Qualified for MC VII ! - Post Tournament Bant Ramp Analysis
Wow! What an unbelievably exciting weekend. I qualified for mythic championship VII via the Arena MCQ!!!
I went 10-1 on day 1 and 4-2 on day 2 with the Bant list I posted in the previous article
Managed to eek into a qualifying position on tie breakers from my strong day 1 performance.
Literally had to wait 45 minutes to find out if my breakers were good enough... Only five 4-2's qualified and there were something like fifteen to twenty people with that record. Started day 2 off 0-1 as well!
What a rush!
In this article I wanted to give an overview of the cards that over-performed, under-performed and where I see the deck going forward.
I played against 10 Simic Food variants, 1 mono R, 1 GW adventures, 1 4c Fires of invention, 3 Gruul and 1 Esper Doom foretold. Two of my losses were to food decks and one was to gruul.
Bant Ramp
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/AMxPcQ-E
Was happy with how my decklist performed, but it was very clear there were mistakes made.
My version was quite a bit different than the traditional ramp strategies.. 2 main deck sweepers, multiple teferri time reveler, 27 lands and a big top end featuring 3! copies of mass manipulation.
Obviously Nissa, Krasis, Goose and Oko are all absurd and are fundamental to the ramp strategy, so no point talking about them :)
Compared to typical lists and my previous experience.....
Overperformers -
Mass manipulation, 27 lands + Grazer/Spiral/Vantress, Wicked Wolf, Aether gust
Medium performers -
Time wipe
Under performers -
Teferi, Time Reveler, The mana base, 0 copies of Once upon a time.
Mass manipulation -
In the previous article I predicted that this was the card that would give me the biggest edge in the mirror.. and I hit the nail on the head.
Some people doubted my decision, saying how bad it was post board with veil, mystical dispute etc. I found that to not be true at all. They often had to use their mystical disputes on the earlier turns of the game, and they rarely sided in many copies of veil (perhaps for fear it be a blank cardboard with teferi).
So many games where I was slightly behind in, I came back to a dominating position with a single manipulation.
Having so many lands and ways to ramp, I was often able to get ahead with mana, so that even if an opponent landed a Nissa before me, I could often steal it and leverage the advantage.
I was the ONLY person who had 3 mass manipulation main deck out of the 128 people who advanced to day 2, and I'm convinced it was the ultimate mirror trump. It's MUCH better than agent of treachery when there's few non-creature non-planeswalker permanents that are worth stealing in the format. That's including the fact agent can be found with once upon a time.
27 lands + Growth Spiral +Grazer + Castle Vantress -
I've found the mirror matches to be fairly tempo based, where if one person starts snowballing, the other person has little to no chance to catch up. The most effective snowballs are turn 2 Oko, turn 3 nissa, or disrupting their mana with wicked wolf while you apply pressure.
The more lands and mana creatures you have, the higher the probability this will occur.
Also, in this build, I really wanted to get to 6-8 mana to enable a well timed mass manipulation and the ramp package + extra lands helped me do it.
There are TONS of mana sinks in the deck so I found flooding to rarely be an issue... whereas when I played 24 lands and 4 once upon a time, I would frequently get stuck on a key land and lose the game on the spot.
Also, by having more lands in conjunction with acceleration, you can frequently hit your 6+ mana to enable the Hydroid Krasis draw engine. Hydroid krasis is a much better card in the heavy ramp version than in the more tempo oriented version.
Castle Vantress was critical for the all ramp/land hands, where you dump your hand super fast and finish ramping without much action. Generally a single activation would find something useful... and taking a turn off when you ramped much harder than the opponent wasn't GG.
I'm convinced even the lower to the ground versions should be playing 25 land because of all these factors. Mostly to enable maximum consistent nut draws.
The growth spirals over-performed post board, as they would allow me to hold up counter magic/aether gust/Veil of summer while developing my mana.
Wicked Wolf -
While it may seem strange to list this card here, and strange that I didn't auto include it as a 4 of...
I had my reasons. First, the list that I built mine from had ZERO! copies in the 75. That felt so wrong to me given how good my experiences with the card was, that I started with 2 of them in the sideboard and eventually moved them to the main. I should have listened more to my intuition.
Second, Stansilav Cfka' Bant ramp at the last MC had zero wicked wolfs main with a few in his sideboard. This further reinforced the idea that the card was optional (though his list was built for a golos meta).
Wicked wolfs worst matchup was probably Golos, which obviously isn't a thing anymore! Golos invalidated the threat aspect of the wolf with endless chump blockers and there was few if any valuable fight targets.
I'm here to say that not having 4 wicked wolfs in my 75 was CLEARLY a mistake. The 2 copies I did include of wicked wolf was one of my best cards in so many matchups.. 10/10 against any deck with questing beast or powerful cheap utility creatures.
Against creature-less decks, it's still an indestructible threat. It's very good in the mirror for protecting your planeswalkers and crippling your opponents mana.
With Golos gone, the wolf should be a 3-4 of main and an auto 4 in the 75.
It even works great with time wipe!
The two matches I lost in the mirror was due to my opponent pressuring me too hard with their wicked wolfs to leverage my planeswalkers.
Aether Gust -
Aether gust was awesome as a way of stalling the game out long enough to set up a mass manipulation. It also sealed up games where you would get ahead of tempo with a planeswalker.
It was great as cheap interaction against aggressive decks which were all Red or Green based!
Can't help but think Aether gust could deserve a slot in the main deck given how warped this meta is becomming!
4 Brazen borrower + 2-3 Aether gust seems very tough for slower simic decks to interact with in the early game.
Time Wipe -
Time wipe was more of a hedge against GW adventures than it was an integral part to the gameplan of the deck. I expected a much larger turn out of GW than what showed up.
However, I did won my GW adventures match-up ENTIRELY on the back of this card. Without a doubt I would have lost both games I won if the time wipes were any other Simic card. That said , it's inclusion had a very clear cost on my mana base that I felt throughout the entire tournament.
There were a couple Game 1's I lost in the mirror because I failed to get WW or UUUU on time.
That being said, I won some mirror matches due to some pretty sick blow outs with the card, which partially made up for the lost games.
The card was quite good, but I question if it was worth the cost. GW didn't show up in large numbers and the popularity of Sultai with massacre girl in the event may further reduce the appearance of GW going forward.
Teferi, Time Reveler -
Teferi shit the bed for me this tournament. I ran into zero counter spell decks, and almost every deck I played against had haste creatures , or creatures with strong ETB value effects.
I think my reasoning was sound behind it's inclusion and it may have a place in a future metagame for a ramp deck, but ONLY if counter spells are a big part of that metagame.
Also, most counterspell decks played 4! mystical disputes, which meant Teferi isn't as good against those decks as it may appear, since it's hard to resolve a Teferi.
Throwing it a bone, it's possible my Simic competitors failed to board in proper counter measures to Mass manipulation, due to fear of Teferi's presence.
If I stick to bant I may play 0-1 main going forward and 2-3 max in the 75.
Mana Base -
Given what I was trying to accomplish with the deck, I think I built my mana base fine.. The problem was how thin it was stretched trying to get UUUU , GG and WW only gilded goose for fixing.
Not only are the color commitments harsh, it's very important to have untapped green sources on turn 1 to be able to go Goose/Grazer -> turn 2 oko.
I lost a few games where I clearly would have won had I got to UUUU on time for mass manipulation or WW for time wipe...
Also I lost a few games where I would have been able to play my planeswalker a turn faster if the fabled passage had been a basic land.
For this tournament, straight simic (27 lands - 3 mass manipulations) would have definitely been better than bant...exclusively due to the much better mana base.
If I was going to go Bant moving forward I would want a couple copies of paradise druid for it's tri-fixing ability.
Once upon a time -
I am a huge advocate of 4 of this card in the non growth spiral versions because of it's ability to consistently improve your chances of turn 2 Oko or turn 3 Nissa.
I mulliganed WAY more with my bant ramp version than the sultai food version I had been playing prior.. and I blame that on the lack of once upon a time.
Also, this deck mulliganed less well than the sultai food deck. Growth Spiral/Aboreal Grazer needs lands as resources to ramp AND you still needs something in hand to ramp into.
Therefore, you face a harsh tension of wanting to mulligan aggressively to a strong draw (the best draws are SO much better than the average draw) , but you also want to maximize the number of cards in your hand for your ramp enablers.
Despite the lack of payoff creatures to find in the late game, I think even the high land version of the deck wants some number of once upon a time going forward.
Conclusion / Deck Lists
The combination of experienced piloting, extra ramp -> mass manipulation and sweet lady luck was the recipe for my success this tournament.. despite the flaws in the decklist.
Going forward, if the mirror was still the hotness, I'd probably play something like
Simic ramp
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/G-YbtFcN
And if GW upticked significantly in popularity I'd stick to bant with something like
Bant Ramp
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/1Rwiz9qA
(go up in time wipes the more the popularity of GW increases)
The other deck style of food I like is one that leverages a tempo advantage to the maximum. You aren't trying to win the long game , but instead trying to maxmize your ability to snowball while disrupting your opponents ability to do so. While I think it's weaker in the mirror than the ramp version, it should be very close to even while being MUCH better against control variants.
Simic Tempo (rough)
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/P1_Q2vdIu
So excited to be playing on the big stage! Check out my blog closer to the tournament! Wont detail my thoughts on the format until decklists are submitted, but I'll be sure to have a lot of insight on the tournament by then.
Thanks for reading!
I went 10-1 on day 1 and 4-2 on day 2 with the Bant list I posted in the previous article
Managed to eek into a qualifying position on tie breakers from my strong day 1 performance.
Literally had to wait 45 minutes to find out if my breakers were good enough... Only five 4-2's qualified and there were something like fifteen to twenty people with that record. Started day 2 off 0-1 as well!
What a rush!
In this article I wanted to give an overview of the cards that over-performed, under-performed and where I see the deck going forward.
I played against 10 Simic Food variants, 1 mono R, 1 GW adventures, 1 4c Fires of invention, 3 Gruul and 1 Esper Doom foretold. Two of my losses were to food decks and one was to gruul.
Bant Ramp
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/AMxPcQ-E
Was happy with how my decklist performed, but it was very clear there were mistakes made.
My version was quite a bit different than the traditional ramp strategies.. 2 main deck sweepers, multiple teferri time reveler, 27 lands and a big top end featuring 3! copies of mass manipulation.
Obviously Nissa, Krasis, Goose and Oko are all absurd and are fundamental to the ramp strategy, so no point talking about them :)
Compared to typical lists and my previous experience.....
Overperformers -
Mass manipulation, 27 lands + Grazer/Spiral/Vantress, Wicked Wolf, Aether gust
Medium performers -
Time wipe
Under performers -
Teferi, Time Reveler, The mana base, 0 copies of Once upon a time.
Mass manipulation -
In the previous article I predicted that this was the card that would give me the biggest edge in the mirror.. and I hit the nail on the head.
Some people doubted my decision, saying how bad it was post board with veil, mystical dispute etc. I found that to not be true at all. They often had to use their mystical disputes on the earlier turns of the game, and they rarely sided in many copies of veil (perhaps for fear it be a blank cardboard with teferi).
So many games where I was slightly behind in, I came back to a dominating position with a single manipulation.
Having so many lands and ways to ramp, I was often able to get ahead with mana, so that even if an opponent landed a Nissa before me, I could often steal it and leverage the advantage.
I was the ONLY person who had 3 mass manipulation main deck out of the 128 people who advanced to day 2, and I'm convinced it was the ultimate mirror trump. It's MUCH better than agent of treachery when there's few non-creature non-planeswalker permanents that are worth stealing in the format. That's including the fact agent can be found with once upon a time.
27 lands + Growth Spiral +Grazer + Castle Vantress -
I've found the mirror matches to be fairly tempo based, where if one person starts snowballing, the other person has little to no chance to catch up. The most effective snowballs are turn 2 Oko, turn 3 nissa, or disrupting their mana with wicked wolf while you apply pressure.
The more lands and mana creatures you have, the higher the probability this will occur.
Also, in this build, I really wanted to get to 6-8 mana to enable a well timed mass manipulation and the ramp package + extra lands helped me do it.
There are TONS of mana sinks in the deck so I found flooding to rarely be an issue... whereas when I played 24 lands and 4 once upon a time, I would frequently get stuck on a key land and lose the game on the spot.
Also, by having more lands in conjunction with acceleration, you can frequently hit your 6+ mana to enable the Hydroid Krasis draw engine. Hydroid krasis is a much better card in the heavy ramp version than in the more tempo oriented version.
Castle Vantress was critical for the all ramp/land hands, where you dump your hand super fast and finish ramping without much action. Generally a single activation would find something useful... and taking a turn off when you ramped much harder than the opponent wasn't GG.
I'm convinced even the lower to the ground versions should be playing 25 land because of all these factors. Mostly to enable maximum consistent nut draws.
The growth spirals over-performed post board, as they would allow me to hold up counter magic/aether gust/Veil of summer while developing my mana.
Wicked Wolf -
While it may seem strange to list this card here, and strange that I didn't auto include it as a 4 of...
I had my reasons. First, the list that I built mine from had ZERO! copies in the 75. That felt so wrong to me given how good my experiences with the card was, that I started with 2 of them in the sideboard and eventually moved them to the main. I should have listened more to my intuition.
Second, Stansilav Cfka' Bant ramp at the last MC had zero wicked wolfs main with a few in his sideboard. This further reinforced the idea that the card was optional (though his list was built for a golos meta).
Wicked wolfs worst matchup was probably Golos, which obviously isn't a thing anymore! Golos invalidated the threat aspect of the wolf with endless chump blockers and there was few if any valuable fight targets.
I'm here to say that not having 4 wicked wolfs in my 75 was CLEARLY a mistake. The 2 copies I did include of wicked wolf was one of my best cards in so many matchups.. 10/10 against any deck with questing beast or powerful cheap utility creatures.
Against creature-less decks, it's still an indestructible threat. It's very good in the mirror for protecting your planeswalkers and crippling your opponents mana.
With Golos gone, the wolf should be a 3-4 of main and an auto 4 in the 75.
It even works great with time wipe!
The two matches I lost in the mirror was due to my opponent pressuring me too hard with their wicked wolfs to leverage my planeswalkers.
Aether Gust -
Aether gust was awesome as a way of stalling the game out long enough to set up a mass manipulation. It also sealed up games where you would get ahead of tempo with a planeswalker.
It was great as cheap interaction against aggressive decks which were all Red or Green based!
Can't help but think Aether gust could deserve a slot in the main deck given how warped this meta is becomming!
4 Brazen borrower + 2-3 Aether gust seems very tough for slower simic decks to interact with in the early game.
Time Wipe -
Time wipe was more of a hedge against GW adventures than it was an integral part to the gameplan of the deck. I expected a much larger turn out of GW than what showed up.
However, I did won my GW adventures match-up ENTIRELY on the back of this card. Without a doubt I would have lost both games I won if the time wipes were any other Simic card. That said , it's inclusion had a very clear cost on my mana base that I felt throughout the entire tournament.
There were a couple Game 1's I lost in the mirror because I failed to get WW or UUUU on time.
That being said, I won some mirror matches due to some pretty sick blow outs with the card, which partially made up for the lost games.
The card was quite good, but I question if it was worth the cost. GW didn't show up in large numbers and the popularity of Sultai with massacre girl in the event may further reduce the appearance of GW going forward.
Teferi, Time Reveler -
Teferi shit the bed for me this tournament. I ran into zero counter spell decks, and almost every deck I played against had haste creatures , or creatures with strong ETB value effects.
I think my reasoning was sound behind it's inclusion and it may have a place in a future metagame for a ramp deck, but ONLY if counter spells are a big part of that metagame.
Also, most counterspell decks played 4! mystical disputes, which meant Teferi isn't as good against those decks as it may appear, since it's hard to resolve a Teferi.
Throwing it a bone, it's possible my Simic competitors failed to board in proper counter measures to Mass manipulation, due to fear of Teferi's presence.
If I stick to bant I may play 0-1 main going forward and 2-3 max in the 75.
Mana Base -
Given what I was trying to accomplish with the deck, I think I built my mana base fine.. The problem was how thin it was stretched trying to get UUUU , GG and WW only gilded goose for fixing.
Not only are the color commitments harsh, it's very important to have untapped green sources on turn 1 to be able to go Goose/Grazer -> turn 2 oko.
I lost a few games where I clearly would have won had I got to UUUU on time for mass manipulation or WW for time wipe...
Also I lost a few games where I would have been able to play my planeswalker a turn faster if the fabled passage had been a basic land.
For this tournament, straight simic (27 lands - 3 mass manipulations) would have definitely been better than bant...exclusively due to the much better mana base.
If I was going to go Bant moving forward I would want a couple copies of paradise druid for it's tri-fixing ability.
Once upon a time -
I am a huge advocate of 4 of this card in the non growth spiral versions because of it's ability to consistently improve your chances of turn 2 Oko or turn 3 Nissa.
I mulliganed WAY more with my bant ramp version than the sultai food version I had been playing prior.. and I blame that on the lack of once upon a time.
Also, this deck mulliganed less well than the sultai food deck. Growth Spiral/Aboreal Grazer needs lands as resources to ramp AND you still needs something in hand to ramp into.
Therefore, you face a harsh tension of wanting to mulligan aggressively to a strong draw (the best draws are SO much better than the average draw) , but you also want to maximize the number of cards in your hand for your ramp enablers.
Despite the lack of payoff creatures to find in the late game, I think even the high land version of the deck wants some number of once upon a time going forward.
Conclusion / Deck Lists
The combination of experienced piloting, extra ramp -> mass manipulation and sweet lady luck was the recipe for my success this tournament.. despite the flaws in the decklist.
Going forward, if the mirror was still the hotness, I'd probably play something like
Simic ramp
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/G-YbtFcN
And if GW upticked significantly in popularity I'd stick to bant with something like
Bant Ramp
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/1Rwiz9qA
(go up in time wipes the more the popularity of GW increases)
The other deck style of food I like is one that leverages a tempo advantage to the maximum. You aren't trying to win the long game , but instead trying to maxmize your ability to snowball while disrupting your opponents ability to do so. While I think it's weaker in the mirror than the ramp version, it should be very close to even while being MUCH better against control variants.
Simic Tempo (rough)
https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/P1_Q2vdIu
So excited to be playing on the big stage! Check out my blog closer to the tournament! Wont detail my thoughts on the format until decklists are submitted, but I'll be sure to have a lot of insight on the tournament by then.
Thanks for reading!
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