Having some good success with this fairly early build. The main premise of the deck is combining the Deathmist Raptor kit (Den Protector and Mystic Rattleclaw for morph recursion) with the looter synergy of Jace and Kiora to simultaneously feed your hand and provide valid recursion targets. Wanderer is your main beater and can easily drop as a 5/5 or 6/6 turn 3 or 4 and out values most creatures at that cmc, allowing you to pressure and defend simultaneously. Kiora's + can interact quite effectively with most creatures for taps or simply untapping a raptor they didnt want to trade with and now can't get around. Hangarback is solid like it always is and also benefits from Kiora's + to out pace other decks running it. We then dip into white simply to gain access to some of the better cheap removal out there and provide great targets for jace and protector to recover.
Hi there! I'm with you on the green cards. Your blue cards also look interesting. But do you want to lock yourself into Bant, or are you open to other directions? As for white, I'm not convinced it's the way to go. If you do, you MUST play Hidden Dragonslayer in there somewhere. That card is value in many matchups.
I'm looking at black for Grim Haruspex. Black also has good removal. Not enough reason by itself, but Sultai can also offer graveyard synergies that come in handy.
And then we have the supporting enchantments. While I doubt you want all of them, testing may find value in Obscuring Aether, Trail of Mystery or Secret Plans. I tried this strategy earlier in the season, and it had some force but rolled over to red aggro. Now they seem to be nerfed, and indeed all of Theros is leaving but none of morph's power is leaving, I thin this can come out on top for the first season.
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Current Awesome Deck: UWAll-In GiftsWU Consistent, Resiliant, and way overpowered, making multiple 4/4s per turn.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWUFree Stuff MidrangeUWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
Hi there! I'm with you on the green cards. Your blue cards also look interesting. But do you want to lock yourself into Bant, or are you open to other directions? As for white, I'm not convinced it's the way to go. If you do, you MUST play Hidden Dragonslayer in there somewhere. That card is value in many matchups.
I'm looking at black for Grim Haruspex. Black also has good removal. Not enough reason by itself, but Sultai can also offer graveyard synergies that come in handy.
And then we have the supporting enchantments. While I doubt you want all of them, testing may find value in Obscuring Aether, Trail of Mystery or Secret Plans. I tried this strategy earlier in the season, and it had some force but rolled over to red aggro. Now they seem to be nerfed, and indeed all of Theros is leaving but none of morph's power is leaving, I thin this can come out on top for the first season.
The main issue with including some of those is space and tempo. Already this deck is extremely resistant to board wipes and I found Whisperwood was not needed despite being a snap pick in the first build (the first building being a temur Omnath deck). Also you already generate card advantage quite easily so there's no real need to waste turns building out morph synergy cards that are dead on their own.
The other is that we need cards for jace to target, and our options get real limited. I already knew this was a GU deck, but looking at the instants and sorceries in each color, white simply has the best choices. Black is too heavily costed for its removal or sorcery speed. Blue counters are nice...but Jace lets you recast only on your turn. Red is not bad, but it's not as good as white. Green has nothing we want. Dromoka's command is just one of the best instants right now and gives our deck sooo many options. Also dipping into white gives us a nice anti RDW sideboard.
Right now most of the build is VERY effective and the flex spots are:
Hangarback = yes it's always good...but maybe there's a stronger synergy out there.
Tragic = the slot has been swapped a ton of times. So far this is the best powerplay spell I can think of for what this deck wants to do. Pretty much you keep your wandereres and let everything die, netting you tokens or raptors in grave while you have one of the largets bodies in the current meta.
Horribly Awry = The SB is starting to come together but I couldn't decide what to throw in here. My mind is still fixated on sorceries/instants that Jace will be targeting.
Now there is a discussion over...maybe letting Jace/Hangar go freeing up 6 slots and allowing us to look at other creatures and enchantments. Everything else has been solid tho.
I don't like jace in here, you don't have anything proactive to flashback, meaning there will be times where you just plus one jace and they kill it. Other decks play jace with things like treasure cruise or burn spells. You also have only 10 targets and 4 jace. At least the number on jace is wrong, even if it's right to include him.
I also don't really like kiora here, you're clearly more of an agro deck. Kiora makes sense being in the board for control/midrange matchups as like a one or two of, but not 4 in the main. The +1 is awesome with hangarback walker, and you can put stuff in the yard. But she's 4 mana, and creates value that you shouldn't need in a lot of matchups (since your game plan is kill quickly, not grind). I like something more along the lines of managorger hydra and become immense (which can become your proactive jace flashback).
I honestly don't see why you don't just play temur though. You have no one drop (which is the whole point of the battleland/fetch manabase) and you get savage knuckleblade and crater's claws. You can even ditch the wanderer and hangarback, and play collected company (another proactive jace flashback ). Managorger hydra, undergrowth champion, knuckleblade, yasova, frostwalker, all can achieve ferocious and are hittable off of company, so you can play stubborn denial and crater's claws (along with the deathmist raptor den protector package). There just isn't a lot of power in bant, at least for an aggressive deck. I think bant is supposed to be more of a midrange deck with Gideon, wingmate roc, nissa, treasure cruise, etc...
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If MTG is a part of your life, the formats are like relationships:
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
immapwner, I get what you're saying about Temur, but morph is the opposite of an aggressive deck. We're paying 3 for a 2/2 and then more for value. That's thoroughly midrange. You could make an aggro Temur deck that only uses Den Protector and Deathmist as morphs (which are not bad played face-up) and then throw in these other cards you're talking about.
Droptimal, everything you say sounds reasonable. Truly, you don't need Whisperwood if you're aiming at a faster kind of deck. It's also bad synergy with Hangarback and Woodland Wanderer.
But Whisperwood is more than just resiliance to board wipes; endless manifests is also good value. Naturally playing it would change some of your other card choices. So many ways to go with this.
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Current Awesome Deck: UWAll-In GiftsWU Consistent, Resiliant, and way overpowered, making multiple 4/4s per turn.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWUFree Stuff MidrangeUWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
Obscuring Aether and Herald of Kozilek. That's enough to reliably make morphs very cheap to play so you could dump your hand. Need some card draw to fuel this, perhaps Secret Plans, but then we need some payoff that enables you to play that many non-creature cards. Maybe some Eldrazi cards fit the plan.
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Current Awesome Deck: UWAll-In GiftsWU Consistent, Resiliant, and way overpowered, making multiple 4/4s per turn.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWUFree Stuff MidrangeUWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
Little more play testing and I guess I'm beginning to question some aspects. Jace does feel a bit forced. They dont feed the grave as much cuz it's constantly flipping and the targets can sometimes be that amazing. At that I have to ask, what ami getting out of blue? Kiora actually does work and I like mystic rattleclaw being on color, but do those offset what abzan gives...rhinos, charm, -2/-2 board sweeps? Think I need to take another crack at this. One sell over Abzan is getting Woodland Wanderer down as a 6/6, which is usually don thu rattleclaws with the 1 off color and I'm not sure rattleclaws are good for abzan.
One concept was testing a sultai build with sidisi + kiora...but the removal is so slow and charm is gonna be much weaker now.
I'm trying to work out a Sultai version of a Raptor deck. Reality Shift and Murderous Cut are probably going to be the better removal options in a sultai build. Charm is going to be better for card draw and enchantment or artifact hate, but still may not be worth having in the main.
I've been working on something similar, but I've gone Sultai instead of Bant. Sidisi, Brood Tyrant can continuously make guys while simultaneously filling the graveyard for Jace. The main issue with that, of course, is balancing your creatures and other in order to leverage your mill percentages.
As the list currently stands, I agree with others in saying that Jace is underwhelming here. Have you considered including a fourth color? Black or red can give you more instants/sorceries for Jace and open up other possibilities.
I've been working on a bant midrange deck for awhile. My list is heavily skewed towards white for archangel of tithes and knight of the white orchid.
Here's my list.
In my testing this deck's main is great against other midrange decks and agro decks.
Archangel of Tithes is borderline broken in my opnion, she stops agro swarms and hangarback tokens from attacking you and she sets the opponent back if they plan to attack or (when you've stabilized) block you. Multiples of her is just disgusting. She also works beautifully with kiora.
Knight of the white orchid is great for getting a turn 4 wingmate or a turn 5 dromoka. He essentially draws a card. He's great at blocking agro creatures, and since he has first strike, it's possible to really blow people out with dromoka's command since he can get a counter and fight in combat while killing a creature and staying alive.
Lumbering falls and blighted cataract let you play more lands than you otherwise would and help shore-up control matchups.
Silkwrap is a card that you can cast on turn 2 (when setting up a turn 3 knight) or off of the knight's ramp, it kills mantis rider, hangarback, deathmists, jace's, etc...
Kiora has definitely been the real deal, however I think 2 is correct since she doesn't protect herself very well. But when you get an archangel or some other giant blocker down, she's incredible.
I did test ojutai in here over rocs but he's just not as good as wingmate preboard imo. But there will definitely be a few copies in the board.
If MTG is a part of your life, the formats are like relationships:
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
Little more play testing and I guess I'm beginning to question some aspects. Jace does feel a bit forced. They dont feed the grave as much cuz it's constantly flipping and the targets can sometimes be that amazing. At that I have to ask, what ami getting out of blue? Kiora actually does work and I like mystic rattleclaw being on color, but do those offset what abzan gives...rhinos, charm, -2/-2 board sweeps? Think I need to take another crack at this. One sell over Abzan is getting Woodland Wanderer down as a 6/6, which is usually don thu rattleclaws with the 1 off color and I'm not sure rattleclaws are good for abzan.
One concept was testing a sultai build with sidisi + kiora...but the removal is so slow and charm is gonna be much weaker now.
I think the biggest draw to blue is card draw, lumbering falls, and access to ojutai and counterspells post board. W/G is our (at least my) base and blue should just be a small splash. With the options a blue splash gives us we can make the main very resilient to agro and (imo) favored against other midrange decks, and post board we can make a massive change (cutting rocs, archangels, commands, etc.) and have a very strong board against control with things like ojutai, extra lumbering falls and blighted cataract, negate, disdainful stroke, etc... Without blue, the control matchup would most likely be abysmal, aside from deathmist raptor and den protector. But we can do things like turn 7 play dragonlord dromoka with negate up, which would be really gross.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If MTG is a part of your life, the formats are like relationships:
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
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4 Deathmist Raptor
4 Den Protector
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Woodland Wanderer
3 Hangarback Walker
4 Kiora, Master of the Depths
Instants (8)
4 Dromoka's Command
4 Valorous Stance
Sorceries (2)
2 Tragic Arrogance
Land (23)
3 Windswept Heath
3 Flooded Strand
2 Lumbering Falls
2 Canopy Vista
2 Prairie Stream
2 Cinder Glade
5 Forest
2 Island
2 Plains
The sideboard is still very rough, so please lots of input...
4 Surge of Righteousness
4 Disdainful Stroke
3 Horribly Awry
I'm looking at black for Grim Haruspex. Black also has good removal. Not enough reason by itself, but Sultai can also offer graveyard synergies that come in handy.
Whisperwood Elemental I'm playing no matter what.
And then we have the supporting enchantments. While I doubt you want all of them, testing may find value in Obscuring Aether, Trail of Mystery or Secret Plans. I tried this strategy earlier in the season, and it had some force but rolled over to red aggro. Now they seem to be nerfed, and indeed all of Theros is leaving but none of morph's power is leaving, I thin this can come out on top for the first season.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
The other is that we need cards for jace to target, and our options get real limited. I already knew this was a GU deck, but looking at the instants and sorceries in each color, white simply has the best choices. Black is too heavily costed for its removal or sorcery speed. Blue counters are nice...but Jace lets you recast only on your turn. Red is not bad, but it's not as good as white. Green has nothing we want. Dromoka's command is just one of the best instants right now and gives our deck sooo many options. Also dipping into white gives us a nice anti RDW sideboard.
Right now most of the build is VERY effective and the flex spots are:
Now there is a discussion over...maybe letting Jace/Hangar go freeing up 6 slots and allowing us to look at other creatures and enchantments. Everything else has been solid tho.
I also don't really like kiora here, you're clearly more of an agro deck. Kiora makes sense being in the board for control/midrange matchups as like a one or two of, but not 4 in the main. The +1 is awesome with hangarback walker, and you can put stuff in the yard. But she's 4 mana, and creates value that you shouldn't need in a lot of matchups (since your game plan is kill quickly, not grind). I like something more along the lines of managorger hydra and become immense (which can become your proactive jace flashback).
I honestly don't see why you don't just play temur though. You have no one drop (which is the whole point of the battleland/fetch manabase) and you get savage knuckleblade and crater's claws. You can even ditch the wanderer and hangarback, and play collected company (another proactive jace flashback ). Managorger hydra, undergrowth champion, knuckleblade, yasova, frostwalker, all can achieve ferocious and are hittable off of company, so you can play stubborn denial and crater's claws (along with the deathmist raptor den protector package). There just isn't a lot of power in bant, at least for an aggressive deck. I think bant is supposed to be more of a midrange deck with Gideon, wingmate roc, nissa, treasure cruise, etc...
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
Droptimal, everything you say sounds reasonable. Truly, you don't need Whisperwood if you're aiming at a faster kind of deck. It's also bad synergy with Hangarback and Woodland Wanderer.
But Whisperwood is more than just resiliance to board wipes; endless manifests is also good value. Naturally playing it would change some of your other card choices. So many ways to go with this.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
One concept was testing a sultai build with sidisi + kiora...but the removal is so slow and charm is gonna be much weaker now.
As the list currently stands, I agree with others in saying that Jace is underwhelming here. Have you considered including a fourth color? Black or red can give you more instants/sorceries for Jace and open up other possibilities.
Here's my list.
1x Blighted Cataract
3x Canopy Vista
4x Flooded Strand
1x Forest
3x Lumbering Falls
7x Plains
2x Prairie Stream
4x Windswept Heath
4x Archangel of Tithes
3x Deathmist Raptor
3x Den Protector
1x Dragonlord Dromoka
4x Hangarback Walker
4x Knight of the White Orchid
3x Wingmate Roc
2x Silkwrap
2x Stasis Snare
2x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2x Kiora, Master of the Depths
3x Dromoka's Command
2x Treasure Cruise
In my testing this deck's main is great against other midrange decks and agro decks.
Archangel of Tithes is borderline broken in my opnion, she stops agro swarms and hangarback tokens from attacking you and she sets the opponent back if they plan to attack or (when you've stabilized) block you. Multiples of her is just disgusting. She also works beautifully with kiora.
Knight of the white orchid is great for getting a turn 4 wingmate or a turn 5 dromoka. He essentially draws a card. He's great at blocking agro creatures, and since he has first strike, it's possible to really blow people out with dromoka's command since he can get a counter and fight in combat while killing a creature and staying alive.
Lumbering falls and blighted cataract let you play more lands than you otherwise would and help shore-up control matchups.
Silkwrap is a card that you can cast on turn 2 (when setting up a turn 3 knight) or off of the knight's ramp, it kills mantis rider, hangarback, deathmists, jace's, etc...
Kiora has definitely been the real deal, however I think 2 is correct since she doesn't protect herself very well. But when you get an archangel or some other giant blocker down, she's incredible.
I did test ojutai in here over rocs but he's just not as good as wingmate preboard imo. But there will definitely be a few copies in the board.
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
I think the biggest draw to blue is card draw, lumbering falls, and access to ojutai and counterspells post board. W/G is our (at least my) base and blue should just be a small splash. With the options a blue splash gives us we can make the main very resilient to agro and (imo) favored against other midrange decks, and post board we can make a massive change (cutting rocs, archangels, commands, etc.) and have a very strong board against control with things like ojutai, extra lumbering falls and blighted cataract, negate, disdainful stroke, etc... Without blue, the control matchup would most likely be abysmal, aside from deathmist raptor and den protector. But we can do things like turn 7 play dragonlord dromoka with negate up, which would be really gross.
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring