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Thread: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

  1. #1
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    [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    Next in the series of writings on Bant Survival comes this one:
    Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    This is the follow up to Constructing Bant Survival, and in this one I look at how to attack the most commonly played decks in the format when piloting Bant Survival. I go through sideboarding each match with the sample list, and try to provide some pitfalls to watch out for.

    The next chapter (and probably final look at Bant Survival in the near future) will focus on alternative sideboarding strategies with the deck. As always, your constructive criticism is appreciated and I look forward to hearing what you thought I missed in the article, what you'd like explained more, and what you'd like to see in the next article. Thanks!


    EDIT: The last article Focus on Legacy - Alternative Sideboarding is also up now for your viewing!
    Last edited by JACO; 02-15-2010 at 01:34 AM.

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    Re: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    Thanks for taking the time to write such a quality article on Bant Survival, JACO.

    I like your list, but I don't love it. Running only two Rhox War Monk seems incredibly suboptimal, as it's good against just about everything in the format, and allows you to pretend to be Bant Aggro if you can't stick a Survival. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish with the two Spellstutter Sprites. They were never a good call, and there's no reason to run them with the Loyal Retainers/Iona combo. At best, they're a metagame call. Personally, I don't see the need for Spell Snare, but I've tested it and I haven't noticed a significant difference in performance with and without it.

    If the Merfolk list is running Stifle, I'd probably side out a Spell Snare or something instead of a Noble Hierarch, but otherwise I agree with the plan.

    The best way to play against non-Belcher storm combo is to try to play a quick hate bear or Iona and beat them down to the point where an Ad Nauseum becomes risky. You will never FoW a significant combo piece against a competent storm player; they'll always Chant/Duress/Blast it. Forces are better used on Brainstorms, Ponders, Sensei's Divining Tops, Mystical Tutors, discard, etc. to buy time until you can set an Iona on black. Xantid Swarm isn't worth worrying about. In most cases it's just a slow Duress. I'd rather have the speed of Noble Hierarch than what is essentially an extremely limited counterspell in Swords to Plowshares.

    Path to Exile is overrated against Goblins. Yes, you can get rid of their Goblin Lackey turn one, but you allow for a turn two Warchief and beyond. I don't think your list has any kind of Goblins matchup. The best card for dealing with Goblins is Propaganda/Ghostly Prison. It's also great against Ichorid and Belcher.
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    Re: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    Well-written article. The primer came full circle.

    I assume that you really specialize in Bant Survival, but you said this would be a series on different decks in Legacy. It might fit your expertise to do an article on alternative sideboarding strategies, but I'm not sure how many people are really interested in that (compared to an article on another archetype). Dedicated Bant Survival players would be, but the target audience for the first two articles seemed to be "competitive Legacy players" and not any one specific niche. In fact, the first two if anything seemed catered to people without much Bant Survival experience.

    I really can't see myself reading an article as specialized as "alternative and outside-the-box sideboarding strategies for Bant Survival" even if it's as well-written as the first two.

    Obviously it's your article (and I lied -- I probably will end up reading whatever you write), but you're setting a tough precedent for yourself if you're really going to do a series on multiple Legacy decks.

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    Re: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    Nice article great explanation for your sideboard. And nice matchup analysis. Keep up the good work.

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    Re: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    Awesome article!

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    Re: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    Very good article !!! That was a lot work and testing, so thanks for shareing that !!!
    I like the matchup analysis and SB-guide, its very interesting.

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    Re: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    Quote Originally Posted by Kuma View Post
    I like your list, but I don't love it. Running only two Rhox War Monk seems incredibly suboptimal, as it's good against just about everything in the format, and allows you to pretend to be Bant Aggro if you can't stick a Survival. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish with the two Spellstutter Sprites. They were never a good call, and there's no reason to run them with the Loyal Retainers/Iona combo. At best, they're a metagame call. Personally, I don't see the need for Spell Snare, but I've tested it and I haven't noticed a significant difference in performance with and without it.
    I don't love that list either, but it's just a generic list. As always advocate I strongly suggest tweaking your entire 75 cards to accomodate whatever you expect or want to accomplish that day of the tournament. In my final look at the deck (coming Monday) I present a slightly different list with 3 War Monks and 0 Spellstutters. But while you or I might not be the biggest fan, there are a lot of Spellstutters in recent Bant Survival Top 8s, so it does have its place for many people.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kuma View Post
    Xantid Swarm isn't worth worrying about. In most cases it's just a slow Duress. I'd rather have the speed of Noble Hierarch than what is essentially an extremely limited counterspell in Swords to Plowshares.
    I'd rather have an answer to Xantid Swarm than a Noble Hierarch, because Xantid (or even Dark Confidant) WILL win the game for a combo player (sure it's a slower Chant, but it's reusable every turn), and Noble Hierarch will not win you that matchup. By holding back permission and not tapping out you buy yourself turns, which is exactly what you need against Storm combo. One misplay by you and the game is over.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kuma View Post
    Path to Exile is overrated against Goblins. Yes, you can get rid of their Goblin Lackey turn one, but you allow for a turn two Warchief and beyond. I don't think your list has any kind of Goblins matchup. The best card for dealing with Goblins is Propaganda/Ghostly Prison. It's also great against Ichorid and Belcher.
    The problem I have with Ghostly Prison (I wouldn't run Propaganda personally because of Pyroblast/REB effects as cheap answers) is that it's like fool's gold against these decks. Goblins is likely to board in Krosan Grip against you and Ichorid is likely to board in Chain of Vapor against you, so they can just wait to build up a decent size army and try to kill you in a turn. While Path might not be as powerful as something like Firespout, if you can buy yourself those first few critical turns against an aggro deck (and even start landing Tarmogoyfs and Rhox War Monks), what does the Goblin player do? They just have to sit their on their hands and hope they can start chaining together Goblin Matrons and Goblin Ringleaders, all the meanwhile you are still interacting and digging for a Survival or dropping more creatures and beating them down.

    Quote Originally Posted by Forbiddian View Post
    I assume that you really specialize in Bant Survival, but you said this would be a series on different decks in Legacy. It might fit your expertise to do an article on alternative sideboarding strategies, but I'm not sure how many people are really interested in that (compared to an article on another archetype). Dedicated Bant Survival players would be, but the target audience for the first two articles seemed to be "competitive Legacy players" and not any one specific niche. In fact, the first two if anything seemed catered to people without much Bant Survival experience.

    I really can't see myself reading an article as specialized as "alternative and outside-the-box sideboarding strategies for Bant Survival" even if it's as well-written as the first two.

    Obviously it's your article (and I lied -- I probably will end up reading whatever you write), but you're setting a tough precedent for yourself if you're really going to do a series on multiple Legacy decks.
    I don't really specialize in any deck, to be honest. I just try to find the best decks for a given tournament (which changes frequently). I try to do research and testing on decks that I think are worth playing.

    The format of my 'Focus on Legacy' articles won't always be the same. Sometimes they'll be a multipart look at a deck (to form a comprehensive view for the Legacy player who wants to dive into what is a new deck for them, without having to read 61 pages of a thread). Guys like Jak, Windux, Waikiki, or Julian23 probably aren't going to learn very much because they play the deck all of the time, but I think every other potential Legacy player would benefit from reading this. Personally as a Legacy player I don't think an article is worth much if I haven't learned anything (or anyone I know would have learned anything), so I'd like to delve deeper when I have the time, but I realize that not every article will be like that. Sometimes they'll just be a quick look at a deck and what I'd advocate in that particular deck. They can be whatever. There will be lots of Legacy (and Vintage) content on the TP site written by me and others, and not just in-depth articles. There's also video, quick thoughts on decks, news, etc. Just click on 'Legacy' when you go there to see more.

    The final piece on this deck (Focus on Legacy - Alternative Sideboarding With Bant Survival) is already finished and will be published Monday at the latest. After that I'll be turning my attention towards the ANT-Doomsday Hybrid deck, which I feel is the best Storm combo deck right now (and I'll explain why). That will either be a one or two part article, depending on how I write it, and I'm targeting next Friday for that.
    Find me on Twitter at @JMJACO and @EternalCentral. If you have an interest in Vintage Eldrazi, check out my book Eldrazi Meditations.

  8. #8
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    Re: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    Quote Originally Posted by JACO View Post
    I'd rather have an answer to Xantid Swarm than a Noble Hierarch, because Xantid (or even Dark Confidant) WILL win the game for a combo player (sure it's a slower Chant, but it's reusable every turn), and Noble Hierarch will not win you that matchup. By holding back permission and not tapping out you buy yourself turns, which is exactly what you need against Storm combo. One misplay by you and the game is over.
    For a long time I would have agreed with you. And as a result, I spent a lot of time losing to modern storm combo.

    Storm combo decks are running up to ten ways to shut off Force of Will. This has slowed down their clock considerably, since they've had to cut tutors and mana for that level of protection. No smart storm combo player is going to try to combo without at least one piece of protection. You're going to have to FoW that piece of protection to have a chance. However, the storm player knows that you likely don't have another counterspell to stop them after you FoW their first piece of protection. The smart play for the storm combo player is to try to combo, with the knowledge that they're losing if you have a second FoW + blue card, an incredibly unlikely event.

    Since they're already compromising their speed, you can take advantage of that by Forcing their setup cards instead of their protection. You will always lose the protection battle, but you can win the war by slowing them down enough to resolve Teeg/Cannonist/Iona/Meddling Mage/Vendilion Clique. Playing one of these on turn two or three will often be enough to go the distance. Noble Hierarch is crucial to this strategy as it speeds you up a turn and helps keep your creature count high for Survival.

    Quote Originally Posted by JACO View Post
    The problem I have with Ghostly Prison (I wouldn't run Propaganda personally because of Pyroblast/REB effects as cheap answers) is that it's like fool's gold against these decks. Goblins is likely to board in Krosan Grip against you and Ichorid is likely to board in Chain of Vapor against you, so they can just wait to build up a decent size army and try to kill you in a turn. While Path might not be as powerful as something like Firespout, if you can buy yourself those first few critical turns against an aggro deck (and even start landing Tarmogoyfs and Rhox War Monks), what does the Goblin player do? They just have to sit their on their hands and hope they can start chaining together Goblin Matrons and Goblin Ringleaders, all the meanwhile you are still interacting and digging for a Survival or dropping more creatures and beating them down.
    I have lost one game to Goblins where I resolved a Propaganda/Ghostly Prison. As for Goblins likely boarding in Krosan Grip, I'd say it's more likely than not they won't. Most lists on deckcheck.net and The Source don't run Krosan Grip. Blue Blasts are most likely, followed by Krosan Grip, with Anarchy being least likely (although most common in my meta. Weird.)

    Path to Exile barely slows a Goblin player down at all. If you can keep churning out Tarmogoyfs and Rhox War Monks, yes, you will likely win, but that's easier said than done. You say "chaining Goblin Matrons and Goblin Ringleaders" like that's hard for the Goblins player to do.

    I'll say this. I was 33/67 against Goblins before boarding Propaganda/Ghostly Prison and since then I'm better than 67/33.

    As for Chain of Vapor, Ichorid probably isn't boarding them in game two. Even if they do, they have to start with it in their opening hand, or pass a lot of turns while they try to topdeck it. Propaganda/Ghostly Prison has a high chance of winning you at least one game in that matchup, and that's really all you need out of it. Bant Survival is favored against Ichorid provided you run some kind of graveyard hate in your sideboard.
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    Sure as hell sounds like fun.

  9. #9
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    Re: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    Quote Originally Posted by Kuma View Post
    Storm combo decks are running up to ten ways to shut off Force of Will. This has slowed down their clock considerably, since they've had to cut tutors and mana for that level of protection. No smart storm combo player is going to try to combo without at least one piece of protection. You're going to have to FoW that piece of protection to have a chance. However, the storm player knows that you likely don't have another counterspell to stop them after you FoW their first piece of protection. The smart play for the storm combo player is to try to combo, with the knowledge that they're losing if you have a second FoW + blue card, an incredibly unlikely event.

    Since they're already compromising their speed, you can take advantage of that by Forcing their setup cards instead of their protection. You will always lose the protection battle, but you can win the war by slowing them down enough to resolve Teeg/Cannonist/Iona/Meddling Mage/Vendilion Clique. Playing one of these on turn two or three will often be enough to go the distance. Noble Hierarch is crucial to this strategy as it speeds you up a turn and helps keep your creature count high for Survival.
    I've actually played a good amount of Storm combo the past few months in testing for the SCG series (mainly ANT-Doomsday hybrid, which will be the subject of my next article after tomorrow), and being on that side of the table found that I really don't care a lot about hate bears unless there are 2-3 out at the same time. I'll either Mystical or Burning Wish for a Deathmark/Chain of Vapor/Rushing River/Slaughter Pact/etc. to kill it before going off, or just include Slaughter Pact or whatever in a Doomsday pile and kill target hate bear. Obviously it's a different story if the hate bear is backed by Kira, but in that case you've probably got Survival out and would be better off just casting Loyal Retainers into Iona and protecting that with Kira instead. Spell Pierce (or whatever other counters you've got in addition to Force) and not tapping out have proven to be my best bet not losing to combo so far.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kuma View Post
    Path to Exile barely slows a Goblin player down at all. If you can keep churning out Tarmogoyfs and Rhox War Monks, yes, you will likely win, but that's easier said than done. You say "chaining Goblin Matrons and Goblin Ringleaders" like that's hard for the Goblins player to do.
    I know it's easy for the Goblins player to chain those, and it's probably just as easy for you to pump out Tarmogoyfs and Rhox War Monks given all your deck manipulation (Survival, Brainstorm, Ponder). If you slow them down enough to set up and land creatures and/or Survival you really take away most of their easy wins they are counting on driven by Goblin Lackey.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kuma View Post
    As for Chain of Vapor, Ichorid probably isn't boarding them in game two. Even if they do, they have to start with it in their opening hand, or pass a lot of turns while they try to topdeck it. Propaganda/Ghostly Prison has a high chance of winning you at least one game in that matchup, and that's really all you need out of it. Bant Survival is favored against Ichorid provided you run some kind of graveyard hate in your sideboard.
    A competent Ichorid player in either Legacy or Vintage should be boarding in Chain of Vapor in game 2 as a catch-all answer to face whatever unknown hate cards they may be facing, unless they already know what to board in (if they know they're only playing against Crypt for example, and can board in Pithing Needle). They usually then re-sideboard in game 3 based on what they've seen in game 2. That happens pretty much every time I've played with and against Ichorid, so if you have different boarding logic from the Ichorid player's perspective I'd be interested to hear what it is. Aside from this, they're probably going to board out their fast kill cards to provide room for additional cards to deal with your hate, and then try to grind out games 2 and 3, right? How do they do this? Most often it's by attacking with Ichorid and Bloodghast, and then counting on token generation from these. If you have 6-7 Swords to deal with these you can dramatically reduce their threat and token generator count, and this is aside from whatever dedicated graveyard hate the Survival player has (I'm currently running 3 Relics in my testing this week). If you are smart with your Ponders and Brainstorms you should be able to protect your Swords and Paths and beat them up. I agree with you that this should be a slightly favored matchup for the prepared Bant Survival player, whether you're playing Path or Ghostly Prison out of the sideboard in addition to dedicated graveyard hate.
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    Re: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    Quote Originally Posted by JACO View Post
    I've actually played a good amount of Storm combo the past few months in testing for the SCG series (mainly ANT-Doomsday hybrid, which will be the subject of my next article after tomorrow), and being on that side of the table found that I really don't care a lot about hate bears unless there are 2-3 out at the same time. I'll either Mystical or Burning Wish for a Deathmark/Chain of Vapor/Rushing River/Slaughter Pact/etc. to kill it before going off, or just include Slaughter Pact or whatever in a Doomsday pile and kill target hate bear. Obviously it's a different story if the hate bear is backed by Kira, but in that case you've probably got Survival out and would be better off just casting Loyal Retainers into Iona and protecting that with Kira instead. Spell Pierce (or whatever other counters you've got in addition to Force) and not tapping out have proven to be my best bet not losing to combo so far.
    I'll grant you Doomsday doesn't care about Gaddock Teeg, but the deck definitely cares about Ethersworn Cannonist and Meddling Mage.

    The storm player could tutor for removal, but that's one less tutor they can use when comboing or to set up their combo. It also takes one turn minimum to do this, making hate bears at worst a time walk and a discard spell combined.

    Spell Pierce is a fantastic card against combo, and if you can trade it for their protection spells I like your chances of winning. But Spell Pierce is very narrow outside of the matchup. The only other matchup it's strong in, slow board control, is already an excellent matchup.

    Quote Originally Posted by JACO View Post
    I know it's easy for the Goblins player to chain those, and it's probably just as easy for you to pump out Tarmogoyfs and Rhox War Monks given all your deck manipulation (Survival, Brainstorm, Ponder). If you slow them down enough to set up and land creatures and/or Survival you really take away most of their easy wins they are counting on driven by Goblin Lackey.
    The Goblins player can chain Matrons and Ringleaders faster than we can chain Tarmogoyfs and Rhox War Monks through Survival. Even with an active Survival, the Goblins player has inevitablility. There are really only two ways to take inevitability away from Goblins. One is to quickly get Iona on red and a Kira out to protect her, but they could still play creatures with Aether Vial or overwhelm you with existing hordes. The other is to shut off their army with Propaganda, etc. and either instantly win or use the time to kill them in the air.

    Don't get me wrong, the Goblins matchup is certainly winnable without Propaganda, etc. but it's even to slightly unfavorable. Propaganda, etc. makes you heavily favored.

    Quote Originally Posted by JACO View Post
    A competent Ichorid player in either Legacy or Vintage should be boarding in Chain of Vapor in game 2 as a catch-all answer to face whatever unknown hate cards they may be facing, unless they already know what to board in (if they know they're only playing against Crypt for example, and can board in Pithing Needle). They usually then re-sideboard in game 3 based on what they've seen in game 2. That happens pretty much every time I've played with and against Ichorid, so if you have different boarding logic from the Ichorid player's perspective I'd be interested to hear what it is.
    I usually try to guess what they're bringing in, and unless I expect enchantments I usually just bring in Ancient Grudge. It's been a while since I played Ichorid, and your strategy is certainly less risky. But like I said, the Ichorid player still needs a hand which can do something and cast Chain of Vapor, and we're much more likely to cast a Propaganda than they are to cast a Chain of Vapor.

    Quote Originally Posted by JACO View Post
    I agree with you that this should be a slightly favored matchup for the prepared Bant Survival player, whether you're playing Path or Ghostly Prison out of the sideboard in addition to dedicated graveyard hate.
    Then if both pieces are equally good against Ichorid, why not run the one that turns a common, iffy matchup into a heavily favorable one?
    Last edited by Kuma; 02-16-2010 at 05:47 PM.
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    Sure as hell sounds like fun.

  11. #11
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    Re: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    Quote Originally Posted by Kuma View Post
    Then if both pieces are equally good against Ichorid, why not run the one that turns a common, iffy, matchup into a heavily favorable one?
    While I do like Ghostly Prison, the problems I have with it are this:
    - It can easily be Chain of Vapor'ed, Krosan Grip'ped, etc., which I do expect those matchups to be siding in againt me anyway
    - It really shines in two difficult matchups (Ichorid and Goblins) and probably some other less often faced ones as well, but doesn't have the general applicability of Path to Exile

    I simply think Path is a better answer to more decks, and one that I'd want to sideboard in more frequently (against Zoo, against Merfolk, against Bant, against Goblins, etc.). I have only played against two Goblins players in tournaments the last two months I think, so for me Path has more applicability for what I'm seeing. I always encourage people to build for what they expect to face, and I'm more frequently facing Zoo and Merfolk than anything else probably, but if you get more mileage from Propaganda/Ghostly Prison I'd encourage that.

    All that being said, what do you think has more use against AggroLoam? That's the one matchup with Survival I haven't had much time to test (and conveniently forgot to add in my articles because of this).
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  12. #12

    Re: [Free Article] Focus on Legacy - Playing Bant Survival

    What's the reasoning behind Spellstutter Sprite over Meddling Mage? The cool thing about BANT Survival is that it doesn't rely on Natural Order, Counterbalance, Sensei's Divining Top or even Swords to Plowshares, so Meddling Mage can serve as a counterbalance of sorts vs their decks because it never targets anything in yours.
    Quote Originally Posted by wastedlife View Post
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