The recent banning of Eye of Ugin has brought about a drastic decline in the presence of the Eldrazi menace in the Modern metagame. That doesn’t mean the deck doesn’t still have what it takes to compete at the top tables of Modern events. Let’s take a look at how the archetype is compensating for the lack of a second 2-mana land.

Bant Eldrazi Glare ? Modern | balkk, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (25)
• 3 Birds of Paradise
• 3 Drowner of Hope
• 3 Eldrazi Displacer
• 4 Eldrazi Skyspawner
• 4 Noble Hierarch
• 4 Reality Smasher
• 4 Thought-Knot Seer

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Garruk Relentless

• Spells (10)
• 4 Path to Exile
• 4 Ancient Stirrings
• 2 Glare of Subdual

• Lands (23)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Plains
• 1 Breeding Pool
• 1 Temple Garden
• 2 Cavern of Souls
• 2 Gavony Township
• 3 Yavimaya Coast
• 4 Brushland
• 4 Eldrazi Temple
• 4 Windswept Heath

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Celestial Purge
• 1 World Breaker
• 1 Dismember
• 2 Engineered Explosives
• 2 Glen Elendra Archmage
• 2 Grafdigger's Cage
• 2 Negate
• 2 Relic of Progenitus
• 2 Stony Silence

Buy This Deck

Losing Eye of Ugin is a huge blow to the Eldrazi decks as we knew them. Suddenly turn two Thought-Knot Seers are much more difficult, and you don’t have the same explosive draws involving Eldrazi Mimic. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. turn one mana creature followed up by Eldrazi Temple lets you curve Thought-Knot Seer into Reality Smasher, which is just as busted as before.

The difference now is you can’t rely on the raw power of Eldrazi Mimic to race other fast decks, like Affinity or Infect. Sure, Path to Exile and Drowner of Hope help, especially with Eldrazi Skyspawner and Eldrazi Displacer to keep enough Scions in play to help keep key threats contained. But Glare of Subdual is really the card that changes everything. With the density of mana creatures and token generators, this card is a monstrously powerful trump in creature mirrors. Sure, it’s no Opposition, but you gain the ability to lock down all threatening attackers, and even gain multiple activations to fight through Vines of Vastwood and Apostle's Blessing.

A final, new advantage to this Bant strategy is the inclusion of Gavony Township as yet another trump in creature mirrors. The density of mana creatures and token generators is not only great for making Glare of Subdual, but also for consistently enabling early Township activations to swing the game heavily in your favor.

This combination of effects makes the deck an enormous favorite in any creature mirror like Abzan or G/W, and Glare of Subdual gives you the ability to shut decks like Infect and Affinity out of the game. The raw size of your threats, combined with their resiliency to removal makes this deck an enormous threat for control decks as well. As long as you expect the format to be largely creature-oriented, this seems like an incredible choice for any of your upcoming Modern events.