This video is a short showcase of Kenneth Ellis’s PTQ-winning Bant Aggro-Control deck. The Bant deck has numerous angles of attack and paths to victory (as well as opportunities to disrupt the opponent’s forward momentum). I would definitely consider playing it.

Consider this a sneak preview of this week’s Top Decks

Kenneth’s deck, which won the San Diego area PTQ the last week of January:

2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa’s Jitte

2 Glen Elendra Archmage
3 Spell Snare
2 Stifle
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Venser, Shaper Savant

4 Bant Charm
2 Gaddock Teeg
3 Rhox War Monk

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Troll Ascetic

3 Breeding Pool
4 Flooded Strand
2 Forest
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Temple Garden
2 Treetop Village
4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard
3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Kataki, War’s Wage
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Stifle
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
2 Voidslime
1 Worship

Now when I say that I would consider playing this deck, I am of course lumping it in a general sense with “Critical Mass” per the previous post “What Would MichaelJ Do?”. I think that either strategy could potentially gain from Noble Hierarch, particularly on the Tarmogoyf fight (Tarmogoyf race)-winning side(s).

Kenneth’s deck also plays Gaddock Teeg, which was so troublesome for me when I was playing ponderous control strategies earlier in the season; I don’t know how that would intersect with Path to Exile at this point, other than the fact that Kenneth’s deck has some basics to find and could itself benefit from some Path to Exile attention.

As you will see in an upcoming video, while Red is nice in the Critcal Mass-style sideboards, White is just a hammer. Poor Affinity.

LOVE
MIKE