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By: romellos, A. Atasoy
Nov 07 2012 12:36pm
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    Hello everyone, welcome back to the fourth part of the Standard decks review with budget and semi-budget perspectives. Up to now, we have been going through lots of nice and budget friendly decks of Ravnica Guild colors and some mono Red decks. You can find 1st, 2nd and 3rd sections of this series here.

We still have more uncharted lands to discover. Today I will aim to brew some decks for Alara shards. As exactly, I will re-visit the lands of Bant and Esper with Ravnician theme. My main purpose to brew decks within budget criteria will be still the same as in the previous articles. I will continue to choose the right and the best cards within budget constraints.  

Here, my only exception will be Land cards. As I strongly believe that Land cards are the foundation of every competitive deck. It's not important whether you're playing budget, casual or competitive. First you have to fix your Mana base to support the cards you want to play. You can also play with these Lands in the eternal formats or any other type of decks that support the color base. So it's not one shot investment.

In the current Standard environment, we have Ravnica Shocklands (5 of them for now) and Cavern of Souls as good choices. But, we also have all the allied and enemy tap lands together, Gate Lands and Evolving Wilds as a more budget Lands option. We can say a lot of things, but I think in the end it's up to our imagination about how we would like to build our Land base balance between all of these options.

That's enough to talk about the Lands. And let's start exploring them...  

 

BANT:

Welcome to the land of honor, wisdom and strength.  It's clear and simple motto, so I will brew two Bant decks based on this theme with different approaches.

Our first brew is basically a mid-range beat deck, which is fully utilizing the power of enchantments and Hexproof ability.

 

As our Hexpoofed beaters, we have Invisible Man, Beast and Rhino. What a colorful party.

 Invisible Stalker  Primal Huntbeast  Rubbleback Rhino

Invisible Stalker is our ultimate creature as he is untouchable by the opponent and Unblockable. Things will only get more annoying for your opponent with each enchantment you cast. If he/she doesn't have any mass damage, destroy or exile effects

Primal Huntbeast and Rubbleback Rhino is nearly alike each other. Both are creatures of Forest and they will do the job for you.

Avacyn's Pilgrim and Arbor Elf are currently our best mana accelerators in the Standard. There is nothing to say more until we receive new and better replacements.

Abundant Growth Ethereal Armor Rancor Spectral Flight

It's so surprising to have a 16 Auras and 4 non Aura enchantments in the main deck. But all is working pretty well, thanks to Ethereal Armor.

Abundant Growth is basically a card drawing spell which also turn one of our land into painless City of Brass. This "growth" card doesn't provide us any Mana advantage but it's still good fixed.

Ethereal Armor is our protagonist. This Armor can provide more than +3/+3 bonus easily. And this package also comes with the First Strike ability, which can make a difference in many cases.  

In my opinion Rancor is still the best Aura card ever created. And it's good to have it in the Modern and Standard.

Spectral Flight is also one of the good Aura cards we have in the Standard. It provides evasion & buff and this is exactly what we need.  

Knight of Glory Centaur Healer Rest in Peace Rootborn Defenses

Our Sideboard options will be against aggro, graveyard manipulations & recursions and mass damage & damage effects.

Knight of Glory is good substitute versus any Zombie or Jund decks and also exalted will provide extra benefit to our Hexproofed guys.

Centaur Healer talks for himself. He is so good against any fast aggro decks.

One of the most common enemy of Hexproofed or Shrouded creatures is mass damaging or destroying effects. And Rootborn Defenses will help us beat these effects. But it's not perfect as there is Terminus.

 

Our second Bant deck is more traditional aggro-control deck with two flavorful Legends. Now lets see what we got here.

 

This Bant deck is also mid-range deck and we will follow the same path of Avacyn's Pilgrim and Arbor Elf for the Mana acceleration. This time we also have some Borderland Ranger for extra lands and deck thinning.

Dungeon Geists has a good body for attack and defense. And it also comes with conditional Claustrophobia tempo disrupting bonus.

Dungeon Geists  Yeva, Nature's Herald 

Yeva, Nature's Herald is one of the best Green legends. She has aggressive body for her casting cost. Her passive ability is good and can make your opponent to play more defensively.  And she has very flavorful Dr. Who reference in the text; " Best not blink".

Odric, Master Tactician  

Odric, Master Tactician is our Sean Connery from Innistrad. His tactician ability is so good; you can make your alpha strike without any blockage or you can get rid of from opponent's best creatures to stabilize the board for yourself.  

Silent Departure

Silent Departure is of the tempo disrupting spells in this deck. It is not Instant as Unsummon but it can be repeatable due to its flashback cost. Last year, we all saw how Vapor Snag can change the wave in the crucial moments. So I add two Silent Departure to the main deck and two to Sideboard for some extra Unsummon effects.

 

ESPER:

Up to now, I brew Selesnya and Azorius token decks. But this time I would like to brew more dedicated token deck than before. Thanks to Innistrad block, we got all the tools we need.

There is total sixteen token producing engines and some populate effects for extra tokens.

 

As our token spells, we got; Gather the Townsfolk, Midnight Haunting, Lingering Souls, Moan of the Unhallowed and Talrand's Invocation.  I could add some Increasing Devotion instead of Moan of the Unhallowed or Talrand's Invocation, but want to give them more chance due to their casting cost tempo.  

Gather the Townsfolk  Midnight Haunting  Lingering Souls

Gather the Townsfolk is our fixed and flavored Raise the Alarm for Human tokens. "Fateful hour" mechanic will also appear in some occasions and as over all its a good two Mana drop token spell.   

Midnight Haunting and Lingering Souls are already among the staple token spells together with Spectral Procession. 1/1 flying spirit tokens provide more benefit than the other tokens.

Moan of the Unhallowed  Talrand's Invocation

I have to admit that Moan of the Unhallowed is little experimental here. But after our two and three drop token spells, I would like to continue in this tempo with some four Mana costed token spells. Moan of the Unhallowed will provide two 2/2 Zombie tokens and it can be re-used in the late game by it's Flashback cost.

Talrand's Invocation is simple and good filler for four Mana cost range. The benefit comes with two flying 2/2 Drakes.

Intangible Virtue  Growing Ranks

As our supportive enchantments, we have Intangible Virtue and Growing RanksIntangible Virtue is amazing with its vigilance and +1/+1 bonus for tokens without any color restrictions instead of Honor of the Pure.  And two Growing Ranks in deck will provide us free & extra tokens.

Our Sideboard philosophy will remain same for the main weaknesses; Graveyard manipulations & recursions, mass damage & damage effects, Aggro & RDW and Artifact & Enchantment.

Tormod's Crypt Oblivion Ring Elixir of Immortality Sundering Growth Rootborn Defenses

For Graveyard hate I add Tormod's Crypt instead of Rest in Peace as I don't want to exile my Lingering Souls, Moan of the Unhallowed and Think Twice.

Rootborn Defenses will help us against mass damage & destroy effects and also will provide us extra benefit via its Populate bonus.

Sundering Growth is our newest addition from RtR set. In this deck it will cost two WW Mana, which is not very efficient. But we got four Chromatic Lantern to fix our Mana base. Overall Sundering Growth is a good Sideboard option against artifacts and enchantments, also it comes with Populate. It's everything this deck needs. 

Oblivion Ring is our classic budget all star. You can make any non Land permanent disappear with it. Simple, elegant and still doing its job.

Elixir of Immortality is one of the fantastic SB options you can try when you're facing mill or Aggro decks. It will help us to gain life and shuffle our cards in graveyard to library. It's worth to try it.

 

WRAP UP:

This time, we review some of the fun and flavorful Bant and Esper deck options we can brew.

See you next time at the fifth part of Budget and Semi-budget Standard deck brews. I will continue to explore the possibilities of Alara shards...

1 Comments

The guardians are really by CathyMiller at Sun, 04/14/2013 - 17:39
CathyMiller's picture

The guardians are really menacing. They should look intimidating. That is the whole point. - James Stuckey