April 7th - Japanese Bant

Apologies to everyone who was expecting a Daily Deck yesterday, but schoolwork kept me too busy. To make up for it, I'm going to take a look at one of the more interesting competitive Extended decks just in time for the PTQ on the 9th.




In Yuuya Watanabe's Channelfireball debut, he examined the current state of Extended and provided some fairly stock lists of the best decks. As almost an afterthought, he also included a pretty wild list at the end of the article, that has apparently been tearing up Japanese tournaments. For lack of a better name, I've christened it Japanese Bant.

Japanese Bant | The Rusty Machete

22 Creatures:  
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Qasali Pridemage
2 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Mirran Crusader
4 Bloodbraid Elf

11 Spells:  
1 Sword of Body and Mind
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
4 Cryptic Command
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Ajani Vengeant
1 Gideon Jura

26 Lands:  
1 Island
4 Vivid Meadow
4 Vivid Creek
2 Vivid Grove
4 Reflecting Pool
2 Razorverge Thicket
2 Copperline Gorge
3 Mystic Gate
4 Mutavault

15 Sideboard:  
2 Path to Exile
4 Day of Judgment
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Mindlock Orb
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Some quick thoughts:

The decklist posted on Channelfireball is 59 cards. Go ahead and look it up.  What's the mystery card? I have no idea.

Mutavault in a deck that also runs Bloodbraid, Mirran Crusader, and Cryptic Command. As Yuuya mentioned, most people could not conceive of doing this. However, I will agree that Mutavault is incredibly good in an aggressive deck like this one.

Lots of vivids. This is both a reason for Noble Hierarch, as it catches you back up, and against Noble, since you will rarely be able to turn 1 it.

4 Squadron Hawks. This card sees almost no play in Extended, which is probably a huge oversight. The body is unimpressive, but the card advantage, flying, and sheer number of bodies it can generate is not to be underestimated. Hawks probably deserves to see more play than it does.

Superfriends. One of each good walker. I guess you never know which one you'll need, so might as well have one of each.

Sideboard 4 Mindlock Orb 4 Leyline. This is what we call being all in. Whoever is trying to Valakut this deck out has to come very prepared. Note that walkers can not be Valakut'd if you have Leyline out as you can only target players, then redirect, and Leyline gives you shroud.

I made a bant deck last night that didn't splash Bloodbraid or Mutavault but still attempted to cast Cryptic. Testing results were awful against Boros, and I would imagine even worse against monored. So for Detroit, I would not play this deck unless you are 1) Japanese or 2) named Basem. The deck seems very well positioned for bant mirrors, and is probably a nightmare for Faeries, though having zero Paths in the main is a bit suspect as it makes the deck incredibly soft to Mistbind Clique.

Good luck on Saturday regardless of the deck you choose, and remember: don't be a bitch!