As I began writing this, Pro Tour Amonkhet had just ended with the crowning of Gerry Thompson (former Iowa player for those who remember the good old days) as the master of the Zombie Horde. I’ll take a brief moment to simply state how happy I am that Iowa gets some more representation pushing us forward as a strong MTG Community. Now, onto GP Omaha.

For weeks leading up to this Pro Tour I desperately tried to break Approach of the 2nd Sun, ultimately ending up on a control route as opposed to the combo route. This failed as the format had far too diverse a threat base to be managed by any given control route. It wasn’t that the deck was bad necessarily, it just inherently felt like a coin flip on any given game, and that wasn’t going to get us to day 2 of the GP.

I only preface these notes with this context so that you have an understanding of how I ended up on Bant Marvel. In testing Approach the 2nd Sun control, I went with one major factor superseding all others, each deck was running between 8-12 pieces of removal, and if we refuse to enable any of that, as a control deck we essentially gained an advantage of 2-3 cards every game one of the format for free (as they have so many dead draws now). This logic was extremely useful for game one, and but less so when we moved to post-board games. We found that Zombies, Mardu, and Temur were more than willing to board out a majority of removal for the ability to savage our hand, or counter our sweepers at critical moments in the post-board games.

As the Approach Logic was used in what was essentially a week one meta, we attempted a reverse scenario post-board where we use the 15 creature transitional board so that they board out all their removal for game 2 and we board in all our creatures. This plan also failed ultimately as they had far too much removal in the main to de-board it all, and so our creatures died to their cheap removal in immense tempo swings, and they still had the ability to tear our hand apart or counter critical sweepers.

Then, late one night, I was skimming through lists instead of studying for a law school final (as per usual), and I noticed a Bant Marvel list that looked like a week 1 meta hero. It was beautiful, with only 5 creatures main (4 Ulamog, 1 Linvala the Preserver) it kept their removal mostly dead while having a far more realistic win condition in the form of Ulamog. Included in this package was the ability to explode into turn 4 positions that couldn’t be replicated by a fair amount of the field. Lastly, the board for this deck transitioned to handle the mirror excellently. Without further ado, the opening list:

4 Aether Hub

4 Botanical Sanctum

2 Canopy Vista

3 Prairie Stream

4 Forest

3 Island

2 Plains

4 Ulamog

1 Linvala

4 Attune with Aether

3 Censor

3 Fumigate

4 Glimmer of Genius

2 Negate

2 Nissa’s Renewal

4 Aether Meltdown

4 Aetherworks Marvel

4 Cast Out

4 Woodweaver’s Puzzleknot

Sb:

1 Blessed Alliance

1 Forsake the Worldly

2 Immolating Glare

2 Negate

1 Shielded Aether Thief

4 Spell Queller

4 Tireless Tracker

I began testing this and figuring out what I did and didn’t much care for in the list, so let’s have a brief look into my notes after my first 20 or so games with this:

  1. Nissa’s Renewal isn’t nearly as good as I thought it would be, it only accelerates you hard casting Ulamog by 3 turns (which isn’t nearly as important as I thought it would be), and half the time you die with it in hand. Shrine of the Forsaken Gods has been proven to be the Nissa’s Renewal of preference for helping hard-cast Ulamog.
  2. Cast Out is fine against aggressive decks, especially given the planes walker heavy transition boards that are seen of late, but it doesn’t do nearly enough in the mirror and having an additional 4-drop or two messes up the curve despite the ability to cycle.
  3. Fumigate is amazing, instant-speed fumigate off of Marvel is quite potent.
  4. Moving onto the sideboard:
    1. Blessed alliance is bad. Zombies have infinite ways to make more zombies or recur them, Temur Marvel gets whirler virtuoso and other small creatures they also swing with that make this embarrassingly bad. Immolating Glare wasn’t much better.
    2. Shielded Aether Thief is excellent if they have enough of a sideboard to allow them to take out ALL of their removal against you. This is rarely the case, so this just opens up their removal.
    3. Spell Queller and Tireless Tracker were excellent mirror options for a period of time when the creature transition board wasn’t the plan of choice. Now the opponents leave in at least 4 copies of removal, and we don’t win on the back of a creature plan. We win on the back of forcing through marvel and spinning into an Ulamog.

Following this, we went through a series of changes, before ultimately ending on the following list. First, I’ll present the manabase with the reasoning on them:

2 Fortified Village

2 Botanical Sanctum

3 Canopy Vista

3 Prairies Stream

4 Aether Hub

4 Forest

3 Plains

1 Island

Provided you are playing 4 Land search card (and we count that as 2 mostly reliable sources), here are your basic numbers:

Turn one green: ~78 percent

Turn two green:  ~90 percent

Turn two white: ~93 percent

Turn three double white: ~83 percent

Turn five double white: ~91 percent

Turn two blue: ~82 percent

Turn three blue: ~91 percent

The full list:

4 Ulamog

4 Fumigate

4 Glimmer of Genius

4 Aetherworks Marvel

4 Stasis Snare

4 Rogue Refiner

4 Woodweaver’s Puzzleknot

2 Dissenter’s Deliverance

3 Censor

1 Negate

4 Attune to the Aether

2 Fortified Village

2 Botanical Sanctum

3 Canopy Vista

3 Prairies Stream

4 Aether Hub

4 Forest

3 Plains

1 Island

Sideboard:
2 Linvala

4 Aether Meltdown

3 Dispel

3 Negate
1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods?

2 Kefnet, the Mindful

Sideboarding Guide and Matchups:

Temur Marvel:

  • Pre-Board – Unlike in the average marvel mirror, where Ulamogs can only be answered with other Ulamogs, we have stasis snare to help us climb back in when they get an aggressive start. There are roughly two builds of Temur at present. The Paul Dean iteration that is as spell heavy as us, and plays minimal copies of creatures just as we do is the first build. The second build has some variance to it, but you’ll see main deck Chandra’s, Servant’s of the Conduit, shaved copies of Glimmer of Genius, and perhaps even Tireless Tracker main. This creature heavy iteration seems to have garnered attention and done quite well of late. That said, our plan doesn’t vary heavily regardless of the Temur build.
  • Board:
    • -4 Fumigate
    • -2 Puzzleknot
    • -1 Stasis Snare
    • +3 Dispel
    • +3 Negate
    • +1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
  • Post-Board – Use stasis snare strictly on Ulamogs and early Tireless Trackers (noting that they will often use the first Ulamog to get back their Tireless Tracker from Stasis Snare if you used it that way early). Remember that your goal is to Marvel harder than they can. To that end, we also want to ensure that we’re hitting our land drops and the extra land-ramp to Ulamog can be crucial in messing with their timing. This match is why I built this deck in the first place, because I believe that the correct iteration of Bant stands strong against the mirror of Temur Marvel.

U/R Control:

  • Pre-Board – They likely have you here, by a fairly wide margin. If you can force a marvel or ulamog through you can bury them, but they have a plethora of counters that make you look clunky. We don’t have the Lumbering Falls option available given how tight the mana is, so this is a game you’re likely losing.
  • Board:
    • -4 Fumigate
    • -2 Puzzleknot
    • -3 Stasis Snare
    • +3 Dispel
    • +3 Negate
    • +1 Shrine
    • +2 Kefnet
  • Post-Board – This is the match where Kefnet and Dispel both shine the brightest. If you can force a Kefnet through, I have yet to lose with it on the board in this match. They simply have only 1-2 answers for it in the form of commit // memory, and dispel/negate protect it nicely. The card draw engine on top of the 5/5 flying indestructible clock are incredibly difficult for them to handle, and while they expend resources there, you can push towards hard casting Ulamogs or sneaking a marvel through. This match doesn’t feel great, but careful play can do wonders.

Zombies:

  • Pre-Board – Hitting turn 5 wrath (and slowing them from killing you before turn 5) is key here. Your plan is either to Marvel into a wrath/Ulamog turn 5, or hard-cast a wrath on turn 5 and then proceed into your marvel plan. You remain favored in the pre-board rather heavily based on what my testing has shown.
  • Board:
    • -2 Dissenter’s Deliverance
    • -3 Censor
    • -1 Ulamog
    • +4 Aether Meltdown
    • +2 Linvala
  • Post-Board – They will likely be boarding into a plan that includes stripping your deck of Marvel’s and then ripping your hand apart. Linvala does an excellent job of helping you to recover. Again, your plan remains pretty much the same, Wrath via marvel or hard-cast it turn 5. Then, if you need to play some catch-up while waiting to hard-cast Ulamog, you have Linvala. Occasionally the zombie decks will Lost Legacy to take all of your Ulamogs. This is another reason for Linvala. 8 flying power in the air can take back a game rather quickly post-wrath. These games are more of a coin-flip, but you should be fine to take this match.

After these 3 matchups, we have a wide variety in archetypes and builds. Despite the dominance of Temur Marvel at present, it seems apparent to me that people are striving to topple it (heavy lies the crown and whatnot) using a variety of strategies, and that level of meta adaptation is fun to see. It may be considered a polarizing force, but let us all remember the lessons of years ago when we had far more polarizing decks in standard such as Caw Blade, Faeries, Affinity, Necropotence (for you old-school players), and Delver. This standard is healthy, and I have enjoyed watching the shifts in all the lists as Temur climbed the ranks, and by doing so unleashed a mountain of side artifact hate upon the Mardu Vehicles lists, forcing them to start adapting as well.

GP Omaha is mere days away as I finish this article. I have this and one other deck I’m looking at to play there, but I’ve never been one to keep information from my fellow Iowans (who I assume make up a majority of this reader base). As usual, I’m a fan of the idea that we can reclaim Nebraska for Iowa as we did in the regionals of old (back in the first instance of regionals qualifying 4 players for Nationals) when 10-20 of us would make the trek once a year to qualify 3 Iowans and tear up their local meta. It was our stomping grounds, and dare I say I considered it Hilton West (for those familiar with Iowa State’s basketball terminology).

Either way, I’ll be there ready to play in GP Hoth pt. 3 (yes I’m aware it’s warm currently, but I’m not abandoning this term yet as it applied the last two times at Omaha GP’s). If you want to bounce idea’s off me, message me on Facebook or post in the comments section and I’ll do my best to help out.