4-5 power with exalted triggers or obsessions on her...I don't like what else she brings to the table. Not sure what I'd put in the slot though.
I really felt like I could grind with the deck or set up a super fast clock. t1 hierarch -> t2 geist -> t3 spell queller backup or curious obsession is the truth.
Matchups:
Match 1: Abzan, won 2-0. Game one was pretty uneventful and Curious obsession on a Geist of Saint Traft took it home. Game two I stuck an early Rest in Peace and followed it up with a Thalia 1.0, put him on the back foot and he never really came back.
Match 2: 5C Humans, won 2-1. Game 1 was pretty brutal, he won the die roll and then looked into the window of my soul with a meddling mage blanking my two Spell Quellers in hand. Game 2 he mulled to 5 and I ran him over with air beats. Game 3 he didn't play around settle, I blew him out at 1 life and stabilized to win 2 turns later. In game 3 he drew both copies of kessig malcontents which got in for 9 damage just off ETB collectively. As soon as his shields were down I pathed the last one so he couldn't copy it with phantasmal image.
Match 3: Burn, Won 2-1. Game one I had T1 Hierarch into T2 Geist; unfortunately had to fetch/shock a bit to get there and two Lightning Helixes later gave him the game...12 point life spread was rough. Game 2 he fumbled around Rattlechains and Mausoleum Wanderer's for too long before I just closed out. Game 3 was interesting. I had a rattle chains on board with 3 lands and a fetch (so 4 lands total). Opponent has 3 cards in hand and a monastery switftspear on board. He moves to combat, I respond during attackers and flash in a selfless spirit. He lets selfless resolve, and then cracks a fetch he had sitting on the battlefield and targets it with searing blaze. Searing blaze on the stack, I crack my other fetch...which he lets resolve and I flash in a 2nd rattle chains and target it to give it hexproof. 2nd rattlechains trigger on the stack he searing blazes the selfless spirit AGAIN, which I just sack in response. I take no damage off the blazes, he already committed to attacks and he loses his swiftspear to a double block (it was a 3 four with the two prowess triggers). If he had responded to the fetch crack, he could have blazed the other rattlechains and forced me to pop selfless spirit to reduce my damage. This ended up mattering alot, because I was also able to get swiftspear off the table AND get around taking searing blaze damage.
Match 4: UW Control, Won 2-1. So this is a UW control deck with snapcaster mage, Spell Queller, Restoration angels, and colonnades. The guy who plays it is a judge, and is really good generally. Games were super duper grindy and back and forth, and I finally won the last game because of collected company. He resolved a settle the wreckage and 5 path to exiles on me this game...it was brutal but really rewarding.
R1: bye
R2: 2-0 Burn (W roll)
R3: 2-1 Jund (L roll)
R4: 0-2 Humans (W roll) (Gerry Thompson)
R5: 2-0 Ad Nauseam (W roll)
R6: 2-1 Eldrazi Tron (L roll)
R7: 2-1 Jund (W roll)
R8: 0-2 Affinity (W roll)
4 Botanical Sanctum
2 Seachrome Coast
3 Horizon Canopy
4 Flooded Strand
1 Temple Garden
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Breeding Pool
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Gavony Township
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
2 Island
4 Curious Obsession
3 Path to Exile
1 Spell Snare
Creatures (30)
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Rattlechains
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Spell Queller
4 Drogskol Captain
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Rhox War Monk
2 Settle the Wreckage
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Path to Exile
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Rest in Peace
2 Detention Sphere
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Unified Will
1 Flashfreeze
1 Dispel
1 Relic of Progenitus
The list has felt pretty good so far, I made some manabase and sideboard tweaks recently that have mostly worked out today. Affinity I knew was a pretty bad matchup and the Humans games were fine. Hoping to hit some combo/control decks in day 2 and end up with a positive record tomorrow.
R9: 2-0 BR Hollow One (W roll)
R10: 0-2 Affinity (L roll)
R11: 0-2 Bogles (W roll)
R12: 0-2 Traverse Shadow (L roll)
R13: 2-1 Eldrazi Tron (W roll)
R14: 2-1 G Tron (L roll)
R15: 2-0 RG Eldrazi (L roll)
That stretch of three straight losses to drop to 7-5 really took the wind out of my sails, but I'm happy to have finished strong and gotten to a respectable result. Some retrospective thoughts:
Ultimately, the reason I don't feel too bad is this is that this is about what I would have predicted as a result if I knew I was going to face these matchups. I knew coming in that aggro decks were where I was worst, but I was counting on facing combo, control, Jund, and then primarily Burn and Hollow One as the aggro decks, and hoping to dodge Affinity (which I knew was quite bad) as much as possible. I didn't lose any matchups that I was favored in or punt away a bunch of games. I was just sad to not play against any Storm/Grishoalbrand/Jace decks, and based on the preliminary results and what I saw at the top tables, it seems these decks were not performing.
What would I change. In the manabase, the switch I recently made to more fastlands and cutting Misties was great. I don't think I took more than 4 damage from my manabase in a game and in many games I was between 0 and 2, which is sweet. Two lands that were terrible today were Cavern of Souls and Gavony Township. I didn't activate Township once, compared to Moorland Haunt which was fantastic all day. And Cavern was mostly a Seachrome Coast that didn't cast any of my non-creature spells or humans. Admittedly, I didn't play against any counterspell decks, but those matchups are largely good regardless. Going forward I would start by swapping Cavern for either a 3rd Coast or a Razorverge Thicket, and swapping Township for a second Haunt. I had a bit of trouble casting the double white cards out of the sideboard (Gideon and Settle), but otherwise was mostly running fine.
In the flex slots, both Thalias and Spell Snare were very good today, and I didn't draw my one Rhox War Monk once. I'm gonna potentially keep thinking about some flex options that could help out in some of my worse matchups. One thing I'm thinking about is potentially maindecking a copy of Qasali Pridemage. The exalted can contribute to the fliers plan, and it would randomly give me outs in G1 matchups that can otherwise be really bad.
In the sideboard, obviously this is meta dependent. But I saw a lot of both Affinity and KCI at the top tables as well as G Tron, which makes extra copies of Ceremonious Rejection or Stony Silence very appealing. The worst performing cards in my board were Blessed Alliance (which just feels too medium in a lot of matchups) and the second Detention Sphere. Flashfreeze/Dispel were also medium, but not terrible. There's some room for me to play around there and if the metagame is going to stay in this direction I would possibly do things like add a 3rd Settle and various other anti-aggro cards.
Overall, I'm happy with how the deck played and my performance, even if I wish I could have eked out a bit better result. Absent some very negative meta shifts, I'd be very comfortable playing this going forward, and am likely to rotate between this/Amulet Titan/some aggro deck until my next big tournament.
I've been playing the deck off and on for a while now because i like some variety, but it's the deck i do best with and i enjoy playing it alot.
So i've made the decision that this will be my main deck and will be playing it most of the time to improve my game with it.
Now I've read about the turbo Geist version and want to try it out, because a geist coming in for a 14 point lifeswing total on T3 is usually game over
This is my regular list:
Main Board (60)
2 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Gavony Township
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
2 Windswept Heath
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Phantasmal Image
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Drogskol Captain
3 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Spell Queller
1 Steel of the Godhead
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
Sideboard (15)
2 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
1 Steel of the Godhead
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Negate
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
And this is the Turbo Geist version:
Main Board (60)
2 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Gavony Township
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
2 Windswept Heath
2 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Birds Of Paradise
1 Phantasmal Image
4 Rattlechains
4 Selfless Spirit
2 Drogskol Captain
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Spell Queller
3 Steel of the Godhead
4 Path to Exile
4 Collected Company
Sideboard (15)
2 Mausoleum Wanderer
2 Drogskol Captain
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Negate
I Shifted the part i cut to the sideboard because i know that part works very good against alot of decks so i wanted the option to go back to it after boards.
What do you guys think about both lists?
ps sorry for the ugly lists, how do you make the nice frames correcly btw? If i past either the link or the list bewteen the [/deck] brackets it just shows a little frame without a deck in it.
UWG Spirits
Standard
UW Control
RBU Midrange
Commander
UBG Tasigur
Pauper
GW Slivers
1) I notice a lot of lists are running 1-2 Rhox War Monk. Why is that? I mean, I know he's great to bring in against Zoo and Burn, but isn't that why we run Blessed Alliance, which is also very effective in those MU's but has broader application? Are there other tasty MU's for which I should consider bringing in our rhino friend?
2) (a) What is your overall strategy for beating Jund and (b) how to you SB against them? Regarding (a), do you try to ignore their strategy and go over them with flyers ASAP? With regard to (b), I really don't know what to bring in. I have 2 Rest in Peace in the SB which is nice for neutering Tarmogoyf and Scavenging Ooze, but other than that it's a bunch of "meh" cards - e.g., Negate, that are okay but not great versus them. I do not run Unified Will in my SB. I bring in Negate with the thought that I counter the "oh-crap" cards that can really hurt us like Liliana of the Veil, Damnation, Anger of the Gods, that sort of thing. Otherwise I try to ignore their creatures and just swing over the top ASAP.
Right now I have 3 Kitchen Finks in my sideboard for Jund - basically as an aggressive creature, some life gain, but mostly because they have to 2-for-1 my guy and it is great Liliana of the Veil fodder.
On top of that, I do run one Kira, Great Glass-Spinner in my main, mostly to function as a 5th Drogskol Captain. I like it more than Phantasmal Image mostly because I play the Collected Company version of the deck and it kind of feels bad to hit Drogskol Captain and Phantasmal Image at the same time.
Though I also have a question - how do you guys feel about Hollow One? What do you think is the best plan against that deck? Any specific sideboard cards? With the most recent data from the April 1st MOCS Metagame, it looks like that deck was very popular while also over-performing.
That's not correct.
The Phantasmal Image doesn't see it since it isn't on the battlefield. The decision to "choose" what it becomes happens before it enters the battlefield. So the captain isn't there yet to see.
"If Phantasmal Image somehow enters the battlefield at the same time as another creature, Phantasmal Image can’t become a copy of that creature. You may choose only a creature that’s already on the battlefield." This is on the oracle text from gatherer.