Shard · Color Identity
Bant (Green-White-Blue): History, Playstyle and Best Commanders
Bant is green's mana, white's removal and blue's card draw, with nothing black or red anywhere near it. It is the most "fair" three-color identity in Magic and one of the strongest, because fair in Commander means enormous.
Bant is green, white and blue, the three-color identity. Order, honor and enormous value: ramp, blink, protection and a fair deck that isn't.
Also called GWU, WUG, Brokers.
Where the Name Comes From
The shard of Bant, from Shards of Alara (2008): white's shard, with its allies green and blue.
Bant is one of the five shards of Alara, the plane Shards of Alara split into five fragments in 2008. Each shard was a color and its two allies, with its two enemy colors simply absent from the world: Bant was the white shard, a rigidly ordered society of knights, angels and castes where nothing black or red had existed for centuries. That absence is the flavor: Bant is not merely good-aligned, it is a place that has never been tested.
The shard names stuck because Magic had no words for three-color combinations before 2008 and has produced no better ones since. Streets of New Capenna gave the same five trios a second set of names in 2022, Bant became the Brokers, but the Alara words are what players still use. Wizards has kept printing to them too, most obviously in the Commander precons that ship alongside most premier sets.
All 32 color combinations and where each name came from →How Bant Plays
Bant is the value identity. Green ramps a turn or two ahead, blue converts the surplus into cards, and white supplies the removal and the protection that neither of the other two has. There is no obvious hole in it, which is unusual for three colors and is why the identity's decks tend to be built around an engine rather than around covering a weakness.
Its signature archetype is blink: white and blue have the format's best flicker effects, and exiling and returning your own creatures turns every enter-the-battlefield trigger into a repeatable ability. Add green's creatures, which are large and often have good triggers, and the deck generates several cards of advantage per turn while never casting anything the table wants to counter.
What Bant lacks is a way to attack a player's hand or graveyard and any unconditional removal that is not white's. It kills creatures very well, deals with artifacts and enchantments through green, and has no answer at all to a resolved combo piece with hexproof or to a graveyard engine already running. That, plus a general absence of reach, means Bant decks that are behind usually stay behind.
What It Does Well, and What It Doesn't
Strengths
- No structural weakness: ramp, draw, removal, protection and counterspells all in one identity.
- The best blink package in Magic, which turns creature triggers into repeatable engines.
- Excellent mana: three allied colors means the land base is cheap and reliable.
- The best protection in the format, so an engine, once assembled, is very hard to break up.
Weaknesses
- No discard, no graveyard hate from within the identity, and no unconditional non-white removal.
- Almost no reach: if the board stalls, Bant has no way to deal damage without attacking.
- Slow to actually kill, so a Bant deck can accumulate value for ten turns and lose to a faster one.
- Very reliant on the battlefield, which makes a targeted sweeper unusually punishing.
Best Bant Commanders
The command zones that define the identity rather than the ones winning this week: the pips beside each name are its color identity, which is what it lets you play in the other 99.
Commander Spotlight
Chulane, Teller of Tales ↗
Every creature you cast draws a card and puts a land into play. Three mana of ramp and a card per creature is as fast as fair Commander gets, and it loops with any creature that bounces itself.
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician ↗
Can be put onto the battlefield from the command zone for two mana, over and over, and taps or untaps a permanent each time. Effectively uncounterable and impossible to keep off the table.
Rafiq of the Many ↗
Exalted plus double strike on your lone attacker. The classic Bant Voltron deck: one creature, one connection, twenty-one commander damage.
Roon of the Hidden Realm ↗
Blinks a creature every turn for free. The most direct statement of what the identity's blink deck is doing.
Tuvasa the Sunlit ↗
Draws on your first enchantment each turn and grows with every one you control. The enchantress deck with blue's card draw attached.
Jenara, Asura of War ↗
A three-mana 3/3 flier that grows for one mana at a time. Cheap, evasive and a fine Voltron target on its own.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Bant mean in Magic?
Bant is the green-white-blue color combination, named after one of the five shards of the plane Alara in the 2008 set Shards of Alara. Each shard held one color and its two allies; Bant was the white shard, a caste-based society of knights and angels with no black or red magic at all. Streets of New Capenna later named the same trio the Brokers, but "Bant" is what most players say.
Is Bant good in Commander?
Very. It covers more of the format's needs than almost any other three-color identity (ramp, card draw, removal, protection and counterspells) with no glaring hole. Its real weakness is closing games: a Bant deck usually has the best board in the pod and no obvious way to convert it into a kill, so choosing a win condition and building toward it deliberately matters more here than in most identities.
What is a blink deck?
A deck that repeatedly exiles its own creatures and returns them to the battlefield, so every enter-the-battlefield trigger happens again. In practice a single flicker effect turns a creature that draws a card, kills something or ramps you into a repeatable engine. White and blue have the best flicker effects in Magic, which is why Bant and Azorius are its natural homes.
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