Getting Nassty – Taking NLB to the Next Level
Posted by Matt Nass
July 7, 2010 | 
31 comments
In my last article, I discussed the importance of playing interactive decks at tournaments where you think you are better than the other people in the tournament. In this article, I will attempt to give an example of an interactive deck that will be a good choice for standard PTQs once M11 cards become legal.
Next Level Bant (NLB) is a deck that has had a lot of success over the past month or so. Here is the list Brian Kibler took down Grand Prix Sendai with:
This deck is based on grinding out the opponent. These grindy decks are often good choices for PTQs because they both leverage your skill and really force your opponents to play a long, interactive game of Magic. If people don't realize how effective this deck is at returning Vengevines, they can get punished for using removal on it or focusing on killing it in combat. In addition, if they don't figure out a plan to fight through the card advantage supplied by your planeswalkers, they will not be able to win. They also have to respect the ability of this deck to race with deceptively aggressive cards like [card Elspeth, knight-errant]Elspeth[/card], Celestial Colonnade, and Vengevine. Newer builds sometimes even play Sovereigns of Lost Alara + Eldrazi Conscription, which forces the opponent to keep up removal at all times, making the deck yet more challenging and puzzling for many opponents.
While this deck was certainly already good, M11 may have pushed it over the top. One possible addition to this deck is Fauna Shaman. In a sense, this card is not a good fit for this deck because it the only card with a giant bulls-eye on it for removal; in fact, none of the other creatures in this deck demand removal at all. While Shaman is very powerful, adding it without other changes would simply unblank your opponent's removal. Of course, it may be right to use Fauna Shaman as a way to force decks like Mono-Red and Jund to spend an early removal spell on him instead of playing something like a Putrid Leech or a Plated Geopede.
If you are going to include Fauna Shaman in the deck, you have to be careful as far as which toolbox cards to select. Many people's first instinct with the card was to pair it with Obstinate Baloth. Their argument was that if you untap with Shaman against Jund, you now can use the Shaman's ability in response to Blightning to get a Baloth and punish them for using Blightning against you. The problem with this logic is that Fauna Shaman isn't going to live against Jund very often. Unlike with Survival of the Fittest, the enchantment version of Fauna Shaman, when you consider toolbox cards to play with Shaman, you have to think about its likelihood to live. For example, you can't throw in one Baneslayer Angel and claim you have a plan against Red when the card you're planning on tutoring it up with is a frail Grizzly Bears.
The next interesting card is Squadron Hawk. The Hawk has some great synergy with the Shaman as a way to fuel it. In addition, Hawk can be used to singlehandedly get two return activations out of Vengevine. Besides those, there are some more subtle synergies. Jace + Hawk can be used as a draw engine, putting the Hawks back with Brainstorms each time, and using Hawks to chump block and protect the Jace while doing this. Furthermore, a turn two Hawk fetching three others can get you to over seven cards in hand. While this is normally considered one of the downsides of the Hawk, it can be a potential positive in a deck that attempts to return Vengevine. On the draw, you could even have a start like turn two Hawk, fetch three more, end of turn discard two Vengevines, next turn Hawk, Noble Hierarch return Vengevines and still have two Hawks in hand ready to recur if they have answers to the Vengevines. Lastly, the Hawk wears a Conscription well. This may seem small, but having flying can often make racing with a Conscription a little easier when trample isn't enough. It also just means there are more guys around to hold it.
Here is my updated list for NLB:
This deck has a lot of things going on. Unlike normal NLB, this deck has a suite of creatures that draw removal: letting Sovereigns of Lost Alara, Knight of the Reliquary, or Fauna Shaman live usually spells disaster. Hopefully, you can draw multiples of these creatures and exhaust their removal.
However, not every game goes to plan. If they do have removal for all of your must kill dudes, this deck is capable of playing a more traditional NLB strategy. Using the card advantage capabilities of Jace, the Mind Sculptor Vengevine, and our new friend Squadron Hawk, this deck can simply overwhelm the opponent in card advantage.
Because of this deck's mid range-y nature, this deck has no really bad matchups. While I haven't done too much testing with this version (because the cards haven't even been released yet), here is how I envision the matchups going.
Against Red, game one is going to be a challenge. Your only (albeit remote) answer to a Kargan Dragonlord is Jace, and their Searing Blaze will often eat your Fauna Shaman: this would be a pretty big blowout. Squadron Hawk is a great way to perpetually chump Geopede and Kiln Fiend, so if they are playing that version, the matchup should improve some. Sovereigns is probably the best way to clock them as you really want to use Vengevine mostly as a defensive creature.
Sideboarding: -4 Fauna Shaman -3 Jace +1 Stoneforge Mystic +1 Basilisk Collar +1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence +1 Mountain +3 Obstinate Baloth
This plan gives you an additional possible answer to Dragonlord in Linvala. In addition, Baloth and Basilisk Collar help prevent death. The Mountain comes in to prevent them from mana-screwing you by burning your mana dorks.
Against Jund, your game one comes down to a couple things. First of all, if an early Knight or Shaman live (very rare), you are almost certainly ahead. Knight is bigger than all of their creatures and can protect himself as long as he's not sick, and Fauna Shaman can tutor up a Hawk to buy time. You can then start getting Vengevines and grinding them out or get Sovereigns to finish them off. If your early dudes don't live, you are similar to normal NLB. Try to use Vengevines in combat aggressively. Play Jace and then plus it once you have a big board presence, forcing them to either Pulse your Jace or face the consequences. Sovereigns them when they don't have Terminate mana up.
Sideboarding: -3 Jace +3 Obstinate Baloth
While there is a decent chance they are boarding out Blightning (if you're a Jund player, note that you probably should be), this plan is still effective. It prevents them from clocking you, which is usually the way they win: the longer the games go, the better it is for you. If you are concerned about Cunning Sparkmages, Master of the Wild Hunts, or Siege-Gang Commanders, it is completely reasonable to bring in the Linvala, most likely for one Sovereigns.
In the Bant mirror match, no one has much removal (if any). Thus, must-kill creatures are huge. Against opposing NLB decks, they will have very few must-kill creatures, meaning you are favored. Against Mythic, they have more must-kill creatures than you, such as Lotus Cobra and Baneslayer Angel, so you are the underdog. As far as which must-kill creature is the best, Sovereigns clearly dominates. Therefore, get Sovereigns online ASAP, even if it means using Fauna Shaman to tutor for a Bird to accelerate the process. Screwing around with card advantage doesn't matter when +10/+10 trampling annihilator 2 creatures are involved.
Sideboarding: -4 Squadron Hawk -4 Vengevine -3 Elspeth -1 Stirring Wildwood + everything except Baloth
This is where this deck's sideboard really shines. Fauna Shaman can set up the full Cunning Sparkmage/Basilisk Collar combo. Since both decks lack removal and have lots of creatures, this plan is obviously very powerful. Linvala comes in to shut off their mana creatures and potentially their splashed Sparkmages.
Lotus Cobra seems like an odd card to bring in, but it has two advantages. First, it supports the red requirement on Sparkmage. Second, it adds another must-kill creature. Sometimes cards that don't seem like sideboard cards make the best sideboard cards.
Against Blue/White, your matchup should be insane. They can't really handle the value aspect of the deck. In fact, sideboarding doesn't seem necessary.
Against Turboland, their lack of removal is their downfall. Try to get Sovereigns online ASAP and kill them before they go off.
Sideboarding: -4 Vengevine -3 Jace -4 Knight of the Reliquary + everything except Baloth and Linvala
Sparkmage + Collar is actually quite annoying for Turboland. Sparkmage by himself is already pretty good against Turboland because it can kill Plants and Cobras. Bringing in Cobra makes you more like Mythic, meaning you often turn four Sovereigns, which is hard for Turboland to deal with.
I think that this deck is a really interesting way to attack the metagame. It seems to have solid matchups against most decks, perhaps with the exception of Red, and uses a lot of new cards players may not be familiar with, which can lead to them not necessarily knowing how to play against them.
If you end up playing this deck in a PTQ once it becomes legal, please tell me what you think of it.
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About This Author
Matt Nass
Matt kicked off the 2010 Season with a bang, winning Grand Prix Oakland and setting himself up as a strong contender for the title of Rookie of the Year. He is most well-known for his love of combo, though adept at playing whatever is necessary to succeed. &hellip
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W A MacMurdo says: July 7, 2010 @ 9:28 pm
I don’t know man, I thought the whole point of NLB was that every last one of your non-mana creatures were value guys (WoO, SGO, Ranger) and you won through out card advantaging your opponent who eventually can’t deal with planeswalkers + infinity vengevines. This seems like you are weakening that strategy for:
A Conscription package which isn’t as fast as traditional conscrption builds
A card which doesn’t do anything (Fauna Shaman)
Squadron Hawk, which doesn’t seem effective when you aren’t already winning
I would think that sticking to a more traditional build, perhaps with mana leak would be more effective.
kyle boggemes says: July 7, 2010 @ 9:31 pm
How about adding lotus cobra maindeck to add to the amount of must kill creatures. I would maybe cut them for three birds and something else. You get four more sideboard spots as well.
jim says: July 7, 2010 @ 10:27 pm
Getting Nassty: Taking Next Level Bant to the Next Level.
good article, and this title made me lol
lsv says: July 7, 2010 @ 11:02 pm
I love gettin nassty with the Nasster
moderation1185 says: July 7, 2010 @ 11:42 pm
@ W A MacMurdo: How does Fauna Shaman “Do nothing”? I happen to agree that this “hybrid” build is trying to do too much and getting unfocused, but tutoring up Sovereigns is hardly “nothing”. But, “pitch vengevine, get sovereigns, cast sovereigns + birds/heirarch, bring back vengevine, swing with hasty 14/13 tramply-eldrazi-vine-men” seems like a good plan to me!
Fauna Shaman might also work with mythic to smooth out access to the decks threats. Maybe as a replacement for some of the walkers, or 1-2 mana dorks.
mattn says: July 7, 2010 @ 11:46 pm
Macmurdo- I understand your point. As I said in the article, this is more of a hybrid between the must kill guys of Mythic and the grind of NLB. NLB has already adapted to including Sovereigns, so clearly it can work without everything being a value guy. I think this deck might work too.
Kyle- Not sure. My concern with that change would be having too many two drops. In addition, this deck does not have as many things to do with its mana late. Playing a squad of Hawks is something and Jace is certainly good, but outside of Sovereigns your not really abusing Cobra as much as decks like Naya, Mythic, or Turboalnd do. He still is worth considering for the reasons you mentioned.
Adam Prosak says: July 7, 2010 @ 11:53 pm
Nice NLNLB deck.
Rebekkah says: July 7, 2010 @ 11:55 pm
Thank you for this article. I’d love to play a deck like this, with so many awesome interactions. It certainly would keep an opponent on his toes, with the ability to switch between so many options of play. I can’t wait to see you playing this or some other snazzy new deck.
Sigurd says: July 8, 2010 @ 12:26 am
Nice deck. I’ve thought about the same sort of m11 transition with fauna shaman, and one thing i’d consider adding is Sun Titan to get even more techy: in either sb or md you could run Escorts, War Monks, Mystic, (as you have, but recurring mystic with sun titan seems even nicer), possibly even Devout Lightcaster. Discarding these to Shaman to get Sun Titan is obviously broken. Also, they make up a nice toolbox to open when your vengevines are lusting for graveyard subsistance.
One thing I found strange is that you promised that the article would illustrate the idea of playing an interactive/challenging deck, and NLB was ofc one of the most interactive/challenging decks to play. Your revision of the deck, however, makes it less interactive and challenging, cutting removal and the cantrip spells.
Random says: July 8, 2010 @ 12:48 am
Good article. I like that you gave your opinion on going forward with a format not just simply reported on something that has already happened. You tried to reason why the deck will be good on logic, rather than pointing at results and saying this is all that matters.
CalebD says: July 8, 2010 @ 1:18 am
Fauna shaman seems really good with time warps. Discard venge, take another turn, brainstorm, fetch another venge, take another turn, pump out some hasty goodness. Maybe run Oracle to further abuse Time Warp, then cut back on the one drops and run explores to not be cold to sparkmage and forked bolt. Knight seems really good as well, making eight creature-based, board-improving shuffle effects for jace, oracle, and time warp to abuse.
But that’s a different deck entirely. Point being, Fauna and Vengevine are going to find their way into most green decks, methinks. It’ll be interesting to see just how good the hawks are. I like the idea of them and some sort of Anthem effect, and I got excited about the Jace+Hawks example from the article. Sounds a lot like Jace+Oracle, in fact. Drawing five cards a turn will never be bad.
GerryT says: July 8, 2010 @ 3:25 am
“Fauna shaman seems really good with time warps. Discard venge, take another turn, brainstorm, fetch another venge, take another turn, pump out some hasty goodness. Maybe run Oracle to further abuse Time Warp”
Get Fauna, Jace, and Oracle into play, and then CLEARLY you need Time Warp to win there.
Trackback MTGBattlefield says: July 8, 2010 @ 6:48 am
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Chris Davis says: July 8, 2010 @ 7:52 am
I think I agree with other commenters re: Fauna Shaman. With the maindeck as presented, it’s an enormous threat to control but not much of one to opposing aggro matchups. For instance, you play Fauna Shaman without Vengevine in hand. Your “must-kill” threat then will need to use a mana and a turn to get Vengevine, then another one to discard it, then a third to discard the 2nd Vengevine, to even have presented a threat. If you missed any land drops in the process, it’s on Shaman’s fourth turn of existence that you can play your Hawks or whatever for two 4/3s for a grand total of 9 mana.
That really doesn’t sound that exciting.
That said, there are at least some innovative ideas, and I’m glad you’re at 25 land, which is sound with all the cantripping taken out of the deck.
Elias says: July 8, 2010 @ 8:04 am
Your deck is now a bad version of nlb or a bad version of mythic bant.
In one part of the article you say that having a toolbox against red/jund is bad because it will just die. Then you say Squadron hawk is good with Jace AND Fauna Shaman.
I say Vengevine is toolbox enough with Fauna Shaman and you really dont get to untap with Jace that many times.
Jason says: July 8, 2010 @ 8:08 am
I find ranger + 1 scute crucial for inevitability and I’d probably cut down on the fauna to get those 2 in. Also helps filter out the manadorks and activate your vengevines that were pitched even earlier with your fauna combo. Plus mana dorks are less than awesome to draw turn 4+.
piloshow says: July 8, 2010 @ 8:11 am
@ GerryT: LOL
mattn says: July 8, 2010 @ 8:38 am
@Sigurd- I’m not really sure when Sun Titan would be better than Sovereigns, but he is certainly a powerful card that is worth considering. Lightcaster is hard to cast, and Shaman probably won’t live against black decks. I don’t think this deck is particular bad against War Monk again fits the good against matchups that kill shaman problem. Escort is good against Blue White, so that one makes sense as a toolbox card.
This deck is probably a little less hard and interactive than normal NLB, but it is still certainly one of the more interactive decks in Standard. The reason I added the cards I did was to make the deck better, not more interactive.
@Chris- Sovereigns of Lost Alara is extremely powerful. Often, if your Shaman lives for a turn, you can just immediately tutor for that. In addition, if you are playing against a deck that does have removal, it is unlikely they will decide to wait on killing it because of the fear of you having Vengevine in hand or tutoring for another Shaman meaning they are going to have to draw yet another removal spell to stop the bleeding.
@Jason- Seems interesting. Again, not sure it’s great against the decks that don’t kill Shaman.
Arc says: July 8, 2010 @ 9:08 am
I’m surprised to see an article about a Vengevine centered deck not even mentioning Leyline of the Void, and whether its return to standard will affect Vengevine related decks.
Kijin says: July 8, 2010 @ 10:05 am
Playing 11 (!) X/1s in a world that is, at present at least, defined by a 3cc Haste guy that deals 1 damage to them seems kind of loose.
Not playing Lotus Cobra in a deck where you “toolbox” for a 6 cc guy you need to play in addition to one other creature (operating under the assumption, as most have in the comments, that your plan is a 15-16/14-15 haste trample with Sovereigns in play) just seems criminal.
These two statements conflict because Lotus Cobra is another X/1, but Lotus Cobra doesn’t require you to draw 3 of your 7 1-drops, successfully resolving them, and having them survive so that you can get off your turn 3-4 Mythic Conscription beats.
I also don’t see how Squadron Hawk “overwhelms” the opponent if they deal with your must-kill guys; I have never seen a deck get overwhelmed by Spectral Procession played for its full alternate hybrid cost, nor do I expect to in the coming Extended (maybe RDW is splashing for off-color damage sources, seems tight).
Mythic Conscription currently plays Jace and Elspeth, so listing them as your “transformer deck mode” alternate win condition and now calling this a NLB deck seems kind of misplaced.
I don’t think the deck is bad in and of itself. I think the above are obvious holes in the deck (mostly lack of Cobra, inclusion of Hawk) and that their inclusion basically just turns you into a standard Mythic deck with a way to tutor out Sovereigns and Vengevine instead of playing Baneslayer and Escort. But titling the article, “I Took Out 2 Cards in an Established Archetype and Replaced Them with 2 Other Cards, Only 1 of Which is New” isn’t as drawing as “Taking Next Level Bant to the Next Level.”
CalebD says: July 8, 2010 @ 10:47 am
Gerry: Why are you trolling? There is a huge difference between a gratuitous five card combo and a deck with a lot of synergy. I was pointing out synergy, as you really only need 1-2 of those cards out for Warp to give you a huge edge, and they all work well together without the Warps. Turboland does well through a few of those interactions, and I don’t see why adding that goodness to bant and avoiding a crappy red matchup is a bad thing. =/
AmenazainCreible says: July 8, 2010 @ 11:09 am
Im myself on the side of Kijin and Chris, this deck doesnt seems good.
I had previously tried (with proxies) fauna shaman and it is really too slow and fragile in this kind of build. If you are dropping her in second turn and using her ability on third, you cant reap the benefits until fourth turn, which is way too late against this deck worst machtups: RDW and Turboland.
Also you are removing all the spells on it. That reduces your interaction with your opponent to the attack phase and as vulnerable as Relentless rats.deck
And the most important thing: most people keep comparing fauna shaman with survival of the fittest, and that is really dangerous. With survival, you can build around it and have a consistent deck since there is little chance your opponent (yes, youre playing against somebody else…) has MD means to destroy it. With fauna shaman, only the mirror doesnt have enough removal to garantee her survival, and when they kill her, they leave you with an unplayable pile of 1-of`s and 2-of´s (on the extreme of building around her) where your only win conditions cost 4 or more.
I still think that she is powerful, but with half of the competitive metagame playing red or black (or both), I think that her only place for her now is in the SB against mirror.
Mystrin says: July 8, 2010 @ 12:54 pm
I stopped reading when the article went into the “drop the conscription package into everything” mode (which I guess is the bastard child of “put Jace into everything” and “put BBE into everything”), but from the comments after (which I did actually read all of, so I guess the writing exercise was a success), apparently the next level of NLB is Fauna Conscription. Who knew?
Nojus says: July 8, 2010 @ 1:14 pm
I don’t think you accounted for updated versions of all these decks…
Tammuz says: July 8, 2010 @ 6:52 pm
i think the problem is your just trying to do too much:
it seems to me like you want to run mythic conscription here…
dave says: July 8, 2010 @ 6:59 pm
I have no idea how NLB is “Next Level”.
Throw a bunch of creatures into a planeswalker deck and you hear the OOH’s and AWE’s
*rolls eyes*
mattn says: July 8, 2010 @ 7:13 pm
This deck does a lot of things, but so do many of magic’s most successful decks including Thopter Depths, Cephalid Life, all Survival decks. Having multiple plans doesn’t necessarily make a deck bad. You have to be careful about diluting plans too much, but if built and played correctly, having multiple plans can be very powerful.
CabeyCakes says: July 8, 2010 @ 8:41 pm
I really liked the NLB them with the conscription seems powerful……but shouldn’t you have more….GOBLINS!!!
Kabrazell says: July 12, 2010 @ 6:50 pm
@dave I’m pretty sure the name Next Level Bant came from Patrick Chapin who helped create some of the original lists in early ROE standard and also wrote the book “Next Level Magic”.
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billTHEexterminator says: July 14, 2010 @ 3:00 pm
you obviously need more playtesting sessions with your dad