What I'm Playing 7

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Just taking a quick break from the Zendikar land spoilers to drop yet another edition of 'What I'm Playing'. This is a MTG Realm feature where we post a real deck of physical cardboard goodness and yatter about it's particular qualities.
We also ask you, the blog reader, to provide constructive input as to how to tweak it.

(!) Just before we get into the nitty-gritty of the decklist and you provide comments, just know that these decks are intended to play casual at a sanctioned 'Friday Night Magic' event (standard constructed format) and that, because money does not grow on trees (at least, not around here), we often are unable to get a deckset of the latest hotness (although we wish we could). Let's go . . .

BIG BANT

click to enlarge

This deck is called 'Big Bant' as it gets big. Rather an original name we thought. It has been played about a dozen times at the kitchen table and has also been out to a FNM perhaps thrice now and has performed rather well to date. Altough it does not yet have a sideboard, it did take us to semi-finals (with a participating crowd of 25 to 35 players or so) during said FNM plays. We just need you to help us out to take spot number one at least once or twice to call it a solid build.

Anywhoos - We include six mana accelerators found within four Nobles and two BOP to provide juice for the engine. Nobles outweigh the Birds as not only they tap for Bant colours but also it provides exalted. Also you should know that there have not been any games to date that Knight of New Alara has not come out at least once per match (quite usually once or more per game) . . . perhaps I have an akwardly-placed lucky horseshoe.

Here is the next critter. The two-drop Bant Sureblade, although a 2/1, easily becomes a 3/2 with first strike with all the multi-colour deck love and typically gets a huge boost from the Knight to sprout it into a honk'n 6/5 by turn 3. At the moment I am considering Esper Stormblade over the Sureblade to give me a 5/4 flier instead.


Next up - Giltspire provides elimination should I take a hit from a creature. Most players in my neck of the woods take the Avenger seriously and takes him out first before doing anything. The life-linking 3/4 Rhox War Monk also grows to a 6/5 with the Knight. Unfortunately, I have only 3 Jenara presently and must admit this creature is awesome in play. With the Knight, this thing is a sizeable 6/6 flier and I have often been able to dump extra mana to drop additional counters on her.

I'm not altogether sure of the cascading Captured Sunlight. I do ejoy dropping a Jenara or a Rhox Monk but presently think this card's inclusion is somewhat shaky. Knight of New Alara has made this deck shine in past games and, as mentioned earlier, has always seen play. Moreover, I cannot count the times I have top-decked this cardboard win. This essentially gives 5 of my 9 creatures a full 3 power boost.

Next on the list is some critical control for late game. We have a full set of the Bant-coloured four-drop 3/4 Stoic Angel to greatly restrict our opponent's ability to untap more than one creature. To couple this is another set of Murkfiend Liege. This creature really is a 'horror' as a follow-up to Stoic. He (or it?), not only bumps all your blue and green creatures by +2/+2 but also allows you to untap all your blue / green critters at your opponent's upkeep, essentially providing vigilence to your critters.


Quite similar to always having the knack of drawing Knight of new Alara, I seem to have very good luck being able to have the Stoic / Murkfiend couple out (just slightly more than half my games).

Here is the list shizzle . .

BIG BANT

37 Spells
23 Lands

4 x Noble Hierarch
2 x Bird of Paradise
4 x Bant Sureblade
4 x Giltspire Avenger
4 x Rhox War Monk
3 x Jenara, Asura of War
4 x Captured Sunlight
4 x Stoic Angel
4 x Knight of New Alara
4 x Murkfiend Liege

4 x Seaside Citadel
9 x Forest
5 x Plain
5 x Island

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Sideboard Assistance

Sideboard is currently non-existent but I do have some half-formed ideas.
Reborn Hope may be a candidate to provide some recursion. Esper Stormblade may be swapped out for Bant Sureblade for better aerial defence. Favour of the Overbeing is a decent aura to provide most critters flying / vigilence and a +1/+1 pump. Snakeform is a hilarious card and make most opponents cry - there really is no other reason for sideboard inclusion other than having an insurance policy against a your opponent's Fatty McFatster.

Anywho - Please drop us a comment and help us fix this up ! Thnx !