UW seems like a bad match up for bant. You didn`t mention them playing Geist of Saintraft but if they do it becomes even harder. Path, sword, maze all ineffective against that dude. Give him an equipment and he goes to town. If we could untap with Knight all would become more easier but between swords - paths - snapcaster mages its not as easy as you would think.
Anyway we could improve this match up? Seems like tough deck to be hated out. Equipment or Jace is usually what heavily swings match up in their favour.
UW stoneblade is certainly not a bad matchup. Your geist will be the game breaker.
Typically, they won't play geist because it will thin out their deck. If they do, they will be running less jaces or counters.
I just started playing bant online and building it in real life. I was just wondering how effective geist was for you. I have seen him in a bunch of small tournament lists but nothing big yet.
IF you use geist, you MUST use the stoneforge package build. Otherwise he is useless. And by package, I do not mean batterskull and jitte.
Anyways he won me games against UW stoneblade. He is legit.
I am not exactly a Bant expert so to speak but how was the manabase? I have notice you only play with 21 lands with maze of ith. I think it would be better to play at least 22 or 23 lands if your including maze in the main since it doesn't add mana not even colorless. Which I find to be significant actually considering on how mana hungry you are with Jaces, Knights and green sun zeniths. Overall though I like the general idea of your deck since your trying to maintain control of the board and also gum it up with Jaces, knights, green sun's and stoneforge mystics.
with 22 lands including maze and a dryad arbor, i don't really have too much of a problem with lands. I switched my deck up for 4 brainstorms and 2 ponders. The digging helps get the lands if i need it.
This whole SCG tournament this sunday, I only got mana screwed once, which I believed to be impossible since I went second with a brainstorm.
If I could do things over again, I'd change the sideboard. I was underwhelmed with Meddling Mage and Surgical Extraction. With all of the Delvers running around, I was never unhappy to see a Path to Exile, especially considering that most decks running him don't pack any basics. Scavenging Ooze was amazing. Could probably cut down on the Spell Pierces. The main deck was pretty solid - I would probably tweak a few things, perhaps trading a Cliques/Dazes for Stifles/Goyfs. Daze didn't do anything for me.
I too found daze to be useless. It was always a dead card in my hand. I can imagine how you felt running only 2 dazes.
I'm going to cut my dazes for 1 sfm, 1 geist, 1 ponder. Then drop the sylvan library for another ponder. That should get me to 17 blue cards and up my creature count
Bloodghast can be play from our hand and Tombstalker will work really nice, Vengeful Pharaoh still work, the only creature that is very injury is Nether Spirit, but with ratchet bomb in sideboard we can remove that easily in 2 turn's.
It's possible use Grafdigger's cage to control some decks and with the new Sorin will work very fine.
And Snapcaster Mage will be so useless:D
Only a bad reanimator/dredge player will think this card will completely destroy their decks.
Green Sun Zenith (decks using GSZ would LOVE that you board in 4 of these in game 2)
Reanimator (Reanimator has faced leyline decks, a gy hate card far more troubling than this new card. If they know how to deal with it, why would they not be able to deal with this one, where a card still leaves the gy intact).
Natural Order (these are green sun zenith decks)
Past in Flames Based storm (i'm sure the storm play would LOVE that you bring in gy hate cards to stop their storm combo)
Snapcaster Mage antics. (its not as bad as it sounds)
Dryad Arbor off a Knight of the Reliquary (again, a green sun zenith deck. I'm not sure i've seen ANYONE search a dryad arbor with a knight. That might be the worst play ever).
This card does not stop loam decks. So now, when you make a sideboard, you must account for loam decks AND gy decks...thats almost 7-8 cards. Thats not happening.
For the UB Reanimator players, how do you guys feel about Grafdigger's Cage? Do you think it will knock you(I really mean us because I want to build the deck) out of being a top deck, or do you have enough of a SB to make up for it's print and stay on top?
Read the reanimator thread. No one in their right mind is scared of this card. If reanimator can take care of leyline of the void, which is arguably better, this card can certainly be taken care of.
except that spellbomb is still a one-use artifact. You can play around it, not overcommitting to your grave until you force them to pop it. If you're running into this, with a GY-based deck you need artifact removal or you're just done. There's no strategy to playing around it, it's just a lock that requires a key.
EDIT: on top of that, the fact that it also hoses lots of other cards like GSZ and the new recurring ability means it's be a 4-of in just about every competitive sideboard. So mid-tier decks that might have had a chance, like BV, will be crushed because this card generically hoses other more popular decks. awesome.
I would love people playing this card against maverick. Let them waste 4 card slots to stop my 3 green sun's zenith.
On another note, this card really isn't that good. sure you cant flash back with ancient grudge, but you also have your graveyard full of cards when anti hate cards come in.
Also, this card does nothing against loam decks. So what are peoeple going to do? Bring in 7 cards to fight loam decks AND graveyard based decks. Give me a break. No one will do that
Geist will soon surpass lilliana and snapcaster.
Geist will soon be 30 bucks. Get them while you can.
The two I played were delvers, snapcasters, and stoneforge mystics.
We throw enough threats with this deck that they cann't do anything against it. Its a rather easier matchup in my opinion.
UW stoneblade is certainly not a bad matchup. Your geist will be the game breaker.
Typically, they won't play geist because it will thin out their deck. If they do, they will be running less jaces or counters.
IF you use geist, you MUST use the stoneforge package build. Otherwise he is useless. And by package, I do not mean batterskull and jitte.
Anyways he won me games against UW stoneblade. He is legit.
with 22 lands including maze and a dryad arbor, i don't really have too much of a problem with lands. I switched my deck up for 4 brainstorms and 2 ponders. The digging helps get the lands if i need it.
This whole SCG tournament this sunday, I only got mana screwed once, which I believed to be impossible since I went second with a brainstorm.
I too found daze to be useless. It was always a dead card in my hand. I can imagine how you felt running only 2 dazes.
I'm going to cut my dazes for 1 sfm, 1 geist, 1 ponder. Then drop the sylvan library for another ponder. That should get me to 17 blue cards and up my creature count
The meddling mage has to go though.
Only a bad reanimator/dredge player will think this card will completely destroy their decks.
Green Sun Zenith (decks using GSZ would LOVE that you board in 4 of these in game 2)
Reanimator (Reanimator has faced leyline decks, a gy hate card far more troubling than this new card. If they know how to deal with it, why would they not be able to deal with this one, where a card still leaves the gy intact).
Natural Order (these are green sun zenith decks)
Past in Flames Based storm (i'm sure the storm play would LOVE that you bring in gy hate cards to stop their storm combo)
Snapcaster Mage antics. (its not as bad as it sounds)
Dryad Arbor off a Knight of the Reliquary (again, a green sun zenith deck. I'm not sure i've seen ANYONE search a dryad arbor with a knight. That might be the worst play ever).
This card does not stop loam decks. So now, when you make a sideboard, you must account for loam decks AND gy decks...thats almost 7-8 cards. Thats not happening.
Read the reanimator thread. No one in their right mind is scared of this card. If reanimator can take care of leyline of the void, which is arguably better, this card can certainly be taken care of.
I would love people playing this card against maverick. Let them waste 4 card slots to stop my 3 green sun's zenith.
On another note, this card really isn't that good. sure you cant flash back with ancient grudge, but you also have your graveyard full of cards when anti hate cards come in.
Also, this card does nothing against loam decks. So what are peoeple going to do? Bring in 7 cards to fight loam decks AND graveyard based decks. Give me a break. No one will do that
I mean sure it hoses creatures and spells in the graveyard, but what about the loam decks?
I'm certain people will not use 7-8 cards (4 of these new ones and 3 gy hate in faeries) to fight against loam, reanimator, and dredge.