Standard on Budget - Bant Golos Deck Tech

Hello, players! Welcome to our

Magic on Budget

series, where we take strong decks in the metagame and make them more accessible, but still good!

Jean-Emmanuel Depraz

placed second in

Mythic Championship V

using the

Bant Golos

deck - the only one of this archetype to reach the Top, despite everyone imagining that it would dominate the format. However, even if you agree or disagree with the measure, Field of the Dead was banned. So the main strategy of this deck was ended. But you can still use the foundation of Bant Golos to make another deck focused on ramp - which I'll explain better in a bit. The idea behind this deck is to fill the battlefield with lands as quickly as possible so we can play our most powerful spells while also increasing the power of some as the number of Gates we control go up. To start the list, let's talk about ramp, that is, looking for lands to help you accelerate (or accel) your mana gain: Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is a 3/5 legendary artifact creature with 5 generic mana cost that, when enters the field, allows us to search our library for a land (it doesn't have to be a basic land) and put it onto the battlefield tapped. With that, we can search for any land that supply the colors we still need. In addition, at the cost of 1 white, 1 blue, 1 black, 1 red, 1 green and 2 generic mana we exile the top three cards of our library and may play them this turn without paying their mana costs. This allows us to play with both the cards from our hand and the top of our library at the same time, greatly accelerating the strategy. For budget reasons, we will use only 3 of this card instead of 4. Arboreal Grazer is a 0/3 creature with reach that costs only 1 green mana which, when enters the battlefield, allows us to put a land from our hand onto the field tapped, which accelerates the first turns on top of being a defensive creature that helps with the more aggressive decks at the beginning of the game. Unlike Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, in our budget deck we use 4 copies of Arboreal Grazer instead of 3. We'll keep the 4 copies of Growth Spiral, an instant that makes us draw a card and then allows us to place a land from our hand onto the field. We'll also keep the 4 copies of Circuitous Route, which is a sorcery that allows us to search for up to two basic lands and/or Gate cards to put onto the battlefield tapped. And we will swap the 2 Once Upon a Time for 2 Bond of Flourishing. Even though it is a sorcery (not an instant) that only allows us to look at the top 3 cards of our library instead of 5, we may still reveal a permanent card among them and put into our hand, while the rest goes to the bottom of our library in any order. On top of that, we gain 3 life. Despite not accelerating as much, it still helps us finding cards we need. Besides looking for lands, we also have cards that benefit from said lands (mostly from Gates) - be it by our large mana pool or by benefitting from them as they enter the field. We increased the copies of Gatebreaker Ram from 2 to 3. This 2/2 creature gets a +1/+1 counter for each Gate we control and as long as we control two or more Gates it also gains trample and vigilance, making it one of our main attackers. As we do not use Hydroid Krasis to gain life, we increased the amount of Archway Angel from 1 to 3. This angel is a 3/4 creature with flying that when enters the battlefield, gives us 2 life for each Gate we control. This can be a lot of life for us. We also increased the amount of Gate Colossus from 2 to 3, as it is an 8/8 creature that costs one less generic mana for each Gate we control. Also, it cannot be blocked by creatures with power of 2 or less (Army decks have a difficult time against it). And whenever a Gate enters the battlefield under our control, we may put Gate Colossus from our graveyard at the top of our library, which makes it a difficult creature to deal with. And since we no longer have Hydroid Krasis or Teferi, Time Raveler to help us draw more cards, we use 4 of Guild Summit, an enchantment that when enters the battlefield allows us to tap any number of untapped Gates we control, and we will draw a card for each Gate tapped this way. Also, whenever a Gate enters the field under our control, we draw a card. This deck also has some removals to deal with the opponent as we fill our battlefield with lands: We'll keep the 2 copies of Time Wipe, a sorcery that will first return a creature we control to its owner's hand (which can save an attacker of ours) and then destroy all creatures. Furthermore, we'll keep only 1 Realm-Cloaked Giant // Cast Off that can be used as an adventure sorcery that will destroy all non-Giant creatures. Or it can be played (it can also be cast later from exile after playing the adventure) as a 7/7 creature with vigilance. Closing out our deck's foundation we have: 2 copies of Agent of Treachery a 2/3 creature that when enters the battlefield makes us gain control of a target permanent (messing up with your opponent's strategy and delaying it). Also, at the beginning of our end step, if we control 3 or more permanents we don't own, we will draw 3 cards. And regarding mana curve, which is very important in this deck, we have: 6 basic lands - 3 Forest, 2 Island and 1 Plains. We'll remove the 6 Shock Lands - 2 Breeding Pool, 2 Hallowed Fountain and 2 Temple Garden. Insted, we will increase the Gates from 7 to 13 - 2 Azorius Guildgate, 4 Selesnya Guildgate, 4 Simic Guildgate for Bant colors, plus 1 Golgari Guildgate for black, 1 Boros Guildgate and 1 Izzet Guildgate for red. We'll keep 1 Plaza of Harmony - which, upon entering the field, grants us 3 life if we control two or more Gates, and it can also be tapped to generate colorless mana or a mana of any type that a Gate we control produces. We will also swap 2 Fabled Passage for 2 Evolving Wilds to fetch our basic lands. And we close this list by keeping 2 Temple of Mystery, that makes us scry 1 when entering the field, and 1 Castle Vantress that makes us scry 2 when tapped, at the cost of 2 blue and 2 generic mana. The main idea behind the deck is to ramp and if the battlefield starts to get dangerous, we use our removals. Against more aggressive (or aggro) decks (such as MonoRed, Gruul Aggro, Knights, among others) we can play some creatures to defend ourselves until we have the advantage to attack (before wiping the board). When battling control decks, we want to play a Gatebreaker Ram as soon as possible so we can attack the opponent from the get-go with increasing power, and we should play Gate Colossus as much as we can, as it will always come back no matter if it is annulled or destroyed. With all these changes we end up with the following deck: I hope you enjoyed this deck and see you soon!