Posts Tagged ‘Decks’

Following up on our previous Focus on Legacy columns Constructing Bant Survival and Playing Bant Survival, we can now look at some alternative sideboarding strategies with the deck. This can provide opportunities to shore up weak matchups, throw an opponent off guard, and take the deck in a new direction with different and unexpected lines of play for your opponent to account for on the fly during a tournament match.

In the previous articles I presented a version that is uncommitted to punishing against any one strategy and seemingly trying to guard against a very broad field. Spellstutter Sprite is a card that people will either love or hate depending on what they face, but as an experiment let’s drop the 2 Spellstutter Sprite from the main and replace them with the third Rhox War Monk and 1 Sensei’s Divining Top. While very mana intensive, Sensei’s Divining Top is one of the best cards in Legacy, and could potentially work very well with 8 fetchlands, 4 Survivals, and all of your other cantrips. With Top and all of your shuffle and manipulation effects you can see tons of different cards and really dig through your deck in no time, helping to find Survival or that key counter or removal spell. That would bring us to this list.
Bant Survival 20101Q 1.1, by Jaco 02-011-2010
Business (41)
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Rhox War Monk
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Trygon Predator
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Mana Sources (19)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
1 Tundra
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island

If we dropped the Spellstutters and added Rhox War Monk, this would theoretically give us a little bit better game against aggro decks, while slightly weakening our combo matchup. So what about changing the sideboard in accordance with this, and to potentially give us better game against other decks as well? Check out this sample sideboard:
Sideboard B (15)
3 Counterbalance
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
2 Path to Exile
2 Krosan Grip
1 Meddling Mage
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Relic of Progenitus

While I and many others don’t necessarily like diluting the power and focus of a Survival deck with the CounterTop package, it has a few interesting uses. First of all, it can really help to hammer the combo matchup, and can also aid against things like Loam decks, Burn, Threshold, Zoo, etc. With this sideboard you still have access to extra removal in the form of Path to Exile, as well as graveyard hate in Relic of Progenitus. You could also drop the fourth Counterbalance for another Meddling Mage, Path, or whatever else you’d find handy.

I won’t go as in depth as the previous article talking about matchups, but here’s a brief look at potential sideboard use with this version:
Sideboarding Against Merfolk
+2 Path to Exile
+2 Krosan Grip
+1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
-2 Ponder
-1 Sensei’s Divining Top
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Noble Hierarch

Sideboarding Against Ad Nauseam Tendrils
+3 Counterbalance
+2 Sensei’s Divining Top
+1 Meddling Mage
-1 Trygon Predator
-2 Qasali Pridemage
-3 Noble Hierarch

Sideboarding Against Dream Halls
+3 Counterbalance
+2 Sensei’s Divining Top
+1 Meddling Mage
+2 Krosan Grip
+1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
-4 Tarmogoyf
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Rhox War Monk (or Ponder)

Sideboarding Against Naya Zoo
+3 Counterbalance
+2 Sensei’s Divining Top
+2 Path to Exile
+1 Loxodon Hierarch
-4 Force of Will
-1 Trygon Predator
-1 Noble Hierarch
-2 Ponder

Sideboarding Against Goblins
+2 Path to Exile
-1 Trygon Predator
-1 Sensei’s Divining Top

Sideboarding Against CounterTop
Totally dependent on what else is in their deck besides CounterTop, but your own CounterTop is pretty good here.

Sideboarding Against Canadian/Tempo Threshold
+3 Counterbalance
+2 Sensei’s Divining Top
-2 Ponder
-1 Trygon Predator
-2 Qasali Pridemage

Sideboarding Against Dredge
+2 Path to Exile
+3 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Meddling Mage
+1 Loxodon Hierarch
+1 Sensei’s Divining Top
-3 Spell Snare
-4 Noble Hierarch
-1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner

Sideboarding Against Lands.dec
+3 Counterbalance
+2 Sensei’s Divining Top
+3 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Meddling Mage
-2 Rhox War Monk or Tarmogoyf (depending on number of Blue cards you want for Force)
-1 Eternal Witness
-3 Spell Snare
-1 Swords to Plowshares
-2 Ponder

As you can see, your lines of play and defense will be slightly different in a number of matches. Counterbalance has value in about half of these matches, and in a few matches it will really shine. Its inclusion is definitely debatable, but it may have merit depending on your tournament scene.

The Natural Order + Progenitus Package
Another interesting sideboard (and possibly main deck) option is the Natural Order package, which allows you to cheat Progenitus into play. The usefulness or necessity of this is questionable when you have the Iona package, but it provides another angle of attack that your opponent has to take into consideration. Like Tinker in Vintage, Natural Order can be a fantastic topdeck or can be a card you actively search out with your Brainstorms and Ponders to serve as a trump card or provide a quick win, rather than struggling in a protracted battle of resources.

So what matchups does the Natural Order package actually improve? Well, that’s tough to answer, because getting Progenitus into play doesn’t guarantee you a win. What it does do though is put your opponent on a two turn clock, meaning they have to find an answer immediately or the game will be over, provided they don’t have lethal damage on board or have enough burn in hand to finish you off in conjunction with their existing attackers. This can be very daunting for the opponent to always have to simply worry about the threat of Natural Order into Progenitus once you’ve hit four mana, so the fear of this can also possibly lead to a change in how your opponent plays the game against you, what he counters, what he uses removal spells on, and more. A two turn clock can be very relevant against nearly every deck in the format, but it is not without problem. For one thing, you can often be stuck with a dead card in hand (either Natural Order if you are short on mana, or if your singleton Progenitus also winds up in your hand), although this risk can be mitigated by the ability of Brainstorm to shuffle away dead cards. If you are playing against a deck with a lot of counterspells it will be difficult to get Natural Order to resolve, and the loss of a creature and card in hand if it gets countered can really set you back.

The next logical question related to Natural Order is if it is good enough to play in the sideboard, is it or is it not also good enough to play in the main deck? I cannot answer that for you, but if you play in a field with a lot of aggro decks and little in the way of Blue decks or CounterTop variants the Natural Order package can be very effective at speeding the game up if you don’t have Survival of the Fittest. In a way it’s almost like a 5th, 6th, and 7th copy of Survival, because if either one resolves and you’re not facing lethal damage on the board you’re most likely going to win the game in short order. One advantage of not playing this in the main deck is that you can sideboard it in as a surprise to overwhelm an unsuspecting opponent, meaning their other potential hate cards (likely graveyard or enchantment hate) would be rendered useless. I can definitely see the reason that Natural Order Bant decks have become increasing popular and successful, so this is certainly worth testing and investigating further if you think it would be good in your area as a tweak to the Survival style Bant deck.

Generic Sideboard Cards vs. Narrow Sideboard Cards
When constructing a deck and sideboard, there seems to be a couple of different schools of thought which I’ll try to briefly outline here. One school of thought would entail constructing your sideboard with cards that might not be quite as potent, but have more general application against a larger pool of decks. Cards like Pithing Needle, Ghostly Prison/Propaganda, Meddling Mage, and Relic of Progenitus are pretty good examples of this. They can each answer different strategies effectively, even though their might be a more powerful but narrow card which would be sided in less frequently.

The other school of thought eschews having more generic answers for trying to isolate perhaps the most difficult matchups and give you stronger game against those decks you’re convinced you need major help against. The reasoning behind this is often that your main deck should be good enough to beat deck X and Y (or perhaps the players you consider to be easy), so you will devote specific cards to those matchups you know you’ll have to beat in the Top 8, or against those couple of really good local players who you want to have that ace up your sleeve for. Examples of this would be the use of Engineered Plague (at the height of Goblins’ popularity) and Mindbreak Trap (against Storm combo).

One card that has escaped serious discussion in Bant Survival sideboards could potentially fall into either of the aforementioned groups of sideboard cards above, and that card is Back to Basics. Many decks in Legacy run anywhere from 0 to 3 basic lands maximum, and Back to Basics can be crippling against these decks (a number of which are often difficult matches for Bant Survival). Decks like Canadian Threshold, Lands.dec, Mono White Stax (and WG Stax), Dredge, and many others usually run 0 to 2 basic lands maximum. Back to Basics has the potential to really turn the tide and shut down an opponent in a close game, especially if the opponent does not see it coming. For example, in game 1 if you play a couple of basic lands and a couple of dual lands, your opponent will likely never expect non-basic hate coming in. In games 2 and 3 you have the potential to fetch up to 5 basic lands and potentially ruin your opponent if you land a Back to Basics from turn 3 onwards after they have tapped out to play something important on their turn. If all of their lands are single usage only, Back to Basics has the opportunity to swing these matches far in your favor against an unprepared opponent.

Building the Unexpected
In a recent interview with legendary Magic player Kai Budde, who many consider to be the best player or constructed player of all time, I read a very interesting theory of Kai’s that I agree with. When asked for advice about succeeding in constructed Magic tournaments, Kai responded “The best strategy is to know what the others are going to play and come with something that nobody else expects.”

In terms of Magic theory this is relatively profound and often true. When people are accustomed to playing against commonly played decks they are able to predict what will come next, what your lines of play are, what your (and their) potential outs are, and so on. When you play unorthodox choices you take this advantage away from your opponent. That doesn’t mean you should play sub-optimal cards, but introducing uncertainty and uneasiness to your opponent in the middle of a potentially tense match just might gain you the edge you need to be victorious.

Cards like Counterbalance, Natural Order, and Back to Basics are a few examples of unexpected yet potentially very potent sideboarding strategies that you can use in your bag of tricks from tournament to tournament. Whether you choose to play more generic answers in your sideboard or to get creative and run with the innovative and unexpected, keep these options in mind when you build your next sideboard. If you play in an area with regular tournaments keeping a fresh or rotating approach to dealing with your opponents can give you an advantage and can lead to more wins, especially in corner cases.

In the previous Focus on Legacy column we analyzed the common choices for constructing Bant Survival. This companion article will hopefully shed some light on playing against some of the common matchups you might find to expect in your upcoming Legacy tournaments, whether it’s a smaller weekly tournament or a massive tournament like GP Madrid.

Here’s the decklist I presented as a suggested starting point for your adventures with Bant Survival.
Bant Survival 20101Q 1.0, by Jaco 02-01-2010
Business (41)
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Rhox War Monk
2 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Trygon Predator
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Mana Sources (19)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
1 Tundra
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island

Sideboard A (15)
3 Spell Pierce
2 Path to Exile
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Meddling Mage
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Loxodon Hierarch

As mentioned in the previous article, this is built for a mixed metagame where I’d expect to face a range of aggro, control, combo, and other random decks that always show up at Legacy events. The deck and sideboard should obviously be tweaked for what you expect to play against and expect to have trouble against. So for example if you think Naya Zoo and aggro will be heavily represented and you won’t be running into much Counterbalance, you could easily drop a Qasali Pridemage or Trygon Predator and ramp up the number of Rhox War Monks. Or if you think you’ll be playing against a lot of Storm combo it might make sense to leverage the number of Spellstutter Sprites or Meddling Mages to combat that.

So how exactly do you play this beast? Bant Survival has a number of methods to attack the opponent. It can play the aggro-control game by beating down with a (hopefully Exalted) Tarmogoyf or Rhox War Monk, and counter and/or Swords the opponent’s relevant threats. If it lands a Survival of the Fittest it can play the long game and just overwhelm the opponent with good creatures and an avalanche of card advantage created by Survival and Squee, or it can try to go the combo route by powering out the unfair Loyal Retainers + Iona, Shield of Emeria couplet to lock the opponent out. The addition of Loyal Retainers to the deck has really pushed the Bant Survival archetype into overdrive, and has also pushed the card Loyal Retainers into the $75-125 bracket, unfortunately. If you are unable or unwilling to obtain Loyal Retainers, you could also drop Retainers + Iona from the deck and load up on things that might be good in your metagame, such as more War Monks, Pridemages, Spellstutter Sprites, or other useful things like main deck Meddling Mage or Rafiq of the Many.

Playing Against Merfolk
Mono-Blue Merfolk is a relatively cheap and effective deck to build in Legacy, and for this reason it is one of the more commonly played decks. It has a tough time against Naya Zoo, but excels against Blue-based aggro control (such as Threshold and CounterTop variants), and also has decent game against combo. Bant Survival is kind of a Blue-based aggro control deck, but the flexibility outlined above is what gives it game against so many decks. It can be flexible in how it attacks or defends against the opponent’s strategy, and against Merfolk this is no different.

Depending on the build of Merfolk you run into, you will definitely see Force of Will and Daze, and could also see Stifle, Umezawa’s Jitte, and even Back to Basics. Getting a threat Force of Will’ed really isn’t that big of a deal, because you have a good number of threats and also have Force of Wills of your own if you really wanted to punch something through. I would always recommend taking your time if possible to play around Daze, because you’d rather slow play your threats to make sure they resolve rather than recklessly try to curve out as fast as possible. Umezawa’s Jitte is probably the best threat Merfolk has against you, so this should be one of the things that your Spell Snares and Qasali Pridemages are saved for, because an active Jitte can effectively render your creatures all but irrelevant. The second thing you really need to watch out for is Lord of Atlantis, because it provides all of their creatures Islandwalk. You will either want to keep Islands off the board on your side, or more realistically do everything you can to keep Lord of Atlantis off the board on your opponent’s side (Spell Snare, Path to Exile, etc.). All of their other Lords (+1/+1 creatures) are decent, but this is the one you really care about because it creates the ability for them to easily alpha-strike you to end the game in a single turn if the ground seems stalled with creatures.

When sideboarding against Merfolk with my list above, I’d lean towards the following:
+2 Path to Exile
+1 Krosan Grip
+1 Rhox War Monk
-2 Spellstutter Sprite
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Noble Hierarch

Spellstutter Sprite won’t counter much against Merfolk and is smaller than all of their guys. Rhox War Monk is actually pretty good because of the lifelink to buffer against their attacks, and the fact that he’s generally bigger than their guys unless they’ve got a couple of Lords out. Having a total of 6 Swords and Paths will go a long way to keeping their board relatively clean, and Krosan Grip can aid your Pridemages to help out against AEther Vial, Back to Basics, and most importantly Umezawa’s Jitte. While I don’t like siding out Noble Hierarch in general, it’s the weakest remaining card in the deck against Merfolk. I realize that some people would argue for siding out Survival stuff here because of the mana investment, but I would argue that if a Survival sticks you’re going to win the game, by either overwhelming them with card advantage or landing an Iona naming Blue. You could also potentially remove Kira, but I would guess that my opponent would bring in their own Kira from the sideboard, so having your own could be helpful to Legend-rule theirs out of play.

Playing Against Ad Nauseam Tendrils
Depending on the build of ANT you’re squaring off against, you can be a real underdog in game 1. They could be sporting up to 6 Orim’s Chant effects main for protection, which is bad news for Bant Survival’s light protection package. There are really a lot of different permutations of ANT and Burning Wish hybrid decks running around now, so you could also see Duress or Xantid Swarm maindeck. If they don’t have Swarm main I would expect them to board it in against you. When sideboarding against ANT with my list above, I would do the following:
+3 Spell Pierce
+1 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Gaddock Teeg
+1 Meddling Mage
+1 Rhox War Monk
-1 Trygon Predator
-2 Qasali Pridemage
-4 Noble Hierarch

While Spell Snare might not seem great against them, it can still counter Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish, Cabal Ritual, and whatever else they might have in the 2 slot. It’s not the best option, but you need to assume a more controlling role here to try to stay alive. Similarly, Swords to Plowshares could potentially be dead, but you can’t run the risk of being overrun by a Xantid Swarm (or even a Dark Confidant), so I’d be leaving in 3-4 Swords. Noble Hierarch can provide you with acceleration here, but doesn’t really do anything else, and again is the weakest card. A lot of people will be loathe to side it out but you really would rather have every other card in the deck instead. Kira is decent in the deck here because when paired with Ethersworn Canonist it means your hate creatures can’t be removed by the Chain of Vapor/Deathmark/Slaughter Pact that was sideboarded in against you by the combo player.

When playing this match you need to assume the control role if possible and actively dig for counters with Ponder, while saving Brainstorms for hiding your counters if need be, shuffling away junk you don’t want, or to dig for a counterspell in an emergency. Play this slow and carefully, and if you can keep mana open and then land either land Survival or some Rhox War Monks ideally. Rhox War Monks can push your life to a problematic number for an opposing Storm player if they start swinging early. If you have the early Survival draw you can chain out an Iona to shut off Black or Blue spells from the combo player, and either follow up with your other hate creatures (Meddling Mage, Teeg, Canonist) in whatever order you see fit, or you can dig for Spellstutter Sprites to shut down things like Orim’s Chant or Dark Ritual.

Playing Against Dream Halls
This is one of the few matches where you’ll want to sideboard out Swords to Plowshares, as it does nothing against their deck. Spell Snare is also relatively weak here, countering only Lim-Dul’s Vault. They will probably have 8-10 Duress, Thoughtseize, and Spell Snare effects after sideboarding, as well as 4 Force of Wills, so you’ll have to try to do everything in your power to play the control role and prevent them from busting either a Show and Tell into Progenitus or Show and Tell into Dream Halls, or just hard casting Dream Halls and trying to go off. I would look at sideboarding with the above list like this:
+3 Spell Pierce
+1 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Gaddock Teeg
+1 Meddling Mage
+2 Krosan Grip
-4 Tarmogoyf
-4 Swords to Plowshares

Your anti-combo suite will function well here, as Spell Pierce will be very good at protecting you in the early turns and stopping a quick Show and Tell. If possible try to play around the opposing Spell Pierces and keep mana open. Tarmogoyf is just a random beater that does nothing else against this deck, and because of this all of your creatures that do something else are much better at limiting the opponent’s lines of play. Pridemage can kill Dream Halls, Gaddock Teeg can prevent them from going off with Dream Halls, and Meddling Mage can shut down Show and Tell. Your best bet is to go for the Survival into Iona package if you can find a Survival, and naming Blue will shut them off of both Show and Tell and Dream Halls. When possible keep your mana open to play around Spell Pierce and save your Brainstorms for hiding counterspells against opposing Thoughtseizes and Duresses, or to shuffle away junk you don’t want to see.

It is also worth noting that if you do have 1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress in your sideboard for Merfolk it would also be worth sideboarding in here as well, because it can bounce a Progenitus to the owner’s hand if they are able to force through a Show and Tell.

Playing Against Naya Zoo
Naya Zoo is both a popular and well performing deck, and because of the efficiency and speed of every one of their spells this can be a tough matchup if they get a fast draw. As noted above, if you expect a lot of Naya Zoo in your area it is probably worth ramping up the number of Rhox War Monks and maybe even Loxodon Hierarchs, as these can both present critical life buffers to swing games back your way after the Zoo player comes out fast and aggressive. Loxodon Hierarch in particular can be brutal when landing, because it effectively functions as a 3-for-1 against Zoo, because it negates 1-2 of their burn spells and will also block and kill one of their creatures (or draw a Path to Exile out). When sideboarding with the list above this is what I would recommend:
+2 Path to Exile
+1 Rhox War Monk
+1 Loxodon Hierarch
-1 Trygon Predator
-1 Noble Hierarch
-2 Ponder

Having access to as many Swords and Paths as possible for sideboarded games is important, as these can knock out early Wild Nacatls and Tarmogoyfs to buy you time to set up, or to clear an opposing Qasali Pridemage from the board if you have a Survival to drop and go nuts with. Kira is great in this matchup as they will have to use two removal spells to get rid of it if they want to be able to combat the rest of your creatures on a one for one basis with their removal spells. Spellstutter Sprite can be great at countering an important Path to Exile or Lightning Bolt from the opponent to try to remove your War Monks, so I would keep them in hand until necessary.

I like to leave in Qasali Pridemage in this matchup, because aside from the Exalted bonus it can provide to your Tarmogoyf or Rhox War Monk it can also destroy Sylvan Library or more importantly Umezawa’s Jitte if the opponent brings it in against you. Ponder is really your weakest card here, so while I don’t like siding out Blue cards that can find cheap answers, it’s actually better to just draw more threats and removal than to have to dig for it when you’re racing against the clock that Zoo presents. Along these lines one might ask why not side out Survival, but if you can land a Survival you should win the game, and Zoo has no counterspells to prevent you from landing Survival if you draw it. Chaining out War Monks or even the Retainers into Iona combo is fantastic here.

Another debatable sideboarding option here is to board out your 4 Force of Will and try to become the midrange deck and just have better threats than your opponent. Instead of siding out Ponders and creatures you could drop the Forces and then just play creatures, removal, and use your Ponders and Brainstorms to dig for removal and Survivals. Pitching any of your Blue creatures to Force can really suck your resources out on the first or second turn here, so it is worth consideration.

Playing Against Goblins
Like Zoo, Goblins is a fast an aggressive deck that you will need to fight to stay alive early and then stabilize by dropping creatures that are bigger than theirs. Tarmogoyf, Rhox War Monk, Swords to Plowshares, Qasali Pridemage, and Force of Will are all very good cards that you have main deck against Goblins, and with the list above we have some decent sideboarding options:
+2 Path to Exile
+1 Rhox War Monk
+1 Loxodon Hierarch
-1 Trygon Predator
-2 Spellstutter Sprite
-1 Spell Snare

Depending on the build of Goblins you are facing Spell Snare can be very good or very bad. If they are playing some number of things like Stingscourger, Umezawa’s Jitte, Mogg War Marshall, or Warren Weirding in addition to the standard 4 copies of Goblin Piledriver this can greatly increase the value of Spell Snare. Siding it out or not will be based on what you’ve seen and what you expect, but in the example above I’ve sided out 1 copy.

Playing against Goblins is relatively straight forward. You obviously don’t want Goblin Lackey to connect and start dropping creatures in for free, so Swords, Path, and Force are your best friends here. Your opening hands will greatly dictate how these games play out, because for example if you have a Qasali Pridemage you may be far more inclined to let an AEther Vial resolve, or if you are on the play and have a first turn Noble Hierarch to power out a second turn Rhox War Monk or Tarmogoyf you will probably let a Goblin Lackey resolve and not blink an eye.

My main recommendations here would be to fetch basic lands whenever possible to play around Wasteland, and to use Swords and Paths to handle Goblin Lackey and Goblin Warchief. Try to save your Force of Wills for Goblin Ringleader if at all possible, because the card advantage it provides can really push the Goblins player ahead. Obviously if you have the Survival draw chaining Loyal Retainers into Iona naming Red can be backbreaking against the Goblins player, and if you have Survival and can buy yourself the turns I would strongly recommend this.

Playing Against CounterTop
As the weeks and months pass by there seem to be more and more CounterTop variants popping up, but not nearly as many people playing the deck in terms of a percentage of the field at large Legacy tournaments. Development is splintering into a lot of different directions, but not nearly as many people seem to be playing it or playing it successfully. The kill condition will almost always be Tarmogoyf plus whatever else (whether it’s Dark Confidant, Vedalken Shackles, Natural Order into Progenitus, etc.), and they will seek to lock out an opponent with Counterbalance coupled with Sensei’s Divining Top.

Against these decks your Qasali Pridemages and Trygon Predator will shine and you will obviously want to bring in whatever number of Krosan Grips you are packing, but what else? The answer is that it really depends on what you’ve seen or expect from their deck. The more non-creature spells they have the stronger Spell Pierce becomes, and if they are playing Natural Order your Meddling Mages can be more potent as well. Depending on your opening hand and how aggressive their build is this can dictate how aggressive you are. Major things to watch out for (besides CounterTop) are Threads of Disloyalty, Vedalken Shackles, Dark Confidant, and Natural Order.

One last thing to note about these decks is that they are relatively slow, and so if you think they are packing Daze it is worth keeping your mana open and playing around their potential Dazes to cut off half of their counterspells and to make sure your spells stick. If you don’t think they are packing Daze then you can push the envelope and try to resolve spells before they have CounterTop in play or maybe when they’re tapped out to avoid Spell Snare if they are running that. Landing a single Survival of the Fittest after baiting with stuff like Tarmogoyf and Rhox War Monk can be a very strong line of play for you that will lead to a quick win.

Playing Against Canadian/Tempo Threshold
Like Goblins, the Threshold player will try to attack your manabase, so if you can help it you should be fetching for basic lands whenever possible, and when fanning open your starting hands keep Stifle and Wasteland in mind when determining if your hand is keepable. Because of this and the Merfolk match I’m considering tweaking the manabase slightly to drop 1 Tropical Island and adding 1 more basic Forest, which will help make your manabase more bulletproof. You realistically don’t need to be fetching multiple Tropical Islands in a game very often, so it merits serious consideration.

Most of the Tempo Threshold decks are only playing Lightning Bolt and Fire/Ice for removal, so you need to be weary of how you engage in creature combat in these games. Losing two of your creatures to a Fire/Ice after combat damage can easily lose you a game. Another combat trick to keep in mind is thinking you’ll have a bigger guy than theirs and attacking, only to have the Threshold player Stifle the Exalted trigger from one of your Noble Hierarchs. Be careful and play cautiously here. Also be on the lookout for opposing Submerges from the Threshold player after sideboarding (if they’re good they’ll do it in response to you sacrificing a fetchland to shuffle away your dude). This is how I would sideboard with the list above:
+3 Spell Pierce
+1 Rhox War Monk
+1 Path to Exile
-2 Ponder
-1 Trygon Predator
-2 Qasali Pridemage

Some people will have a tendency to side in too many Swords/Paths against an opposing Threshold player. I don’t think you need more than 5 or a max of 6, because you can’t target their Nimble Mongooses and the only thing you’ll really need them for is Tarmogoyf and possibly Trygon Predator or Vendilion Clique. Some of the European builds are running Grim Lavamancer, and if you do see that then it will definitely be worth siding the additional Paths. Just don’t go overboard here and end up with dead cards if you can help it.

The Threshold player will have a counterspell base 4 Spell Snares and 4 Force of Wills to deal with your Tarmogoyfs and Survivals, and may be siding in Spell Pierce and/or Red Elemental Blast in lieu of Daze. You have a number of similar size threats to them, but if you can bait and then land a Survival it will push the game out of reach, so take your time in this match and play around Daze or Spell Pierce if you can afford it.

Playing Against Dredge
Similar to the Dream Halls matchup, Tarmogoyf is just a regular dude in this matchup and doesn’t really do anything to cripple the opponent or prevent them from going off like some of your other creatures can. He’s got a big backside and can block or swing through all the opponent’s creatures, but he doesn’t prevent the Dredge player from continuing their game plan. Noble Hierarch accelerates but doesn’t provide much else against a match that you generally don’t need much mana against. Outside of a Breakthrough for 2 mana Spell Snare is also pretty underwhelming in this matchup. With this in mind, this is how I would sideboard with the list above:
+3 Spell Pierce
+2 Path to Exile
+2 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Faerie Macabre
+1 Gaddock Teeg
+1 Meddling Mage
+1 Rhox War Monk
+1 Loxodon Hierarch
-3 Spell Snare
-4 Noble Hierarch
-2 Tarmogoyf
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Trygon Predator
-1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner

Dredge generally needs their few creatures available to either beat you down or to start generating tokens with Bridge From Below. Your Paths and Swords can be really handy in removing their Ichorids, Bloodghasts, and Narcomoebas from the game to even prevent them attacking or getting tokens. Relic of Progenitus is probably the best anti-Dredge card available, and Faerie Macabre can remove critical cards and is obviously better than what you’re siding out. As for the other cards, Gaddock Teeg can shut down Dread Return, and Rhox War Monk and Loxodon Hierarch can provide a life buffer and a big backside to either hold off opposing creatures or to swing through with the win. Spellstutter Sprite isn’t great here, but it can counter the Chain of Vapors, Pithing Needles, Firestorms, or whatever opposing hate cards the opponent will bring in.

My plan in this matchup is most often to stay alive to either swing through with Rhox War Monk and gain a lot of life, or to land a Survival and pump out the Loyal Retainers into Iona combo and name Black to shut down or dramatically slow down the opponent. If you suspect they will be bringing in Leyline of the Void or Pithing Needle against you to shut down Survival you can always sideboard in Krosan Grip instead of something like Spellstutter Sprite or the 2 remaining Tarmogoyfs.

Playing Against Lands.dec
Depending on the opening hand for the Lands player they will try to come out extremely fast (first turn Manabond, dump hand, start dredging back Life From the Loam), or they will have to take a few turns to set up with Gamble and/or Intuition and start trying to grind out board advantage. In this matchup both Iona and Kira, Great Glass-Spinner are your maindeck trump cards. Kira prevents them from using Maze of Ith and Barbarian Ring effectively, and Iona can just name Green to shut off the Loam engine.

The Lands player will seek to drop their combo pieces and also seek to weaken your manabase. Fetch basic lands to play around Wasteland and use Noble Hierarch to try to play around Rishadan Ports. Their Tabernacle of the Pendrell Vale is obviously very good at tying up your mana resources, but it’s not backbreaking if you don’t overextend into it. Play smart and aggressively use your Ponders and Brainstorms to dig for a Survival to try to lock up the game. Here’s how I would look at siding against this match:
+3 Spell Pierce
+2 Relic of Progenitus
+1 Faerie Macabre
+1 Meddling Mage
-2 Rhox War Monk or Tarmogoyf (depending on number of Blue cards you want for Force)
-1 Eternal Witness
-3 Spell Snare
-1 Swords to Plowshares

Spell Snare is marginal here because the only thing it counters in their deck is Life from the Loam (which keeps coming back) and potentially Burning Wish if they play that (but that’s mostly relegated to AggroLoam nowadays). Spell Pierce does a better job in the first couple of turns by possibly keeping them off of an early Manabond, Exploration, Gamble, or Intuition. Spellstutter Sprite can also prevent their important 1 casting cost spells from resolving, so it also relevant here. Swords to Plowshares is hit or miss because it can only hit their man lands, but it removes a lot of their win conditions and also serves as land destruction, and can clear out a blocker at a critical juncture. I’m torn on its value because I don’t like sitting around with multiple Swords in my hand here, so I’m currently siding out 1, but that could change based on the exact configuration of the opponent’s deck and the better feel I get for how this plays out. Relic of Progenitus is obviously very powerful for you in this match, but keep in mind they’ll probably be siding in Krosan Grip for your Survivals and graveyard hate.

Other Tips and Strategy
You may notice that I rarely sideboard out Eternal Witness, and this is for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that Witness can easily get back a destroyed Survival once your opponent tries to get rid of it with the hate they have inevitably sided in. The second reason is that it basically acts like a Time Walk against a lot of decks, because it gets back a nice card for you (probably an important creature, a Swords to Plowshares, or a Force of Will) while acting as a blocker or can trade with the opponent’s attacking creature.

Your sideboarding will obviously depend a lot on how you construct your deck and sideboard, as well as what is very prevalent in your local metagame, but hopefully this article has served as an insight into playing against some of the most common matches you’re likely to see. For a lot more discussion on the subject check out the fantastic Bant Survival thread on TheSource, where posters Jak, Waikiki, Kuma, Windux and others have provided a lot of insight. Join us again next time as we’ll delve into some alternative and outside-the-box sideboarding strategies for Bant Survival.

Survival of the Fittest has long been one of the most powerful spells available in the Legacy format. Decks such as RecSur, Full English Breakfast, Angry Tradewind Survival, RGB Survival Advantage, Survival Elves, Welder Survival, and countless other variants have all utilized the powerful tutoring capability and overwhelming card advantage that Survival of the Fittest can provide. A relative newcomer to the scene, Bant Survival is the latest in a long tradition of decks that seek to abuse the powerful Green enchantment. Coupling the power of Survival with the strengths of the Bant archetype, this contender has been tearing up European tournaments for the past year and is starting to rear its head across the ocean in the United States now as well.

So what exactly makes up modern Bant Survival? Typically these decks are all Blue/Green/White (Bant) and utilize the most efficient spells Bant colors have to offer. Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile provides the most efficient removal in the Legacy format, Force of Will and Brainstorm are some of the most efficient and powerful spells Blue has to offer, and no one could seriously mention creatures without bringing up Tarmogoyf. So what else makes up these decks?

Creatures
Most Survival of the Fittest decks have a tendency to be relatively light on lands, but be very mana hungry to power up Survival and power out creatures. For this reason the older variants often included some mix of mana producers and accelerants in the form of Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Wall of Roots, Quirion Ranger, and/or Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. With the Alara Block came the printing of Noble Hierarch, who seems custom made for this deck, as it provides colored mana to accelerate spells out faster, pitches to Survival, and is equipped with the Exalted mechanic to make your creatures bigger in the omnipresent Tarmogoyf standoffs that frequent Legacy. Alara Block also brought another Legacy staple to the scene in the form of Qasali Pridemage, which has really single handedly changed the Legacy landscape. It also is quite mana efficient and equipped with the Exalted mechanic to make your creatures swing harder, but where it really shines is dealing with problematic enchantments and artifacts such as Counterbalance, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Seismic Assault, Survival of the Fittest, Vedalken Shackles, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Arcbound Ravager, Chrome Mox, and countless others. This has balanced the format and has brought back true aggro strategies from the face of extinction (Naya Zoo, for example).

Aside from these Bant staples, the deep card pool in Legacy has nearly limitless options when it comes to Survival applications, so let’s take a look at some of the other creature options when crafting a Bant Survival deck for our local scene.
Rhox War Monk – an efficient body with a big back side out of Lightning Bolt range, the lifelink and pitchability to Force of Will are the key factors that make this a near unanimous choice for Bant aficionados. The more Naya Zoo and aggro decks you see, the more Rhox War Monks you tend to include.
Spellstutter Sprite – while this will never have the power in this deck that it does in Faeries decks, Spellstutter can provide protection from key removal spells, and can also improve the match against Storm-based combo decks. Some oft-seen spells that can potentially be problematic for Bant which Spellstutter Sprite can help address include: Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Kird Ape, Wild Nacatl, Spell Snare, AEther Vial, Grindstone, Stifle (on Loyal Retainers, Qasali Pridemage, or Exalted trigger, for example), Dark Ritual, Orim’s Chant, Silence, Xantid Swarm, Pithing Needle, Relic of Progenitus, and more. The drawback with Spellstutter is that it requires you to keep mana open and not be as aggressive with the deck, but with the aforementioned list of spells that it can counter you can see why it is often included by Bant pilots.
Trygon Predator – this is an absolute beast against some decks, and can really help shore up some of the deck’s weak spots. While Qasali Pridemage is really good at what it does, what it doesn’t do is keep destroying cards every turn like this can. A lonely Trygon can single-handedly wreck the board of an opposing Stax deck, Enchantress deck, Affinity deck, Painter’s Servant decks, and turn around unfavorable matchups once he starts swinging. Predator can also help deal with cards like AEther Vial, Umezawa’s Jitte, and Back to Basics from an opposing Merfolk player, helping to even out an otherwise tough (and common) matchup.
Eternal Witness – card advantage is a key concept of both Magic and Survival decks, and Witness does a fantastic job of providing card advantage. It will most often grab a destroyed or countered Survival of the Fittest or other threat, and can be key in grabbing a timely Brainstorm or Swords to Plowshares.
Vendilion Clique – another efficient body with a useful effect, Clique often finds its way into Bant decks as a 1-2 of, and can help go aggro or fly over ground standoffs. It is very useful against combo and control, but less so against aggro when you’ve spent 3 mana for a creature and your opponent will just spend 1 mana to Bolt or Path it in response to the comes into play ability.
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner – the inclusion of this in any main deck serves as protection to removal heavy decks in the field (Naya Zoo, Landstill, Tempo Threshold, BGW, etc.), and it is fantastic at what it does, which is protect your creatures. One notable interaction is also the protection it provides your creatures from Maze of Ith, which is one of the main tools that the powerful Lands.dec has against you.
Loyal Retainers + Iona, Shield of Emeria – while these cards basically do nothing on their own, their interaction with Survival is what makes them extremely powerful, and can often turn losing game states into winning ones. Shutting off all removal from an opponent, or the ability of the Merfolk player to play Blue spells, or the ability for Loam decks to cast Green spells, or Storm combo to cast Black or Blue spells are all extremely powerful interactions that make the inclusion of this two card combo very strong.
Squee, Goblin Nabob – this is a staple of Survival decks as the ability to keep coming back and provide continued fodder for Survival activations means it’s an auto-include.
Genesis – like Squee, Genesis can provide card advantage and also provides a great long game against control decks by bringing back threats from your graveyard, but is relatively mana hungry in a deck without Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. It also doesn’t do much to address problematic matchups and scenarios for Bant Survival in general.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary – the mana boost that this card can provide is noteworthy, but it really only shines when used in conjunction with Anger, Masticore, and/or Genesis. The trend in Survival deck building theory lately has been to exclude as many cards that are Survival dependent as possible (unless the effect is truly broken, like with Iona), so you will rarely see people include Rofellos in their Bant Survival decks as they are currently constructed.
Gaddock Teeg – shutting down all X spells and spells that cost more than 3 mana (including your own Force of Wills) is a very powerful effect in Legacy, as this often cripples combo deck, control decks, Dread Returns, Engineered Explosives, and more. This is very good, but is best used when in conjunction with other hate cards to create a barrier against your opponent’s line of attack.
Meddling Mage – one of the most skill intensive cards in Magic, this can shut down entire strategies or specific lines of play and individual cards that can hurt you. Bant pilots will often include 1-3 copies of this between the main deck and Sideboard, depending on how they feel about using the card, and also how much combo they expect to face.
Ethersworn Canonist – another useful tool in shutting down combo, this can also be used in combination with Kira, Great Glass-Spinner to form a hard lock on any targeted removal of your creatures (but obviously does nothing against mass sweepers such as Firespout).
Rafiq of the Many – this card can often create wins out of nowhere, turning your otherwise 4/5 vanilla Tarmogoyf into a 5/6 double-striking behemoth, or can create single-turn victories by turning Iona into a 8/8 flying double-striking winner. While easily removed, the effect that Rafiq can have with a creature such as Rhox War Monk is undeniably powerful, and curries favor among many Bant players because of the ability to steal wins from otherwise losing positions.
Llawan, Cephalid Empress – while this card is very narrow in application, what it provides is incredibly powerful. The effect that Llawan provides against Merfolk or an opposing Progenitus can make this a very important sideboard card.
Jotun Grunt – the 4/4 body is a nice complement to the graveyard cleaning ability that Grunt provides. He can also recycle threats from your graveyard back into your deck, but is relatively slow at cleaning out an opponent’s graveyard, and does relatively little to prevent a Dredge or Loam opponent from dredging a lot in one turn.
Loaming Shaman – like Grunt, this card provides a powerful effect, but it simply does it once when coming into play, and doesn’t permanently remove Bridge From Belows, opposing Squees, or anything else. It merely pumps them back into an opponent’s library, which might be good for the surprise effect in a single turn, but is not very good over the long haul.
Faerie Macabre – this graveyard removal effect is permanent, and can’t be countered (only Stifled or Trickbinded), so while this relies on Survival being in play to find most often, it usually ends up in Bant Survival sideboards because the other options are also fundamentally flawed.
Trinket Mage – this can find a number of useful artifacts like Pithing Needle or Engineered Explosives (or even Grindstone if you wanted to include Painter’s Servant and really try to be cute), but as mentioned with Rofellos, the trend in Survival construction has been to move away from cute tricks and toolbox packages and towards making the deck more consistent and powerful when Survival is not in play.

AEther Vial, Daze, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, or other?
There are a handful of available slots when looking at options besides creatures in Bant Survival, and some people will often fill these slots with either AEther Vial or another form of counterspell or protection. While AEther Vial is great at slipping creatures in under counters and creating cute combat tricks, it really doesn’t do much to advance the agenda of Bant Survival’s strategy, which is to either overrun the opponent with threats or to play out threats and protect them. Another counterspell will go a long ways towards protecting you from the opponent as well as increasing the number of Blue cards to potentially pitch to Force of Will. Daze, Spell Snare, and Spell Pierce are most often under consideration for slots in aggro-control decks, so let’s examine what they can each provide.

When choosing amongst the three options above for additional protection in the deck, one must ask what the spell must do and what it will accomplish in its role. Daze is often best within the first two turns of a game, when forcing through an important early spell or stopping the opponent from curving out an explosive draw in the early turns. This will force you into fetching a Blue producing land very early and set you back a land drop when cast, which must be carefully weighed in a mana hungry but land-light deck such as Bant Survival.

Spell Pierce is relatively limited in that it can’t stop creatures from landing on the board (which will nibble away at your life and thus provide you less turns), but it can also be used to force through an important early spell (like a Blue Duress, essentially), and can also stunt the development of important early plays from opposing decks (such as Counterbalance, AEther Vial, Force of Will, Manabond, etc.). It is naturally very good against combo decks, as they generally rely on either chaining together cheap spells or hitting a certain mana point and then casting a powerful spell (Show and Tell, for example). For this reason it would probably be better served as a sideboard card against these matchups, as Legacy is a creature-centric format in general and this does nothing to address that.

Spell Snare is relatively limited as a counterspell in that it can only stop spells with a converted mana cost of 2, but a large chunk of the Legacy format’s best spells are ringing in at the 2 mana slot. Problematic spells for Bant Survival that could potentially be solved by Spell Snare include: Devastating Dreams, Counterbalance, Qasali Pridemage, Fire/Ice, Hymn to Tourach, Smallpox, Dark Confidant, Engineered Explosives for 2, Umezawa’s Jitte,Tarmogoyf, Lord of Atlantis, Arcbound Ravager, Survival of the Fittest (mirror), Painter’s Servant, Standstill, and a few others. Because of this, I’ve chosen to go with Spell Snare in the listing I present below, as it just does the best job of dealing with these potentially problematic cards, and there is no playing around a Spell Snare like there is by waiting another turn to make a land drop and then play around Daze.

Mana Sources
As noted above, Noble Hierarch is a natural fit as a mana source for this deck, and can help reduce the number of lands to play. Most modern Survival variants play 18-20 lands, depending on what other search and accelerants they sport. In the version below I have 19 lands, which I feel is a good number with the amount of cantrips (Brainstorm and Ponder) also being employed. While any deck may occasionally get mana flooded, it is very important to hit your land drops early with this deck, and also to have enough basic lands to play around Wasteland, Blood Moon, and Back to Basics. There is little reason not to have a solid manabase, because extra lands can always be shuffled away with Brainstorm or Ponder, but lack of lands can lead to game and match losses.

With all of this in mind, let’s take a look at a sample decklist.
Bant Survival 20101Q 1.0, by Jaco 02-01-2010
Business (41)
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Rhox War Monk
2 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Trygon Predator
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Mana Sources (19)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
1 Tundra
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island

Based on the options I’ve laid out above, this is a relatively straight forward main deck, balanced for an open tournament where I’ll expect to face against Aggro, Combo, Control, and any other random decks that you run across in tournaments. There is no over-reliance on Rhox War Monk, Spellstutter Sprite, or Survival, and the deck’s manabase is constructed to be able to fetch any basics I may need and also play very well with Brainstorm and Ponder. Here’s a sample sideboard to examine in conjunction with the deck above.
Sideboard A (15)
3 Spell Pierce
2 Path to Exile
2 Krosan Grip
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Meddling Mage
1 Rhox War Monk
1 Loxodon Hierarch

Spell Pierce, Canonist, Meddling Mage, and Gaddock Teeg is a nice suite of cards to bring in against combo, and things like Path to Exile and Rafiq are great against random tribal, aggro, and aggro-control decks. Hierarch is a pretty good card against aggro and combo alike, because the life boost is instant once it comes into play (unlike Rhox War Monk), and can really change the opponent’s calculations on how to deal with your life total. Other great sideboard options are extra Rhox War Monks, Relic of Progenitus, Llawan, Cephalid Empress, as well as catch-all answers like Propaganda, Pithing Needle, and Umezawa’s Jitte. Opponent’s will often target your graveyard and/or Survival of the Fittest, so options like a second Squee or more Eternal Witnesses can also provide value out of the sideboard to offset hate you might face. Like any deck, you’ll want to tailor your sideboard to shore up your weakest matchups that you actually expect to face that day in a tournament.

With these choices in mind you’re now armed with the knowledge of how to construct Bant Survival for your next tournament. Two massive Legacy Grand Prixs are on the horizon, as well as the StarCityGames $5K series, as well as countless large monthly tournaments across Europe and the USA. Join us again soon as we’ll take a look at how to actually play Bant Survival against common matchups you’re likely to see.

Ya se han publicado en MTG Metrópolis las barajas del top 8 del XXVlll Open de Madrid.

Aquí están las listas -faltan algunas cartas y se ha perdido la lista de una de las barajas del top -.

Winner: Fernando Yanguas – Fish

4 Sabio de Epytir
3 Jabalinero icatiano
4 Mago entrometido
4 Ninja de las horas tardias
2 Kataki
3 Soldado raso Jotun
4 Force of will
3 Daze
3 Null Rod
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Ancestral recall
1 Time Walk
1 Brainstorm
3 Stifle
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox pearl
3 Poluted Delta
4 Playa anegada
4 Tundra
2 Isla
1 Llanura
4 Erial
1 Cantera

SB:
1 Espadas en guadañas
1 Verdad reflejada
2 Energy flux
2 Jitte de Umezawa
4 Aguja medular
2 Desencantar
3 Spell Snare

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Os dejo con las listas de las barajas del último torneo de la LCV4 (4ª Liga Catalana de Vintage) celebrado el pasado día 30 de Agosto en Mollet del Vallès.

Top 2 – Josu Apraiz – Fowchorid

Maindeck:
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 Cephalid Coliseum
3 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Black Lotus
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Chain of Vapor
4 Force of Will
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire

Sideboard:
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Contagion
2 Emerald Charm
3 Extirpate
1 Legacy Weapon
4 Pithing Needle

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