Introduction
Bant (GWU) has a long and illustrious history in Legacy, with a tried and true formula of acceleration backed up by quality creatures and permission. However, the archetype has dwindled in favor due to a number of recent printings. The powerful and versatile combination of Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay has enshrined BGx as the core of Green midrange decks in Legacy over GWx. Furthermore, the card True-Name Nemesis gave non-Green Blade decks a creature comparable to those offered by Green. Despite these challenges, Bant still offers some strong advantages over other modern Blue midrange decks and continues to enjoy modest success. This primer will focus on pure Bant midrange decks playing Stoneforge Mystic and Green Sun's Zenith.
Deck Theory
I will now discuss how to approach building a Bant deck, and most importantly, why you should play a Bant deck. It is easiest to start simply by looking at the strongest aspects of each color of the Bant shard in Legacy:
Green, or Green Sun's Zenith Package
- Acceleration via Noble Hierarch and Green Sun's Zenith
- Utility creatures like Qasali Pridemage and Gaddock Teeg
- Powerful threats like Knight of the Reliquary
White, or Stoneforge Mystic Package
- Stoneforge Mystic + Equipment
- Versatile removal in Swords to Plowshares
- Useful sideboard technology
Blue, or Force of Will Package
- Force of Will and permission
- Brainstorm and cantrips to improve card selection
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Looking at these strengths, one can quickly conceptualize a deck combining them: your Green creatures play well with Equipment, you can accelerate into a Jace, you have answers to combo decks, et cetera. However, one of these colors stands out as the most crucial. When combined with the others, Bant becomes greater than the sum of its parts and offers a unique advantage over other competitive Blue midrange decks today. This color is Green.
With Green enabling more than four turn-one acceleration plays, a Bant deck is uniquely poised to leverage a mana advantage to cast powerful spells and disrupt the opponent. No other Blue midrange deck in Legacy has this capability.
On a second look however, one can note these three packages are competing with each other. Green wants to play a certain number of Green creature cards, Blue wants to maintain a high enough Blue card count to reliably cast Force of Will for free, and on top of it all White wants to play with a number of colorless Equipments. These are certainly intimidating deckbuilding requirements when it comes to fine-tuning, and it was once thought by many that you could only incorporate two of the three packages successfully in a Bant deck.
At this point I would like to present the progenitor of the modern Bant Stoneblade archetype, Sam Black's Top 8 placing list from GP Washington D.C. (1698 players) in November 2013.
| True-Name Bant, GP D.C. 11/2013 | |
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This list, designed by Reid Duke, was able to meld all three packages together using the power of the then-recently released True-Name Nemesis. While a potent addition to other decks, TNN slots very naturally into a Bant shell for a variety of reasons:
- Can be cast on the second turn off an accelerant (with your accelerant offering insulation from Edict effects, which are one of the best answers to the Mefolk Rouge).
- Synergizes well with Stoneforge Mystic + Equipment.
- Adds to the Blue card count for Force of Will while being a threat. Before TNN was printed, Force was frequently seen only in the sideboard of Bant decks because there weren't enough Blue cards maindeck to support it, but this is no longer an issue.
- Bant can turn TNN into a decent clock without Equipment thanks to Exalted triggers.
- Vulnerable to -x/-x effects: These effects have become common in Legacy with the ubiquity of Elves, Death & Taxes, TNN, and Young Pyromancer. They wipe our your acceleration and TNN, your otherwise most resilient threat. A diversified threat-base including Knight of the Reliquary affords some resilience to this type of effect.
- Incongruous gameplan: Bant has access to aggressive tempo plays like acceleration, mana denial, and soft permission, but doesn't have the fast, efficient threats of an aggro deck. On the other hand, it has a narrow selection of creature removal that is unbefitting to a control deck.
- Over-reliance on a turn 1 accelerant: With a deck built around your strongest advantage, a turn 1 accelerant, hands without one can play out relatively anemically.
- Unavailability of quality sweeper effects: Bant lacks the colors of mana for efficient, quality sweeper effects of its own, which can make a Bant deck vulnerable to swarm and tribal decks.
Deck Construction
Bant has assumed many different forms over the years, and even today there are a great number of card choices available. Below I will briefly summarize what I believe should be core cards in the 75 of any Bant Blade deck.
Green:
Green Sun's Zenith, Noble Hierarch, Dryad Arbor
Qasali Pridemage - Provides removal for some noncreature permanents alongside the relevant Exatled ability.
Scavenging Ooze - Provides graveyard hate and lifegain, and can become a large threat.
Knight of the Reliquary - Large threat that is very dangerous in conjunction with Wasteland.
Gaddock Teeg - Hatebear that shuts down many strategies, tutorability makes it a very efficient sideboard slot.
White:
Stoneforge Mystic, Swords to Plowshares
Blue:
Force of Will, Brainstorm, True-Name Nemesis, Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Daze - This card may look strange to someone unfamiliar with the archetype, but is one of the best ways of leveraging your mana advantage.
Artifact:
Batterskull, Umezawa's Jitte - The two most powerful Equipment offering the best range of effects.
Land:
Karakas - Very effective against strategies centered around Legendary creatures such as Reanimator and Sneak & Show, and can be tutored via Knight of the Reliquary.
Wasteland - This Legacy staple is particularly potent in conjunction with Knight of the Reliquary.
Fetch lands, Dual lands & Basic lands will make up the majority of your manabase.
Sample Bant Stoneblade Decklists
Here are some decklists showcasing developments made since GP DC. These also exhibit other possible card choices.
David Nolan, 3rd @ SCG IQ (9/4/2016)
Matt Krouti, 9th-16th @ SCG Premier IQ (11/22/2015, ~100 players)
Nathan Goya, 3th-4th @ Eternal Extravaganza 3 (10/24/2015, 304 players)
Robin Mesmin, 5th-8th @ Last Chance Coupe de France, Lyon (10/10/2015, 145 players)
Alex Gellerman, 1st @ SCG Premier IQ (2/22/2015, 137 players)
This impressive result flew under the radar, but Gellerman managed to come out on top with Bant in a competitive field during the high-powered Dig Through Time meta. Note the decreased emphasis on True-Name Nemesis compared to the full set in the GP D.C. list.
Vicent Gregori, 7th @ GPT Paris in Barcelona (1/14/2014, 71 players)
Sam Black, 5th-8th @ GP Washington D.C. (11/6/2013, 1698 players)
Discussed under "Deck Theory" above and in Black's article below.
Reid Duke, 1st @ SCG Invitational (10/2013, 388 players)
This list is the immediate predecessor of the GP DC list. You can read more about it in the article section below.
Other Bant Midrange Strategies
I would like to recognize other Bant midrange strategies that have been successful relatively recently.
Deathbant/Hexproof
This build plays Deathrite Shaman instead of GSZ and Arbor for extra acceleration. Without GSZ, Green creatures are mostly eschewed in favor of Geist of St. Traft to complement TNN. This build's plan is turn 1 accelerant, turn 2 hexproof creature. Black mana sources also enable some sideboard cards, perhaps most importantly Zealous Persecution.
Noble Fish
Developed by Mark Koenig (aka Bahra), a notable MTGO player, this interesting deck packs a lot of cheap evasive creatures, disruption, and card advantage. Koenig put down the deck by summer 2015 as he felt it had no place in the Dig Through Time meta.
Brave Sir Robin
This deck burst onto the scene at an SCG Legacy Open in November 2015 with a Top 8 finish in the hands of Bant veteran Steven Schlepphorst. The card that made this deck possible was Retreat to Coralhelm from the Battle for Zendikar expansion. With the Retreat and an active Knight in play, it is possible to "go off" activating Knight and repeatedly Twiddling it with the Retreat trigger to grow it to a lethal size. Retreat is also a Blue card to pitch to Force, and provides incremental advantage even if you aren't executing the combo. Schlepphorst is continuing to develop this deck.
Shardless Bant
The brainchild of Paul Lynch, this take on Bant has only a very light splash of Green, and focuses on assembling the Thopter-Sword combo using Shardless Agent and Stoneforge Mystic. Some other players have adopted the deck and had successful finishes with it. While technically Bant-colored, this deck has more in common with a UW Blade control deck than a classic Bant deck.
Other Resources
Article: Sam Black on Bant @ GP DC
Article: Reid Duke on Bant @ the SCG Invitational
Video: Sam Black VS Todd Anderson (Esper Deathblade) @ SCG Invitational, 12/13/13
Video: Sam Pardee VS Elves @ SCG Open Oakland, 12/7/13
Video: Reid Duke VS Eric Froelich (Storm) @ GP DC
Video: Sam Black VS Craig Wescoe (Death & Taxes) @ GP DC Quarterfinal
Video: Sam Black VS Owen Turtenwald (Delverblade) @ GP DC Semifinal (2nd part of video)
Video: Sam Black VS Elves @ GP DC
Video: Reid Duke VS Chris Andersen (Elves) @ SCG Invi
Video: Reid Duke VS Ben Friedman (Delverblade) @ SCG Invi Final
Video: SCG VS Series, Deck Tech & Games with Gellerman's IQ winning List
Video: Deck Tech of Duke's Invitational deck
Bant Thread on The Source Legacy Website
This thread isn't very active and its primer is outdated, but plenty of useful information can be gleaned from it by going through old discussions.
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