Mulldrifting: Is This Worth It? Next Level Bant with Cobras

The deck is 61 cards because that's what happens when I don't know what I'm doing (not yet anyway). I added a land to up the count to 25. I cut the Stirring Wildwood and a Forest. I added 3 Verdant Catacombs. It's possible I should include Terramorphic Expanse in the fetch-package (the deck needs WW and UU as well as GG).

I also cut Birds, Borderland Rangers (maybe one or two go back in - not sure yet), and the entire Ranger package.

Tweaking decks take a lot of time, and right now I'm just throwing out some ideas - not a full-fledged list. By no means is this what I would run. The question I'm asking is:

"Are Lotus Cobras worth it in NLB? And are Baneslayers worth it?"

// Lands
   4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
   4 [ZEN] Forest
   3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
   4 [ALA] Seaside Citadel
   4 [WWK] Celestial Colonnade
   2 [ZEN] Island
   1 [ALA] Plains
   3 [M10] Sunpetal Grove

// Creatures
   4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
   4 [ROE] Wall of Omens
   4 [ROE] Sea Gate Oracle
   4 [ROE] Vengevine
   2 [ZEN] Sphinx of Lost Truths
   4 [ZEN] Lotus Cobra
   2 [M10] Baneslayer Angel

// Spells
   3 [ALA] Elspeth, Knight-Errant
   1 [ROE] Gideon Jura
   3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
   2 [CFX] Path to Exile
   2 [ALA] Oblivion Ring
   1 [ALA] Bant Charm

// Sideboard
1 Oblivion Ring
2 Master of the Wild Hunt
3 Negate
2 Day of Judgment
2 Oust

1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle

2 Eldrazi Monument

1 Bant Charm

1 Path to Exile

I actually threw in Baneslayers as soon as I saw NLB and began testing. This was done to improve the Mythic matchup. My plan against Mythic involved having access to Day of Judgment, Baneslayers, Ousts, and Path to Exiles (basically, turning NLB more into UW). And I figured game one, Baneslayers pulled their weight against many decks including Naya and some removal-light versions of Jund. But Jund has started packing more and more removal lately, so it may no longer be that great.

I am a fan of Baneslayer Angel, and it plays a lot of roles without much investment.

The reason I fear it is not worthwhile is that it takes the spotlight away from Vengevine, which the deck is built around. The Angel does a lot of work by itself, but certainly, not having the Ranger package seems to hurt Vengevine's feelings. (After playing with the Angels, they didn't feel right for the deck. Perhaps it's just better for metagaming, though. I'm not sure.)

The question turns back to Lotus Cobras -- worth it? Flores says they're the best 2-drop ... possibly OF ALL TIME (move over, Bob). GerryT also seems to suggest them in NLB.

"I want to add Lotus Cobra, who is finally proving his worth, and cut the Ranger of Eos package. While I haven’t played a game since DC with NLB, I have played plenty of games with Naya, and both decks are very similar. Once I cut Rangers and added more Cobras, I really liked the deck, and I feel like that could be the case here.

Sea Gate Oracle also failed to impress me, and I would want to try Knight of the Reliquary in those spots instead, but that could very well be wrong. Obviously, with Knight and Cobra, I would want more fetch lands, and probably more lands in general."

--Gerry T

My least favorite cards in the deck are probably Rangers and Sea Gate Oracles, but how right is it to take them out?

When I think of altering decks, I rarely approach the question from a Synergistic standpoint. I usually consider the metagame I'm working with first. This is why I have a harder time accepting Rangers and Oracles - they seem necessary from a synergy viewpoint, less so from an overall metagame standpoint.

Why do Rangers seem subpar? I feel that it is because they're very slow - by themselves - if you have Vengevines in the graveyard already, they do a lot for you. But compare to the other 4-drops this format contains:

Bloodbraid Elf, Elspeth, Vengevine, Jace 2.0

Some of the other 4-drops that used to do things in Standard: Rafiq, Ajani Goldmane

They're pretty large tempo-swings, you see. Ranger is certainly card advantageous, but so are Bloodbraid Elf and Jace. But they do it with heavier board presence (and without the necessity of spending more mana on extraneous 1-drops - not that this seems to be a major issue...). Out of the 4s, I like the first four that I mentioned in Standard quite a bit more than Ranger.

If Ajani Goldmane had a deck to be in, I would also probably be playing that sucker right now. But I am currently all-in on Elspeth for reasons delineated in this article.

By adding Monument in the sideboard, I AM giving myself more of a reason to keep Rangers than not. In an effort to add a straight-up "I win" card to the sideboard, I stuck in the Monument, which seems to generally align with the deck's intentions and combines well with the Masters in the sideboard. (And obviously the Elspeths.)

Other efforts have tried adding in the Sovereigns package into NLB, and in fact, many people jumped straight to this direction for NLB, which didn't really cross my mind until I heard about it. It seemed to me to be a lot of effort and a lot of deck-space. (At that point... maybe you just run Mythic Conscription? Which has the more stable manabase/accel package to handle them?)

Where's the borderline between Mythic and NLB? They keep wanting to turn into each other.

Ultimately, I think for now, I'm fine with NLB remaining largely NLB. And the addition of Cobra is just to give the deck more resources to work with, earlier. Baneslayers seem extraneous - I'm sure Kibler/Chapin/the Japanese/et al tried them already. If they found them subpar, then I am going to agree with them.

But Lotus Cobra is just one of the most powerful creatures one could be running right now in Standard. I think the power is overwhelming. Particularly as many of the major decks in the format (UW, UWr, Mythic, NLB) do NOT have an efficient way to deal with the Cobra! I think the best they can muster is an Oblivion Ring.

And as stated by the Jund players in response to the previous post, wasting bolts or early removal on the manadorks is often a game-losing move. And so masquerading as Mythic may actually result in better chances against Jund - they're going to have to kill your guy, even if that removal spell would better be saved for any number of future threats.

Lotus Cobra is definitely a more tempting target than a Birds of Paradise.

So, basically ending up with something that looks like this. Still not perfect obviously, but it is a starting point, perhaps.

// Lands

4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest

4 [ZEN] Forest

2 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs

4 [ALA] Seaside Citadel

4 [WWK] Celestial Colonnade

2 [ZEN] Island

1 [ALA] Plains

3 [M10] Sunpetal Grove

1 Terramorphic Expanse

// Creatures

4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch