Yet Another Perspective - 2nd Place at MPDC 23.06

First of all, let me introduce myself: Hi, I'm NT_Smith...

Well, not really, that is my digital name. My paper name is Manu, I'm 24 years old, I'm from Spain and I've been around Standard Pauper for a while now. I play MTGO in my laptop/toaster so I crash a lot. I'm currently and probably forever unemployed so I play a lot too.

Last season, I won SPDC 19.26 with Übermühle, the UB Mill deck that I believe started a trend. It was not a good deck as it was designed just to beat BUG decks running Ghostly Flicker. I was not a good pilot either and I confirmed it a couple events later when I milled myself in a mirror match against FabioS, LOL.

Alternative win conditions are not my thing. I didn't like the deck but winning is nice, isn't it? I also believe that at difficult times when banning Ghostly Flicker looked like the only solution to keep the format I love alive, Dimir Mill gave better, more playable decks a chance to come back. And they did.

When the metagame adapted to it, UB Mill became fairly beatable and I stopped playing it. There were so many answers back then!... I was discouraged, truly discouraged. I was so bummed that I stopped playing at all. But as I said I love this game, this format and the people that make it possible...

So I'm back, baby! I'm back playing, deckbuilding and now writing. It was time. Almost two months deep into a metagame with no answer to Crypt Incursion and not good enough burn to melt MundisV cold, cold heart I managed to take 2nd place at MPDC 23.06. I doubt anyone not playing Dimir Mill could do better right now. Here's the decklist:

NT_Smith's BESTOWPROOF

Alseids are an essential part of a healthy breakfast.

Creatures (26)
3 Auramancer
4 Centaur Healer
4 Gladecover Scout
3 Hopeful Eidolon
4 Keening Apparition
4 Leafcrown Dryad
3 Observant Alseid
1 Rubbleback Rhino

Other Spells (13)
2 Commune with the Gods
4 Ethereal Armor
2 Ranger's Guile
3 Pacifism

2 Wildwood Rebirth

BFF's.

Lands (21)
9 Plains
8 Forest
4 Selesnya Guildgate

Sideboard (15)
1 Auramancer
3 Celestial Flare
1 Hopeful Eidolon
1 Pacifism
2 Pit Fight
2 Ranger's Guile
2 Seller of Songbirds
2 Sundering Growth
1 Wildwood Rebirth


It took me a couple of games to know what I could and what I couldn't do, but it was a really fun deck to play and I'm very happy that I got so far with it. The rest of the article will be some of my impressions on the 75 cards I put together and my thoughts on the archetype. I will leave the matchups for the PDC boards. If you want to read about them, you can find them all here.

I encountered Adner in the casual room right before MPDC 23.05. He was testing Bant Bestow but he was not going to participate in the event that day so he could answer my questions before his article came out (most of my card choices are already explained there so be sure to check it out). Thank you very much, Ad.

I liked the idea and the archetype but I was still not convinced by the blue splash, so I put together what I think is a harder, better, faster, stronger two color version of it. The deck is obviously not perfect and it needs some tweaking, but it can be a good contendant in a future, hopefully healthier metagame.

In other formats with a better mana base, three color decks are better than their two color version in almost every matchup. Naya, Jund, BUG and UWR will be always better than Gruul, Rakdos, Golgari or Izzet. This is not our case. In my honest opinion, playing three colors in Standard Pauper is unreliable, playing too many guildgates is a huge tempo loss and not playing gatekeepers to gain back some of that lost tempo is a mistake.

Playing Hexproof in an enchantment based deck is the way to go. Yes, the Bestow mechanic makes sure you won't get "two for oned" when your enchanted creature is targeted with removal, that is nice and you will play that way and still succeed a lot of times, but one for one removal is pretty good too.

Having an untargetable thread on board can luckily be enough to annul your opponents' removal set and mess with their entire game plan. If they don't have an answer for a hexproof creature (sacrifice effect, global damage spell or combat trick) and can't rush you, your bestowed Gladecover Scout is game. A 1/1, GAME. Be sure to play around Electrickery, Devour Flesh and Celestial Flare and you will be just fine.

Hopeful Eidolon is a spirit but might as well be A BEAST. No more weird black splashes for Mark of the Vampire, you have a lifelink aura in white right where it belongs. I played it as a Trained Caracal a lot of times, not only against monoblack to protect Gladecover Scout from edicts but also as the weakest, yet the best creature to bestow upon. If destroyed or bounced (yes, please!), you only lose a 1/1 after all.

Tweaking, not Twerking. Apart from the adjustments in numbers (I'd probably run one more land), there were two cards that didn't feel right. Rubbleback Rhino is just too slow and I only played it twice. I don't even know if it's a sideboard card. As it turns out, my sideboard is wrong and messed up and also wrong and my card choices are bad and messed up too. I forgot the metagame completely and didn't include any Razortip Whip against Dimir Mill, for example. And talking about wrong...

"This Ranger's Guile should be Gods Willing, damn it". A very poor deckbuilding decision that got me stuck and made games longer. As it turns out, Adner deck was better than mine at two things: dealing with flyers, and evasion. I realized it too late. Concordia Pegasus, Deadly Recluse and Sunspire Griffin could have helped with the first issue, but the white instant from Theros came to mind more than any other card as the perfect way to solve the second one.

Protection is plainly better than hexproof and I was already playing "da sexy purple tattooed elf" so Ranger's Guile was a redundancy sometimes. Gods Willing grants evasion to push your biggest creature through a bunch of chump blockers and deal lethal damage sucessfully, is a safeguard against combat tricks, it causes removal to fizzle just like Ranger's Guile and smoothes draws which is essential late game. I missed all of Gods Willing modes and I have already included it in the deck.

But granting protection has a drawback too. Be careful when choosing white or green, as your auras from the chosen color will fall from the creature as a state-based action. You can also use it at your advance to create an army of smaller creatures, but I think that would not make sense too often.

Thank you very much for reading this far, I think that's almost everything I had to say. You can access the deck statistics and download Bestowproof current decklist here. You can copy it, change it, tweak it, twerk it, rename it and play it as much as you want. But make sure you have fun while at it!

Best regards. Wake me up when Gravepurge is back,

NT_Smith