Alara Reborn – Bant Sojourners

Unsurprisingly, michaelj loves a Bant Sojourners.

Aesthetics:
The crew and I sometimes joke that there was a point about four or five years ago when my brain broke. For a long time I was all about the most efficient paths to attack. I ran Suicide Black every tournament for three tournaments straight, winning a PTQ, scoring Top 4 at my Regionals, and then winning the eventual heartbreaker for 9th place at Nationals. I built TDC Heat which we talked about recently, a metagame-killing G/R beatdown deck. Then Napster, which for all its mid-range surgical power was a first turn Phyrexian Negator deck as well. And the summer I spent every week in the Top 8 of a PTQ I was attacking with Fresh Volunteers.

But right before the birth of my daughter my noggin broke and ever since I have been in love with Eternal Dragon and anything related to Eternal Dragon, viz. Decree of Justice.

As a person who has many times gladly cycled for one 1/1 for four mana, it should come as no surprise that I can easily see myself playing a Bant Sojourners. While it doesn’t have the mid-range trumping power of a Decree of Justice, it’s like you get a one mana discount on your Soldier token!

The interesting thing now is that I think I would feel cheated with such a discount; after all I could pay one more mana and get a full 2/4 chump out of it. Decisions, decisions!

Where can I see this fitting in?
In all seriousness the answer is probably 40-card decks.

Once you get over the initial “cool” rush it isn’t as easy to justify the space in a 60 card deck. The best fit would be some kind of high end Counterspell control deck, to keep the velocity going especially in games where you didn’t draw a Mulldrifter but that is a stretch. These decks are really into killing people with their Broodmate Dragons nowadays, so fake threats that can generate a little bit of card velocity (not even really card advantage) might just lack the power to matter. It is kind of like the theory of more-sies.

Back when the format was Jushi Blue, Heartbeat of Spring, et al more-sies was an issue (ditto on basically any format with a viable Battle of Wits deck); basically at the States where I came in second, I beat a Heartbeat deck in the Swiss. It was actually one of those classic Stage Two v. Stage Three fights were I completely owned him in Stage Two. I was stifling any and all comers with Remand and Mana Leak and Jushi Apprentice kept my cards coming. But I realized that I was eventually going to run out and die. How could I run out? I was out-drawing him two-to-one. The problem was that my cards were swiftly declining in relevance. Remand is worthless when he can just re-play the spell due to having enough mana; Mana Leak is quite leaky when they can pay. Even though I ostensibly had more cards in hand he had more-sies because of ultimately having access to more cards that mattered given sufficient time.

You already know the answer to this: Deny him that time!

Once I realized what was going to happen eventually I went tap-out mode and raced.

Anyway, more-sies for you.

One other cool idea I had was Reveillark. This creature sets itself up, and it is the right power to fit!

Snap Judgment Rating: Role Player (low)
Not unplayable per se… But I don’t see a lot of doors being banged down for Bant Sojourners in Constructed.

LOVE
MIKE

All Alara Reborn