Eldritch Moon wasted no time shaking things up, but Bant Company was so loud of a force this weekend, it might be easy to miss just how much is different.
To begin with, Bant Company wasn’t the deck to beat at the end of last season; G/W Tokens was. The archetype didn’t gain all that much, and some of the new cards, like Liliana, the Last Hope, are inherently strong against it.
Bant Company was already great, but sometimes really great teams inexplicably gain the best card in the set, and one that just so happens to be a literally perfect fit.
What can I say? Spell Queller is the revolution.
To really appreciate just how much Spell Queller is warping the format, let’s take a look at the top 64 metagame from #SCGCOL, weighted by finish:
|
Archetypes |
Top 64 Metagame |
|
Bant Company |
43.8% |
|
U/W Spirits |
11.5% |
|
B/G/x Control |
10.0% |
|
G/W Tokens |
10.0% |
|
W/R Humans |
7.7% |
|
W/B Control |
5.4% |
|
G/R Goggles |
3.1% |
|
U/R Eldrazi |
2.3% |
|
G/B Delirium |
1.5% |
|
G/B/x Emerge |
1.5% |
|
Misc |
3.1% |
I am sympathetic to arguments that Bant Company should be split between Bant Company and Bant Humans, but I just don’t find them to be very meaningfully different with regards to how they play or what cards are good against them. Most of the key cards are the exact same. Bant Spirits, on the other hand, is actually closer to a U/W Spirits deck than a Bant Company deck, but it’s close.
Spell Queller isn’t just the lynchpin behind the macro-archetype that’s more popular at the top tables than the next four strategies put together. It’s also the driving force behind the second most popular strategy.
Is it time to freak out yet?
As great of an idea as that is, we might first take a step back and get some perspective. This isn’t just The Same Old Thing. This week represented a radical shift in the Standard landscape, and that’s despite just how many people’s decks were clearly only nominally updated. You could argue that G/W Tokens had been oppressively good. It would be disconcerting if the new set reinforced G/W’s stranglehold. Instead, the archetype dropped to a very healthy 10%. That’s a good sign.
I’m not saying the world is going to solve it by next weekend. I think this is going to be another Pro Tour where the Top 8 doesn’t look all that much like the Top 8s of the events leading up to it. There is just too much technology available to be unearthed, too much metagaming to be done.
That said, each week leading up to the big show Down Under is having a major influence on the preparation of everyone going to the event. I would be surprised if very many people would have expected this specific kind of lopsided metagame. Very clearly, Bant Company is the deck to beat, and U/W Spirits is the real deal.
Let’s start with enemy numero uno:
Creatures (27)
- 4 Reflector Mage
- 4 Sylvan Advocate
- 2 Archangel Avacyn
- 3 Tireless Tracker
- 3 Duskwatch Recruiter
- 3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
- 4 Spell Queller
- 4 Selfless Spirit
Lands (25)
Spells (8)
Spell Queller gives Bant Company so much more interaction, while only further reinforcing its “flash” game. It also makes the possibility of playing Collected Company in response to spells a fundamental constraint of the format. It also happens to be substantially better against some cards than others. For instance, if you Spell Queller a Radiant Flames, you really got there. Now, even if your Spell Queller dies or gets blinked or whatever, the Radiant Flames is harmless. It does damage proportionate to how many colors were spent to cast it, which only counts the final time, not when it was first put on the stack and then exiled.
While many have been arguing how many Selfless Spirits to put into Rattlechains U/W Spirits decks, Devin makes a strong statement by including a full playset despite no Rattlechains. A 2/1 flier is not a bad card to begin with, and the ability to save your whole team for zero mana is incredible in a deck as full of creatures as Bant Company.
Fun trick: sideboard in Planar Outburst and then turn it into Plague Wind by using Selfless Spirit to break the symmetry of the sweeper.
If you’re playing a more traditional control strategy, Languish is looking better than Radiant Flames. Tragic Arrogance and Descend upon the Sinful might also prove better than Planar Outburst.
Devin’s list was awesome. I doubt very many of the other competitors’ lists featured both a playset of Selfless Spirits and three Thalia, Heretic Cathars. I particularly love Thalia in a world full of flash creatures. Making their creatures enter the battlefield tapped also takes a bit of the wind out of their Collected Company’s sails.
That Thalia, Heretic Cathar makes their nonbasic lands enter tapped is particularly infuriating for people trying to use Evolving Wilds to power delirium. There are also just plenty of Yavimaya Coasts, Llanowar Wastes, Caves of Koilos, Westvale Abbeys, Geier Reach Sanitariums, and more. You don’t have to disrupt them very much to make Thalia a great deal. She’s already a 3/2 first striker for three! Combine her with Dromoka’s Command’s +1/+1 counter for good times after blocks have been declared.
While Thalia “works” against most flash creatures, it’s important to still take care. Archangel Avacyn still makes your whole team indestructible and some people play Bounding Krasis, which can obviously untap something even if it was tapped by Thalia. The Krasis isn’t big enough to win a head-to-head with Thalia but could be brutal if you attack with Duskwatch Recruiter in addition to Thalia. Bounding Krasis would love to eat that creature for lunch.
Kyle Boggemes finished third with a build featuring Bounding Krasis:
Creatures (27)
- 2 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
- 4 Bounding Krasis
- 4 Reflector Mage
- 4 Sylvan Advocate
- 1 Archangel Avacyn
- 2 Tireless Tracker
- 2 Lambholt Pacifist
- 4 Duskwatch Recruiter
- 4 Spell Queller
Lands (25)
Spells (8)
A totally reasonable list, but I think I prefer Thalia, Heretic Cathar over Nissa, at least for now. Maybe there will be a huge surge of Fiery Impulse and Galvanic Bombardment types. However, at the moment, 75%(!) of the field plays flash creatures, at least in the Top 64 metagame. That’s a really, really different experience from most of the history of Magic.
Besides, the last thing I want to do is attack with a Nissa in this format full of Spell Queller, Bounding Krasis, Archangel Avacyn, Elder-Deep Fiend, Collected Company, Secure the Wastes, and so on. Hell, just look at Kyle’s sideboard:
Flash: Your time is now!
I love the Aerial Volleys in Kyle’s sideboard. It’s such an efficient, versatile, and powerful tool against Spell Queller decks. In theory, you might occasionally kill more than one creature, but between Mausoleum Wanderer and Selfless Spirit, you’re usually only going to actually kill one. The real strength comes from the speed and mana efficiency.
I wonder if we’ll ever see maindeck Aerial Volleys? Possibly alongside Gryff’s Boon, with the possibility of occasionally jumping our opponent’s creatures to turn the Volley on?
Elspeth’s dead. She died a noble death, but she’s still dead, so don’t expect any Standard-legal Elspeth, Knight-Errant reprints anytime soon. That said, if a powerful planeswalker that you could reasonably play four of happen to grant flying for the turn as one of its abilities (preferably without any stats, as Elspeth herself is not a perfect fit with Aerial Volley).
Hey! It could happen!
Also of note in Kyle’s sideboard, Summary Dismissal as a weapon against Eldrazi.
I love Summary Dismissal against Ramp, and it’s totally playable against control decks with an expensive top-end. Having an answer to Emrakul, the Promised End is also nice. That said, I feel like there might not be enough of that stuff yet to justify the space. Bant has access to some seriously awesome sideboard cards and will likely need them in the weeks to come, now that everyone is gunning for the deck.
Rounding out the Top 8’s Bant Company decks, Dan Jessup put Tamiyo, Field Researcher on the battlefield with a Bounding Krasis build of his own.
Creatures (26)
- 4 Bounding Krasis
- 4 Reflector Mage
- 4 Sylvan Advocate
- 4 Lambholt Pacifist
- 4 Duskwatch Recruiter
- 2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
- 4 Spell Queller
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (16)
Spells (17)
I’m not sure I can get into zero Tireless Trackers maindeck, but you’ve got to make room somewhere. I actually think Devin’s Selfless Spirit technology would be a perfect fit in a Tamiyo version. Playing one or two Tamiyos doesn’t need to warp your strategy or anything, but I’m not as sold on Lambholt Pacifist at the moment. Flying makes it easy to attack reliably, whereas I would hate to drop Tamiyo and have my creature be an untapped Lambholt Pacifist.
I do, however, love the exclusion of Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy by all three players. I don’t hate the card in the format, but Bant just has such better options right now. It doesn’t have many targets to Flashback, it’s hard to protect planeswalkers right now, and Bant generally wants to be more aggressive.
While I prefer Devin’s style of Bant Company, here’s an example of Bant Humans for reference:
Creatures (26)
- 4 Reflector Mage
- 3 Thraben Inspector
- 4 Thalia's Lieutenant
- 4 Tireless Tracker
- 4 Lambholt Pacifist
- 4 Duskwatch Recruiter
- 3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
Planeswalkers (1)
Lands (25)
Spells (8)
Dwight was one of the few Bant decks to not feature Spell Queller, but even without it being a Human, I’ve got a feeling it’d be worth it. Nevertheless, look how similar this list is to lists above. Thalia’s Lieutenant and Thraben Inspector over Sylvan Advocate and Spell Queller, and that’s basically it. I definitely acknowledge Thalia’s Lieutenant’s power, and it does ask you to make sacrifices. I just think Sylvan Advocate and Spell Queller are two of the best cards in the deck.
Going the other way, here’s an example of the Bant Spirits deck that a couple of people played in the event:
Creatures (26)
- 4 Reflector Mage
- 2 Bygone Bishop
- 4 Rattlechains
- 4 Spell Queller
- 4 Selfless Spirit
- 4 Mausoleum Wanderer
- 4 Nebelgast Herald
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (25)
Spells (7)
This time, Sylvan Advocate, Werewolves, Tireless Trackers, and Thalias have been replaced with Mausoleum Wanderer, Rattlechains, Bygone Bishop, and Nebelgast Herald. Dromoka’s Command has been traded for Essence Flux.
Mausoleum Wanderer is early tough-to-block pressure, hits surprisingly hard, and can really mess up attempts by people to play sorceries or instants in the early-game. Whereas Judge’s Familiar could be played around by keeping one mana open, the Wanderer is always threatening to get bigger by flashed-down Rattlechains, Nebelgast Heralds, Spell Quellers, or Collected Company. Even Essence Flux just blinking something pumps the Wanderer.
Between four Mausoleum Wanderers, four Selfless Spirits, four Rattlechains, and four Spell Quellers, casting Collected Company in response to an opponent tapping out to Ruinous Path your Bygone Bishop will have an option to disrupt it 86% of the time!
Nebelgast Herald does a pretty good Pestermite impression as a baseline, but then it turns every Spirit into a Pestermite. This leads to a very tempo-based gameplan that is especially good at racing opponents who aren’t playing much removal. The biggest thing you’ve got to watch out for with Nebelgast Herald is attacking it into your opponent’s Spell Queller!
While Bant Spirits is intriguing, the mana is dubious, to say the least. Here’s an example of the more mainstream approach to dedicated Spirits:
Creatures (29)
- 3 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
- 4 Reflector Mage
- 2 Archangel Avacyn
- 4 Rattlechains
- 4 Spell Queller
- 4 Selfless Spirit
- 4 Mausoleum Wanderer
- 4 Nebelgast Herald
Lands (23)
Spells (8)
The most exotic element of Fang’s build is the inclusion of three copies of Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit. I do appreciate that she’s a Spirit and works well with one-toughness fliers and flash creatures. I just worry about the mana. I mean, this list isn’t even going to be able to play Anafenza on two a third of the time. Heaven forbid you play an Island on turn 1 for the Wanderer!
The above list is solid and deceptively fast, but I actually prefer a little less all-in of an approach. For instance, the highest finish U/W Spirits player was actually Jeff Hoogland, with an innovative list that focuses more on quality rather than quantity.
Creatures (20)
Lands (9)
Spells (31)
Hoogland’s deck does have both Mausoleum Wanderer and Rattlechains (and even an Essence Flux) to take advantage of the Spirit type, but it uses Archangel Avacyn instead of Nebelgast Herald, moving it into a more U/W Flash direction. Archangel Avacyn might not be a Spirit, but she’s still pretty amazing with Essence Flux!
I generally love Ojutai’s Command in U/W Spirits, though it makes sense that Jeff might trim one on account of the six five-drops and complete removal of the bounce package. Most Spirit decks have a playset of Reflector Mages and two to four Essence Fluxes. This makes it easy to “get” someone with Ojutai’s Command reliably. Nevertheless, it’s still a great fit here, particularly when you get back Mausoleum Wanderer, Rattlechains, or Selfless Spirit in response to a removal spell.
I’m very intrigued by Hoogland’s move away from Reflector Mage. After all, when the format is 75% flash and instant-speed threats, the Mage starts to lose a little value. Besides, it’s a ground creature. I love the focus on winning in the air and not worrying overly about the ground. Blocking is just so risky of a plan to rely on at the moment, anyway.
Instead, he’s got Stasis Snare (which is perfect for all the flash, though admittedly a liability against Dromoka’s Command) and Planar Outburst. As mentioned above, I am a big fan of Selfless Spirit plus Planar Outburst. The biggest concern I have with it is that I expect an even greater number of opponents to have Selfless Spirits and Archangel Avacyns of their own next week.
A role-player. I’m not super confident the right mix or removal, yet, but I do like having some lifegain in the sideboard. I expect red aggro to be on the rise by the time the Pro Tour rolls around.
Now that we’ve had a chance to take a look at the Spell Queller decks that are disrupting the format so much, let’s take a tour through the other big decks, starting with the dethroned former deck-to-beat, G/W Tokens.
Creatures (16)
Planeswalkers (8)
Lands (25)
Spells (11)
The main new innovation here is the use of more two-drops and a couple of copies of Ishkanah, Grafwidow rather than using any three-drop creatures. This is a perfect example of just how warping Spell Queller is proving to be. He would rather do nothing at all than risk walking into a Spell Queller on turn 3.
Delirium Check:
Creatures – 16
Planeswalkers – 8
Artifacts – 4
Instants – 4
Legendary Enchantments – 4
Lands that sacrifice – 4
Sorceries – 3
That’s a pretty great mix, meaning Ishkanah is going to be powered up most of the time. Hopefully, if she’s not, you’ve got something else you can do for your turn, saving her for when she is. With no black mana, we’re not going to be using her activated ability much, if ever. However, we do get value from so many bodies thanks to our team pumps.
Getting six power across four bodies is nice and obviously works amazingly with Anthems like Nissa’s +1/+1 counters or Gideon’s Emblem. However, this list also greatly appreciates the reach aspect of her and her brood. There are so many Spirits flying around, it’s important to have a way to interact with them. G/W Tokens is not the natural strategy for a straight-up race or anything, so you can’t just let them go unchecked.
It’s interesting to keep in mind how effective Hallowed Moonlight is against Essence Flux and Ojutai’s Command, to say nothing of Collected Company. I could imagine this turning out to be a maindeck Hallowed Moonlight format. Also worth noting, if your Spell Queller dies and your opponent gets to cast their spell from exile, the creature doesn’t count as having come from exile. Technically, the card went from exile to the stack, and then from the stack to the battlefield, so Hallowed Moonlight doesn’t naturally interact.
Rounding out the strategies to hit double digits, we’ve got B/G/x Control. I’m not totally sure these decks should all be lumped together, but they’ve got a lot of similar cards and lines of play. The highest-finishing of these was Ali Aintrazi with a version that splashes blue for Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy; Dragonlord Silumgar; and a little bit of card draw.
Creatures (14)
- 1 Dragonlord Silumgar
- 2 Den Protector
- 4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
- 1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
- 4 Sylvan Advocate
- 1 Emrakul, the Promised End
- 1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (21)
Spells (22)
This is a classic Ali Aintrazi deck, so I’m not too sure the results will transfer to other players in future weeks. However, it sounds like some others have been having local success already as well. It’s impossible to know the relative strength of those players to their local metas, though.
All disclaimers aside, this deck is sweet, and some version of G/B/x Control is probably good. This version’s angle is maximizing Emrakul, the Promised End.
Emrakul is a very potent top of the curve, but I have trouble imagining that she’s what you want to be doing against Bant Company, U/W Spirits, or W/R Humans. It’s possible you want it as a looming threat in the background; however, I’d rather focus on making even better use of Liliana, the Last Hope. She seems amazing in the format. When your opponent drops a Selfless Spirit on turn 2, a turn 3 Liliana will be despair-inducing.
Easily among the top five cards in the set, possibly the best, Liliana, the Last Hope is super-great at ripping apart one-toughness creatures, like Spirits. She’s also just such a high-impact card for three mana when almost everyone is reliant on creatures to attack with.
Hedron Archive is underrated outside of ramp decks. As the U/R Eldrazi decks become more control decks rather than ramp decks and yet keep their Hedron Archives, it’s not surprising to see that Ali too landed on the Archive as an artifact for delirium and Emrakul.
I guess that once you go to this much trouble to delirium, stuff like Scour the Laboratory becomes more appealing. Still, I’m worried about the double blue requirement, and I’m just not sold this is the style of card draw you actually want. Is stuff like this and Oath of Jace really a better plan than some Dark Petitions and a Seasons Past?
For instance:
Creatures (7)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (21)
Spells (30)
He does have a Liliana, so I guess that’s not zero Eldritch Moon cards…
I’m not sold on the “all removal plus Dark Petition / Seasons Past” deckbuilding style, but the combo could potentially appear in a variety of B/G/x decks. I just think we’d be well-served to find ways to lean into Liliana. She even mills us, setting up bigger Seasons Pasts!
I was a little surprised to see W/B Midrange put up such modest numbers. I wonder if most people were still trying to figure out how to build it for the new format. The format is so different now, it certainly calls for a serious makeover to the strategy.
Creatures (10)
- 2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- 1 Linvala, the Preserver
- 1 Archangel Avacyn
- 1 Bruna, the Fading Light
- 3 Gisela, the Broken Blade
- 2 Thalia's Lancers
Planeswalkers (5)
Lands (21)
Spells (24)
There’s some really cool stuff going on here, and I’m interested to see where the archetype evolves from here. I’m not sure it needs to be built around Thalia’s Lancers, but I definitely see no problem with that being the case at the moment.
The white Goblin Dark-Dwellers, Thalia’s Lancers offers better selection but less tempo. It’s also nice to be reminded that we don’t have to play four, just because we’re playing legends to support it. I particularly like how Thalia’s Lancers takes us into a creature-heavy enough direction to really capitalize on Liliana, the Last Hope. While she is hoping to use her +1 ability a lot, she does rely on getting a creature back for a good chunk of her power.
Auto-include at least one in every Standard Thalia’s Lancers deck. It’s just so big to be able to find a land with your Lancer rather than just another threat when you really need a sixth or seventh land. It’s also just nice to be able to discard removal we don’t need. That we can discard any threat on turn six, untap, and drop Bruna, the Fading Light is actually really sweet, particularly when it was Gisela, the Broken Blade we ditched.
While you don’t need to play Bruna to make Gisela, good, it is a very powerful option. This kind of inevitability is very attractive and doesn’t actually require all that much in the way of support. I wonder about Gisela’s positioning in the format, however. She doesn’t match up well against Spell Queller or Archangel Avacyn. She’s such a powerful card, though, there’s a limit to how bad of positioning she could really be facing.
Another role-player, at least when used “fairly,” Collective Brutality over the third Duress is a nice hedge, helping reduce the risk of drawing too many discard spells off the top later, or against opponents without many targets. It’s also cute that we can discard a creature on turn 2 against a control deck, kill our opponent’s Jace, take their best sorcery or instant, and then potentially drop Liliana and immediately draw it back. We still want to be careful of flash threats, but lines of play like that are open to us that would normally not be.
Rounding out the Top 8, we’ve got G/R Goggles, a deck that didn’t change much, at all. At least, not yet…
Creatures (4)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (11)
Spells (43)
Zero Eldritch Moon cards is probably not likely long-term. That said, Matthew did move some of the numbers around to better set up for the format this weekend. I particularly appreciate the Rending Volleys and Draconic Roars, both of which are better than average, at the moment.
Speaking of no new technology, I want to see W/R Humans level up. The highest finisher this past weekend was Tom Ross, piloting a list with just a single sideboard card from Eldritch Moon.
Creatures (31)
- 4 Knight of the White Orchid
- 4 Dragon Hunter
- 3 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
- 3 Anointer of Champions
- 3 Expedition Envoy
- 4 Thraben Inspector
- 4 Thalia's Lieutenant
- 2 Hanweir Militia Captain
- 4 Town Gossipmonger
Lands (4)
Spells (25)
Repel the Abominable is actually not all that far off from a Brave the Elements.
It does cost two, which is a lot more expensive, but it also counters damage to the face. My biggest qualm with the card is that too many opposing creatures are likely to be Humans for my tastes.
This is the direction I want to go with Humans…
Well, one week in the books, and already Eldritch Moon is having a serious impact. I’m hopeful that Bant Company will not dominate the Pro Tour, like it did this event; but, we shall see. See you, next week!
Bonus:
For reference, here are the 45 Eldritch Moon cards that have already cashed a big event.
