Reckoner Bankbuster was one of the most consistent - and widely played - cards in Standard (prior to its recent unfortunate dismissal). It was one of those cards that, due in part to its lack of specific color affiliation, could go into a variety of decks. Black decks, white decks, mid-range decks, control decks... Even Ramp decks! Or sideboards!

It's not like Fable of the Mirror-Breaker or Invoke Despair, whose losses forced once-homes into completely re-thinking their configurations. But it's quite entertaining to see how different decks have solved for the card's spot in the mana curve, and functionality.

This one is literally my favorite:

Literally My Favorite Replacement

Mono-White Control | MAT Standard | Groocha, 5-0 MTGO Standard League 8/10/2023

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Archangel of Wrath
• 4 Guardian of Ghirapur
• 4 Serra Paragon
• 4 Spirited Companion

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 The Wandering Emperor

• Sorceries (4)
• 4 Lay Down Arms

• Enchantments (8)
• 4 Ossification
• 4 The Restoration of Eiganjo // Architect of Restoration

• Artifacts (4)
• 4 Prophetic Prism

• Lands (24)
• 10 Plains
• 2 Secluded Courtyard
• 4 Jetmir's Garden
• 4 Raffine's Tower
• 4 Roadside Reliquary

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Unlicensed Hearse
• 3 Loran of the Third Path
• 2 Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines
• 4 Skrelv's Hive
• 4 Invasion of Gobakhan

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Groocha took Reckoner Bankbuster's identity as a two-mana artifact that draws cards really, really, literally.

I've always liked Prophetic Prism from a kind of Vorthos standpoint. It's "prophetic" in that gets you to your next card, see? I played the card when it was originally legal in a Mono-White Control deck, in part to make Obelisk of Alara work. Even without the Prophetic Prism, I could annoyingly gain life! Then, later in the game, I'd have a great route to card advantage. Any small creatures would be meat to the ability, so it kinda sorta made every future Day of Judgment better. Once I even gave an attacker +4/+4; but I think only once.

Groocha is playing Prophetic Prism in... A Mono-White Control deck as well! There are tons of things that make it a cool inclusion here. The most intuitive is the presence of Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines in the sideboard. Alongside Spirited Companion, Guardian of Ghirapur, and Ossification, Prophetic Prism gets double 187s with Mommy Norn online.

But in addition to just being a somewhat inefficient cantrip, Prophetic Prism actually has a kind of Obelisk partner in Archangel of Wrath.

Groocha also has Jetmir's Garden and Raffine's Tower as paths to kicker, but Prophetic Prism helps draw to the Archangel as well.

What's really surprising to me is that Groocha didn't play the most obvious Mono-White card: Wedding Announcement // Wedding Festivity. When Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki was banned, I was really surprised that Wedding Announcement wasn't. Wedding Announcement is like the White Fable; and contextually better in quite a few matchups.

But, alas: In the post-bans world... The second-best three-mana enchantment isn't good enough to make the cut in Mono-White.

Two-Drop of Champions

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker created a gigantic incentive to go Black-Red, which you probably already know about given how much the Rakdos color combination was winning pre-bans.

But remember at some point there were other Black mid-range and control styles that people could plausibly play, including Mono-Black.

Now that Fable is no longer tugging Black in the direction of Red, and Reckoner Bankbuster is leaving a gigantic - well, two-mana - hole in the curve, it's quite interesting to see the directions that Black players are going to solve for the two variables simultaneously.

Need a Pilot? How about a World Champion instead?

Dimir | MAT Standard | bernardocssa, 1st Place MTGO Standard Challenge 8/13/2023

• Creatures (19)
• 2 Ertai Resurrected
• 2 Tenacious Underdog
• 3 Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor
• 4 Evolved Sleeper
• 4 Faerie Mastermind
• 4 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

• Planeswalkers (5)
• 2 Liliana of the Veil
• 3 Kaito Shizuki

• Instants (10)
• 3 Cut Down
• 3 Go for the Throat
• 4 Make Disappear

• Sorceries (1)
• 1 Gix's Command

• Lands (25)
• 1 Island
• 8 Swamp
• 1 Otawara, Soaring City
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 2 Mirrex
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Shipwreck Marsh
• 4 Underground River

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Phyrexian Arena
• 2 Liliana of the Veil
• 1 Graveyard Trespasser
• 4 Disdainful Stroke
• 1 Gix's Command
• 4 Duress
• 1 Breach the Multiverse

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Faerie Mastermind does a couple of things well, and more importantly here, appropriately.

First of all, it is a two-mana card that also draws cards. So, while not as literal as Prophetic Prism, it is a pretty thematic Bankbuster stand-in.

But that's not all! As a two-mana creature card - with actual evasion in the form of flying - Faerie Mastermind is a heck of a lead-in for Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor. For instance you can play Faerie Mastermind at the end of the opponent's turn, often when they can't do anything about it. You untap and tap out for Gix... Then when your Mastermind connects (which it will) the Ophidian-esque cheating will begin!

Bernardocssa's deck is chock full of card drawing, especially at the three. Kaito Shizuki kind of balances out Liliana of the Veil; and Phyrexian Arena can join in on the theme.

All that card drawing has specific context in a Black-Blue deck. I suppose anyone could pair Duress and Liliana of the Veil to lock down an opponent's hand... But what about just stockpiling cards like Make Disappear and Disdainful Stroke? This is the kind of deck that can square to even, and then essentially beat any opponent by going one-for-one more times than they can.

Fact or Fiction

If you think about it, Reckoner Bankbuster was kind of a four-mana draw spell. You made a down payment of two mana, but you didn't actually get to see your first extra card until you invested an additional two. Not counting the Pilot (or the fact that the Vehicle itself could rumble), the Bankbuster drew you three extra cards.

... Not unlike Fact or Fiction.

One of the most iconic card draw spells of all time, Fact or Fiction won its debut Pro Tour in the hands of Hall of Famer Zvi Mowshowitz, and continues to perform in Premodern twenty-three years later. Splitting FoF was a coveted skill, while choosing a pile was sometimes less so. "If nothing else," Zvi once wrote, "you can always get three cards if you want them."

Squirtle19 has ventured into FoF-ville with another novel solution to the Reckoner Bankbuster dilemma.

I love the bluffing element of this card, so like FoF of old. While it costs you a little life, Squirtle19 has filled the rest of the deck with The Celestus and half a dozen Planeswalkers that can all gain life in different ways. Even Squirtle19's sideboard gets in on the action with Knockout Blow.

Black-White Control | MAT Standard | Squirlte19, 3rd Place MTGO Standard Challenge 8/13/2023

• Planeswalkers (10)
• 1 Archangel Elspeth
• 1 Kaya, Intangible Slayer
• 1 Sorin the Mirthless
• 1 The Eternal Wanderer
• 3 Liliana of the Veil
• 3 The Wandering Emperor

• Instants (13)
• 2 Cut Down
• 2 Hostile Negotiations
• 2 March of Wretched Sorrow
• 3 Sheoldred's Edict
• 4 Go for the Throat

• Sorceries (5)
• 2 Breach the Multiverse
• 3 Sunfall

• Enchantments (6)
• 2 Phyrexian Arena
• 4 Wedding Announcement // Wedding Festivity

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 The Celestus

• Lands (25)
• 4 Plains
• 5 Swamp
• 1 Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 2 Crystal Grotto
• 4 Caves of Koilos
• 4 Raffine's Tower
• 4 Shattered Sanctum

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Duress
• 2 Farewell
• 2 Knockout Blow
• 3 Destroy Evil
• 2 Temporary Lockdown
• 2 Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines

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Unsurprisingly for a Black-White control deck, this one can both grind... and kill a lot of creatures. A lot! Literally every spell in this main deck either can draw an extra card or somehow take down a creature. With so many Planeswalkers, quite a few of them can do both.

Or, Nevermind

Of course one solve for the Reckoner Bankbuster problem is to pretend that there isn't one at all!

As we've said, the banning of Fable of the Mirror-Breaker changed some of the baseline requirements for a Black deck in Standard (that is, that it more-or-less had to be a Black-Red deck)... And the banning of Invoke Despair created gaps and incentives of its own.

What about this five-oh take by IBURIEDALIVE?

Mono-Black | MAT Standard | iBuriedAlive, 5-0 MTGO Standard League

• Creatures (20)
• 4 Evolved Sleeper
• 4 Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton
• 4 Phyrexian Fleshgorger
• 4 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
• 4 Tenacious Underdog

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Liliana of the Veil

• Instants (7)
• 3 Cut Down
• 4 Go for the Throat

• Sorceries (3)
• 3 Gix's Command

• Lands (26)
• 22 Swamp
• 1 Takenuma, Abandoned Mire
• 3 Mishra's Foundry

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Parasitic Grasp
• 2 Path of Peril
• 2 Razorlash Transmogrant
• 4 Duress
• 2 Sheoldred's Edict
• 2 Sheoldred // The True Scriptures

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Most straight Black decks in Standard even before the bans leaned controlling. They had great incentive to do so because the control cards (topping up on a sorcery) were so good at defense and card advantage at the same time. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse directly into Invoke Despair being one hell of a four-five punch.

IBuriedAlive took Mono-Black in a little bit of a different direction.

This deck is still controlling. Or rather, it has a tendency to play "the control" when approaching the Who's the Beatdown? Question. But it's not all about drawing extra cards with a now-missing Reckoner Bankbuster, or equally missing five mana bomb.

Rather, this deck is about gaining position with powerful creatures and then burying the opponent in life gain!

Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, and - maybe most importantly - all four copies of Phyrexian Fleshgorger just make it really difficult for the opponent to kill you. Gix's Command - the new five-mana sorcery of choice - also has a life gain mode.

Some of the cards are the same... Cut Down and Go for the Throat were always there to keep opposing beatdown at bay. But what if, in this deck, they're there to help clear the way? IBuriedAlive is playing one-third creatures! Those are beatdown numbers, atypically in a control deck. But a lot of the value comes from actually getting to attack with them.

One unique feature of this deck is how effective it can be in the mirror. The most annoying card to interact with on a one-for-one basis is Graveyard Trespasser, because of its Ward ability. But iBuriedAlive has not only four copies of Liliana of the Veil in the main deck, but Sheoldred's Edict and adjective-less Sheoldred herself to deal with Graveyard Trespasser evenly.

Because there wasn't enough life gain in the main deck, meanie iBuriedAlive has a Parasitic Grasp in the sideboard as well.

But the real kind of transformation is turtling up to grind out slower decks. Phyrexian Arena is pretty good here (especially given all the life gain) and between Razorlash Transmogrant and Duress, this "creature deck" can prove a real hurdle for anyone trying to play slower, going very very long.

What's your favorite way to try to snowball card advantage in the post-bans Standard?

LOVE

MIKE