Bat Bread | Abzan lifegain deck!
Two weeks ago I made a post about losing to a cool brew and trying to recreate it from what I had seen. Since then it’s been a very fun ride and I’ve settled on a build that feels solidly tier 2 and is a worthwhile addition to the format!
Decklist! (Minus 2 card changes)
[[Blech, Loafing Pest]] isn’t just Witherbloom’s new mascot (may Blex rest in peace as he gains us 4 life) but the star of this deck! A 3 mana 3/4 with a fairly simple effect: Gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on each Pest, Bat, Insect, Snake, and Spider you control. He’s no [[Archangel of Thune]], but there’s just enough synergistic pesky critters that make him almost the same. Though the deck has a lot of dials and options, the overall concept is fairly simple: annoy your opponent early with TS/ DCB, land a Blech, then turn now very large flyers sideways.
It’s an off-meta build that can surprise opponents game 1, and has enough hate pieces to answer 2/3rds of the format for games 2 & 3. Lifegain hasn’t been a substantial part of the format since Amalia was banned, but thanks to some kindred synergies we’re able to use that to our advantage to create a scrappy low-curve deck that can duke it out against powerful threats, and stay alive long enough to win!
Deep-cavern bat is doing triple duty here as early interaction, a lifegain trigger, and something to grow with Blech. Essence channeler it’s a very powerful Pridemate that gains double counters with Blech, thanks to the pain lands often has flying/vigilance, and when it dies you can move the counters to something else.
[[Zoraline, Cosmos Caller]] is the deuteragonist to Blech here, as she’s a bat that gains life when bats attack (each a different trigger which is fantastic for Blech/Channeler), and a solid piece of recursion each turn if you can, which can also be a life loss trigger to give Channeler flying in a pinch. Even her base stats are solid, 3CMC 3/3 Flying/Vigilance is nothing to scoff at.
Haliya and Prosperous Innkeeper are our Soul Sister creatures, both having more utility than other options. Innkeeper’s treasure is good fixing/ramping and enables revolt for the 2 Fatal Pushes. Haliya is the deck’s main source of card draw, and her warp ability is very useful here to ensure explosive turns andkeep the deck from running out of gas by playing twice.
[[Gilded Goose]] is the closest thing we’re running to a mana dork, an odd addition but one I think works surprisingly well. Previously that slot was taken by [[Momo, Friendly Flier]] a pseudo-dork but ultimately that didn’t help much and was an awful topdeck. Goose works very well with Haliya as she’ll see the food, helping you hit that 3 life target in the early game. And in late game just cracking the food for another life trigger is often enough to alpha strike or come up top on some deceptive blocks. Not to mention an additional way to get CoCo on 3 and have revolt for Push.
Collected Company is fairly self explanatory, the deck is built around cmc3< and it can snag all the right pieces. Only note is that sometimes you’ll want to do it on first mainphase to potentially swing for lethal if you have flyers ready.
Our 1-offs are [[Moseo, Vein’s New Dean]] & [[Ademi of the Silkchutes]]. Moseo is only occasionally great, and often my first cut in SBing but when he works he’s phenomenal. Like, surprised no one’s built around him yet in a proper lifegain deck. ETB he makes a Pest token that gains life on attack, so works for both angles of Blech, and his endstep unconditional recursion can run just run away games. It’s easy to hit 2 life and then get back a Deep-cavern bat to eat the boardwipe your opponent was going to play next turn. Ademi is a recent addition, haven’t looked too hard at Marvel/SPM for cards but he fits a good role in the deck as protection and an occasional flyer with the right typing.
Lastly Sheltered by ghost is decent removal that helps gain life, and most importantly, can be recurred with Zoraline to enable some late game blowouts.
Lands are a little hectic. 3 Basics since [[Erode]] is seeing a lot of use, and the painlands are there to consistently enable Channeler.
While this list is strong, there are a surprising amount of cards to be considered, like [[Twitchy Doll]], or [[Ruin-Lurlker Bat]], going higher with [[Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal]] etc etc. Pests are a fringe type, but Spiders/Snakes/Insects are all evergreen and types WOTC seems to enjoy putting on hate pieces like [[Blightbeetle]]. While the deck might eventually get crept out of the format, it’s definitely one where new pieces are absolutely possible.
—----
SB is most of the way there I think. Being Abzan gives you access to a lot of answers, though they tend to lean White right now. RIP, [[Doorkeeper Thrull]], and [[Clarion Conqueror]] outright stop most decks in the format, at the trade off of hampering a little bit of your own deck. Authority is a godsend against mono-red, Haywire Mite and Abrupt decay are just good universal answers. Lastly [[Skylasher]] has been a surprise MVP for me lately: can’t be boomeranged, and can block an otter, Yorion, Sphinx, etc without issue.[[Sporeweb Weaver]] is similar, and it punishes opponents for needing two Firebending Lessons to answer it.
—----
Match ups!
Somehow Bats beat Rats. Found the deck because I got steamrolled playing Greasefang, and while piloting it now I’ve won against them nearly every time. Similarly for other graveyard heavy decks like Dredgeless Dredge and Cat-Oven. Games 2/3 are answered by SB hate pieces, and slowly whittling them down with flyers.
Golgari Midrange is a slog, but often turns into the deck’s favor. Recursion game 1 keeps it going, an opponent will often tap out to get a 6/6 demon not realizing the bats can get bigger than that. Games 2 / 3 are aided by Clarion turning off badgermole. Watch out for wraths like culling ritual.
Very good matchup against Ninjas, just having halfway decent flyers stalls out that deck, and then growing them fairly tall forces bad blocks.
Good, albeit annoying, matchup against the new Boros Ponza. Creatures are cheap enough to be cast on 2 lands, and often grow too big for Avengers disassemble. TS/DCB wraths and it should be okay.
Only a few matchups against humans and Convoke, both cases it went well. Gain enough life to offset early attacks, then grow creatures too big for them to handle.
Lumra Scapeshift is tight, but we're faster than them, so being aggressive and running RIP is usually enough to win.
Done surprisingly well against Lotus control, winning 2 out of 3 matches, don’t actually know how. Think they just kept bad hands.
Mono-red is a good matchup with one giant asterisk: [[Screaming Nemesis]] -wrecks- this deck, if it sticks for more than a turn you’ll probably lose. Save your treasures to make sure you can push it with revolt.
Self-bounce is a little in the deck’s favor, barely. Comes down to being able to stick something for a turn. If they luck out and get all their removal it’s over, but if you can assemble any board state you’ve got a good chance to push through.
Hard lost to lotus combo. Just, nothing to really stop it and a turn too slow compared to greasefang. Haven’t had many, but also so far a poor matchup against UW control.
And the biggest issue with the deck’s matchup is that it loses hard to Izzet Prowess, nearly 30% of the metagame. Vivi/Lessons/Phoenix are challenging but there are several paths to winning. Prowess is rougher, they’ve got so much interaction, and specifically interaction that draws cards so they seldom run out of gas. [[Academic Dispute]] in particular is brutal, it lets them effectively control combat while also snagging whatever interaction they need.
Even with that glaring flaw, it's a fun deck to pilot and is a good blend of Pioneer staples with new standard cards.