Bo1 + Bo3 Alchemy Bant Blink Deck Guide: Bury the Opponent in Value

Hello everyone! Alchemy has come to Arena and brought with it a wealth of extremely powerful cards. Two such cards, Inquisitor Captain and Grizzled Huntmaster are the headliners of today’s deck. Bant Blink is a value deck at its core, with multiple engines and a powerful endgame consisting of Teleportation Circle loops, Koma, Cosmos Serpent, and… Approach of the Second Sun?

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THE DECK

First up is the card that ties this whole deck together, Teleportation Circle. With nearly every card in this deck benefiting from being flickered, Teleportation Circle is a great value engine that can come down as early as turn three and gives this deck an often insurmountable endgame.

Arguably the card with the most raw power in this deck is Inquisitor Captain, and that’s even before all of its synergies with the rest of the deck. Glasspool Mimic”] is insane with Inquisitor because hitting a Glasspool Mimic off of Inquisitor Captain just means you get to trigger Inquisitor again, this time with an extra 3/3. Additionally, combining Teleportation Circle with Inquisitor Captain will pump out creatures each turn at no cost except the initial mana investment.

Grizzled Huntmaster is next, and if you don’t want to parse through its wall of text, or have and still don’t understand it (which is entirely justifiable), here’s what it does: when Grizzled Huntmaster enters the battlefield, you can exile a creature from your hand, then exile as many of that same creature from your hand and deck as you want. Then, you get a copy of a creature in your sideboard straight into your hand for each creature you exiled from your hand.

In short, you get to swap out a creature in your hand for a creature in your sideboard. This is incredibly powerful, especially in best-of-one because you get access to a toolbox of creatures in your sideboard, be it Yasharn, Implacable Earth to hit you lands drops or stop your opponent’s shenanigans, or Koma, Cosmos Serpent if the game has gone on too long and it’s time to end it. Grizzled Huntmaster scales well with the game, and can be copied or blinked to repeat its trigger, making it a key card for this deck.

The last new additions from Alchemy for this deck are Ominous Traveler and Clone Crafter which act as cheap blinkable value creatures. Sigardian Evangel is another nice addition since it’s a powerful scaleable card, works well with Grizzled Huntmaster, and can pull off some surprise lethals. Lastly, Key to the Archive fills two important roles in this deck. First, as low curve as this deck may look, it’s very mana-hungry, and secondly, Key to the Archive’s spell book is incredibly powerful. Containing some of the best efficient interaction in the game in Counterspell, Lightning Bolt, and Electrolyze, and finishers Time Warp and Approach of the Second Sun.

Next up is this deck’s interaction. Brutal Cathar and Skyclave Apparition are this deck’s removal of choice, and while upfront it doesn’t appear as if these cards would benefit hugely from being flickered, Skyclave Apparition turning all of the opponent’s busted permanents into tokens is often useful, and a flickered Brutal Cathar can mop up the tokens. Additionally, both are excellent creatures to copy with Glasspool Mimic, and excellent hits off Inquisitor Captain.

Rounding out the deck is a bit of early mana and utility. Prosperous Innkeeper helps land this deck’s high-impact four drops a turn early, and can give a massive life advantage once you get going with Teleportation Circle, and speaking of Teleportation Circle, turn-twp Innkeeper into turn-three Circle to immediately get the treasure back is one of this deck’s strongest starts. Finally, Professor of Symbology is a great, cheap two-drop that is great to flicker, can help hit lands in a pinch and bolsters the endgame with Mascot Exhibition and Teachings of the Archaics. 

In the mana base, Tangled Florahedron and Glasspool Mimic help keep the land and spell counts high, and Glasspool Mimic especially is often a great card to both cast, flicker, and hit off of Inquisitor Captain. 

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SIDEBOARD

Best-of-Three Sideboard

Elite Spellbinder, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Negate: Anti-control, Elite Spellbinder is also a solid tutor target if you want to delay a key spell.

Yasharn, Implacable Earth, Koma, Cosmos Serpent: Tutor targets for Grizzled Hunter, you shouldn’t ever board these in.

Skyclave Apparition, Brutal Cathar: Tutor Targets, post-board if it’s a creature heavy matchup, you can board one in, but always keep at least one removal creature in the sideboard.

Environmental Sciences, Teachings of the Archaics, Mascot Exhibition: Lessons to learn for, don’t board these in.

Best-of-One Sideboard

Pretty self-explanatory, everything is either a lesson to learn for or a creature to find with Grizzled Huntmaster.

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Matchups

I’m leaving this section pretty general because of how wide open Alchemy is. Additionally, more than ever don’t stick blindly to the sideboard guide, and make changes based on your opponent’s deck. With this deck in specific, be careful not to overboard, and to keep your tutor targets in the sideboard.

Sacrifice Decks

IN	OUT
+1 Skyclave Apparition	-1 Ominous Traveler
+1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben	-1 Clone Crafter

This matchup isn’t great because The Meathook Massacre plus Blood Artist generally beats this deck’s game plan, and Yasharn isn’t as back-breaking either because of that. Do your best to apply early pressure because you’re unfavored in the late-game.

Control Decks

IN	OUT
+1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben	-3 Brutal Cathar
+3 Elite Spellbinder	-3 Skyclave Apparition
+2 Negate

A better matchup for this deck, Lier, Disciple of the Drowned is often what you need to be worried about, so try to apply enough pressure not to lose to it, as Brutal Cathar isn’t reliable enough as an answer. Otherwise, try to outvalue your opponent with two-for-ones, and don’t overextend into a wrath if you don’t need to.

Aggro Decks

IN	OUT
+1 Skyclave Apparition	-1 Key to the Archive
+1 Brutal Cathar	-1 Ominous Traveler
+1 Portable Hole

Usually at least a decent matchup for this deck, Prosperous Innkeeper pulls a lot of weight, as do removal creatures, don’t get blown out in combat by a removal spell on Skyclave Apparition or Brutal Cathar, and against more midrangey decks, your best finisher is a Koma, Cosmos Serpent, so try to make that what you grab from your sideboard with your Grizzled Huntmaster.

(Against red spell-heavy decks, in addition cut a Clone Crafter for a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.)

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TIPS AND TRICKS

• Try to not leave Ominous Traveler on the board and exposed if you’re relying on it for value, even if that means wasting two mana.

• Grizzled Huntmaster doesn’t take cards out of your sideboard, so you can tutor for Koma, Cosmos Serpent as many times as you want despite there only being one in the board (Koma is legendary though, sadly).

• When flickering Glasspool Mimic, you can choose a different creature when it re-enters, and even though when casting Glasspool Mimic from hand, your opponent can respond with removal to blow you out, they can’t do the same when Glasspool Mimic is reentering the battlefield because of Teleportation Circle.

• You can use Teleportation Circle to untap a creature after attacking with it.

• You can discard a Sigardian Evangel to Grizzled Huntmaster even if it’s triggering off of being flickered by Teleportation Circle if you stack the triggers in the correct order.

• If you’ve got a Yasharn, Implacable Earth on board you won’t be able to sacrifice Koma, Cosmos Serpent tokens.

• In the late game, keep a card to discard in case you draw Key to the Archive, Grizzled Huntmaster, or Professor of Symbology.

• If you’re in a long grindy game, it is entirely possible to go below 20 creatures with mana cost three or less in your deck, hand, and graveyard, and if that happens Inquisitor Captain won’t trigger.

• You can skip the wait on Approach of the Second Sun by hitting a second one off of Key to the Archive, this is made easier to happen by the fact that Teleportation Circle can target artifacts and creatures. 

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CONCLUSION

Bant Blink is a strong contender in the early days of Alchemy, and a great deck for anyone who likes value, or whose favorite card is Panharmonicon.

You can find me on Twitter and on the MTG Arena ladder. Thank you so much for reading, good luck in your games, and may your Inquisitor Captains always hit Glasspool Mimics.