MTG Salvation

I'm pretty sold on Bant. I think in a format like Modern where metagames can switch so intensely with new cards and bans, having access to 3 colors is really relevant. I do like EldraTron's manabase, since it's more resilient than ours despite being greedier, but it comes at a cost.

Any news about the primer?

Dismember seems better than warping wail. The lifeloss can be offset by running thrag or batterskull and isn't going to matter as much. I personally am still trying out reflector mage but I haven't had enough testing to say anything conclusive

Maybe you could test trinket mage SB + pithing needle. Another option is linvala, she is good in the mirror too.

Trinket is a little slow, you can't keep a hand against vizier combo with just a turn 2 trinket unless you have path or some other from of removal. That said, it's still probably worth bringing in to lock out a game.

I'm currently trying other ways to cut stony silence. I have had good results with just replacing them with natural state. That way, EE is still live against affinity. Naturalize also stops a turn 3 tron on the draw if they have map; stony silence does not.

Here's a proposed sb plan against affinity
-3 drowner
-4 tks
-1 stirrings
+2 worship
+2 natural state
+2 eternal witness
+1 pithing needle
+1 batterskull

I find that it's important to keep in smasher because it can't be chumped. It's our main win con because it's really hard to push through with drowner (only works if you have the drowner/displacer lock), and you don't have much power otherwise.

Has anyone tried maindeck Walking Ballista? Also curious about people's opinion of Duskwatch Recruiter.

I have 2 flex slots so I've been exploring a lot of options. The slots have been things like Dismember and Spellskite in the past.

Obviously we can't produce as much mana as Eldrazi Tron, but the upside of being able to run fewer copies of Ballista & find them with Stirrings, along with them being nigh-unbeatable in the matchups that they're the best in (one of which is the problematic CoCo decks), could probably compensate for it.

MTGO question - How do you flicker TKS for maximum benefit in your opponents draw step? Every time I do it they still draw afterwards thus making the play pretty lame!

Quote from HugeCanoe »

MTGO question - How do you flicker TKS for maximum benefit in your opponents draw step? Every time I do it they still draw afterwards thus making the play pretty lame!

I think the only way u can flicker TKS after they draw from draw phase, is when there's a spell on the stack? Since opp has priority on their main phase.

I have tried walking ballista and it's pretty mediocre. Most of the time it's a 2cmc sorcery, deal 1 damage. Duskwatch is too slow. You're a deck that usually loses tempo the first few turns and Duskwatch is a huge tempo loss.

Grixis shadow is a fine matchup, probably at least 60/40 in our favor. Your 3cmc cards are actually sometimes more important than TKS or smasher; I keep in 4 spawner 4 displacer 3 drowner, some smashers, and I actually board out all TKS. I keep in smasher because smasher is the better topdeck and can trade with their delve threats, just don't make the mistake of blindly attacking with smasher if you don't know if they have a shadow in hand. The match is often about attrition. TKS can rarely be cast in time with them killing our dorks and it's usually card disadvantage. Jund shadow is a little different since goyf can easily block smasher, and they're going to have a slightly harder time killing TKS because they can't snap-fetch-push.

Rhonas does a lot of work in both matchups since it can basically just push through their threats regardless. Once they waste all of their removal/disruption on displacer, and you're left with skyspawner, Rhonas+skyspawner is basically 9 damage they can't profitably block = gg.

notably, the same thing happened to dredge after its banning. disappeared off the face of the earth and now roaring back into tier 1. not saying that this'll happen with bant, but the meta ebbs and flows. bant has an inherently high power level and few truly abysmal matchups. if grixis shadow continues to dominate, we will have a place in the meta, as i have always felt grixis shadow to be probably as favorable as grixis delver.

Well with GP vegas coming next week, I'm either playing Bant Eldrazi or Burn. I could pivot to Eldraztron but I have found that deck to be...you know I just miss Ancient Stirrings. The SB versatility of our SB is what puts me in that Bant camp

That said, I'm going to return to modern testing this week. Anyone going to GP Vegas? What are your thoughts on Bant's current position and are the claims or this deck being poorly positioned over exaggerated? It seems like Bant has placed with the top 32 of multiple events, and that may be due to the small amount of pilots for the deck.

:(((((((((

just goes to show you tier status isn't necessarily related to power level

Quote from janusfcb »

I'm well above 70% winrate facing them around 30 times on MTGO so far. A lille lower against the Jund version. So yeah, I feel really, really great against them. Our matchup against Death's Shadow is actually what makes me believing in us being an underrated deck currently.

Speaking of underrated, Pascal Maynard (who also participated in the Modern Challenge tonight, finishing in the top 32 - hopefully playing Bant Eldrazi) wrote that he will be posting about Bant Eldrazi next week. I can't wait to read that

https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/keeping-up-with-modern-part-2/

Living end is an easy matchup with chalice... I have literally mulled to 3 and won because I had chalice. They have to draw the ingot chewer or beast within.

Grafdigger's/RiP does enough work for me. If Warping Wail was an Eldrazi Tribal Instant, I would play it in a heart-beat, but without that, I just don't feel like it's worth it. They really missed out on that interaction with a few spells, IMO.

Well, I went 3-1 Tonight at my lgs. Deck felt great. I haven't played competitive since GP San Antonio, so testing today was my first sojourn into seeing how the new meta is towards Bant Eldrazi.

So, the deck did it's thing and yeah it was fine. Pascal Maynard's warping wail tech is something I want to test before heading to the GP next week. Chalice is another I've been thinking about, but won't it shut down our own acceleration?

Lastly, I would've gone undefeated tonight but I got greedy and casted a Smasher T3 into d. Palm and ate a ton of damage (lesson learned, always cast TKS).

I prefer cut 1 birds than explosives to use 1x warping wail maindeck, and maybe another on side.

I think it's wrong to go less than 5 dorks. I personally think the right number may even be 6.

I would also never put wail mainboard. it's just too narrow.

It's narrow but I feel like it may merit some testing in the main. It hits key cards in the Company Counters match up and counters things like Scapeshift, thoughtseize ect ect. Is it better than EE in the main? I'm not sure about that but we should consider what someone like My. Maynard suggests, (he went 5-1 in the modern challenge on mtgo). That said, it's on us to test it. I have a few more days before the GP, and if no one is expecting Bant Eldrazi, than that = fewer Bloodmoon's and fewer mirros (makes Elspeth less important), thus freeing up SB slots for a wider meta.

I expect to play against a lot of deathshadow and that is a match up I've lost to 1x and beaten at least 9x at the GP/1k level. It's close but displacer and Drowner put in a ton of work. The tools are there and our SB is simply amazing. After talking to a few friends (really good players in their own right), the deck can do some powerful things really well. It's position may have changed, but the deck still does the T2 TKS in T3 Smasher or T3 TKS into T4 Smasher i T6 Drowner. That curve is still very hard to beat.