Free-Win Gids and His Value-Army Bant (Modern)

And another evolution of my G/W/U value army deck.

After playing some more, I decided that what this deck needs in order to win a bit more are two things:

1. Counterspells of some form to have any kind of chance against combo decks already mainboard
2. A more aggressive gameplan that can close out games earlier

So the first thing I did was add a splash of blue for non-creature spells, among them 4 counterspells. After my first FNM with it, I can say: this works! The choice of what to fetch becomes more of a challenge now, specially against decks probable to run Blood Moon.

The second thing was to think what I can replace my planeswalkers and Sun Titans with that comes online earlier but still leaves me with a working shell of the value creatures that this deck is all about. This is what I came up with

• added Tarmogoyf and Voice of Resurgence as early threats, and took out the Sakura-Tribe Elders and Wall of Omens and Lone Missionary
• added 3 Gideon of the Trials as alternate win conditions (some decks just cannot beat a resolved emblem) and as a beater. He also shuts down some opposing win conditions (like a Valakut)

The gameplan now is:

• one third of the deck is a good creature aggro curve (Tarmogoyf, Voice of Resurgence, Blade Splicer)
• the next third is a value/grinding package (Elvish Visionary, Flickerwisp, Eternal Witness)
• the last third are cards to stop combo and faster aggro (the counters, the Paths, the Beast Within) and find the right cards for the situation (Serum Visions, Thought Scour)
  In addition, the Gideons serve both as win conditions as well as "keep me alive" cards.
  The three value lands help turning my army into a win.

A word on Elvish Visionary. Other decks with access to blue might play a blue cantrip here, or a stronger creature. The elf serves several purposes though, and offers a lot of synergy.

1. This deck wants to have many creatures on the board. Westvale Abbey, Gavony Township and Voice of Resurgence are so much better which each additional creature
2. It is another Flickerwisp target, since it has an ETB effect
3. It replaces itself, and thus can find a counterspell, which effectively makes my 5 counterspells feel more like 6 or 7
   Coiling Oracle is a tiny bit better, but in order to have blue reliably on turn 2 without endangering G & W, this deck would need more blue mana sources, which would mean either giving up on some basics or on some colorless lands. The blue splash is intentionally ONLY for my counterspells, which come a turn or 2 later.

The sideboard has more counterspells, as well as a lot of hate cards.

If you have ideas, please write a comment!