Beat Downs with the Boz!: Modern Bant Company

Posted on April 21, 2017

Grand Prix San Antonio featured a pretty interesting format, Unified Modern. The teams of 3 players were playing your usual Modern decks but couldn't have any over lapping cards. This meant that only one player on each team could play the card Death's Shadow. They say necessity is the mother of invention and we saw some teams spend the time to tune decks that had previously been on the fringe. Playing Bant Company, Matt Severa's team came in 4th and, also playing Bant Company, Eli Kassis's team came in 3rd. For an archetype that hasn't put up great results, seeing two copies in the Top 4 is a big deal and probably means the archetype deserves more attention. It is basically a fast creature deck, but many of the creatures can interact with the opponent, Collected Company is nuts, and Retreat to Coralhelm + Knight of the Reliquary lets you race even the fastest combo decks.

Time Stamps

00:06:06 - Match 1: Abzan Wilt-Leaf Liege

00:31:09 - Match 2: Abzan Midrange

00:57:11 - Match 3: White-Blue Control

01:25:35 - Match 4: Green-White Engine

02:15:05 - Match 5: Green-White Eldrazi

Bant Company ? Modern| Matt Severa, 4th Place San Antonio

Enchantments (2)
2 Retreat to Coralhelm

This gets added to the list of decks I love. It has plenty of tempo, power and card advantage. It is a little lacking in interaction, but it really doesn't need to interact with much and has great sideboard options. There is plenty the deck can do if it needs to get aggressive but is also capable of playing defense and profiting in a board stall with mana sinks. This deck is well rounded and I expect to see more if it in other Modern events. That said, the best build is still a question. I choose to highlight Severa's build because it had Kessig Wolf Run, but Kassis's build had no Red, an extra Gavony Township, played Courser of Kruphix over Tireless Tracker and managed to squeeze in 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. The sideboard has even more differences and I honestly don't know which build is better. I personally really like the idea of Courser over Tracker and I think there are even some new cards worth considering. The one that has me most interested is Nissa, Steward of Elements. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Elspeth, Knight-Errant are strong considerations but this new Nissa synergizes the most with the deck. The main problem is she can't protect herself and that might be a deal breaker. The version I most want to test is below, but I would strongly consider the new Nissa over the main deck Elspeth.