Primordial Soup | Bant Deck Tech

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Spootyone

4 March 2014

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Primordial Soup | Bant Mega-Ramp

The Background

Welcome everyone to another deck tech! After seeing just how well-received my previous tech was, I decided to begin writing them for each deck that I end up creating to play in standard. It is worth noting that I am a great example of what one would call a "Johnny-Spike". What does that mean? In a nutshell, it means that when I play magic, I want to play to win. It's important to me. But what's even more important to me is winning on my terms -- winning with my deck. Sure, I could net-deck a Pro Tour winning brew and play it until I am skilled at doing so (and there's nothing wrong in doing this!), but I feel absolutely no satisfaction in doing so. So I build and test and play my own unique builds! And...that'swhyIloseallthetime.

I have been playing G/W aggro/midrange/whatever for a very long time and have explored the many forms it can take, enjoying some and not enjoying others. However, with the release of Born of the Gods, I recognized the fact that G/W aggro was taking quite a hit given the printing of cards such as Searing Blood, Drown in Sorrow and Bile Blight. Brimaz, King of Oreskos is a fantastic card that totally fits in with that shell, but I wasn't having the success -- nor the enjoyment -- I desired to play that deck any longer.

My first deck idea was simply-put "Bant Control" (You can call this the alpha phase of deck building). It wasn't all too exciting or new, but I knew if I was adding another color that it was going to be blue. And Bant control had been fairly successful for me in the past. I tried out a few versions of the deck, using cards like AEtherling, Azorius Charm, and Supreme Verdict to do what control does. But it was kinda boring. And I wasn't very successful with it, either. Around this point, Karametra, God of Harvests *f-etch* was revealed. With this reveal, I knew for a fact that G/W aggro was out for me. Despite the fact that I knew she was "terrible" in standard and super janky and all-around not right for competitive, I decided to really just put my nose to the grindstone and see if there were any way at all I could unlock the potential I knew she had.

Karametra has a ramp ability that doesn't come out until you already have 5 mana. This begs the question: What am I ramping into? It needs to be something that just outright wins the game on the spot or else you will always get run over -- especially in a format of Hero's Downfall and Detention Sphere. What were the options then? Angel of Serenity and Armada Wurm were the first to come to mind. Both affected the field as soon as they were played, and both provided a hefty amount of devotion to turn Karametra into a creature. This was my other main goal of using her. I wanted to beat face with my 6/7 or not use it at all.

...But...things didn't go well. The deck was still too slow. If I even survived to play them, my bombs got removed and/or they didn't affect the board enough. My opponent was still at 20 life after all. I began trying to think of more creative ways to abuse the ability of Karametra to trigger when creatures were cast (as opposed to entering the battlefield). Keeping in mind that I wanted to possibly add blue to the build, I took a look at Ephara, God of the Polis. The two of them worked quite well in tandem. I just needed a way to bind them even further together. And it was at this point that I, like many others, remembered about Primeval Bounty. Play a creature, get a 3/3, get a land, gain three life, draw a card next turn. Seems...effective.

I began work on a build centered around this strategy. With Detention Sphere available, I decided to try to also make Ephara's devotion a focus so I could make her a creature and win that way. Naturally, cards like Blind Obedience and then Deputy of Acquittals followed suit. But it wasn't until I began playtesting that I realized the potential shenanigans that one creature could cause in this deck. Imagine having Karametra, Ephara and the bounty on the field, with 2x Deputy of Acquittals in hand. Play one. done. Get your stuff from the other cards on the field. Now....play the second one...and return the first to your hand. In this way, you can cycle these creatures and get massive amounts of value from the gods and enchantments -- not to mention tons of land to do the same thing even more next turn.

The concept was fun, but as might seem obvious it just didn't hold up against T1 decks. It was far too janky. So..I scrapped the idea. Shortly afterwards...I scrapped Karametra, God of Harvests *f-etch*, too. She just couldn't do what I wanted her to do. I tried making control shells with Ephara, but those too fell by the wayside shortly afterwards. I was beginning to feel disheartened about the whole situation and didn't really feel like I was accomplishing anything. This was until I saw a playtesting video by Brian Braun-Duin on "Bant Superfriends." I loved the concept and loved seeing how well it performed as well. I felt dirty about using his deck idea, but I simply had to try it out for myself.

The Building

Kiora, the Crashing Wave, Jace, Architect of Thought, and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. These three cards together create utter hell for the opponent. And that was the main idea of the deck BBD was playing and that I began working with. Control the board, overwhelm your opponent with amazingly powerful walkers, and finish them off with either the incremental advantages they give or their ultimate abilities. I tried it out and it seemed to work fairly well! There were other cards I wanted to play, though.

Prophet of Kruphix is such a fun and good card. And I really wanted to utilize its abilities. Another card I loved was the newly-announced Courser of Kruphix. Both provided advantages that I thought were interesting. I was having trouble making cuts though. And that's not even mentioning the fact that the cards in my deck weren't really synergizing all that well. It was becoming more of a "Bant Good Stuff" build than anything else. I didn't like that. Additionally, the prophet wasn't working as well as I'd hoped. There were many times it was taking up my whole turn to play and then dying at the end of my turn, thus putting me way behind and losing most games I played with it.

Around this time, the EDH ban list was revised. I also play EDH and was heartbroken to hear of the loss of Sylvan Primordial. I loved playing with that card. It was so good! I mean it's a huge body with reach that provides immediate impact and totally hoses Stormbreath Dragon and lands with Underworld Connections on them as well as things like Whip of Erebos or even just planeswalkers and it can totally just wreck Blood Baron of Vizkopa and....wait a minute...

Of course! It had been there all along! Right in my own deck box! Sylvan Primordial was just the kind of absurdity and ridiculousness that I wanted and needed in my build. How do you play a 7-drop, you ask? I went with 3 different shells to do so.

The first of these was straight-up control. I tried out Bant control/superfriends and decided to use Sylvan Primordial as my main surprise win-con. It worked! Most of the time, at least. Azorius Charm, Detention Sphere, Kiora and Jace provided the help I needed to get to 7 mana without dying and big ol' tree-man finished them off. I was having some trouble against control, however. They had answers for my advances and most of my board was built to handle aggro. And if that weren't bad enough, aggro was still eating me alive anyway. With no Supreme Verdict to clean the slate Rakdos aggro was killing me often and White Weenie was also getting in for wins where I couldn't afford it.

The next method was one that I really, really liked. Plasm Capture. Plasm Capture is one of those cards where you look at it and go "Well, that's wacky." You know who doesn't say that, though? The opponent who doesn't expect it. This was my game plan:

• T1: Land.

• T2: Land, 2-drop ramp card.

• T3: land, hold up for Plasm Capture. Use it against them on their play for the turn.

• T4: Sylvan Primordial. Blow up one of their small number of mana sources, laugh at their 2-drop as you tower over it menacingly, and feel the palpable agony seeping from their heart.

This plan worked many times and almost always I won those games. I loved the deck and felt it was my own and really had just massive amounts of fun playing it and testing it -- even if people got irritated at me and rage quit 50% of the time. There was still a problem, however. I was relying on my opponent not expecting the counterspell. And once they did know about it, I didn't get to trick them anymore. They got to play around it. Players using Thoughtseize could figure out the trick T1 of Game 1 without me even getting a chance to trick them, too, and those games were always really upsetting from my point of view. And so, I set out in making plan number 3 work out.

Plan 3: Ramp. But not just ramp -- lots of ramp. We're talking mana dork into mana dork into Kiora into big green beaters. Good old-fashioned green magic just like mom used to make...if she had played magic. The idea was simple, but effective. And time-tested, too. Around this time G/R monsters was just starting to become the new sensation it is right now in the metagame, so I had a good place to start when it came to successful decks using ramp. I knew I needed at least a T1 or T2 ramp creature so I could play Kiora T3 and hopefully ramp off of her as well. And before I knew it I was at 7 mana and ready to play my big fatties. Having no access to red meant no Domri Rade, which is quite a hit to be taking. But access to blue meant having Kiora and (more importantly, to me) Cyclonic Rift. After all, if I'm getting up to 7 mana, why not play one-sided, instant speed board wipes? And that was where I found the utmost success.

Now for the build, itself. For mana providers, I went with a playset of Elvish Mystic, a playset of Sylvan Caryatid and 2x Kiora's Follower. Getting the numbers of all these correct has been a hassle, and I'm still not entirely sure. Caryatid provides color fixing and is harder to remove, but the follower provides a means of aggression and can grant our big creatures pseudo-vigilance. Due to the removal in the format, I've gone with more caryatids than followers. Additionally, we have a playset of Courser of Kruphix. Getting this creature out on turn 2 is quite good, as we can immediately begin to make use of its ability. Courser provides card advantage and acts as a bandaid given the amount of shocklands we are playing.

Next of the list is a playset of Kiora, the Crashing Wave. More often than not, I'm using this card for the Explore ability as soon as it hits the field. The ramp is the most important part to me. Certain board states, however, make the +1 ability quite good, and it's not uncommon for me to win with 9/9 kraken tokens just because someone wasn't aggressive enough. I also have 2x Urban Evolution in the deck to provide a bit of refueling as well as additional Explore effects. This card can be played as early as turn 3 in this deck and can then rocket me into a turn four primordial.

This deck contains a total of 8 "bombs." The one that has been mentioned so far is Sylvan Primordial. Being the star of the deck, I naturally cannot have less than 3 of him. Due to the fact that we can get him out so early, his land destruction ability can easily become quite relevant in out-tempoing the opponent. We also have 3x Arbor Colossus. The colossus is basically promordial's little brother. He comes out a bit earlier and still eats opposing Polukranos, World Eater and Stormbreath Dragon. And threatening his monstrous ability can really gum up the board state for the unprepared opponent. Lastly, we have 2x Elspeth, Sun's Champion. Why? She's just...really good. If the opponent has ramped into some big creatures then she comes out and wipes their board clean in prep for our creatures. If they haven't, she comes down and provides blockers to protect me in prep for our creatures. It's a win-win situation.

This deck runs 7 utility spells that are not ramp-related. The first is a 3-of Cyclonic Rift. Getting to 7 mana is surprisingly easy. Once you do, it becomes quite feasible to just force your opponent to start over and follow it up with creatures that outclass their own. The flexibility to play this card for its non-overloaded cost is one of the reasons why it is so critical to have in this deck. We also have 2x Detention Sphere as removal for things we just can't seem to get rid of otherwise, such as gods. Additionally, it hoses Pack Rat and a lot of aggro decks who focus on hand-vomiting their cards onto the table. Finally, we have 2x Sphinx's Revelation. I should hardly need to explain the reason to run this card, but in short it provides us cards and life to refuel us into the mid game. Having so much ramp in the deck means we can fire the rev off for 6+ very often.

The Battles

Time to take a look at potential matchups!

First off, we'll look at Mono-black Devotion. Though there have been a rise in the number of other decks seen in the metagame, MBD has continued to be the most prevalent. Our main goal is to out-pace them in mana, and then present more threats than they have removal for. Thoughtseize hurts tremendously, and having key parts of our hands stripped away can be detrimental. However, with Urban Evolution, Kiora, the Crashing Wave, and Sphinx's Revelation we can usually refuel in time. Sylvan Primordial is fantastic in this matchup because we can usually get a 2-for-1 on the opponent who has used an Underworld Connections.

After sideboarding, we bring in 2 copies of Primeval Bounty. This card allows us to out-advantage their deck. Additionally, our top-decks become even more valuable as a simple land gets us additional value. The card combos nicely with primordial and the cards that grant us additional lands per turn. 2x Bramblecrush can also be brought to try to kill those lands with Underworld Connections sooner, or to just try to go the LD route and out-tempo them in another way. I would usually remove Kiora's Follower and maybe some number of Elvish Mystic for this matchup. Relying on them and then having them removed can be very painful.

Orzhov midrange is a powerful up-and-comer and has many of the same threats as MBD. Therefore, the sideboarding is exactly the same.

Mono-blue devotion is still a part of this metagame and should be respected. Luckily for us, the matchup is not that difficult. We can usually afford a bit of early damage and stabilize turn 4 or so by simply playing a single Arbor Colossus. And if things get too out of hand, an overloaded Cyclonic Rift usually just seals the deal. Out of the sideboard we have access to 3x Nylea's Disciple, which can provide massive amounts of lifegain given how high our devotion to green gets. Mistcutter Hydra can also come in to be aggressive or to provide ground blockers. I usually remove Urban Evolution and sometimes Elspeth, Sun's Champion, who cannot really protect herself from a hoard of fliers.

White weenie, Rakdos aggro, red deck wins and Boros aggro can be a tough matchup without the right hand. Any super-aggressive deck such as these will be able to get some early beats in before we can play our threats. Sylvan Caryatid and Courser of Kruphix provide some means of protection and Cyclonic Rift really shines if they start using auras or pump spells. I usually bring Nylea's Disciple in for these matchups as well, and Blind Obedience if they are using creatures that have haste. The matchup can be hard but is certainly doable.

Esper control or U/W control typically Prey Upon midrange decks due to their ability to answer all of the threats the midrange player can get out once they get them out. This is a bit different for us due to our ramp capabilities. Additionally, Elvish Mystic, Kiora's Follower and Courser of Kruphix can serve as attackers when necessary. our sideboard really helps us out, though. We have a playset of Mistcutter Hydra that we can make huge with our large amounts of mana. We also have 2x Negate to try to get around the opposing dissolves or to wreck them as they try to play a Sphinx's Revelation or Jace, Architect of Thought. Bramblecrush can also be brought in as an attempt to mess up one of their colors (Esper) or to just keep them off lands while you increase your own. They can also be used to destroy Detention Sphere or planeswalkers they might be relying on.

Finally, we have G/R monsters, which can be a problem if they out-pace us. One of the few ways they can handle our big creatures is by using Ghor-Clan Rampager to bloodrush a blocked Stormbreath Dragon or Polukranos, World Eater. Cyclonic Rift can help us here as we can bounce their guy in response (a very helpful 2-for-1). Kiora does a good job of shutting them down for a tiny bit as long as they only have a single threat out. And Elspeth can wipe their board of threats before we place down our own. We can side in Bramblecrush to deal with walkers or to try to mess them up on mana (hard to do due to their ramp). Blind Obedience can help turn away Stormbreath Dragon, and primeval bounty can sometimes help us get the advantages we need. I tend to board out Kiora's Follower for this matchup and sometimes a number of Elvish Mystic to avoid unfavorable combat interactions with their Courser of Kruphix and to give them less use for Mizzium Mortars.

And that's that! This will be the deck that I will hopefully be able to play until Journey to Nyx is released (preferably beyond that, as well). The sideboard is likely to change as the meta shifts around and I may fiddle some more with the numbers of cards, but I think the core is solid. I'm happy to announce that my "Showdown" articles should be able to start getting out to you again now that I have a deck to use. I hope you all are as excited about that as I am. And if you enjoyed this deck, please don't hesitate to drop by and show your support with a +1. Seeing that shows me whether or not the general consensus enjoys the deck or not. If you want to play with or against this deck feel completely free to do so!

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Primordial Soup | Bant Mega-Ramp

Standard Spootyone

SCORE: 8 | 24 COMMENTS | 1574 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

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