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Bant Control with Elspeth

Modern Control GWU (Bant)

HylleG


Sideboard

Enchantment (3)

Artifact (2)

Sorcery (1)

Instant (4)

Creature (2)


Maybeboard

Creature (1)


This is my bant control deck. In this decription i will go through the deck and how it is designed.

Im would be very happy to get feedback and suggestions on this deck on how to improve it.

If you have any questions about the deck after reading the description, feel free to ask in the comment section.

In the following sections i will try to explain each and every card for both people that is new to magic and more advanced players.

As the name says this is bant deck that is supposed to take control over your opponent. With this deck we are supposed to annoy our enemy as much as possible by taking away everything they got against us. Meanwhile we will protect and pump up our planeswalkers or gaining so much life and board presence that in the end have too much for the enemy to handle.
When creating decks i prefer to to have around 24 lands in total, making sure that you have good chances to draw a good number of lands during your game.

This is why we have 22 lands and 4 Farseek to have the prefered curve. As the games goes on you will start to draw more and more cards and dropping lands will be much easier. You should always pick up shock lands with Farseek.

The deck is filled with dual lands, giving the best utility for casting all our spells.

The backfire of this is cards like Path to Exile will give you no advantage as an opponent plays it or Blood Moon that will make all of your mana useless.

With Farseek you will beable to put down 2 lands at the time very early, making it faster to your midgame/lategame, where this deck really shines.

In this deck we have 3 different planeswalkers, all with their different purpose.

Elspeth, Sun's champion

This is our most valueble friend. Her abilities consist of the following:

  • +1 Put three 1/1 white soldier creature tokens onto the battlefield

  • -3 Destroy all creatures with power 4 or greater

  • -7 You get an emblem with "Creatures you control get +2/+2 and have flying"

This planeswalker is one of the most annoying planeswalker for the enemy to deal with. Its +1 ability makes it easy to protect elspeth from the enemy damage as you can use the soldiers to block incoming attacks. Every round you will get three brand new ones ready to defend her.

As we want to control the board making sure we are strongest as much as possible, elspeth -3 ability fits in perfectly. She can kill of big threats from the enemy without killing most of our core base of creatures as we only have one creature that has above 4 power. Even when her -7 ability lands, she wont kill of her soldiers with this ability. It will kill of two types of our other creatures at this time, but creating three 3/3 white soldier tokens with flying is very game changing and is hard to recover from.

TL:DR Elspeth is our best win condition as she can protect her self and in the end have huge impact on the game. Keep her alive and use -7 ability.

Gideon Jura

This planeswalker will help us both defending our other planeswalkers and deal damage to our enemy. His abilities are the following:

  • +2 During target opponent's next turn, creatures that player controls attack Gideon Jura if able.

  • -2 Destroy target tapped creature.

  • 0 Until end of turn, Gideon Jura becomes a 6/6 Human Soldier creature that's still a planeswalker. Prevent all damage that would be dealt to him this turn.

Gideon Jura can deal some very good damage while using his 0 ability, only concern you should have while doing this is that your oppenent will be able to "Destroy target creature" as you swing in with him.

This ability should be used when you have no other purpose for him and you are not too concerned that your oppenent can destroy him because of him changing to a creature.

When you have other planeswalkers down and trying to pump them up, Gideon Jura should be used as a "shield" for them, using his +2 ability do ensure that the enemy will not attack the other planeswalkers.

If you plan to use the +2 ability, it would be prefered that you have some creatures that can kill the incoming attack and that Gideon will not obviously die from this attack. After the attack has been made, you can use his -2 ability to finish one of the creatures the opponent attacked with, given that the creatures doesnt have vigilance it would be tapped for your next turn.

TL:DR Gideon Jura is our shield preventing enemy from attacking our other planeswalkers.

Tamiyo, Field Researcher

Tamiyo, Field Researcher serves as our utility planeswalker and her kit helps us out in many siturations. Her abilities are the following:

  • +1 Choose up to two target creatures. Until your next turn, wheneer either of those creatures deals combat damage, you draw a card.

  • -2 Tap up to two target nonland permanents. They don't untap during their controller's next untap step

  • -7 Draw three cards. You get an emblem with "You may cast nonland cards from your han without paying their mana cost.

As we want to go through our deck as much as possible and always having as many cards as possible to always have a response to our opponent, the +1 helps us drawing some extra cards. This ability can be used on Gideon as he turns into a creature making it a safer card draw as the damage he takes will be prevented. This ability can be setup together with Gideons +2 ability as you are sure that enemy creatures will attack Gideon and you may block as you please, which is better than attacking with your own creatures as your opponents will decide blocks then.

Tamiyos +1 ability can be put on Elspeths soldier tokens aswell as they are not very valueable and can be traded for cards in this case.

If enemy has too much board presence Tamiyos -2 ability can tap two targets and make sure those cannot attack you or your planeswalkers. This ability can be setup with Gideons -2 Ability, tapping two creatures and using Gideon to destroy one of them.

As the deck is mana hungry Tamiyos -7 will help out with casting anything without wondering if you would have enough mana for it.

TL:DR Tamiyo is used for utilities giving card draw and setting up comboes for Gideon to destroy creatures.

In this part i will go through the creatures in the deck and explain their function for the deck.

Centaur Healer

Centaur Healer is an early life gain block creature. It is supposed to hold us alive in the early game where this deck is the weakest, givng us an ensured passage towards the mid/lategame.

Augur of Bolas

Augur of Bolas is an alternative card draw / card fixing card, aswell as a blocker for early threats. As this deck is heavy in instants and sorceries this card can help us selecting a few steps ahead which instants or sorceries we will need.

Thragtusk

Thragtusk is our main life gain card aswell as a heavy damage dealer. This card is supposed to be played when ever we have room for it, aswell as when ever we are struggling with life.

Restoration Angel

Restoration Angel is our flying defender with a great base of 3/4. When you play this card you would prefer to use its effect on Thragtusk as you will create a 3/3 token and gain 5 life. It can be used on Augur of Bolas if you are desperate for a certain instant or sorcery.

Can be used on Gideon to pump him back up to 6 Loyalty counter if you make him a creature and can be used to save thragtusk from dying to something like Lightning Bolt turning a 3 damage spell into your advantage.

Farseek

Farseek is our ramping card, use this card as early as possible to ramp your way to as much mana as possible.

Think Twice

Think Twice is a early card draw making sure that when you are too low on mana to cast Sphinx's Revelation you will still beable to draw some cards. The flashback makes it even better.

Sphinx's Revelation

Sphinx's Revelation is a very strong card drawing/life gain card. It makes you suit your card draw as you please, either filling up your hand or just gaining a few cards. When there is nothing else to do use it to fill your hand back to seven cards, if you have a counterspell on your hand, you could free mana for it.

Azorius Charm

Azorius Charm is a multi-purpose card. Early you can use it to draw cards.

Early-endgame you can use it to defend your self by placing attacking or blocking creature on top of opponents libary, this can be setup with Gideon +2 Ability. If a enemy card is a big struggle, you can put it back on their libary and sit ready with a counterspell, given you have one.

If life is the struggle you can give all creatures lifelink and damage your way back to high health.

Supreme Verdict

Supreme Verdict is our most annoying card for the enemy, we wanna constantly wipe the board as the enemy gets too much. The strongest aspect of this deck is the planeswalkers and Supreme verdicts only kill off the creatures and leaves planeswalkers ready to use their abilities after the wipe.

Elspeth can put down three 1/1 tokens immediatly after the wipe giving you fast board control

Gideon can attack with no creatures to block him, swinging in with 6 easy damage.

Detention Sphere

Detention Sphere is supposed to control those things that we cannot deal with using the other cards, exiling key cards from the opponent or taking our planeswalkers back if enemy used things such as Oblivian Ring

Dissipate

Dissipate is our main counterspell that we should be using on key cards and win conditions our enemy tries to cast. After the counterspell the countered card will be exiled, making sure that that card will not return to the game again.

Syncopate

Syncopate is our secoundary counterspell that can be abit cheaper to cast if the enemy is low on mana, or we are still in early game. You could run four Dissipate if early threats is not a concern.

How to play this Bant Control deck

Hopefully you have read the decription above and read about the cards, knowing what each of their function is. That should give a better overview of how each card helps out the gameplay.

With this deck we wanna sit back and take away everything the enemy throws at us. Early we wanna ramp our mana and draw cards back as we lay some down. Midgame we wanna make sure we get full control of our opponents game play and start bringing them down slowly by using Supreme Verdict to clear out the enemy momentum and defend your planeswalkers till they become a too big problem for your opponent.

So far this deck has shown to play really well. Its hard to know when to use the different options we have availible, but as you get used to the deck it will be stopping your opponent from doing most he wants to achive in his/her game.

Im still in the early stages of playing with this deck, so far i havent tested versus that many types of deck. What im most conserned about is Milling or a really good Aggro deck.

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Date added 8 years
Last updated 7 years
Legality

This deck is Modern legal.

Rarity (main - side)

9 - 2 Mythic Rares

34 - 6 Rares

15 - 0 Uncommons

3 - 4 Commons

Cards 61
Avg. CMC 3.28
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Emblem Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Emblem Tamiyo, Field Researcher, Soldier 1/1 W
Folders Good Decklists
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