Readers!

I was going through a bit of a crisis. I have always felt like a Simic/Bant player. I love the landfall mechanic, having the mana to do what I want, drawing enough cards to make sure I get what I want to play, being rewarded for developing my board the best. I like to hit lots of land drops and if I can be rewarded with cards, life, or both (in the case of an uncommon), even better. The problem is, everyone knows how good Simic is and since Wizards is making every color combination better to catch up to Simic but also making Green and Blue cards super absurd, and that's a problem. Simic is the color of Archenemies, and being the archenemy is rough if your defense is either tedious like Sunstone and Constant Mists, or a 1-shot like Cyclonic Rift or Aetherize. Simic and Bant can get into trouble easily enough, but keeping from getting destroyed is tough because you have to either struggle to live or make the game really annoying for anyone else.

Meanwhile, Rakdos and Jund have secretly been making commanders that make me think those colors might be more aligned with my goals. They have the power to destroy enough permanents that they can't get to you, they can deal a lot of damage quickly and Blim and Valki are as good at taking their cards to use as any Blue deck. Whereas Bant would have to slow the game down to avoid getting killed as the archenemy, Jund goads their creatures so that they don't attack you but still attack the other players, shaving time off of the game rather than adding time to it. I don't want to make the game take longer, fogging, wiping the board, casting Teferi's Protection and turning off my webcam but still cackling maniacally to unsettle the people with vulnerable permanents. If a short game is what I want, I'm unfortunately going to have to abandon Bant in favor of...

I TAKE IT ALL BACK! I'VE ALWAYS BEEN BANT, I'LL ALWAYS BE BANT, GIVE ME THE GOOD STUFF, RIGHT IN THE (however they take halo, smoke it probably? What a weird choice for a children's game). I'm sorry I doubted you, Bant. You can Goad creatures, it's a VERY Bant thing for Bant to be able to do because Goad is a thing and Bant can do everything. Since we aren't doing anything new, though, I guess I can skip a lot of the preamble. I already wrote up my justification for the type of build I was going for literally 1 set ago. What will be different about this deck is that I am going to build creatures for my opponents that are unreasonably large and beefy and I'm going to watch them wallop each other with them. If they can't hit you, why wouldn't you want them hitting as hard as possible?

If we're not building our typical (I'm going to call it Snow Fort because it's a Pillow Fort that uses Sunstone and Glacial Chasm) Snow Fort, what do we do with those extra maindeck slots? The answer to me was obvious - I'm going to put 75% cards in the deck. Specifically, these two creatures I can't play often enough.

These are a little tricky to get going, but it's worth it because once they're swole, we can steal just about anything at instant speed and do whatever we want with it. This incentivizes us to load these up with counters, which led me to realize that I can make the game go even faster if I have my own creatures attacking. I don't have to worry a ton about blocking because I can always goad their creatures and they'll be busy attacking each other. Loading up my creatures also lets me make good use of The Ozolith, which is the closest thing we have to one of my favorite cards of all time - Unglued's Giant Fan. Or at least it WAS the closest thing to Giant Fan. Behold!

We have found our Thesis Enchantment and that card is... Greater Good? I mean, maybe not, but Greater Good goes in the deck. If we are borrowing creatures, why not sac them for cards? We can load their creatures up for battle and if they get too big and scary, swipe them, bounce them or borrow them long enough to throw them on the altar of more cards. We'll want to have some ways to bounce our stuff because we'll be recasting cards like Thieving Skydiver because there's ANOTHER White Enchantment I want to play.

With all that in mind, what does this pile end up looking like?

Kros, Defense Contractor | Commander | Jason Alt

• Creatures (27)
• 1 Angelic Sleuth
• 1 Aven Mimeomancer
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Champion of Lambholt
• 1 Cytoplast Manipulator
• 1 Druid of Purification
• 1 Evolution Sage
• 1 Flux Channeler
• 1 Forgotten Ancient
• 1 Generous Patron
• 1 Gor Muldrak, Amphinologist
• 1 Grateful Apparition
• 1 Gyre Sage
• 1 Hamza, Guardian of Arashin
• 1 Herald of Secret Streams
• 1 Incubation Druid
• 1 Nils, Discipline Enforcer
• 1 Obsessive Skinner
• 1 Plaxcaster Frogling
• 1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
• 1 Roil Elemental
• 1 Rumor Gatherer
• 1 Sheltering Ancient
• 1 Shield Broker
• 1 Simic Manipulator
• 1 Thrummingbird
• 1 Willbreaker

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants
• 1 Elspeth Resplendent

• Instants (7)
• 1 Aetherize
• 1 Brokers Confluence
• 1 Contractual Safeguard
• 1 Dovin's Veto
• 1 Grand Crescendo
• 1 Heroic Intervention
• 1 Momentous Fall

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Regna's Sanction
• 1 Secret Rendezvous
• 1 Tezzeret's Gambit
• 1 The Crowd Goes Wild
• 1 Thrive

• Enchantments (12)
• 1 Brokers Ascendancy
• 1 Cathars' Crusade
• 1 Curse of Predation
• 1 Dismiss into Dream
• 1 Equilibrium
• 1 Evolutionary Escalation
• 1 Greater Good
• 1 Inexorable Tide
• 1 Oath of the Ancient Wood
• 1 Resourceful Defense
• 1 Simic Ascendancy
• 1 Together Forever

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Cloudstone Curio
• 1 Contagion Clasp
• 1 Contagion Engine
• 1 Helm of Possession
• 1 Magnetic Web
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots

• Lands (37)
• 5 Forest
• 5 Island
• 5 Plains
• 1 Bountiful Promenade
• 1 Branchloft Pathway // Boulderloft Pathway
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Brokers Hideout
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Forbidden Orchard
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Karn's Bastion
• 1 Novijen, Heart of Progress
• 1 Prismatic Vista
• 1 Rejuvenating Springs
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Savannah
• 1 Sea of Clouds
• 1 Seaside Citadel
• 1 Spara's Headquarters
• 1 Temple Garden
• 1 Tyrite Sanctum
• 1 Windswept Heath
• 1 Yavimaya Coast

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There is a lot you can do with this pile. As usual, this a bit of a hybrid approach, freeing you up to double down on the aspects you like best.

Currently proliferate is really under-supported. I didn't want to include the cards you'd need to lean into it, nor did I want to add a ton of -1/-1 counters. In fact, Contagion Engine might be bad here. Remember, we absolutely do not want to be shrinking their creatures, we want them large and in charge and goaded. If you want more Proliferate, maybe try some Instants and Sorceries, since I didn't add any.

The deck needs more sac outlets, especially if you're borrowing. I would actually include a landfall package if I did this because I really like using Chamber of Manipulation, and landfall is good with Roil Elemental. Life From the Loam, Crucible and Excavator, maybe Sakura Tribe Scout and Retreat to Coralhelm. There's the deck for Glacial Chasm and Sunstone, though just Chasm is probably fine. Remember, we want to Goad.

Did I goad you into reading another article? I appreciate it, thanks for the read. Remember to share on social media and leave me something in the comments. Until next time!