Bant Prophet Control
This is my first Primer, so any tips/tricks/editing/whatever would be appreciated!
I’ve been asked to do this by several people at my LGS
and from some people I’ve used this deck against online, but today I’m going to
talk about a deck that I’ve brewed with myself, and I absolutely love this
deck. I just won an FNM at my LGS last
night with it, and last weekend I won 3 separate Game Days with the deck. While I understand that these aren’t exactly
the most proud of accolades, the deck has shown some incredible promise online
and I would love to take it to more competitive events as soon as I can. I call the deck Bant Prophet Control. Without further ado, here is the list!
The Deck
3 Angel of Serenity
3 Prophet of Kruphix
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Detention Sphere
2 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
3 Archangel of Thune
3 Archangel of Thune
3 Dissolve
4 Azorius Charm
2 Supreme Verdict
1 AEtherling
3 Prognostic Sphinx
4 Breeding Pool
2 Forest
4 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
5 Plains
5 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Temple of Mystery
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Blind Obedience
SB: 1 Negate
SB: 1 Dispel
SB: 1 Jace, Memory Adept
SB: 2 Selesnya Charm
SB: 2 Cyclonic Rift
SB: 1 Gainsay
SB: 2 Rapid Hybridization
SB: 2 Banisher Priest
At first glance, you don’t see very many 4-ofs in this deck,
and that’s because it aims more to be versatile across the board rather than
consistent because sometimes consistency is overrated and being able to have
many answers is just strictly better, especially in a world of doom-blade.dec.
The Numbers
Playing this deck is very similar to playing other U/W/x
control decks, but instead of running only 2-3 win conditions, this deck has a
full 6 win conditions, all useful for various situations. I’ve been playing this deck for weeks now,
and am tweaking the list constantly, so I’ll explain the numbers.
The Lifegain Package
3 Archangel of Thune
2 Sphinx’s Revelation
First, there are the 3
Archangel of Thune’s, the first of the must-answer threats and a complete house
against any sort of aggressive deck.
There are several ways to gain life in the deck, and it’s still a
formidable monster on its own as a ¾ flier that gets bigger every time it lands
a hit. In addition to these 3 fliers, we
have access to several U/W/x lifegain cards, but I chose to keep my options for
the rest of the 75 open and didn’t want to dedicate too many slots to
anti-aggro cards. So I chose 2 Centaur Healers, a long forgotten relic from the
Junk Reanimator Era of Innistrad-Block Standard, simply because the deck has
very little early action to deal with agro, and it’s a 3/3 body that gains 3
life, effectively gaining 6 life on simply casting it and using it to block or
drawing a removal spell. It also has
some cute interactions with Archangel of Thune, becoming a 4/4 and growing the
Archangel and your other creatures by simply casting it. Sure, there is probably a better slot instead
of Healers in the 3CMC slot, but there’s a rather large hole there in the
curve, and I cannot think of anything that does what I need it to do as much as
Centaur Healers do. Finally, a fringe
part of the Lifegain Package is Sphinx’s Revelation, which has some awesome
synergy with Archangel of Thune, but I’ll cover that card more in the Control section.
EDIT
I decided to cut the centaur healers for 1 more detention sphere and 1 more dissolve, as the metagame starts shifting more towards midrange rather than aggro. It was cute, but these options allow for more consistency.
EDIT
I decided to cut the centaur healers for 1 more detention sphere and 1 more dissolve, as the metagame starts shifting more towards midrange rather than aggro. It was cute, but these options allow for more consistency.
The Control Package
3 Prognostic Sphinx
3 Detention Sphere
4 Azorius Charm
3 Dissolve
3 Dissolve
2 Sphinx’s Revelation
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Supreme Verdict
The control package here is what you see in a lot of U/W/x
control decks, with one notable exception: Prognostic Sphinx, but we’ll get to
that little gem in a moment. These cards
are all about early interaction with the majority of decks in the field, until
we get to that 6 or 7 mana point for Aetherling and Angel of Serenity to come
down and take over the game. Sometimes,
it feels bad playing a Verdict when you’re playing Caryatids, but there’s
really nothing you can do about it because Verdict is completely necessary for
this deck since you have such little interaction early on. Now, on to Prognostic Sphinx: Prognostic
Sphinx is a curious creature, it’s a $.50 rare from Theros (now $.75 yay!) that
I believe is criminally underappreciated.
It’s a 5 mana 3/5 that has a Scry 3 on attack trigger. Anyone who’s played with the scry lands
understands that they are incredible at filtering draws, so how about a big
flying butt-ed creature that scrys 3 every time it attacks? It’s been
incredible for me and has essentially drawn me 4-5 extra cards into my deck,
from the scrying ability. It also has
another sneaky little ability, you may discard a card at any time to make it
hexproof and tap it. This ability is the exact reason why he’s insane against control,
because, short of a supreme verdict, it’s almost impossible to stop you from
scrying 3 cards every turn. This card
seriously needs to see some more play, because it completely hoses
doom-blade.dec like nothing else I have ever seen.
The Haymakers
4 Angel of Serenity
1 Aetherling
These are the win conditions of the deck, and the reason the
deck is so resilient and successful.
Aetherling is the control deck finisher that every U/W/x runs, and it’s
does exactly the same thing it does in those decks. And then we come to my favorite card in MTG,
Angel of Serenity, which saw it’s hayday in the old Junk Reanimator of last
standard, but no one wants to play a 7 mana card in Standard nowadays, which is
makes me very sad because this card still does what it used to do, and can end
games or swing things in your favor out of literal nowhere.
The Prophet
3 Prophet of Kruphix
This card. This card makes the deck into what it is. Without
it, it is a fairly average midrange/control deck. With it, it becomes something
entirely different and it can do some truly disgusting things. It’s absolutely
insane at what it does. Let me give you
a quick rundown. Looking at the card, you see a 3GU casting cost. Okay, fine, a
five drop, better be good, what does it do? It’s a 2/3. Okay, that seems
horrible and it dies to everything, why would I play this card? Then you read
the ability. “Untap all creatures and lands you control during each other players’
untap step. You may cast creature cards as though they had flash.” WHAT. It’s a
better version of Seedborn Muse, and it breaks this deck wide open. A typical sequence of events in the deck go
very similar to this. Turn 1- Scry land, go. Turn 2 Caryatid, turn 3
Dissolve/Det Sphere/Jace, turn 5 Prophet of Kruphix, untap on your opponents
turn, flash in an Archangel of Thune or Prognostic Sphinx, and take over the
game from there. Sometimes, the Prophet
isn’t that great, because it does die to a lot of removal and you are playing a
5 mana creature that is very easy to kill, so sometimes it’s difficult to play
properly, but the deck does require a lot of practice to play properly, and
this is the crux of the deck. It also
allows you to do some awesome things with the number of instants you play, and,
by far my favorite thing to do, flashing in an Angel of Serenity to ambush and
exile your opponent’s Obzedat is just too much fun.
Playing the Deck
This deck is incredibly difficult to play at times,
especially considering the amount of removal cards that are currently in
Standard. You mostly play like a control
deck, never tapping out unless it’s come to turn 4 or 5 and you have a Caryatid
out, using the control suite of spells to interact with your opponent until you
can start swinging the game in your favor. There are several things you need to
watch out for, however:
Never play a Centaur Healer on turn 3 unless you’re playing
against a fast aggro deck., they’re in the deck to allow interaction between
Archangel of Thune, and, as mentioned before, as a defense against aggro.
Secondly, if you are able to play a Sylvan Caryatid on turn 2, DO SO. If your
opponent devour fleshes you, you’ve still ripped a removal spell away from
their hand, and it also blanks a lot of aggressive cards in the format. Thirdly, never play a Prophet of Kruphix
unless you have other ways to gain value from your hand. That way, even if they
do kill your Prophet, you have other threats in your hand, and are not just
dead to their board afterwards. Angel of
Serenity is an insane card and will almost always win you the game the moment
one hits the board, and do not hesitate to play an AoS to simply buy back your
own creatures for value, as I find myself doing that much more often than
killing my opponents creatures with it, and allows you to potentially start
bouncing Angels for some insane value.
Always consider your outs when playing while behind and never forget
that your top decks are better than almost every other deck’s top decks.
Matchups and
Sideboarding
So let’s get to the relevant part of the deck, actually
playing it. Here are some popular
matchups and how to play against them:
Mono-Black Control:
Blech. This matchup
is one of the grindiest I have ever played, and game 1 is very difficult to
come from behind a barrage of removal and card advantage and a rain of 4 mana
6/6’s. The disruption mono-black has is
incredible and as with any other U/W/x deck, the matchup is very difficult, but
much easier after boarding. Here’s how I
usually sideboard in this matchup:
-2 Centaur Healer
-3 Prophet of Kruphix
-2 Archangel of Thune
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Negate
+1 Dispel
+1 Jace, Memory Adept,
+2 Cyclonic Rift
+2 Banisher Priest
Okay, post board, you get rid of Prophet of Kruphix (unless
you’re playing against the WB with Obzedat) because it’s never around to do
anything and you need to be using your mana efficiently in order to keep up.
You board in Pithing Needle to deal with a multitude of things, such as
Underworld Connections (naming the land, of course) Erebos or his whip, and
Pack Rat, all of which are difficult to deal with since black decks tend to
just grind you out with card advantage and swarming you with Rats or idiotic
6/6’s. You board in Negate and Dispel to
deal with their removal and disruption that tends to hate on your plan, and
Jace, Memory Adept is another resilient win condition that allows you to kill them
very very quickly. Banisher Priest is a
weapon to deal with Gary’s, Demons, and Lifebane Zombies, but beware the amount
of removal in the deck at all times. Cyclonic rift is incredible, especially
when overloaded, and can just win you the game on the spot.
Mono-U Devotion
This matchup is actually hysterically easy to win, since
your creatures and disruption are a nightmare for a weenie aggro deck such as
this one. I usually board like so:
-2 Centaur Healer
-4 Azorius Charm
-3 Archangel of Thune
+1 Pithing Needle
+2 Banisher Priest
+2 Cyclonic Rift
+1 Gainsay
+1 Dispel
+1 Negate
+1 Jace, Memory Adept
I board like this to hedge against the most obvious
sideboarding plan for Mono-Blue vs control, as they tend to board in a bunch of
counterspells and Aetherlings of their own.
You board in your own win condition in big Jace and just attempt to
stabilize and play your own game while not caring too much about their
creatures as you’re able to easily beat them in a creature matchup. I’m still working
on my sideboarding in this matchup, because Archangel of Thune might deserve a
spot if you find yourself in a racing situation.
RG Monsters
This matchup is overall the most difficult matchup for the
deck, because they have insane mana development and can just easy start “going
off” turn four and create a giant beater early on that can’t be dealt with.
-3 Prognostic Sphinx
-2 Centaur Healer
-4 Azorius Charm
-1 Aetherling
-1 Prophet of Kruphix
+1 Pithing Needle
+2 Banisher Priest
+2 Cyclonic Rift
+2 Rapid Hybridization
+2 Selesnya Charm
+2 Blind Obediance
I board like this in order to hedge against Mistcutter Hydra
with and Stormbreath dragon, seeing as how those are the most difficult
creatures to deal with for this deck, as well as Xenagos creating hasty
creatures.
Esper/UW Control
This matchup can be quite hit or miss, but you tend to win
matchups via disruption and a horde of Angels over the horizon.
-3 Archangel of Thune
-2 Centaur Healer
-2 Azorius Charm
+1 Pithing Needle
+2 Cyclonic Rift
+1 Dispel
+1 Gainsay
+1 Negate
+1 Jace, Memory Adept
This boarding strategy is pretty self explanatory, getting
rid of the lifegain package and putting in more counterspells and big Jace.
Wrap-up
I could go into a lot more detail with the deck, including
cards I don’t play that people think I should, such as Prime Speaker Zegana,
Bramblecrush, Elspeth, etc, but I’ve tested all of these, and I don’t like them
in my 75, so perhaps they’d feel better in someone else’s hands, but not
mine. This is the deck that I’ve been
testing for weeks, and piloted to a lot of success for an amateur like myself,
and I hope to make it more popular. I
hope you liked the deck! If you have any comments, questions, concerns,
suggestions, feel free to contact me at minhoq@gmail.com!
Thanks for reading! =D
