Bant Maverick Update

Last week I decided to sleeve up a Bant Maverick deck again for the first time in years. After playing some Modern recently I just wanted to Geist people out.

I crafted a pretty stock list with no Brainstorms, but went off the deep end with the 2 flex slots, playing a Dromoka's Command and an Elspeth Knight-Errant. While Dromoka's Command was a sweet blowout against Burn, I realized playing some anti-combo Blue cards maindeck was a luxury I could afford.

I changed the 2 flex slots into Spell Pierces and took the deck to a Dual land tournament the next day, going 3-3 (Wins: BUG Control, UR Stax, Grixis Delver. Losses: GWb Maverick, Omni-Sneak, Miracles).

While I got to Geist some people out which was awesome, the reality is time has not been kind to my angel-toting friend. A relentless string of widely adopted printings have eroded Geist's playability in Legacy to the point that it is all but obsolete. These include:
True-Name Nemesis
Council's Judgment
Gurmag Angler
Monastery Mentor
Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, etc.
Leovold, Emissary of Trest
...and more I probably forgot.

Geist may still find its way into my decks once in a while, but its competitive time over. Ironically, one recent printing looks like a perfect replacement for Geist even in this deck.

As soon as I saw Spell Queller spoiled I practically screamed "BANT MAVERICK!!!":

• Can be protected by Mother of Runes to negate its drawback
• Maindeckable combo interaction that's still relevant in fair matchups
• Flying, 3-toughness body is great with Equips & Exalted

After the Dual land event I decided to get my hands on some Spell Qullers and simply swap the 3 Geists for them. Here is the list:

Bant Maverick, 2/27/17
Creature Spells (23) 4x Mother of Runes 4x Noble Hierarch 2x Stoneforge Mystic 2x Qasali Pridemage 2x Scavenging Ooze 1x Gaddock Teeg 1x Scryb Ranger 3x Spell Queller 4x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (14) 4x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Swords to Plowshares 2x Spell Pierce 1x Sylvan Library 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Sword of Fire and Ice 1x Sword of Light and Shadow
Lands (23) 4x Windswept Heath 4x Misty Rainforest 3x Savannah 2x Tropical Island 1x Tundra 1x Forest 1x Plains 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Gaea's Cradle 1x Karakas 4x Wasteland	SB: 2x Surgical Extraction SB: 1x Grafdigger's Cage SB: 1x Swan Song SB: 1x Negate SB: 1x Path to Exile SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Phyrexian Revoker SB: 1x Pithing Needle SB: 1x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Winter Orb SB: 1x Enlightened Tutor SB: 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant SB: 1x Council's Judgment

One way to look at this deck is as a stock GWb list with 3 Quellers and 2 Pierces replacing 4 Thalia and the 5th mana dork. A land in the manabase I miss a lot when playing Punishing Maverick is Gaea's Cradle-the card is insane in Maverick decks, and makes the 2nd Ooze and 2nd Sword very appealing. I'd also like to point out another card I used to play in Bant Maverick that got upgraded: Envelop. Invasive Surgery is now a strictly better option. However, I'm currently on the more versatile Swan Song in this slot. Very much looking forward to playing and refining this list more.