Bant Stoneblade Update & Top4 Tournament Report

"Not again..."

Deathrite Shaman and Gitaxian Probe are banned in Legacy. Its a brave new world now - or is it a brave old world? Many archetypes that were invalidated or suppressed by the presence of Deathrite Shaman now have a chance to shine again. One of my personal favorites, GSZ Bant Stoneblade, is one such archetype (Primer).

Although Bant experienced a renaissance throughout 2016 and 2017, it was in the form of Bant Deathblade, which eschewed the traditional GSZ package for a much more streamlined build including Deathrite Shaman, and other Black cards like Leovold, Emissary of Trest, Zealous Persecution, Abrupt Decay, and Thoughtseize.

GSZ Bant was less consistent and had worse matchups than Bant Deathblade across nearly the entire field - I would argue that GSZ Bant was superior against Sneak & Show, Eldrazi Stompy, and Moon Stompy, but this wasn't a compelling enough incentive for it to be competitively played.

With Deathrite Shaman now out of the picture entirely, Bant has regained a monopoly on mana dorks + busted Blue cards which could make it a serious contender. With this in mind, I took the deck out to my local monthly Legacy event.

Bant Stoneblade, 7/15/18
Creature Spells (15) 4x Noble Hierarch 4x Stoneforge Mystic 1x Qasali Pridemage 1x Scavenging Ooze 3x True-Name Nemesis 2x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (24) 3x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Brainstorm 2x Ponder 4x Force of Will 3x Daze 4x Swords to Plowshares 2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Batterskull
Lands (21) 4x Windswept Heath 4x Misty Rainforest 3x Tropical Island 2x Tundra 1x Savannah 1x Forest 1x Island 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Karakas 3x Wasteland	SB: 2x Faerie Macabre SB: 2x Meddling Mage SB: 1x Grafdigger's Cage SB: 1x Swan Song SB: 1x Spell Pierce SB: 1x Path to Exile SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Detention Sphere SB: 1x Pithing Needle SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Sylvan Library SB: 1x Sword of Fire and Ice SB: 1x Vendilion Clique

My list...well, hasn't changed much. The nature of the three "packages" (Force of Will, Stoneforge Mystic, and Green Sun's Zenith) leave very few maindeck flex slots. For those interested in minutiae, I'm playing a 2nd Ponder instead of a 22nd land to accommodate 4 Force of Will main.

In the sideboard, running Faerie Macabre instead of Surgical Extraction was a concession to Reanimator combined with the fact that there are no local Lands players (this is CRAZY to me as someone from the Northeast). But overall, nothing exciting here.

There were only 19 players at the event. Here's a meta breakdown:

• 4 Death & Taxes
• 2 UWx Miracles
• 2 Sneak & Show
• 1 Belcher
• 1 BR Griselbrand
• 1 Burn
• 1 Eldrazi
• 1 Elves
• 1 Eureka Tell
• 1 Grixis Control
• 1 Mono-red Sneak Attack
• 1 Punishing Sneak Nic-Fit
• 1 UWR Stoneblade

Here's how my matches went:

Round 1: Eureka Tell (2-0)

Round 2: UWR Stoneblade (2-0) 

Round 3: Eldrazi (2-0)

Round 4: Sneak & Show (2-1)

Round 5: ID

Quarterfinal: Death & Taxes (2-0)

Semifinal: Burn (1-2)

I felt like I drew really well all day, so either the deck is well constructed, or I just got lucky. Round 2 my opponent got a game loss for a sideboarding error after we got deck checked.

Now that a number of tournament results are in, the top decks in the new meta appear to be Canadian Threshold, D&T, and Sneak & Show. These are all even to favorable matchups for Bant, so it could prove to be well-positioned moving forward.

Tournament Report: SCG Baltimore, 11/5/16

Another weekend, another Legacy tournament in Baltimore.

BANT BLADE, 11/5/16
Creature Spells (14) 4x Noble Hierarch 4x Stoneforge Mystic 1x Scavenging Ooze 1x Qasali Pridemage 3x True-Name Nemesis 2x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (24) 3x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Brainstorm 4x Swords to Plowshares 1x Ponder 1x Spell Pierce 4x Daze 3x Force of Will 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Batterskull
Lands (22) 4x Misty Rainforest 4x Windswept Heath 3x Tropical Island 2x Tundra 1x Savannah 1x Forest 1x Island 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Karakas 4x Wasteland	SB: 2x Surgical Extraction SB: 2x Meddling Mage SB: 1x Garruk Relentless SB: 1x Engineered Explosives SB: 1x Sword of Fire and Ice SB: 1x Force of Will SB: 1x Invasive Surgery SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Path to Exile SB: 1x Pithing Needle SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Rest in Peace SB: 1x Vendilion Clique

For better or worse, my list has remained basically unchanged for months now. The only change I made going into the weekend was cutting the 2nd Jace in the main for a Spell Pierce. The 2nd Jace really underperformed and was boarded out in almost every matchup except for Miracles. Even against Miracles Jace can be anemic against Red Blasts. I moved my SB Pierce into its place and put a Garruk Relentless as grindy card #2 in the SB.


Day 1

Round 1 - BR Reanimator (2-1)
Game 1 my opponent had enablers but no protection and I had counterspells.
Game 2 I didn't have enough disruption and died to Elesh Norn.
Game 3 I had to jam Hierarch into Chancellor to turn on my Surgical. He went to discard pitching a Chancellor. He then went to reanimate it and my hand was bad, so I had to Surgical it. I took another Chancellor out of his hand and saw a bunch of Sneak Attacks, a Reanimate, and an Exhume. Going through his library I also saw Blood Moons. On my turn Stoneforge Mystic rolled off the top exactly on time to give me a clock. He passed his next turn. I had a Misty Rainforest, giving me the option to EOT fetch Arbor and equip Sophie and start attacking on my next turn, but declined to as I wanted access to basic Forest against a potential Blood Moon. I just went to my turn, drew a card, and passed. On my EOT he cast Entomb and got Elesh Norn. I stared stupidly at the two Dazes in my hand and his 3 mana, realizing I was dead to Reanimated Elesh Norn having decided to neither get equipped beats going a turn sooner nor fetched Batterskull. My opponent miraculously cast Exhume on his turn rather than Reanimate, allowing my two Dazes to prevent Elesh Norn from hitting the board. I equipped and attacked on my next turn and drew Surgical. From there it was smooth sailing. I set myself up to get totally punished for playing too conservatively this game, but was saved by what was probably a stumble from my opponent.

Round 2 - Burn (2-0)
Game 1 I had Exalted True-Name beats and timely counterspells.
Game 2 was similar, but having only seen Hierarchs, Trops, and True-Names in the first game my opponent was cold to Stoneforge Mystic. He said he thought I was playing BUG. I guess he doesn't play a lot of Legacy.

Round 3 - Miracles (2-0)
Game 1 I kept up the slow incremental beats and Forced Counterbalance. A Miracle Entreat the Angels threatened to turn the tide, but my opponent tapped out for it, turning on all the soft permission rotting in my hand.
Game 2 my opponent foundered against Gaddock Teeg and Wasteland. He tried to make a race of it with Clique and Snapcasters, but ambush Dryad Arbor + Sophie on Teeg sealed it in my favor.

Round 4 - Storm (2-1)
Game 1 was a comical affair, as it often is in this matchup.
Game 2 I was able to get G. Teeg out but he was promptly Decayed. I was getting in for mediocre beats and my opponent cast plenty of Probes so I was getting there while he dug for a way to kill me. Once he went off I thought I was dead, with only a Surgical and Daze in hand. I couldn't take him off Threshold with the Surgical and threw my Daze into his Cabal Rit, which he paid for with an Underground Sea if I remember correctly. He cast Past in Flames with plenty of mana and cantrips in his yard, so I decided to Surgical Ponder since that gave him the most looks at finding the right cards to kill me. At this point he turned out to be choked on Blue mana, having cracked LED for Red and along with plenty of Black floating from Rits. He was able to start cantripping with Probes off Petals, but with only Brainstorms left and no shuffle effects he couldn't kill me and fizzled.
Game 3 I got out G. Teeg on turn 2, which lined up well against his Xantid Swarm. He loosely cast a Ponder before attacking with Swarm, which I Dazed to tap down his Bayou, keeping him off a potential Decay that turn. Next turn I played a Knight, and had to fade Decay for one more turn after which I would blow up his Bayou, which happened. After that my threats became too much to overcome. I felt really good getting out of this match alive.

Round 5 - Burn (2-0)
Dork, threat, some counterspells and removal. I forgot a Jitte trigger in game 1 which was incredibly loose, but I was far enough ahead that I still won.

Round 6 - UR Delver (0-2)
Game 1 I had a clunky draw that lined up poorly against the UR Delver deck.
Game 2 I had a weird 6 card hand and went all in on equipping Jitte to Dryad Arbor with Force backup. I got in two counters but when Bombat Courier (!!) showed up to block I was in an awkward spot against Bolt and my Arbor died. I resolved a loose Ponder keeping lands and a Batterskull on top of my library. Next turn my opponent slammed Blood Moon, which surprised me more than it should have. Keeping the Batterskull turned out to be fortuitous, and I cast it able to pay for Daze, but he had a Force. With all Mountains in play and no cards in hand at that point I was very dead. I think some of my decisions in this game were pretty questionable.

Round 7 - UW Stoneblade (2-0)
I honestly played quite loosely both of these games but drew the right threats and disruption to win comfortably.

Round 8 - Shardless BUG (0-2)
I was paired against my good friend Jon Orr, whose list I was very familiar with both from games at our local store and finishing our decklists together that morning. We lamented that we had to face each other at this crucial juncture, but were comforted by the fact that the winner had a great shot at making day 2. It happens that Shardless BUG is one of Bant's worst matchups, which Jon's list pushes to the extreme after sideboarding with 2 Disfigure, 2 Deluge, 1 Pulse, 1 Golgari Charm, 1 Null Rod, and 1 Night of Soul's Betrayal. As usual, our games weren't close.

Round 9 - BR Reanimator (0-2)
I was playing against a well-known SCG player who has played a variety of Legacy decks, so I had no clue what to expect. He turned out to be on...BR Reanimator, which has been exploding in popularity. Game 1 was over quickly.
Game 2 I kept a 7 card hand of GSZ, Stoneforge Mystic, 2 Dazes, 3 lands. I play against BR Reanimator at my local store a lot, and while this isn't an ideal hand in the matchup, I thought it would be reasonably effective against a large percentage of their draws. I thought mulliganing this hand would be over-cautious. I lead on GSZ-->Arbor with Daze at the ready. My opponent Cast Lotus Petal, which I let resolve, then cast Unmask. I Dazed without thinking about it much, which my opponent responded to by cracking Petal to cast Dark Rit. Nothing to do about that. Pay for Daze, see I have nothing, Entomb Griselbrand, Reanimate Griselbrand quickly followed. Needless to say, I did not win this game. While initially I brushed it off to the absurdity of his hand-no lands, turn 1 combo with protection-in hindsight I know I seriously misplayed my first Daze. The obvious play might have been Daze the Petal. Also viable was let Unmask resolve. He keeps his Petal and sees two Dazes, the first of which definitely shuts off a turn 1 combo. I asked a friend who plays BR Reanimator about this situation and he says he would take a Daze, jam something into the 2nd Daze, and pass. On my turn I cast Stoneforge Mystic but have nothing. How it plays out from the top of both of our decks from there is unknown, but what is certain is that Dazing the Unmask was exactly the worst line I had.

At X-3 I didn't think I'd make Day 2, but me and nearly 100 other X-3 players ended up getting pulled in. I honestly couldn't believe I made day 2 with my level of play. My only explanation was that many of my opponents played even worse.

Day 2

Round 10 - BG Aggro Depths (1-2)
Game 1 I had plenty of threats and won after giving him 20 life by Plowing a Marit Lage.
Game 2 went in a weird direction and I think I made a multitude of bad decisions. I never was able to put together a plan for victory despite drawing reasonably well. It didn't help that my opponent had Sylvan Library going for countless turns.
We didn't have much time left for Game 3. My opponent came out fast with multiple Tarmogoyfs and I had no answer but a Stoneforge Mystic to race back with Batterskull. I carelessly tapped my Wasteland and gave him a window play Hexmage and make Marit Lage with his on-board Depths to kill me.

Round 11 - Miracles (0-2)
Game 1 was a fiasco, with me forgetting to pop my Pridemage on Counterbalance in response to a Plow and failing to Daze a crucial Brainstorm that allowed him to counter my True-Name Nemesis.
Game 2 I was on 5 cards and didn't do much.

At X-5 and feeling pretty miserable, I decided to drop even though I still had a shot at top64.

Final Record: 6-5


I quickly became caught up in my friend Jon's tournament, which was still going well. He ended up winning the entire event through a gauntlet of Lands, Elves, and the final boss Joe Lossett himself. Congratulations to Jon for his stellar run and well-deserved win. Its hard not to call it a great weekend after that despite my own lackluster performance.

This was the last major event on my schedule for a while. What's next for me is to play some Maverick again, a deck I am starting to miss tremendously.


Bonuses:

Read Jon's 1st Place Tournament Report with Shardless BUG

Round 1 Feature Match, my Punishing Maverick comrade Mark Strassman took down Reid Duke playing Elves!!

DECK: Bant Stoneblade, 7/21/16

At the moment I have no major events coming up soon, so I probably won't focus on any one deck in the near future. I sleeved up this Bant Stoneblade deck for my FNM. I still haven't jumped on the Bant Deathblade hype train and continue to rock GSZ + 4 Hierarchs. I really love Hierarch in Bant because of how good it is with True-Name Nemesis.

Overall its a very "stock" GSZ list:

Creature Spells

Noncreature Spells

Lands

Sideboard

Imgur album w/full-size images

Deck Tech: Bant Deathblade

Bant Deathblade has experienced a surge in popularity on MTGO, currently sitting at 3% of the meta alongside much more popular and well-known archetypes like Burn and Infect. This sudden change can probably be attributed to a decklist that appeared late February in the hands of UNKOMAN. Many other players have picked up his (or her) awesome looking deck since then.

UNKOMAN's deck follows the classic Bant formula of generating and leveraging a mana advantage with numerous turn-1 ramp plays, but has eschewed the Green Sun's Zenith package in favor of Deathrite Shaman. While the deck loses the flexibility of the GSZ package, the raw power of Deathrite Shaman cannot be denied.

Here is UNKOMAN's original list:

BANT DEATHBLADE, 2/29/16
Creature Spells (16) 4x Noble Hierarch 2x Deathrite Shaman 4x Stoneforge Mystic 3x True-Name Nemesis 3x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (23) 4x Brainstorm 4x Swords to Plowshares 1x Sylvan Library 4x Daze 4x Force of Will 2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Sword of Fire and Ice 1x Batterskull
Lands (21) 3x Misty Rainforest 2x Windswept Heath 3x Flooded Strand 3x Tropical Island 2x Tundra 1x Savannah 1x Underground Sea 1x Forest 1x Karakas 4x Wasteland	SB: 1x Abrupt Decay SB: 2x Containment Priest SB: 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant SB: 2x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Flusterstorm SB: 1x Krosan Grip SB: 2x Meddling Mage SB: 1x Path to Exile SB: 2x Rest in Peace SB: 1x Surgical Extraction SB: 1x Vendilion Clique

The list is streamlined and threat-dense, with very high card quality. However, it looks very mana-hungry for a deck with only 6 accelerants, 21 land, and no Ponders. Also, I am very disappointed by the lack of Zealous Persecution or Engineered Plague in the sideboard. Access to that sort of effect, otherwise unavailable in Bant colors, strikes me as one of the strongest incentives to splash Black.

My biggest issue with Bant Deathblade is it always looks worse than either Bant or Esper Deathblade. I must say this is the first Bant Deathblade list to interest me though, and I'm not alone. UNKOMAN's list has generated some discussion and hype online, breathing life into the largely forgotten Bant archetype. The deck has also begun to show up in paper, taking 9th place at a ~90 player Channel Fireball 3K in the hands of Steven Bush late March.

I will likely sleeve up some variant of Bant Deathblade myself to see how it plays out. 

Local Legacy: 3/18

I've been playing Bant at my locals for the last few weeks. Its a really sweet deck and I just can't put it down. While it doesn't have many stellar matchups, most feel winnable if you play tightly. Unfortunately, I don't always play tightly...

Meta Breakdown:
1 A.N.T.
1 Bant Blade
1 Bant Lands
1 Burning Reanimator
1 Deadguy Ale
1 Esper Delver
1 The Gate
2 Grixis Delver
1 GWb Maverick
1 Mentor/Legend Miracles
2 Moggcatcher Stompy
1 Shardless BUG
1 T.E.S.
1 ??

Here is the list I played:

BANT BLADE, 3/18/16
Creature Spells (14) 4x Noble Hierarch 3x Stoneforge Mystic 1x Scavenging Ooze 1x Qasali Pridemage 3x True-Name Nemesis 2x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (24) 4x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Brainstorm 4x Swords to Plowshares 1x Ponder 1x Spell Pierce 3x Daze 3x Force of Will 2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Batterskull
Lands (22) 4x Misty Rainforest 4x Windswept Heath 1x Flooded Strand 3x Tropical Island 2x Tundra 1x Savannah 1x Forest 1x Island 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Karakas 3x Wasteland	SB: 2x Tormod's Crypt SB: 1x Detention Sphere SB: 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant SB: 1x Enlightened Tutor SB: 1x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Force of Will SB: 1x Flusterstorm SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Path to Exile SB: 1x Pithing Needle SB: 1x Qasali Pridemage SB: 1x Rest in Peace SB: 1x Tsabo's Web SB: 1x Vendilion Clique

Most recently I've been going a bit old-school with Forces in the side and more Green creatures main. This time I went with a very "stock" Force of Will maindeck, 3 True-Name/2 Knight split and a Ponder instead of the 23rd land.

I tried to be a bit creative with the sideboard by incorporating an Enlightened Tutor package. Lands is common at this store and is a matchup I've struggled with, so I decided to go deep with Tsabo's Web (unfortunately, fewer Lands players showed up than usual). I also played a Detention Sphere in the slot I typically play Engineered Explosives.

Round 1: Shardless BUG (2-1)
G1. I managed to stabilize the board with a Jace and countered Ancestral Vision to secure my victory.
G2. Turn 2 Liliana was backbreaking. I made a poor play involving Stoneforge Mystic/Jitte/Dryad Arbor, missing an opportunity to get 2 Jitte counters.
G3. I had a strong draw and overwhelmed my opponent with threats.

Round 2: T.E.S. (2-1)
G1. Very close considering how light on interaction I was, coming down to Batterskull racing Goblins. Burning Wish for Void Snare sealed the race in his favor.
G2. I got there on a potentially disastrous 6-card hand of one land (Karakas) + relevant U and G spells. He was slow out of the gates and I drew a timely fetchland to start casting counterspells and bears.
G3. He went off with Burning Wish for Ad Nauseam after trading with two counterspells but didn't draw into enough mana to finish going off, and was killed by my Noble Hierarch at 1 life.

Round 3: Grixis Delver (2-0)
G1. He had an anemic draw of triple Deathrite Shaman, and Stoneforge Mystic was able to cheat in Batterskull unopposed.
G2. He was pulling ahead with Young Pyromancer, but I got True-Name + Equipment on-line thanks to a timely Brainstorm and rode it to victory.

Round 4: Burning Reanimator (ID)

Overall Record: 3-0-1, tied for 2nd
Very satisfied with the result, not only due to prizing, but due to the fact that I triumphed against 3 different decks that have given me a hard time in the past playing Bant.

Primer: Bant Stoneblade

             

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
Creature Spells (15) 4x Noble Hierarch 3x Stoneforge Mystic 1x Scavenging Ooze 1x Qasali Pridemage 4x True-Name Nemesis 2x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (23) 3x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Brainstorm 4x Swords to Plowshares 2x Ponder 3x Daze 4x Force of Will 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Batterskull
Lands (22) 4x Misty Rainforest 4x Windswept Heath 1x Flooded Strand 3x Tropical Island 2x Tundra 1x Savannah 1x Forest 1x Island 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Karakas 3x Wasteland	SB: 1x Envelop SB: 1x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 2x Humility SB: 1x Relic of Progenitus SB: 1x Spell Pierce SB: 3x Swan Song SB: 1x Sylvan Library SB: 1x Tormod's Crypt SB: 1x Umezawa's Jite SB: 2x Vendilion Clique

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.

It easy to see why Duke turned to Bant when finding the best shell to play TNN in before the GP. His list has become the logical starting point for the Bant archetype moving forward.

Notable Disadvantages of Bant

• 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.

Bant Maverick Decklists

              

Intro
Bant Maverick or Geist Maverick is variant of classic GW Maverick. This version experienced a brief period of popularity in early 2012 but has been largely forgotten, and is probably the least well known Maverick deck. The motivation behind splashing Blue in Maverick was quite simple: the power of Geist of Saint Traft.

Geist of St. Traft works well in a Maverick shell for several reasons:

• Can easily be cast on turn 2 off of Maverick's many accelerants.
• Mother of Runes and Exalted make it harder for opposing creatures to block it.
• Provides a real clock against combo and control decks, which a typical Maverick deck can't.
• Becomes even more threatening in conjunction with Stoneforge Mystic + Equipment.
• Utility lands like Karakas and Maze of Ith interact favorably with it.
• High-impact threat that isn't reliant on the graveyard like Knight of the Reliquary.

True-Name Nemesis has largely supplanted Geist of St. Traft in the format as it is even harder to interact with, and is strong on defense, and doesn't require the support that the Geist does. However, if there is a shell where Geist of St. Traft still has a home in Legacy today, I believe this is it due to the reasons above.


Decklists
There are several different directions you can take with the Blue splash as you can see in the sample decklists below. Some lists play Thalia, others play Brainstorm, and even Jace, the Mind Sculptor shows up. Some amount of permission such as Spell Pierce is almost always incorporated into the sideboard, enabling stack interaction from the classically permanent-centric Maverick deck.

Grigory Kievsky, 5th @ TOPDeck Moscow Legacy OPEN (12/14/2013, 91 players)

Wayne Tam, 5th-8th @ Eternal Weekend (8/18/2012, 358 players)

Michael Braverman, 5-8th @ SCG Legacy Open Baltimore (3/25/2012, 264 players)

Derek Jacobs, 9th-6th @ SCG Legacy Open Tampa (3/4/2012)

Jeff Sirkis, 5th-8th @ SCG Legacy Open Memphis (2/26/2012, 94 players)

Morgan Burks, 3rd-4th @ SCG Legacy Open Richmond (2/5/2012, 117 players)

Adam Cai, 3rd-4th @ SCG Legacy Open Atlanta (1/8/2012, 191 players)


Closing Thoughts
Maverick is not strongly positioned in the current meta at large, but one popular and unfavorable matchup where I believe this version gains a lot of ground is the Miracles matchup. Geist is a real clock and harder for them to interact with than our other threats. I think Envelop is a great piece of sideboard technology that can improve the matchup as well.

If you're hoping to (maybe) beat Miracles, are looking for something a bit different to play, or are simply a Maverick enthusiast, I encourage you to give this deck a spin at your next local. There's nothing quite like beating someone down with Geist of St. Traft in Legacy!