April 12th - Caleb Durward's Bant

It's pretty rare that I build and play something that someone else made for Legacy; I like my brews.  But when a single person does enough testing and is articulate enough about it, you have to take notice:

Caleb Durward's Bantlanta | The Rusty Machete

19 Creatures:  
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Sower of Temptation
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Rhox War Monk
3 Vendilion Clique

19 Spells:  
4 Force of Will
1 Umezawas Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Brainstorm
3 Green Suns Zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ponder

22 Lands:  
1 Forest
1 Savannah
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Plains
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Windswept Heath
1 Karakas
3 Wasteland
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest

15 Sideboard:  
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Pithing Needle
2 Spell Pierce
1 Trygon Predator
3 Submerge
3 Mirran Crusader

You can call it anything you like, but I'll keep calling it Bantlanta.  This deck operates in somewhat of the same way that the Zenith Zoo from last week did: have a turn 1 accelerator, follow it with a 3 drop or a 2 drop with Wasteland, or get yourself a 4 drop on turn 3.  This one plays significantly less removal than Zoo (to be fair, everyone plays less removal than Zoo), but it has several trumps.

Stoneforge Mystic - Sword and Jitte are still awesome.  Considering the mana boosts and the high creature count, this is very nice to see.

Vendilion Clique - Evasion for the equipment.

Sower of Temptation - Clear up some sideboard space, I board this in a lot.  It's nice to see it in the main.

However, the most interesting card in the deck isn't even in the main: it's the Mirran Crusaders in the board.  Yes, it has protection from the majority of the format's creatures.  Yes, with Equipment it kills at the same speed as Progenitus.  No, Progenitus can't block this guy.

I might be modifying the list just a little bit before playing it though - me being a Legacy community contributor, I'm loaning out cards, and in return borrowing cards might not be able to find everything.  That's life.

-G