Magic: The Blathering #3: Jumping on the Bant-Wagon.
by Andy Clarke
Note: This blog was written before the release of Kaladesh and refers to the release as a future event. Although published post-release of Kaladesh, this article is about a pre-Kaladesh process so the decision was made not to go through and edit accordingly.
Those of you who are regular Magic players will no doubt be familiar with the term "Bant Company" and are familiar with it's origins and meaning. If so you can probably skip the first half of this blog, in which I'll explain for those who aren't familiar.
Each of these planes introduces a new concept to the game in the form of theme based mechanics. Theros had mechanical themes such as "Devotion" and "Tribute" with god like beings with striking resemblences to the gods of ancient Greece.
With the release of each new set, collections of short stories are published through the Wizards of the Coast website, available to download for free for your Kindle or iPad. These novellas tell you the story and lore behind the cards of that set and give you a background to the creatures and characters you're seeing in the cards. These can even influence your deck building choices, I have on at least one occasion said "well yes those cards would work well together, but putting them together would be totally contradictory to the narrative!"
Occassionally something will occur in a set of Magic either from the cards or its storyline that sticks and becomes shorthand within the game. Certain types of card or mechanics are occassionally referred to by the name of the first card that had that ability. But one thing that is prevalent is the terms that became shorthand for the many possible colour combinations.
For example, the plane of Ravnica; a sprawling civilised metropilis of a world is run by ten Guilds.
(The original Ravnica set was before my time as a Magic player, although I did start playing during the second Ravnica based set "Return to Ravnica," a set I still have great fondness for. My knowledge of the story behind Ravnica is rusty, but theres a guildpact and a maze underground or something like that, but anyhoo...)
In the game, each of these guilds was represented by a combination of two of the five colours that MTG consists of. For example the Izzet guild (a personal favourite) was represented by red and blue, green and white was Selesnya (also a favourite), red & green was the Gruul Clan etc etc.
Although these guilds only existed within the plane of Ravnica, the guild names became a short hand for any two colour combination. So when asked what kind of deck you're playing, rather than being all boring and simply saying red & white you'd say "Boros."
As with the Ravnica guilds there were sets that featured three colour combinations, most recently being the Khans of Tarkir set, a set based in no small parton the ancient Mongol tribes. With Khans came the names of five tribes which bacame the short hand for five different three colour combinations, the most prevelant would probably be Abzan which consisted of white, green and black.
Before Khans, there was a set called Shards of Alara. Now this set was definitely before my time as a Magic player but from what I have gleaned from some Wiki reading is that Alara was a plane that ended up being destroyed by a Planeswalker who's power got out of control (or something along those lines.) The plane was broken up into five shards, hence the name of the set. The five shards were named Esper, Jund, Grixis, Naya and Bant. As with the tribes of Tarkir, each shard was represented by a three colour combination; and just like the guilds of Ravnica and the tribes of Tarkir, their names also became shorthand for when those three colours were played together in a deck.
The first of the shard based names I came across was Jund, but lately Bant has become the most consistently used, with the earlier mentioned Bant-Company deck seeing a considerable amount of play in pro circles.
So that's the origin of the word Bant, now what's the "Company" bit all about?
It's all about the card Collected Company, also known as "Co-Co" for short.
When I first saw this card I didn't think much of it and I think it was the same for many players. But with the release of cards such as Reflector Mage, Sylvan Advocate and Tireless Tracker, it became a power house of a card. Reflector Mage is a ridiculously good card regardless, but the possibility to cast two of them for just the 4 mana it costs to cast Co-Co is just unreal, and also could be done out of turn. For me that is the ultimate combo and is the reason Bant-Company has become such a popular deck.
Because of the popularity of Bant-Company and how it has dominated the pro scene, many Magic players have either sung its praises or been critical of its saturation within high level play.
I'm a player who isn't fond of the approach of emulating others and, for want of a better word, copying the decks of successful players. Especially outside of high level competition. For me part of the whole fun of Magic is being creative and trying to come up with my own deck designs. It's why I am a huge fan of Patrick Chapin who is known as "The Innovator," and for good reason. Winning with a deck you put together yourself is incredibly satisfying.
At the same time I understand the reasoning behind emulating the most successful players. If you want to go pro you want to go into battle with the best weaponry you can. Plus it is rare that a deck will be copied card for card, many players will take a predesigned deck and try to improve on it or customise it toward their preferred style of play.
I suppose it's all down to what it is you want to get from the game and neither approach is wrong. Plus you can play with the best deck archetype there is, but if you don't have the knowledge and the psychology to play it well, what deck you have is meaningless.
With the release of the new set Kaladesh, we will see the sets Dragons of Tarkir and Origins "rotate" out of Magic's Standard format, meaning Collected Company will no longer be playable in standard decks, signalling the end of Bant-Company's reign. Many believe this will be also be the end of the popularity for Bant in general. However there is a large contingency, including myself, that believe that Bant is still a viable option.
As my Magic playing is getting a little more serious and with there being a Standard Format PPTQ (Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier) on the horizon, I realised I needed to step up my game deck wise. Now that Bant-Company will be a thing of the past I see this as the perfect time to jump on the Bant-Wagon myself and build my own post Co-Co Bant deck. It has been said that the best approach to a field dominated by a single archetype is to play the wild card and go with something no one is playing. Although that won't necessarily be the case, it's likely many will no longer see Bant as the option it was when Co-Co was playable.
As many of the key cards that formed the Bant-Co deck are still Standard Legal post rotation I see an opportunity to put my own spin on this popular archetype. My decision has been to go with a Bant Humans deck, and wanting to stick to my own creativity I have barred myself from looking at any pre existing Bant Humans decks. The only outside influence I will be allowing is the knowledge I already possess of Bant-Co decks and the one article/decklist I read of a pre-rotation Bant Humans deck.
Here I'm going to go through my thought process around the design of my deck.
Sticking to a single creature type is known as "Tribal" for obvious reasons. It is a common occurrence in MTG for cards of the same creature type to all compliment each other well. So humans have a lot of synergy with other humans. Other than humans, Goblins are probably the other Tribal variant that works incredibly well.
So of course in a deck of humans, the first creature that I would build around is obviously, an Angel: Sigarda, Heron's Grace.
Okay, it's not a human, but just look how it works with humans. As long as this beautiful winged lady is in play, my humans are practically untouchable: not only that, so am I as a player. Meaning, in a world where there currently exists the BS Emrakul card, its ability to take control of me during my next turn is blocked as I am hexproof and cannot be the target of opponents' spells! Woohoo!
Not that Sigarda herself can't be removed, but my opponent has to waste cards to do that before they can use any burn or removal against me or my army of humans. Plus, as I'll be running three copies of Sigarda, it (hopefully) won't be long before I get her back out again. Using Vessel of Nascency and Grapple with the Past to throw cards into my graveyard I can have a ready supply of cards for Sigarda to exile in exchange for soldiers.
So I'm going to make a confession. I actually stole the inspiration for this deck from my friend Phill. We spent an afternoon cracking open some leftover pre release boxes from Shadows Over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon and had our own little two man sealed competition. Not only did he get a Sigarda in his Shadows box, he also pulled one from his Eldritch box. Git! He did so well with it he went away with the plan to build a humans deck. Knowing this I traded him some cards that I knew would work well, only for a day or so later to decide to steal the idea and wish I'd kept hold of those cards. Ah well, that's what eBay is for.
Both our original ideas were for our decks to be green/white (Selesnya - well remembered.) However it occurred to me, as well as being one of the best cards around, Reflector Mage is also a human. It was with this light bulb moment that I decided to add blue to my humans deck and go Bant.
It was a given that I would include the two key human cards that featured in Bant Company, being the aforementioned Reflector Mage and Tireless tracker.
The Tireless Tracker will probably be my main aggressor with its ability to become huge with the sacrificing of Clues. Helping me on the clue front I've thrown in Thraben Inspector and Ulvenwald Mysteries, plus I've also added Daring Sleuth which also benefits from the sacrifice of Clues.
Along with Sigarda, Heron's Grace these are the cards that form the foundation of this deck. At the moment I am only running two copies of Tireless Tracker, purely as I only possess two copies, and I prefer to only go single shopping on eBay if it is entirely necessary. If the deck works well with just two I'll stick with it, otherwise I will try and source a third.
Two other key human cards will be Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Heron's Grace Champion.
Thalia is a great card against haste creatures and nullifies possible blockers by forcing your oppenent's creatures to enter tapped.
The Champion is a great surprise creature with its flash ability allowing you to play it out of turn. Meaning you can throw it in as an unexpected blocker in an "It's a trap" style play. Or you can use it to pump your already attacking creatures mid combat, post declaration of blockers and pre combat damage.
There will be other humans which I could go on about at length but these are the key cards that make up the majority of the creature base.
When it comes to the none creature cards, the sorceries, instants and enchantments, other than the previously mentioned Vessel of Nascency and Grapple with the Past, the main cards will be Essence Flux and Invocation of Saint Traft.
Although I wouldn't see the full benefit of Essence Flux as I'm not running any spirits, combining it with Reflector Mage is a great pairing. Reflector Mage is great as when it enters play I get to bounce a creature back to my opponent's hand which he or she can't play again for a whole turn. Essence Flux allows me to repeat this by removing the Reflector Mage from play and have it re-enter the battlefield, triggering its bounce effect once more.
Invocation of Saint Traft is brilliant simply as it turns one attacking creature into two. I have won so many matches with this card, attacking with creatures that in themselves were a considerable threat but are now also partnered with a 4/4 flyer.
I think the jist of the deck is to overwhelm opponents with considerable numbers whilst making it difficult for them to form a defence by bouncing their cards back to hand and controlling their plays. I've not thought too much about a sideboard but I've made the decision not to main deck any counter spells and keep cards such as Negate and Convolute as sideboard options for when the situation calls for them.
Below is my first draft deck list which I have now test played on Magic Online to great success. I'm sure, however, that there will definitely be adjustments and improvements to be made. Plus, with Kaladesh released this weekend, there will be new options available, with the card Cloudblazer already grabbing my attention.
Creatures
3 x Sigarda, Heron's Grace
3 x Heron's Grace Champion
3 x Reflector Mage
3 x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
3 x Thraben Inspector
2 x Tireless Tracker
2 x Thalia's Lieutenant
2 x Veteran Cathar
2 x Duskwatch Recruiter
2 x Daring Sleuth
Planeswalkers
1 x Tamiyo, Field Researcher
Spells
2 x Vessel of Nascency
2 x Grapple with the Past
2 x Essence Flux
2 x Invocation of Saint Traft
2 x Ulvenwald Mysteries
Land
4 x Evolving Wilds
2 x Port Town
2 x Woodland Stream
5 x Island
5 x Forest
6 x Plains
Note: This blog was written before the release of Kaladesh and refers to the release as a future event. Although published post-release of Kaladesh, this article is about a pre-Kaladesh process so the decision was made not to go through and edit accordingly.
Those of you who are regular Magic players will no doubt be familiar with the term "Bant Company" and are familiar with it's origins and meaning. If so you can probably skip the first half of this blog, in which I'll explain for those who aren't familiar.
Time for some Bant-er
Magic is more than a just a game and is full of narrative and lore. The game is set in the "Multiverse" which consists of a mutitude of worlds known as planes. As a player you are a Planeswalker, travelling between these worlds. Each set of Magic cards is set against the backdrop of one of these planes, each one with their own themes and styles, from the gothic horror inspired Innistrad to the plane of Theros, a world based heavily on ancient greek mythology.Each of these planes introduces a new concept to the game in the form of theme based mechanics. Theros had mechanical themes such as "Devotion" and "Tribute" with god like beings with striking resemblences to the gods of ancient Greece.
With the release of each new set, collections of short stories are published through the Wizards of the Coast website, available to download for free for your Kindle or iPad. These novellas tell you the story and lore behind the cards of that set and give you a background to the creatures and characters you're seeing in the cards. These can even influence your deck building choices, I have on at least one occasion said "well yes those cards would work well together, but putting them together would be totally contradictory to the narrative!"
Occassionally something will occur in a set of Magic either from the cards or its storyline that sticks and becomes shorthand within the game. Certain types of card or mechanics are occassionally referred to by the name of the first card that had that ability. But one thing that is prevalent is the terms that became shorthand for the many possible colour combinations.
For example, the plane of Ravnica; a sprawling civilised metropilis of a world is run by ten Guilds.
(The original Ravnica set was before my time as a Magic player, although I did start playing during the second Ravnica based set "Return to Ravnica," a set I still have great fondness for. My knowledge of the story behind Ravnica is rusty, but theres a guildpact and a maze underground or something like that, but anyhoo...)
In the game, each of these guilds was represented by a combination of two of the five colours that MTG consists of. For example the Izzet guild (a personal favourite) was represented by red and blue, green and white was Selesnya (also a favourite), red & green was the Gruul Clan etc etc.
Although these guilds only existed within the plane of Ravnica, the guild names became a short hand for any two colour combination. So when asked what kind of deck you're playing, rather than being all boring and simply saying red & white you'd say "Boros."
As with the Ravnica guilds there were sets that featured three colour combinations, most recently being the Khans of Tarkir set, a set based in no small parton the ancient Mongol tribes. With Khans came the names of five tribes which bacame the short hand for five different three colour combinations, the most prevelant would probably be Abzan which consisted of white, green and black.
Before Khans, there was a set called Shards of Alara. Now this set was definitely before my time as a Magic player but from what I have gleaned from some Wiki reading is that Alara was a plane that ended up being destroyed by a Planeswalker who's power got out of control (or something along those lines.) The plane was broken up into five shards, hence the name of the set. The five shards were named Esper, Jund, Grixis, Naya and Bant. As with the tribes of Tarkir, each shard was represented by a three colour combination; and just like the guilds of Ravnica and the tribes of Tarkir, their names also became shorthand for when those three colours were played together in a deck.
 |
| Alara in Chaos |
The first of the shard based names I came across was Jund, but lately Bant has become the most consistently used, with the earlier mentioned Bant-Company deck seeing a considerable amount of play in pro circles.
Keep good company
So that's the origin of the word Bant, now what's the "Company" bit all about?
It's all about the card Collected Company, also known as "Co-Co" for short.
When I first saw this card I didn't think much of it and I think it was the same for many players. But with the release of cards such as Reflector Mage, Sylvan Advocate and Tireless Tracker, it became a power house of a card. Reflector Mage is a ridiculously good card regardless, but the possibility to cast two of them for just the 4 mana it costs to cast Co-Co is just unreal, and also could be done out of turn. For me that is the ultimate combo and is the reason Bant-Company has become such a popular deck.
Following the crowd
Because of the popularity of Bant-Company and how it has dominated the pro scene, many Magic players have either sung its praises or been critical of its saturation within high level play.
I'm a player who isn't fond of the approach of emulating others and, for want of a better word, copying the decks of successful players. Especially outside of high level competition. For me part of the whole fun of Magic is being creative and trying to come up with my own deck designs. It's why I am a huge fan of Patrick Chapin who is known as "The Innovator," and for good reason. Winning with a deck you put together yourself is incredibly satisfying.
 | |
| Patrick Chapin |
I suppose it's all down to what it is you want to get from the game and neither approach is wrong. Plus you can play with the best deck archetype there is, but if you don't have the knowledge and the psychology to play it well, what deck you have is meaningless.
Parting Company
With the release of the new set Kaladesh, we will see the sets Dragons of Tarkir and Origins "rotate" out of Magic's Standard format, meaning Collected Company will no longer be playable in standard decks, signalling the end of Bant-Company's reign. Many believe this will be also be the end of the popularity for Bant in general. However there is a large contingency, including myself, that believe that Bant is still a viable option.
As my Magic playing is getting a little more serious and with there being a Standard Format PPTQ (Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier) on the horizon, I realised I needed to step up my game deck wise. Now that Bant-Company will be a thing of the past I see this as the perfect time to jump on the Bant-Wagon myself and build my own post Co-Co Bant deck. It has been said that the best approach to a field dominated by a single archetype is to play the wild card and go with something no one is playing. Although that won't necessarily be the case, it's likely many will no longer see Bant as the option it was when Co-Co was playable.
As many of the key cards that formed the Bant-Co deck are still Standard Legal post rotation I see an opportunity to put my own spin on this popular archetype. My decision has been to go with a Bant Humans deck, and wanting to stick to my own creativity I have barred myself from looking at any pre existing Bant Humans decks. The only outside influence I will be allowing is the knowledge I already possess of Bant-Co decks and the one article/decklist I read of a pre-rotation Bant Humans deck.
Here I'm going to go through my thought process around the design of my deck.
Humans
Sticking to a single creature type is known as "Tribal" for obvious reasons. It is a common occurrence in MTG for cards of the same creature type to all compliment each other well. So humans have a lot of synergy with other humans. Other than humans, Goblins are probably the other Tribal variant that works incredibly well.
So of course in a deck of humans, the first creature that I would build around is obviously, an Angel: Sigarda, Heron's Grace.
 |
| Look at this big tentacley b*****d! |
Both our original ideas were for our decks to be green/white (Selesnya - well remembered.) However it occurred to me, as well as being one of the best cards around, Reflector Mage is also a human. It was with this light bulb moment that I decided to add blue to my humans deck and go Bant.
It was a given that I would include the two key human cards that featured in Bant Company, being the aforementioned Reflector Mage and Tireless tracker.
Two other key human cards will be Thalia, Heretic Cathar and Heron's Grace Champion.
The Champion is a great surprise creature with its flash ability allowing you to play it out of turn. Meaning you can throw it in as an unexpected blocker in an "It's a trap" style play. Or you can use it to pump your already attacking creatures mid combat, post declaration of blockers and pre combat damage.
There will be other humans which I could go on about at length but these are the key cards that make up the majority of the creature base.
When it comes to the none creature cards, the sorceries, instants and enchantments, other than the previously mentioned Vessel of Nascency and Grapple with the Past, the main cards will be Essence Flux and Invocation of Saint Traft.
Invocation of Saint Traft is brilliant simply as it turns one attacking creature into two. I have won so many matches with this card, attacking with creatures that in themselves were a considerable threat but are now also partnered with a 4/4 flyer.
I think the jist of the deck is to overwhelm opponents with considerable numbers whilst making it difficult for them to form a defence by bouncing their cards back to hand and controlling their plays. I've not thought too much about a sideboard but I've made the decision not to main deck any counter spells and keep cards such as Negate and Convolute as sideboard options for when the situation calls for them.
Andy C's Bant Humans
Creatures
3 x Sigarda, Heron's Grace
3 x Heron's Grace Champion
3 x Reflector Mage
3 x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
3 x Thraben Inspector
2 x Tireless Tracker
2 x Thalia's Lieutenant
2 x Veteran Cathar
2 x Duskwatch Recruiter
2 x Daring Sleuth
Planeswalkers
1 x Tamiyo, Field Researcher
Spells
2 x Vessel of Nascency
2 x Grapple with the Past
2 x Essence Flux
2 x Invocation of Saint Traft
2 x Ulvenwald Mysteries
Land
4 x Evolving Wilds
2 x Port Town
2 x Woodland Stream
5 x Island
5 x Forest
6 x Plains
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