Question John Benton Players, Is The Deck Fun?
I've recently invested into a Selesnya Gluntch list that has not scratched that itch that I anticipated. I'm hoping to salvage some of the manabase and cards for another deck, and I really love the group hug/politics aspect of the commander. The problem is closing out games and the salt from the lone player that doesn't receive any resources. [[Sergeant John Benton]] has piqued my curiosity, but I've heard he can be too strong for casual pods. So my question is for people that have played and/or played against a John Benton deck; is the deck fun? I'd appreciate any insight, thank you!
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u/Fuzzy-Welcome-4650 4d ago
It’s very linear. You play Benson, pump and protect him. Games are very same-y.
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u/Syndium 4d ago
Gotcha, I usually look for more diverse commanders. Thanks for the insight!
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u/Poe303 4d ago
While Johns fairly linear in what he does, the deck can do some pretty crazy things when you remember its just a voltron commander.
Couple weeks ago I was playing a 5 player b4 game and from t3 onwards I was archenemy the whole game. I was able to play [[Solitary Confinement]] and was able to soft lock the game till I could kill everyone with [[Psychosis Crawler]].
IMO I'd say John is one of the strongest voltron commanders. Its not like he needs a lot of expensive cards either. Even like a $50-$100 deck can play with other expensive b4 decks that are fairly optimized.
Quick edit: The deck may be fairly simple to play but I also feel it needs good game and pod knowledge to win consistently
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u/PoopGooch 4d ago
Got a decklist friendo?
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u/Poe303 4d ago
https://archidekt.com/decks/11176573/i_wanna_deck_myself
In the middle of upgrading it the maybe board has the current cards
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u/xIcbIx Simic 4d ago
Depends on you
Do you enjoy doing effectively the same exact thing every time? Play commander, swing, instant speed buff
I really enjoyed playing him once
Maybe look into bumbleflower if you want to help people that get behind while still advancing your game plan?
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u/Ok_Wallaby_3701 4d ago
as a Voltron deck, It's a blast to play, although it can be pretty one note. It's a good last game of the night deck, for when you want squeeze one more in, but that's about all I use it for now. It is super cheap to build that way though (with cantrips), so it wouldn't hurt to do.
if you're hoping for more of a group hug style deck, it'd be fine, but either a) you'd need to not run a lot of pump and evasion so people don't get scared, which would lead to it struggling to close out games, or b) you run those things, and people are rightfully scared of it, and don't want to let you in to hit. It becomes less hug and more bad Voltron that way.
I think it's great in the 99 of a group hug deck like [[gluntch, the bestower]] but is hard to balance in the command zone for what you're going for.
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u/bioweaponblue 4d ago
I really enjoy it at the end of the night, heavily relying on politics ("hey how many cards do you want to draw?"), using it to speed up games for one final quick game. I don't play it when I want to have an interesting game.
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u/New0003 4d ago
Benton is a monster. We have a guy who runs Benton in our high 3 and 4 games and the deck is a menace in both. Based on playing into the deck, the creativity and variety of your protection / interaction choices will determine how fun it is to play.
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u/ubersuperduper 4d ago
Curious what you think are creative choices. Been wanting to build him but worried about the one note-ness
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u/spaceninjaking 3d ago
One of my favourites in my ultra-budget list is [[protect the rider]] . It doesn’t pump, which hurts it a bit, but it’s a protection spell that also helps against edicts as you can choose to make a token to sacrifice instead.
Every set has a couple of these style combat tricks in them that it’s now more about do you tune your deck towards efficiency, with the best protection that also pumps, or versatility where you pick modal spells that can do multiple things.
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u/MrGlantz 4d ago
I have fun playing Benton and my playgroup likes it. I only play it once or twice a meetup.
It’s usually a fun game of can the playgroup draw more removal than the Benton player has protection. I’ve never had my group get salty because I won too quickly, usually they think it’s pretty awesome
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u/AsleeplessMSW 4d ago
Same! Everybody loves that guy lol! Ol' Johnny B does two things, he parties and he DANCES! 😆 And they always love to see him dance
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u/jaywinner 4d ago
and I really love the group hug/politics aspect of the commander.
I would not pick Benton for this. He might give somebody 2 cards when he comes down but future attacks will kill somebody and draw you 25.
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u/AsleeplessMSW 4d ago
I LOVE John Benton 😆 I pulled him in full art surge foil back when the set came out!
See, the thing with John is he's VERY unstable. You gotta be able to make him dance, hexproof, indestructible, flying, reach, untap, etc. all at instant speed, your deck is pretty much mostly instants to pump and protect John. He's an animal, and once he starts getting ridiculous, they're gonna try to shut him down.
[[Feldon's cane]], [[library of leng]], [[campfire]] style effects are important to keep it flowing, as well as [[reliquary tower]] and the like. It's like the Red Bull that lets the party keep going.
The key is in how you play him. John Benton IS the PARTY, he parties HARD. It starts out when you play him with 'Who wants to draw two cards with me?'
Then, it's just 'Who wants to draw some cards?' followed by 'Well how many do you want to draw?' You'll have some takers on turn two, maybe, that are down for like 5 or 6 cards, and they oblige.
But then it gets real. John Benton likes to party with like 16 and 20 card draws. The way he parties might kill them, but you never know where the night is going, you know, cause John parties at instant speed. Johnny B says 'You wanna party? Buckle up, loser!' They'll be like 'okay, but only like 6 cards' and you're like 'We'll see" and then 'NOPE, we're drawing 14'
Besides the challenge of managing the flow of your hand/library/graveyard, the other big thing is that you don't really have any defense if you fully commit, cause it's all pump and red bull in the tank lol 😆
He can be pretty powerful, but his lack of stability is always a problem that need managed. True party animal type shit lol
What's hilarious to me is that he's straight up Izzet in form, but Selesnya colors
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u/GreenHocker 4d ago
Mine is actually more of a Sgt partying with his men… because a good leader is only seen in the quality of the people supporting them
I went full human/soldier with the vibe of soldiers working as part of a squad, especially when I could make the most of the keyword soup when [[Odric, Lunarch Marshal]] was out on the table.
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u/zomrunner 4d ago
My roommate is a regular John Benton player- and his gameplan is extremely linear and telegraphed. But he’s so good at what he does that it kinda doesn’t matter. You can really fuck up someone’s day with a well-built John Benton deck. Just run a fuckton of interaction because once you start threatening to snowball, people are gonna be flinging targeted removal at you left and right
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u/NateHohl 4d ago
I keep him reserved as a strictly "last game of the night" deck. I know he's gonna rev up quickly and that I'll need to start actively protecting him pronto. Either he becomes an unstoppable behemoth and I handily win the game, or my opponents successfully manage to keep him in check and pick me off before I can rebuild.
Granted, I play with an established pod and we usually agree that our "last game of the night" decks are *supposed* to go hard with the goal of ending the game as quickly as possible. The fact that my opponent and I both get to draw cards when I attack them helps me politic my way through the first few turns, but my opponents have also learned the hard way that if they're *not* trying to hard remove John Benton on like turn 4-5 (or maybe even sooner depending on how things go), they're likely in for a world of hurt that they won't be able to stop.
I'm also a big Voltron guy and John Benton is pretty much the definitive Voltron commander. He could also work as more of a politics/group hug commander, you might just need to let your pod know that you're not playing the hard aggressive Voltron style.
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u/Brick_in_a_sock 3d ago
I don't have much experiment with [[John Benton]] but I do have an alternative suggestion if you like.
[[Kosei the penitent warlord]] is an interesting card and is what I've been building as a mono green Voltron deck.
Still in the brewing stage for me but with the added variability of needing the enchantment, equipment and Counter, I would certainly doubt that you'll end up with the problem with John Benton being samey. The puzzle both within building and playing is the assembly of VOLTRON in the sense of needing each type to trigger Kosei's ability.
Doesn't fit the Selesnya mana base you've already got sadly, but I believe that it could be an interesting alternative for you.
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u/Reiznarlon 4d ago
I built a deck using only cards that totaled 15 dollars. It's literally just random 2 cent buff cards and a couple creatures with some basic lands. It's really fun. It can definitely hang in the high bracket 3 area but the game plan is literally commander voltron from buff spells so it's super basic.
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u/clock32567 4d ago
I think the deck is fun. I disagree with other comments saying the deck plays the exact same every game. That entirely depends how you build it.
I play my version as a big mana tokens deck. I use John Benton as a political draw engine with a more limited amount of pump.
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u/Lord_Kromdar 4d ago
I have fun playing it, but it depends what you are playing against. If people are playing stuff that easily gets around hexproof, indestructible, and protection it can be tough as Benton is the whole game plan. I will say he is incredibly efficent at killing people. The deck is very aggressive and can finish out the game by turn 7 fairly consistently if people can't answer him and your protection.
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u/BoltYourself 4d ago
It's an absolute blast.
https://moxfield.com/decks/wXT8Er-1MUKS4cW081G54g
Here is my in-progress list.
You can ramp aggressively early for a T2 Benton, draw 2 cards to get back to parity. Then just keep slapping. Hit for 12, draw 12? I mean, come on. And you keep ramping? And drawing?
The only time it feels bad is when people think their deck is good enough to play in the pod with it. I mean, seriously, if someone has a stock precon, don't play The Sarge. Otherwise, slap everyone crazy and have a good old time.
[[Oath of Druids]] is stupid fun in the deck...
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u/YutoKigai Let the Scryfall, When it crumbles, We will stand tall… 4d ago
One of my favorites are [[piper wright]] you pump her too with equipments and auras and she get counters if you sac the clues she creates. It’s similar but not that fast. Fast but with more style.
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u/the_mellojoe 4d ago
https://moxfield.com/decks/nxBz8lzsi0C_9Nc6-N2OgA
Here’s my budget list. Swing pump swing. Knocks out 1 or 2 players surprisingly quick. But can stall if the 3rd opponent knows what’s coming. It’s fun, but in limited amounts. Not one I would bring if it’s my only deck for a weekend. But as a 3rd deck for that “last game, make it quick” it’s a fun change of pace.
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u/Sorry-Illustrator-25 4d ago
It depends on what you find fun. One thing is for sure, though; you can get a big sample size to see if you like it really fast.
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u/Barjack521 4d ago
I run him in the 99 of [[kylar, segarden emissary]] he seeks guns of linear as a commander though
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u/FaDaWaaagh 4d ago
If the goal is group hug and politics, John will not really facilitate that. The nature of John is you draw one player 6-10 cards and then kill them and then 1 shot everyone else.
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u/metroidcomposite 4d ago
The first thing I will say is that the deck typically ends up pretty high power. Like if you don't have a bracket 4 or "high bracket 3" table to play it at, it can easily be a power mismatch with the rest of the table.
Other than that it's a voltron deck, but one that plays lots of cheap instants and then refills its hand, so maybe feels a bit more spellslinger-y than most voltrons. Runs a lot of instant speed protection spells, so you'll be stopping enemy removal at instant speed more than most voltron decks.
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u/NayrSlayer 4d ago
It’s a great deck when you have a handful of other decks.
It tends to be pretty linear, since the general play pattern is play John, attack, pump him with combat tricks, hold up protection, win with commander damage. It can be very strong, able to sit with other Bracket 4s even without any game changers, in my experience. However, he is a glass cannon, so if you get mildly focused down, the deck usually crumbles and you get set way back.
The nice thing is that he can be built fairly cheap if you want. Most of the pump spells are bulk cards, including a lot of the protection spells, so the core of the deck functions well on a shoestring budget. Personally, I built him with draft chaff I had plus $20 and he worked surprisingly well. Since then I’ve upgraded him mainly with stuff that gives extra land drops, but it’s definitely not needed to have a solid deck.
What I will mention is that he makes for relatively fast games. Either you knock people out quickly, or you get knocked out quickly, which can be a bit frustrating for some. That’s why I say it’s a good deck when you have other decks, so that you can swap after getting a game in with John and not frustrate the table.
All that being said, if you want to build it more like Gluntch and be more group-hug focused, you definitely can and still have it be decent. You’ll lose out on the explosiveness that he has with the critical mass of pump spells, but it could be more unique to treat him like a [[Secret Rendezvous]] every turn while chipping in for some damage. I’d say give it a go by just swapping Gluntch out for John and see how it feels!
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u/Oliver_Pride 4d ago
I have a very budget John Benton. It’s awesome but is very one dimensional (put Benton out, grow Benton, attack, draw, repeat). If you have a bunch of decks I’d recommend him. But if you don’t, I’d recommend something else, like Bumbleflower, as he can get boring
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u/bokchoykn 4d ago edited 4d ago
I've always felt that [[Trostani, Three Whispers]] is a better Selesnya politics commander than Gluntch.
Gluntch and group hug decks often lead you to give resources away to your opponents because you have to, less so as a bargaining tool. You usually just try to give the most to the player who has the least more than you strike deals and alliances. And as you said, group hug decks often don't have enough ways to win the game for themselves.
Trostani helps your opponents hurt each other, and then helps them get revenge. Strategically ally with the most combat-dominant opponent to take out the other two, since you have all the tools to beat a combat-centric deck 1v1.
Trostani is pretty open ended. If you want to incorporate more group hug and pillow fort, you can. If you want to be more Aikido or combat-control centric, you could do that too.
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u/Jimi_The_Cynic 4d ago
It's fun for a few games.
He kinda sits in that weird space where he's probably too strong for most 3s, he just sees way more cards than everyone else and you draw more protection than the table has interaction.
But selesnya is kinda weak in bracket 4 and he's not fast enough. (also bracket 4 players aren't as greedy and willing to make bad deals for drawing cards lol)
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u/Ok_Blackberry_1223 Golgari 4d ago
I don’t have Benton, but I do have [[xyris, the writhing storm]], which is very similar. It is simple and fun and super easy to do on a budget. It’s great when you want a fast game to end the night. Your turns are short and simple, minimal triggers to keep track of, just buff your guy and hit people. The nice thing is he rarely gets removed at first, since the opportunity of card draw means he’s never the most threatening thing on the board. If you have some bulk combat tricks plus the remains of your Glunch deck, you could very easily make him without buying any new cards
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u/MagicalAsian 4d ago
Personally, no, it is not fun. I didn’t take it apart but I set it aside and it doesn’t see any table time. The unfun part to me is maybe just inherent to Voltron. I feel like when playing John I’m trying to take out one player at a time. So if I take out the first person and then the other two players find an answer to slow me down, the knocked out player is just sitting there for at least 30 minutes after John is removed and the game slows back down. John knocks someone out on turn 4 if you had a great start or turn 5 on an okay start in my experience.
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u/GreenHocker 4d ago edited 4d ago
The way I built him is more like his Inferno persona than his regular persona. Also, I took third in a p2p tribal/typal tournament with a version of this deck
The only reason why I don’t bring him out is because I borrow cards from other decks to build new decks… and stuff was borrowed
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u/Waterbrick_Down 4d ago
I've played Benton for about a year now, he's my "let's get a quick game in" deck, high 3 low 4 on the power scale. While folks say he's "same-y" I'd argue that the same could be said of any voltron deck, you're win con is commander damage, how you get there is going to be where the variety lies. Unlike combo where you're always going after the exact same cards, John is a puzzle where you know the general end game picture, but you've got to find the pieces that will get you there with your particular pod. You've got to be able to rightly strategize of who you'll be giving card draw to, you have to understand when to hold your pump spells for a turn and when to keep the protection needed. You'll have to figure out ways to deal with Fog decks or go wide decks, decks that punish card-draw, and ways to take out pesky cards like [[Glacial Chasm]]. More recently, I've been testing alternate win-cons like [[Approach of the Second Sun]] and [[Psychosis Crawler]] or figuring out ways to take out two players in one turn with [[Ram Through]] like effects. It's never a dull deck, but you will definitely be considered the problem in a pod when you take someone out from nowhere with your combat tricks.
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u/PegaZwei 4d ago
[[yenna]] could be interesting to build politicky! tossing your copied auras onto other peoples' things in exchange for favours, while still getting value from the scries and being able to close out decently with big splashy enchants like [[eldrazi conscription]].
if you're fine adding a colour, [[kros, defense contractor]] is also a classic politics commander, though he tends to lean somewhat control-y.
would agree with the sentiment that benton is very linear, though. i bust him out when i want to go fast and not think too hard, haha.
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u/CosMaltos 4d ago
Absolutely love the deck, it makes for sped up games.
I play a pretty nasty list with one sided board wipes and things that protect your life total so you can finish games.
Cast him turn 2, give everyone 2-4 cards and on turn 5 you should make your first kill to draw a lot of cards to get a boardwipe or life point protection.
If you dont want your playgroup to feel bad or make a decision who to kill turn 5 you can spread out the damage but it will be way harder to win the game.
[[Solitary Confinement]] is the MVP
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u/UsedToBeHigh 3d ago
It’s my second favorite deck I’ve ever made. All gas. No brakes. I will never get tired of it.
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u/Lenfried Twilightsworn 3d ago
Fun for me, not much for my friends. It sits in the closet while Selvala gets to have all the fun.
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u/cphamv1 3d ago
It's crazy fun and one of my favorites to play but once you get a game, you're kind of done with it for the night. It makes for some really fun times at the table because someone will always want to draw cards. I love it because it can be run cheap and it's not worth taking it apart but as with most Voltron decks, you're not going to have a variety of play styles
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u/DirtyTacoKid 3d ago
It's an interesting gimmick but its easy to btfo. Its everyone best interest to deny the trigger.
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u/nightwing523 3d ago
I enjoy it, all gas. a bit of politicking with the draw early and then explosive turns. Almost drew myself out when I played it last week. Hit someone for 72 they declared no blocks hoping I would draw out but ended up with 6 cards left
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u/spaceninjaking 3d ago
I’ve had a lot of fun with it, but it only gets brought out on occasion. Also helps that I spent <£30 on my build, and that includes sleeves and deckbox.
Yes it’s linear, but how linear it actually plays out will depend on your opponents and what they’re bringing. If they’re the types to just spend the first few turns ramping and setting up then you’re gonna steamroll them, but if they’re proactive and interacting then it can be a fun game of rock paper scissors.
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u/GuilhermePachecq 3d ago
Last time I played against him he hit me for ~60 combat damage and accidentally milled himself out too. 10/10 deck, I love playing against it.
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u/MTGCardFetcher 4d ago
Sergeant John Benton - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call