NotSquishedYet

The upside to Vessel over the Oath, is that if I play one I don't need to play another to get it in the grave. The downside is that it takes 3 mana to do what the Oath does for 1. The other upside is that it sends them in the grave instead of at the bottom which means it can fuel Delirium, and allows me to actually recur them since without many shuffle effects getting stuff from the bottom is going to be nigh impossible. I am going to play with the Oath first, see how hard it is to enable Delirium in the current state of the deck and if I really feel I need to extra help I might make the change; however, as it stands, I feel Oath is better: it's faster and it's more cost efficient.

On another note, I REALLY want to include Thought-Knot Seer in the deck.

Thought-Knot Seer plus Seasons Past could be pretty cruel. That one's particularly good because it can fetch back anything you need, is improved by the Vessel, and can grab an Evolving Wilds to cycle itself back into the library. What do you think of that in place of Chandra for a more grindy midrange version?

I like it, I am about to free up 4 slots by removing the walkers, and 3 more in the side, for a total of 7, so I definitely have options here. My only problem is that I need to have colorless producing lands, and I can probably throw in a Wastes or two along 4 Llanowar Wastes, but I don't think without having more colorless mana available, or ways to fetch them up, that 4-6 sources would be efficient enough to consistently cast the Seer, although even a late game Seer is good. Hmmmmm.....

You can tutor a Wilds with a Vessel/Oath to grab a 1-of Wastes if you've already got a green and double black. You might also use a couple of Drownyard Temple to support The Gitrog Monster, as you mentioned considering. With the Vessel, it could also act as pseudo-ramp into Nissa. Testing the frog with 24-26 lands, I rarely dropped below 7 on the battlefield because of how many it drew into even without extra graveyard drops.

Testing this deck, it worked and eventually won against a mediocre deck, but it got easily stonewalled because two Den Protectors and a Pulse of Murasa had no targets without undoing Delirium, with a Mindwrack Demon out. I feel the Vessel would give you a lot more options, especially with Seasons Past.

NotSquishedYet

I kind of forgot that Wastes is a basic land and can be grabbed with Evolving Wilds....ooops!

Yeah I kind of saw that one coming, which is why I moved Seasons Past back into the SB and only left one copy of Pulse in the main, and I only plan on bringing them back in against grindy/control matchups. I am going to do the same with Den Protector and only keep 1 in the main, and 1 in the side against grindy/control matchups.

If I am going to use The Gitrog Monster including 2 Drownyard Temple was in my mind, which would make colorless mana even easier to get.

I need to think about a few things, a quirky name for a B/G deck and will make some changes later on today. If focusing on Delirium is kinda badm, that can be easily fixed by replacing the Demon with a different win-con, replace To the Slaughter with a different removal, and Luigi with something else. Not particularly worried as the changes are easy to make in these colors. Worst case scenario I change to the W/U deck I am building, which I will eventually post up here.

you have 4 red cards lol.

Maybe something like "Visions of an Open Grave"?

Sounds good. I think the Delirium focus is a good idea; it just might need a little more support.

On another note, what is your opinion on the Assault Formation + Goldnight Castigator aggro/combo deck, or have you seen it?

Fiery Impulse to get more red cards.

MasterXandar, The_Riddlebox had it and others, then cut them as they were less efficient. We have been discussing changes to G/B only, splashing colorless.

MasterXandar

Great observation! That's also kind of why I am doing the whole cutting red out of the deck thing and switching to a B/G strategy instead. I am also not going to include Fiery Impulse, even if I was keeping red. Red was just a splash to begin with and with me needing green and double black early, trying to get red early just for Fiery Impulse was something I was not keen on since it forced me to run more duals than I wanted to. I had Impulse in the deck before and ended up cutting it.

NotSquishedYet

I have seeb a few if those decks float around, they just look "ok" to me. I feel like they run sub-par creatures, for the most part, simply for the high toughness. I also think they are way to fragile as once you blow up Assault Formation their deck slows down significantly. I see it as one of those decks that can win games by taking people by surprise, but I also see it as a very inconsistent deck to play. I guess it just isn't my cup of tea. What I do like is Bant Company, now that's one hell of a strong deck, or so it seems so far.

If you are interested in a solid, cheaper Bant build, I believe I have a fairly good one. I did, however, just realize that I had overcomplicated it, falling into the trap of playing good, powerful cards over totally synergistic meh cards, so I will be reverting it to a much earlier, much more solid version with a few changes.

NotSquishedYet

Not sure if you watched the SCG Baltimore games at all, but the Bant Company that was played there is what caught my eye. Cheaper builds don't particularly interest me, as cheaper normally means the deck is cutting powerful bombs due to high price. I know this might make me sound smug as hell, but money is no issue to me really (that doesn't mean I am willing to go out and drop a few thousand dollars on a Legacy deck), so I like playing the best that I can in a deck. I have most cards that fit in the Bant Company deck, including the Jaces, I think all I am missing is just Collected Company.

Not at all, in my case. Deathmist Raptor, Den Protector, and probably Collected Company itself would slow the deck down, in any version of it I have posted. It provides card advantage, but I find it severely lacking compared to tempo builds because of its randomness. In many cases, the powerful cards it gets can end up wasting all of their non-P/T advantage by entering at the wrong time.

NotSquishedYet

Bant Company is a tempo deck, I love the deck and I love watching it being piloted. If they had a deck list posted already on it I would link it here. The card advantage that Jace and Company offer is huge, backed up by control elements like Reflector Mage and Negate makes it very strong against most match ups. I believe right now it is the best performing deck at SCG Baltimore. Collected Company is a huge bomb on it's own. If you have mana open your opponent needs to play thinking you might have a Company in hand which can make for some unfavorable attacks. The power from company, aside you being able to cast it at instant speed, is the fact that it allows you to simply keep mana open and pass the turn if you don't need to play any creatures; your opponent is now faced with you having 4+ mana open and has to think whether that mana signifies a Company, a Negate, a Reflector Mage, a Krasis, etc etc. . I guess the beauty of this standard rotation is the many ways you can build decks, so each player can build their deck almost any way that matches their playstyle and make it work; unlike this past rotation, which with all the fetch-lands you were almost forced to play certain cards, or you would be playing strictly worse options, and always saw the same decks because of it.

Long story short I <3 Bant Company :D

Honestly U/R control looks fun as hell too.

ARGH! TOO MANY FUN DECKS TO PLAY THIS ROTATION!

Fair point. I'm a fan of timing, so it personally just seems unfavorable. For a hint at how I tend to play, I remember one game against Omnath ramp, in particular. The guy had a 6/6 Undergrowth Champion, ready to block a lot of attacks. I could have swung in and hit pretty hard by getting rid of it, but no. I didn't, and I took a hit from it. A couple turns later, he played Chandra's Ignition, and I responded with Reality Shift for the win. I see the power of it, though, in a slightly different shell.

Let me make it even harder to choose... XD

I saw a pretty great looking G/U Enchantment Mill deck, which I'm tempted to play as soon as I can get the cards. Being able to win turn 6-7 by mill sounds pretty funny.

NotSquishedYet

Think I have seen the lists for that U/G mill decks floating around. Is it the one based off of clues?

Not gonna lie the first deck I thought of playing was a U/R Tutelage deck hehe.

G/U Investigate/Tutelage combo. Herald of the Pantheon ramps out Weirding Wood, Fleeting Memories, Sphinx's Tutelage, and maybe one or two others. Once that's online, you can crack a couple clues to mill 10-20 cards each. I can get a link up, if that'd help.

It's all good. I am fairly familiar with the deck, it was even covered in one of the SCG articles.

NotSquishedYet

Btw the decklist for the Bant Company deck was just posted. This was the deck I was referring to.

Which one? o.0

Thanks! I couldn't find anything about it, so I mostly went off the old lists.

what about The Gitrog Monster

Lord_Magikarp

I started half thinking about it, but in the current state I don't thing it has a spot. If focusing on Delirium turns out to be a sub avarage strategy, I will replace the demon with the frog.

Yknow, I'm testing a one-of Gitrogfrog in my Jund list and I like it a lot. you don't need a dedicated lands strategy to make use of a 6/6 on turn 5 that gives you card advantage! You might still not have room, but I wouldn't discount the frog as just a value play. Especially since he lets you draw off of Evolving Wilds, all your mill... (hypnotoad)

That being said, you might want 25 lands either way with a top curve of 7. My top curve is 6 and I run 25, works well.

abby315

I am aware that the frog does not need a dedicated land strategy to be a decent card, which is why I was half considering it. As a 1 of I think he would be very uninteresting. If he comes in the deck he is coming in to replace the demon because if I am taking out the demon I am switching out of the Delirium strategy.

For all intents and purposes my top end is 4 mana. I don't want to add more lands just for World Breaker as he is only a 1 of. Between mill/recursion, and the few ways of digging I shouldn't have an issue with reaching 4/5 lands every game and eventually 7 when and if I get to the big bad eldrazi.