Bant Lands

Today I took a deck I read about and studied online that was piloted by Jim Davis which he called Bant Lands. Basically its an Approach deck at its core but instead of playing a straight control shell, Jim played a more proactive list using ramp to accelerate his mana, thin his deck and cast Approach earlier.

I tweaked his list a bit to suit local meta and got it to a top 2 finish in a 6-round 18-man standard tournament. So why call it Bant Lands?

First we play all the deserts in our color! Like all Approach decks, Ipnu Rivulet makes short work of the 6 cards piled on top of our Approach. Hashep and Shefet are one-offs because we would normally throw away a different desert to re-use their abilities.

We will play all the duals to make sure we can cast our WW spells or our UU aftermath spells. We relatively need just 1 green mana to operate and we should be able to fix our mana thanks to our ramp spells.

Apart from lands, we are also playing Search for Azcanta to help us dig for answers and smooth out our draws early. Another card which I already loved the moment it was spoiled was Thaumatic Compass. With so much ramp, flipping this card is almost certain and the ability to keep Hazoret, Glorybringers and other creatures from hitting you is super nice!

Gift of Paradise is a 1-off, like our 5th Spring to make sure we can ramp to 5 mana by turn 4 which is where we need our Fumigate or Hour of Promise to turn the tables and get an advantage. Spring is super good because of its late game application thanks to Mind. The card draw was very relevant when we’re trying to get to our Approach without an Ipnu Rivulet or if we’re digging up for a sweeper.

Early creature control is made possible with Baffling End which is great against embalm/eternalize creatures like Adorned Pouncer, Earthshaker Khenra and Champion of Wits. Essence Scatter has saved me from unwanted Hazoret and Scarab Gods time to time.

Settle the Wreckage has been quite under performing in this tournament but Fumigate was fantastic. Nevertheless, it’s nice to have Settle in case Fumigate is too slow and we really need to take some pressure off of us while we ramp and do our thing.

For noncreature permanents, we also play Cast Out which was great against Planeswalkers, and Ixalan’s Binding which also helped us keep pesky cards off permanently.

Here’s my main board.

Enchantment: 11

2 Search for Azcanta
3 Baffling End
1 Gift of Paradise
3 Cast Out
2 Ixalan’s Binding

Artifact: 3

3 Thaumatic Compass

Spells: 20

2 Essence Scatter
4 Spring // Mind
3 Settle the Wreckage
3 Fumigate
4 Hour of Promise
4 Approach of the Second Sun (yes, all 4 copies)

Lands: 26

4 Irrigated Farmland
3 Botanical Sanctum
4 Sunpetal Grove
1 Scattered Grove
4 Ipnu Rivulet
1 Hashep Oasis
1 Shefet Dunes
2 Desert of the Indomitable
1 Scavenger Ground
2 Forest
1 Island
2 Plains

Sideboard: 15

3 Carnage Tyrant
1 Baffling End
4 Regal Caracal
3 Sunscourged Champion
3 Negate
1 Essence Scatter

Against Grixis, Negate was great in stopping Glimmer and opposing Chandra. It also helps you win counter wars when you want to resolve a Fumigate or Settle.

Against RDW, I need all the lifegain I can get and thank goodness Rampaging Ferocidon was banned. My only loss was to a RDW on the 3rd game when I wasn’t able to draw Essence Scatter, Baffling End or an early Sunscourge Champion to stall the game long enough for a Fumigate. With Shefet Dunes out, we can keep sac-ing deserts to swing in with the cats to gain back a lot of life.

When you see the opponent playing black, you expect them to side in Duress and Lost Legacy which happened to me on my 2nd and 6th round against Grixis and BG Snake. Carnage Tyrant blanked the opponent’s Duress and Lost Legacies and without anything bigger to kill it in combat, it made the games favorable. The Grixis player even sided in a Nazahal, Primal Tide but thanks to Hashep Oasis, my 10/9 Carnage made sure the 7/7 Lake Monster died in the clash of Elder Dinosaurs.

I am very happy with the deck, and I think the colors gives me flexibility to tweak the side and the configuration in the main to be formidable in a very varied standard.

Take it for a spin!

Round Results in 16-man Tourney: 5-1

1. vs. RDW (2-1)
2. vs. Grixis Energy – (2-0)
3. vs. WG Tokens (2-0)
4. vs. UW Embalm (2-1)
5. vs. RDW (1-2)
6. vs. BG Snake (2-0)

Result in MTGO Standard Competitive League: 4-1

1. vs. Grixis Pirates (1-2)
2. vs. RDW (2-1)
3. vs. Mono-black Azor’s Gateway (2-0)
4. vs. UW Aura (2-1)
5. vs. Grixis Control (2-0)

See you back here soon!

Vanson