Bant Golems

Commander / EDH* Artificer Golem GWU (Bant) Tokens

Vantharion

Creature (33)

• 1x Abzan Battle Priest
• 1x Arcbound Reclaimer
• 1x Armorcraft Judge
• 1x Awakened Amalgam
• 1x Brass Herald
• 1x Glasspool Mimic  ^Flip
• 1x Golden Guardian  ^Flip
• 1x Harmonic Sliver
• 1x Howling Golem
• 1x Irregular Cohort
• 1x Lodestone Golem
• 1x Masked Vandal
• 1x Master Splicer
• 1x Maul Splicer
• 1x Meteor Golem
• 1x Mirror Entity
• 1x Mistwalker
• 1x Moritte of the Frost
• 1x Nullmage Shepherd
• 1x Orvar, the All-Form
• 1x Precursor Golem
• 1x Realmwalker
• 1x Relic Golem
• 1x Sage of Fables
• 1x Sage of Lat-Nam
• 1x Sensor Splicer
• 1x Shapesharer
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Spark Double
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x Unsettled Mariner
• 1x Vital Splicer
• 1x Wing Splicer

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Hadana's Climb  ^Flip
• 1x Hardened Scales
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x The Bears of Littjara
• 1x Viridian Revel

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Oko, Thief of Crowns

Land (34)

• 1x Ancient Den
• 1x Arctic Treeline
• 1x Barkchannel Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Brushland
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Flooded Grove
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Gavony Township
• 1x Glacial Floodplain
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x High Market
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Path of Ancestry
• 1x Phyrexia's Core
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Rimewood Falls
• 1x Riptide Laboratory
• 1x Seaside Citadel
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 3x Snow-Covered Forest
• 3x Snow-Covered Island
• 2x Snow-Covered Plains
• 1x Swarmyard
• 1x Tree of Tales
• 1x Unclaimed Territory
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Artifact (9)

• 1x Horizon Spellbomb
• 1x Ichor Wellspring
• 1x Liquimetal Coating
• 1x Mycosynth Wellspring
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x The Ozolith
• 1x Throne of Geth
• 1x Treasure Map  ^Flip
• 1x Witch's Oven

Commanders (2)

Instant (12)

• 1x Akroma's Will
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Confirm Suspicions
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Heliod's Intervention
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Inspiring Call
• 1x Masterful Replication
• 1x Rootborn Defenses
• 1x Spell Swindle
• 1x Sundering Growth
• 1x Tribute to the Wild

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Bala Ged Recovery  ^Flip
• 1x Dismantling Wave
• 1x Pir's Whim
• 1x Splicer's Skill
• 1x Triumph of the Hordes

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Sideboard

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Arcane Adaptation

Artifact (1)

• 1x Maskwood Nexus

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Maybeboard

Creature (27)

• 1x Ancestral Statue
• 1x Ancient Stone Idol
• 1x Aven Wind Guide
• 1x Battered Golem
• 1x Bloodline Pretender
• 1x Chameleon Colossus
• 1x Chronomaton
• 1x Colossus of Akros
• 1x Darksteel Colossus
• 1x Darksteel Sentinel
• 1x Glassdust Hulk
• 1x Icehide Golem
• 1x Iron Bully
• 1x Karn, Silver Golem *oversized*
• 1x Keeper of the Lens
• 1x Littjara Kinseekers
• 1x Maelstrom Colossus
• 1x Mycosynth Golem
• 1x Phantasmal Image
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Platinum Emperion
• 1x Prismite
• 1x Sai, Master Thopterist
• 1x Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
• 1x Sakashima the Impostor
• 1x Sakashima's Student
• 1x Voltaic Construct

Instant (5)

• 1x Consign to Dust
• 1x Ghostly Flicker
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Momentary Blink
• 1x Unbreakable Formation

Artifact (4)

• 1x Golem Foundry
• 1x Guardian Idol
• 1x Pyre of Heroes
• 1x Treasure Map  ^Flip

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Kindred Discovery
• 1x Ongoing Investigation
• 1x Reflections of Littjara
• 1x Ulvenwald Mysteries

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Declaration in Stone
• 1x Splicer's Skill

Land (1)

• 1x Dread Statuary

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This is my Bant Golems deck.

Ich Tekik is the commander. Ishai is basically a T3/T4 play that applies pressure while I play out other things. It becomes an easy threat that draws an answer while I plan other pressure.

From a high perspective, it's about establishing a board of creatures, while having many options to disrupt powerful value engines or mana rocks opponents typically rely on. You'll find a lot of scaling and mass artifact and enchantment removal in this deck. If you make several golems, then remove some artifacts, you can start hitting pretty hard.

As a backup plan, it relies on treasure, food, and clue token generation as well as artifact sacrifice engines to power the death triggers for Ich-Tekik's board pumping.

The deck does have a tribal-tribal theme, since it's running a number of changelings. That lets me rely on some lands like Swarmyard and Riptide Laboratory , as well as cards like Harmonic Sliver and Sage of Fables . I try not to run any tribal-tribal things that aren't great on their own. Harmonic Sliver always achieves being a Reclamation Sage, but can scale higher. Sage of Fables can still remove counters from golems.

There's a package of +1/+1 counter themed things: Hardened Scales, Armorcraft Judge, Inspiring Call, Gavony Township, Throne of Geth, etc. These are pretty self explanatory when trying to build a bunch of +1/+1 counters on your golems. I will note that Hadana's Climb is not part of that category for me. It's mostly the sole card that is in the deck because Ishai is the partner commander.

The land base for the deck isn't quite done yet. I typically won't run many taplands or that many fetches unless there is a reason/benefit to it. A lot of these were what I had lying around not in decks. I don't think there are many nonfixing lands I'd add to the list though.

There are certain cards the deck is lacking because I haven't shelled out the money into the predatory pricing nature of Magic. Force of Vigor, Aura Shards, Hullbreacher all fit this bill.

Cool Tricks

Masterful Replication: Did you notice it can let you turn Treasure/Food tokens into 3/3 golems? I really want to turn my entire board into Brass Heralds, or the new double striking golem! It can even turn your golem army into a more protected artifact (like if I ran a Darksteel Citadel or Darksteel Sentinel

Treasure Tokens: With Ich-Tekik out, these effectively become banked overruns. Food/Clue are a bit harder to achieve, but with a mix you can keep a threat of pressure with your golems.

Hadana's Climb: This is great single handedly with Ishai, who will reach 3 counters after 1 round. This means that the Climb flips immediately giving a potent aggressive and evasive land.

Treasure Map: Makes 3 treasures and gives me an enduring way to turn treasures into cards. Yes please!

Lifegain Alpha Strike: There's a few ways to gain a bunch of life in this deck. Abzan Battle Priest and Akroma's Will are good ways to get a powerful life swing if you have any semblance of a board. Ishai swinging for 10 and regaining 10 will definitely keep you healthy. Eating plenty of Food the Witch's Oven cooks up can be surprisingly good as well.

Why I didn't run X Theme

Blink: Honestly, blink is really terrible for Ich-Tekik. It resets his own +1/+1 counters and there's not that many splicers in the entire deck. The majority of other Ich/Ishai decks I saw ran a lot of blink which confuses me greatly. Blinking is usually a 1-3 mana effect (depending on how many things you get to blink) and getting a 3/3 or maybe even 2 for a 3 mana spell is just hardcore underwhelming. Also I already have a blink subtheme in my Yasharn deck.

More Golems/Big Golems: Let's face it. Most of the golems in the game are really terrible limited fodder cards. I'm trying to run the ones that don't outright suck. There's a number of high mana value golems that are just too out of this deck's mana range, and I don't want to spend slots running ways to cheat them into play. I also don't run the few 1-2 mana golem options because I expect they'll be too low impact to help much.

Clones: 'Creature you control' clones can cap out on how good they are really quick, especially when you run a number of bad golems/changelings. Anyclones can do the most degenerate thing at the table, which means you're deviating from your play patterns.

More Food/Treasure/Clue: There are a bunch of different options here, but I trimmed it down a decent amount to what I've got. Witch's Oven, Oko, Confirm Suspicions are all on the weak side. I'm hoping Witch's Oven surprises me because it can easily create 2 food & let me sacrifice a 4/4 golem token getting a quick trigger. I doubt I'll use Oko to make that many food tokens and mostly Elk or swap for people's stuff. I do want to run Hullbreacher as it's probably a good treasure card.

Proliferate/Populate: I run two populate effects cause they fit nicely on an effect I already want (Sundering/Rootborn), but it's a rough slot to spend an effect for making a 3/3. Throne of Geth is also an artifact sacrifice engine. Both Populate and Proliferate are great, but I took the route of running more anti-artifact effects and more artifact token creation over running ways to grow my golems. I might change that in time.

Notable Omissions: Ameboid Changeling is probably a decent fit for this deck as a tribaltribal enabler. Maskwood Nexus hasn't found its way into the list but needs to.

Future Changes: Precursor Golem is going to get cut sooner rather than later. The card is hilarious but I can't abuse it and it invites being blown out.

The just spoiled cards I plan to add so far are: - Losheel, Clockwork Scholar: Because she draws cards and protects golems on the attack. Also an artificer.
- Monologue Tax: Another treasure maker, at a low MV. It'll be baseline an Awakening Zone. - Bronze Guardian: A double strike golem that'll be decently big, gets bigger from my counters and protects my stuff? Sign me up!

Expected Strengths This deck is great against mana rock heavy decks. You can choose to disrupt them early, or pull them back down to mana curve.
This deck is great against value-engine heavy decks. If they want to combine a few enchantments/artifacts, you'll often have the tools to take those cards back off the board, while also disrupting other players.
This deck is weak against removing creature threats or decks that build a bigger board faster.
This deck doesn't deal with land strategies, graveyard strategies or things needing reliable counterspells.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 41 - 2 Rares 30 - 0 Uncommons 16 - 0 Commons
Cards	101
Avg. CMC	3.33
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Clue, Copy Clone, Elephant 3/3 G, Elk 3/3 G, Food, Golem 3/3 C, Golem 4/4 C, Phyrexian Golem 3/3 C, Shapeshifter 2/2 C, Shapeshifter 2/2 U, Treasure