Remember when Bant Hero was a thing for all of two weeks during WAR meta? I sure do, because I was playing Abzan Hero during then, and every single time I saw Temple Garden into Hero of Precinct One, I could feel my pants getting tight, only to be horrendously dissappointed as I saw them slam a Breeding Pool into Teferi, Time Raveler.

Well. How the tables have turned. This time, it's me playing Bant Hero!

Now, you may be asking "Why are you playing a janky deck like Bant Hero, IL2L?" Good question, random citizen, because the truth is, I HAVE NO IDEA. I guess in a time where the meta seems to be spamming the hitting the big red "Attack All" button as hard you can or greeding harder than my uncle during Christmas, I wanted a nice change of pace for a while. I present: Bant Hero.

Alright, here's the general plan: You drop a Hero of Precinct One and pray they don't have removal.

I'm kidding, of course (kinda). The list looks a lot like Bant Goodstuff for a reason - Hero of Precinct One is the only synergy we need. We have a very generic plan of sticking stuff and making it stick, removing the board when things start to get out of hand.

Now, onto the cards. A lot of this stuff is pretty expected here, and I would be lying if I said that I didn't take some inspiration from Bant Hero decks of old:

Incubation//Incongruity] -- Just gonna put this out there, I love this card. It helps us dig for creatures early, it exiles big threats, and it triggers Hero! I've included it in this decklist for the fact that we can play this turn 1, and it does a decent impression of no-longer-standard-all-star [[Once Upon a Time. Bant's main problem is that it struggles with unconditional permanent removal - the best you can do right now is probably Bring to Light in Standard, but that's not multi-colored and prone to getting removed.

Growth Spiral -- "IL2L, this isn't Simic Ramp!" I know, random citizen, but I'll be damned if I'm not putting this in. It's multicolored, it draws a card, it ramps us, and it's instant speed. Ooh boy is this good.

Dovin's Veto -- We need a cheap counterspell for early game, and also to protect our precious creatures against board wipes. So why am I not running Absorb? Yeah... hear me out. So normally, I'd consider Absorb over this, since that can hit creature spells too and has the upside of gaining life and curving oh-so-beautifully after Hero. Problem is, I was kinda getting screwed by all of the mainboard Mystical Disputes, so I decided to plop this in. The upside of this is that I can use it to counter a Teferi, Time Raveler on the draw, and then drop a Time Raveler of my own.

Hero of Precinct One -- The main role in this flaming dumpster heap of a deck, Hero is what allows us to play a greedy deck like ours and not get absolutely, irreparably stomped by RDW. The bodies are very helpful, and dropping a Hero on the play usually means they'll waste a turn to Stomp it, letting us get into our superior lategame without them advancing the board too fast. Outside of that, Hero provides chumps for our very balanced planeswalkers after they've downticked in a midrange match, and lets us build huge boards against control, so that we can both build an intimidating board presence while keeping countermagic up.

Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath -- "IL2L, I thought you said this wasn't Simic Ramp!" I know, I did. But Uro's just so damn good. Against aggro, he gains life, draws, and makes a huge wall that's nigh-impossible to overcome! Against control, he replaces himself, andkeep coming back as a 6/6 that draws us cards, and he's two colors! What's not to love? This guy both lets us get to our haymakers and is a haymaker. If anything, this is why we're running green instead of black.

Deputy of Detention -- Have I told you that Deputy is good? No? Deputy is good. It lets us get rid of pesky walls in UW, will imprison Lucky Clovers and Edge-wall Innkeepers in Temur Clover, and gets rid of basically everything in RDW. All the while providing a decent defensive body and triggering our Hero.

Frilled Mystic -- Yeah. You heard that right. I'm running a UUGG card in my base-Azorius deck with Temples and Shocklands as my only multi-colored lands. I'm a madlad. Mystic's just too good to pass up. Allowing us to counter a key card (turns out a lot of stuff happens on turn 4) of our opponent's while also building our board and triggering Hero is just way too much value to pass up. The UUGG seems pretty daunting at first, but when you factor in the fact that we have a lot of ramp and card-draw on turns 2 and 3, it's substantially easier to achieve than it looks. Is it a bit frustrating when we draw our two plains and a Mystic? Yes. Am I still running it? You damn better bet I am.

Teferi, Time Raveler -- aka This is why I play Bant instead of forcing Abzan. Teferi's just too good. Bounce a thing, you can't respond, Tef replaced himself, I have a planeswalker that is now threatening more value, you have no instant-speed interaction anymore, and I just might get a sweet 1/1 out of the deal. I've had games where Hero into Tef prompts a concession from a salty player who's played against UW just a couple games too much and is tired of all this turn-3-windmill-slam-Teferi garbage. I can't wait for this card to rotate out, but untill then, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, eh?

Tamiyo, Collector of Tales -- Tamiyo's surprisingly useful here. We're not too sad to fill the graveyard with Tamiyo's +1, since Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath loves to escape, and we love to watch him escape. Plus, if anything important (ahem, Hero or Teferi) gets removed, we can just plop down Tamiyo, -3, and get it back.

Elite Guardmage -- I was not sold on this card in the beginning. Turns out I was wrong. Elite Guardmage provides a body that's enough to block off a solid portion of RDW, and the fact that it replaces itself along with some life makes this 4 mana 2/3 just able to get into the list. If a better multi-colored 4-drop came around, I don't think I'd be too sad letting this guy go, but for now, I'm perfectly happy seeing this guy in my opening hand.

Are you seeing a pattern here, though? A lot of our cards replace themselves for maximum Hero value. Our deck runs off of barfing our hand onto the board and relying on the advantage that Hero gives us to overwhelm our opponents. 

Time Wipe -- I know, I know. Wipes in a creature-deck. This is for when boardstates get out of control, like with Temur Clover and the insane turns they pull. I wanted Time-Wipe as my wrath of choice here specifically because it would still provide value if it got countered, and we can recover a key creature that we might want to save.

Dream Trawler -- Oh boy. UW's golden boy has made it into our Hero deck. Turns out that even when the board gets more cluttered up than my workdesk, a 5+/5 flyer with hexproof-on-demand is still quite insane. I've hit times where we can get Trawler to swing in at 8 or even 9 power with all of the drawing action we got here. This is usually what we're digging to later in the game, since once it's resolved, we can usually just take over the game from there with it.

The manabase:

Oh boy. This is where things get rough. I'm obviously running all 12 shocklands, but I also want to run Fabled Passage to fill the grave, cover our colors, and let us curve out t4+. However, the temples allow us to filter our draws somewhat, so I've decided to sit on this 2-passage, 2-2-2 basic, 1-1-2 Temple setup you see here. Feel free to change this as you see fit. I'm still tweaking it.

Anyways, here's some explanations for some cards I'm not running, and why:

Absorb -- ok. So this one's kinda awkward. My main problem is that it's 3 mana, and we're already a bit stacked on that. I decided to go with Veto because it was a) cheaper and b) uncounterable. Would I reconsider if maindeck Mystical Dispute was not being run right now? Probably.

Knight of Autumn -- I was seriously considering Knight of Autumn. I love Knight, it's just so flexible. The main problem I found was that it tended to become a more reactive play than a proactive one like we want with our 3 drops, since I would try to sandbag it for an important enchantment/artifact. Plus, I had no idea what to take out for it. If I ever made a sideboard, I'd 100% include this at least as a 2-of.

Depose//Deploy -- Depose//Deploy seems really good against aggro, but I won't lie, I tried this a couple times and it was just too slow or too awkward. 4 mana feels too much for 2 1/1's, against both aggro and control. Depose worked a bit for me, but it seemed too niche to be worth it.

Trostani Discordant -- I love this card, I really do. It just doesn't fit our gameplan. If I went with a more token appraoch (ie Abzan), I'd happily play this as a 3-of. In this shell though, Hero provides chumps to clog up the ground, not to end the game. Trostani it just doesn't feel impactful enough without a token focus. I'm definitely going to keep experimenting with this, though.

March of the Multitudes -- same problem as Trostani. We are not a token build. This is definitely explosive, but in our deck, we're not gonna pull off very large convokes very often, since we're usually throwing the poor little soldiers in front of giants and wolves.

Hydroid Krasis -- There's literally no reason to be running this card, I just don't know what to cut for it. That's my problem. Plus, I feel like Dream Trawler and Uro fill similar roles that Krasis does - bombs to end the game that also provide card advantage. Like Trostani, I'll keep experimenting with this one. It is more flexible than Trawler, so it does have that going for it.

And there you have it, my Bant Hero decklist. I hope you've enjoyed reading about it, and that you'll try out Bant Hero too. If you have any suggestions (ie if I'm an idiot for not running Krasis), then please don't hesitate to tell me so.