Previous articles in this series:
Part I: Early Design and Construction
Part II: Tactics and Strategy
Part III: Tuning the Maindeck and Sideboard
Part IV: Sideboard Guide
Part V: Reflections on Grand Prix: Lille
Appendix:
Threshold versus Goblins, Part I: Pre-Sideboard Games
Threshold versus Goblins, Part II: Post-Sideboard Games
For my June article, I planned on wrapping up my pre-Grand Prix interviews with follow-up questions and answers to the same folks in my last article, post-GP: Columbus. However, the timing of the June 1 Banned List update effectively kept Legacy in a state of suspended animation for ten crucial days, as any questions I would ask our “All-Stars” would certainly involve the then unknown fate of a certain two-card combination that just happened to take first place at Grand Prix: Columbus.
Since I wouldn’t be able to draft questions and edit the responses in time for my June deadline – that last one was a monster to produce – I brainstormed a few articles ideas, such as my thoughts on the June 1, 2007 Legacy Banned List update. Since the necessary banning of Flash was foreseen by most, I have nothing to share that hasn’t already been said, and the two new cards we now have to play with are surely in the province of dirty combo players, of which I am not. I’m certain my fellow columnists and others will expound with far greater insight on deck construction involving Replenish and Mind over Matter; so, don’t ask me. Having dismissed that idea, I figured I would instead write about my recent updates to White-splash Threshold, a deck I haven’t written about for this site since the last Legacy Grand Prix.
You can read about my early interest in this deck from an interview article that Finn kindly organized for MTG: Salvation. Suffice it to say, Threshold is the deck I’m most known for in Legacy – though I only rarely play it outside of tournament settings, or when challenged by friends and teammates to see how their decks fare against Threshold, an archetypal combo-buster in this format.
Instead of explaining the reasoning behind my card choices and listing the current form of the deck as a conclusion, I’ll give you the list first and delve into my choices after that.
White-Splash Threshold
Dan Spero
4 Brainstorm
4 Mental Note
4 Serum Visions
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Pithing Needle
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Meddling Mage
1 Mystic Enforcer
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains
Sideboard
3 Armageddon
3 Chill
3 Hydroblast
2 Loaming Shaman
2 Krosan Grip
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Mystic Enforcer
There’s a lot of deliberate flexibility available in Threshold and this list should not be viewed as gospel. Much like Fish, Threshold has a certain elastic, yet durable, structure behind the individual cards, which allows it to be tweaked to best position it whenever the metagame shifts. In the above list, I view the Spell Snares, Mystic Enforcer, Meddling Mage #4 and Pithing Needles as modular slots that could also be Stifle, Engineered Explosives, etc. So, tune it as the circumstances demand.
In its current incarnation, my version of Threshold retains its edge against combo with its Meddling Magi, plentiful countermagic, card drawing and vicious threats. As I’ll get to later in this article, Spell Snare was originally added when Flash had the format’s limelight, serving as a cheap foil to Flash, Lim-Dul’s Vault, Echoing Truth, Daze, etc. Since then, it’s proven its worth by being superb in the difficult B/w Confidant and Fish matches as well as being gold in the mirror.
Overall, the evolution of my version of the deck over time has been to maximize the deck’s clock speed and aggression, focusing a great deal of attention to attaining maximum early-game disruption. Who needs a late game when you can just win instead?
Onto some of the larger changes…
Part I. Tarmogoyf, Oh my God!
Card type: Creature
Casting cost: 1G
Power/Toughness: */1+*
Oracle text: Tarmogoyf’s power is equal to the number of card types among cards in all graveyards and its toughness is equal to that number plus 1. (The card types are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery, and tribal.)
Quite simply, this card is amazing. Let’s consider a few opening plays:
(Against an unknown opponent.)
Turn 1: Polluted Delta. On your opponent’s end of turn step, sacrifice the Delta to put a basic Island into play; cast Mental Note, which dredges Nimble Mongoose and Pithing Needle; draw a card off Note.
Turn 2: Tropical Island, play a 4/5 Tarmogoyf. (Number of cards in your graveyard: 4.)
(And against Goblins.)
Turn 1, Threshold: Flooded Strand; sac for a basic Island; play Serum Visions.
Turn 1, Goblins: Wooded Foothills; sac for a basic Mountain; play Aether Vial. In response, Threshold plays Force of Will.
Turn 2, Threshold: Windswept Heath, sac for a basic Forest; play a 4/5 Tarmogoyf. (Number of cards in your graveyard: 3.)
These plays are surprisingly common in this deck.
So, what exactly does Tarmogoyf offer over Werebear, a mainstay in the Gro/Threshold shell for nearly a decade? Graveyard resilience, “shared / incremental Threshold,” never being an x/1, larger potential size and a king-hell looking card frame – not including fringe benefits such as virtual immunity to Flametongue Kavu and Pyrokinesis – are all reasons to consider this card over its predecessor. Of course, this all needs to be weighed against the loss of Werebear’s frequently helpful mana-ability.
Power and toughness to cost, Threshold’s attack-force is just about the most efficient in the history in the game. The impressive power/toughness to cost ratio does come at a price: satisfying threshold’s condition of having seven cards in your graveyard. In the right deck, such as, oh, let’s say the one I’m writing this article about, this is a manageable drawback. The Mental Note versions usually reach threshold on their third turn (though you can have 8+ cards in your ‘yard with double Note on turn 2, not that that usually matters); with the Portent/Predict versions usually reaching it on turns 4 through 6. This is assuming you haven’t mulliganed to five and have a workable mix of fetchlands, instants, and sorceries. But there are times when the cards just don’t come together right. You can chalk it up to “bad luck,” or whatever, but it occasionally happens that threshold becomes a weirdly elusive goal.
It is in these and other cases that Tarmogoyf is phenomenal. Since he’s looking at card types in all graveyards, your opponents’ spent fetchlands, instants, and countered threats all help Tarmogoyf grow to enormous proportions. Even with meager support and ignoring your opponent for the moment, Tarmogoyf will come down as a 2/3 on turn 2 for two mana; though usually a 3/4 if you lead with a fetchland and Mental Note on your first turn. In the first few turns, his closest analogy is that of Quirion Dryad, where he gets +1/+1 when you (or an opponent) cast Serum Visions or Duress, another +1/+1 or +2/+2 when a Jitte or Survival of the Fittest gets countered, etc. In this way, his card text makes him play a lot like Dryad until the time he’s a 4/5 or 5/6 a few turns later. Compared with Quirion Dryad, which sees little play these days, late game Tarmogoyf topdecks are gold, unlike the Dryad who wants to come into play as soon as possible.
Accordingly, Tarmogoyf does not really resemble Werebear or Nimble Mongoose in the early games (turns two to three or so) where threshold is either on or off; he has an active state-based ability that’s always on and looking for different card types in everyone’s graveyard. From experience and in practical terms, I’ve won many games with Tarmogoyf with only three to five cards in my graveyard, and even under the otherwise crippling Leyline of the Void. That was the first tip that I was onto something great.
The real beauty in having “incremental threshold” that’s shared between all graveyards, is that Tarmogoyf has extraordinary resilience to graveyard disruption, a previous Achilles’ Heal to Threshold decks. Assuming your opponent has nothing in their graveyard and yours is stocked with goodness, a Tormod’s Crypt activation automatically makes him no less than a 1/2 (this is the worst case). Your opponent sacrifices the Crypt as part of the activation cost, which immediately goes to the graveyard; the “remove graveyard from the game” ability goes on to the stack. When it resolves, Tarmogoyf’s state-based ability sees the Crypt in your opponent’s graveyard and immediately becomes a 1/2 (though, technically, he was never anything less). The same situation arises in the extremely unlikely situation that your Tarmogoyf is a 0/1 and facing down a Mogg Fanatic. Your opponent sacrifices the Fanatic, targeting Tarmogoyf, which immediately becomes a 1/2 when the Fanatic hits your opponent’s graveyard. When the “ping” effect resolves, Tarmogoyf still lives. This is unlike Quirion Dryad’s “grow-ability,” which uses the stack.
All of this means that Tarmogoyf doesn’t suffer from Dryad and Werebear’s dangerous period of vulnerability, when something as sundry as a Prodigal Sorcerer, or more likely, Mogg Fanatic, could ruin your day.
Next on my “Tarmogoyf is awesome” list is his potential 8/9 size. While there are currently no extant “Planeswalker” cards and Bound in Silence being unlikely to see tournament play, Tarmogoyf is pretty much going to top out at 6/7, able to survive a scrap with Mystic Enforcer, for half of the cost! [On the ground, maybe… – Craig, amused.] Since Tarmogoyf was first added to the Magic Workstation patch, I’ve been testing it relentlessly, just to make sure it really is as cool as it looked on paper. In that time, I’ve gotten Tarmogoyf to 6/7 quite a few times.
With the four most common card types being land (fetchlands, particularly), instant, sorcery and creature, you can generally count that your Tarmogoyfs will come down in the mid-game (turn 4) as a 4/5. Though it’s not difficult to boost it to a 5/6, provided you or your opponents are playing artifacts or enchantments. Though, honestly, the marginal difference between a 5/6 and a 6/7 is pretty slight. If you’re swinging offensively with one or two mid-game Tarmogoyfs, you’re most likely going to win that game, give or take +1/+1. Importantly, unaided by equipment, Werebear will either be a 1/1 or a 4/4, nothing in between and nothing larger; unlike Tarmogoyf which is realistically never any less than a 1/2 and often a 5/6.
Now we’re moving into the purely subjective realm of my argument; aesthetically, I find Tarmogoyf to be far more interesting than Werebear. In most cases, I’d rather have no flavor than the alternative, but when the Creative Team has to resort to rubbish like, “He exercises his right to bear arms,” ugh, it’s best to leave that space blank. I also like the idea of a Tarmogoyf: some kind of mystical monster that lives off the energy of the dead (“tarmo” roughly means “energy” in Finnish) which is far more compelling than a lycanthropic bear, even if he is a druid. Finally, the Future Sight time-shifted card frame looks awesome to me, though the Spike in me couldn’t care. Heck, I’d even play Tarmogoyf if it depicted My Little Pony living on a cloud made of lollipops and puppy dogs – the card is that good.
All of this said, the above arguments for Tarmogoyf’s inclusion over Werebear, or at least in addition to him, have to be weighed against losing one ability that Gro/Threshold players have found useful since Werebear’s printing: the mana-elf ability. Werebear’s mana ability has come in handy in a host of situations; such as struggling to manage your mana production in times of random land screw and/or against active land destruction, while floundering under Blood Moon, surprising careless opponents in the mirror when you can pay for a Dazed spell, etc. Since the land count in these decks is anemic enough, a little bit of land screw goes a long way, though the extremely low casting cost of Threshold’s spells doesn’t necessarily make it a rout.
Losing the ability to power-out that third-turn Armageddon against combo or control, or an early Mystic Enforcer against Black-based decks is something I’ll miss. Werebear’s mana ability is also useful in deploying other beaters while you present Counterspell mana or to use your other mana to draw cards, remove threats, etc. And that’s what it comes down to: is all of the above worth the loss of this ability? After thorough testing, I say, “Yes!”
Heck, we don’t play Werebear because he taps for mana, we play him because he’s a 4/4 for two mana (usually). In fact, I’m certain we’d play Werebear even if he didn’t tap for mana, solely on account of his power/toughness to cost ratio. If this is true and Tarmogoyf is better at attacking, blocking and, um, “not dying” at all stages of the game, why not make the switch?
Part II. Spell Snare, Pithing Needles and Stifle
Card name: Spell Snare
Card type: Instant
Casting cost: U
Oracle text: Counter target spell with converted mana cost 2.
As I mentioned earlier, in seeking some kind of edge against the degenerate Flash deck (R.I.H.), I flirted with a few option, starting with Stifle, for its obvious ability to counter Protean Hulk’s “when he goes to the graveyard” triggered ability. It is true that “Stifle is never dead,” but not being “dead” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better than the alternatives. Respectable things to Stifle include Goblin Ringleader, Siege-Gang Commander, storm-triggers, Wasteland, fetchlands, etc. It’s true that targets abound, but Stifle in painfully weak against a host cheap permanents with menacing and reusable abilities, especially those that are strong against Threshold such as Aether Vial, Survival of the Fittest, Umezawa’s Jitte, Sword of Fire and Ice, Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, Atog, Vedalken Shackles, Wild Mongrel, Nantuko Monastery, and Mishra’s Factory. In these and many other cases, Pithing Needle is the right tool for the job.
I’ve also heard people say that Pithing Needle should be outright replaced by Stifle, but even against Flash, Pithing Needle was good, since it could be played on Carrion Feeder or Kiki-Jiki before Duress or Unmask would otherwise remove Stifle from your hand. Admittedly, this is a moot point now. Pithing Needle is also serviceable against Wasteland, Rishadan Port and a load of other cards, proactively “countering” them in multiples.
In search of an alternative to Stifle and Pithing Needle, I decided to test Spell Snare, since so many of the cards Threshold hates to see cost two mana (see above) and do not have activated abilities. Against Flash, it was a solid counter against the deck’s namesake combo card, Lim-Dul’s Vault, Diabolic Vision, Daze and Echoing Truth. But my results against Flash with my White Threshold list were strong enough anyway and almost felt overkill. It was somewhere around this point that I realized how superb Spell Snare is against Legacy as a whole (sans Goblins), especially when Threshold is on the draw, and the opposition will have two mana available first.
To see what I mean, let’s see what sits at two mana against a few of Threshold’s more difficult match-ups: U/B/w HanniFish and B/w Confidant (a.k.a. Deadguy Ale):
Versus Fish
Dark Confidant
Jotun Grunt
Serra Avenger
Meddling Mage
Umezawa’s Jitte
Daze
Counterbalance
Engineered Explosives for 2
Versus Deadguy Ale
Dark Confidant
Nantuko Shade
Jotun Grunt
Hymn to Tourach
Sinkhole
Withered Wretch
Rotting Giant
Against Goblins, Spell Snare is not amazing, but it does have the benefit of countering Goblin Piledriver, Goblin Tinkerer, and Tin Street Hooligan as well as the dreaded “Chalice of the Void for 1” and Pyrostatic Pillar. Against combo decks like CRET Belcher and IGGy Pop, Spell Snare is serviceable with its ability to counter Burning Wish and Land Grant; Cabal Ritual, Echoing Truth, and Infernal Tutor; etc. If you start playing with it, you’ll be surprised how often Spell Spare is relevant, and it just gets better when you’re in the vulnerable spot of being on the draw.
By the end of my testing in May, I had settled on two maindeck Pithing Needles and three Spell Snares and I’ve been happy with them since.
Part III. Other Card Choices
4 Mental Note
Really? Yes, really. They look bad, I agree – just test them. Mental Note makes your Tarmogoyfs awesome, lets your Mongeese swing for three on turn 3, lets you recover from graveyard hate quickly, gives you an edge in the mirror and combos with Brainstorm. Seeing it in your opening hand is almost like starting the game with threshold and shortens Threshold’s fundamental turn by a turn or more.
If you’re still not convinced, note the cantrip configuration used by Paul Niccolo (a.k.a. Liek) to make the Top 8 at Grand Prix: Columbus.
4 Mental Note
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
Of all of the Threshold players at the GP, Paul was the only one to make the cut to the Top 8. This same 4/4/4 configuration was also used by Helmut Summersburger to win Grand Prix: Lille, which is what convinced me to test Mental Note in the first place, as well as Pat McGregor to make the Top 8 at Grand Prix: Philadelphia. I find it hard to argue with success, but if you live in Virginia, I’m sure you’ll find a way. Yes, that’s the sound of someone winking at you.
1 Mystic Enforcer
Not to be accused of pointless deck design eccentricity, but I love the occasional singleton bomb in many of my decks. While you don’t want to see Enforcer in your opening hand, he will outright win many games if drawn at the right time. Even under a Leyline, having another threat that’s never less than 3/3 can help you win games you would otherwise lose. Flying, protection from Black, and increased threat density and diversity are often key in many games.
0 Engineered Explosives (“EE”)
EE is one of my all-time favorite cards, on account of its flexibility and design elegance. In my most recent round of changes, my lone EE was a casualty to shaving when I was freeing up room for Spell Snares. When trying out new cards, I’ll often push the numbers as high as I can to maximize the number of times of seeing certain cards in a limited number of test games. And since EE was often removing permanents that cost two, nuking them for four on the board (two colored mana for the counters, two colorless to activate) is much weaker than countering those cards for a quarter of the cost on the stack. Spell Snare also conveniently answers Chalice for 1 at half the cost as resolving and activating an EE for 0. I still have the one Explosives in my sideboard, but I can’t in good conscience say it’s any better than another Krosan Grip, Loaming Shaman or another Pithing Needle.
With these revisions in mind, some test games against real opponents are in order. For the next part of the article, I selected the MWSPlay network as my battleground of choice.
[Intermission: Three minute excerpt of Gyorgy Ligeti’s “Atmospheres.”]
Part IV. Threshold Versus Magic Workstation
As a testing and practice tool, MWS is an odd thing indeed; you can’t take the results too seriously, it’s like being stuck in a purgatory where you’re forever playing against your round 1 pairings over and over or if you happen to land in an early x-1 bracket. Still, randomness and uncertainty continue to remain a hallmark of tournament Legacy, and if you can’t do well here, well, that’s a good reason to throw away a new project or take it back to the shop for retuning.
Out of all of my matches, I selected the most representative games I played over the course of a weekend: ignoring my win to an awful Barren Glory/Greater Gargadon “combo” deck, or my loss to a really shifty wizards tribal theme deck. The cards I lost to were so awful that I had only heard of Voidmage Prodigy prior to the game; so I threw out a win and a loss to two janky casual decks.
So, if you recently played against “Kilgore” with the description of “Legacy — Serious Decks, Please” on MWS, that was me.
Match 1, versus Hatfield Thresh (Portent/Predict Thresh)
What I call “Hatfield Thresh” (a.k.a. “NoVA Thresh”) is a version of U/G/w Threshold that eschews Meddling Mage and Mental Note, opting for other draw spells like Portent and Predict.
My opening hand game 1; I’m on the draw:
Mental Note
Nimble Mongoose
Brainstorm
Mental Note
Tropical Island
Spell Snare
Swords to Plowshares
Against an unknown opponent, I make a quick assessment and feel it should be fine if I’m playing against anything other than Stax or Goblins. I have three cantrips to find another land; otherwise, all of my spells cost one mana (though I don’t have white for StP at the moment). It’s a bit risky, but good enough.
My opponent leads with an Island into Portent and I put him on the slower version of White Threshold. After dropping my Tropical Island, I sit back with Spell Snare at the ready and EOT my Mental Notes if I find no use for the Snare that turn. I quickly reach threshold (turn 3), find another land and Nimble Mongoose #2. My opponent spends his turns drawing cards off Serums Visions and stuff, while I spend my turns beating him down. He loses the game with four cards in his graveyard and is unable to mount a counter-attack.
We get a start on game 2. I’m on the draw again, I Spell Snare his turn 2 Tarmogoyf with Daze back-up and my opponent quits saying he “has to go” (“gtg, gg.”) I won’t consider this second game in my matches.
1-0
Match 2, versus Replenish-Enchantress.
My opening hand:
Flooded Strand
Force of Will
Island
Nimble Mongoose
Tropical Island
Pithing Needle
Force of Will
That’s probably one more land than I need, but it’s otherwise stocked with disruption and goodness.
With Attunement on the board, my opponent activates it when I place my Pithing Needle on the stack. Off his discard cards I see Pandemonium, so I set my Needle on Saproling Burst when it finally resolves. The rest of the match is long and convoluted, with six cards in my graveyard and three (!) Nimble Mongeese sitting on the board, I can’t find the magical #7 graveyard card to save my life, literally. If not for Enchantress’ untargetability, I would have won this one – not so much because I needed to remove her, I just needed something else in my graveyard. For all I cared, the Enchantress could have changed her name to “Barbarella” and gained flying – if only I could get that StP into my graveyard.
My opponent eventually resolves Replenish, but it doesn’t do a whole hell of a lot with my first and second Pithing Needles (the second set to Attunement).
Had I known my opponent was playing Words of Wind, I would have certainly Pithed that instead. My mistake proves fatal and I concede facing a truly crushing board position (double Argothian Enchantress, the Words, Solitary Confinement, and a pile of other enchantments that cluttered the board when Replenish hit earlier).
I ask him for “g2?,” saying that I want to sideboard but that I first need to investigate the cause of a ruckus with my dogs barking their tails off in the backyard. I’m not gone long, but he’s already quit the session by the time I return, saying he doesn’t have a sideboard. This is too bad, since I now know how his deck operates, and I have those ‘Geddons, Krosan Grips and an Engineered Explosives to take better command of our next games. So it goes.
0-1
Match 3 versus Solidarity (Reset High Tide)
(Sorry, I forgot to write down my opening hand for this game.)
On the draw again, my opponent keeps playing basic Islands and casting cantrips at the end of my turns (Brainstorm, Opt, Impulse). I quickly put him on High Tide, but decide to wait until I saw something that confirmed my suspicion. I eventually assemble a critical mass of control cards and decide to go for it. I put a Meddling Mage on the stack that, between the two of us, elicits a High Tide, three Forces of Will, a Remand and two Brainstorms. By this point, I can say safely say that I’m playing against Solidarity! After about five minutes sorting out the stack, the Meddling Mage finally resolves and I set him on “High Tide.”
With the help of a Tarmogoyf, I eventually get him down to 1 life and he concedes after a frenzied search for Cunning Wish to find some bounce for the Mage. Even then, at 1 life, he can’t cast Force of Will without killing himself and that is that.
Game 2 I board out my Swords to Plowshares and Mystic Enforcer for three Armageddon and two Hydroblast, which at least pitch to Force, unlike StPs which might as well be a pinochles card in this match.
My opening hand game 2, on the draw again:
Daze
Brainstorm
Meddling Mage
Armageddon
Nimble Mongoose
Windswept Heath
Tundra
Good enough for me. In response to my first Meddling Mage, I’m hit with a quick Brain Freeze for eighteen cards, more than enough to give my Nimble Mongoose threshold. As usual, I have my first Meddling Mage chanting against “High Tide.”
As Mage #2 resolves I’m stuck with what may be an otherwise game winning or losing decision: what to name? Figuring that we’ve both boarded and he should now be running bounce in his maindeck, I quickly dismiss Cunning Wish, which leaves Echoing Truth, Wipe Away, and Brain Freeze on the short list. Given the variance in bounce spells, I set Mage #2 to Brain Freeze and that appears to be the right choice as he quickly concedes facing lethal board pressure – revealing an uncastable Brain Freeze and High Tide in the process. Pleasantly, these were good games with a friendly opponent; nothing to take for granted in the wilds of MWS.
2-0
Match 4 versus Elf-Ball / Tooth & Nail
No, I’m not making this up.
I lose the roll, again. In our first game, I mulligan a hand of seven spells to:
Plains
Mental Note
Spell Snare
Polluted Delta
Tarmogoyf
Daze
Reasoning that a dodgy six is better than an unknown five, I keep.
He leads with a Forest and passes; I drop the Delta and pass my turn.
The early game is a bit of a mess, but I quickly realize what I’m up against. An EOT Mental Note dredges Swords to Plowshares and Flooded Strand, draws Daze, which goes on to trade with his Yavimaya Elder. By turn 4, I have a 4/5 Tarmogoyf with six cards in my graveyard; Serum Visions (drawing Swords to Plowshares) brings him to a 5/6. I foolish drop a Pithing Needle on Wirewood Channeler, apparently not having read the text of my own card or something.
With an impressive board position of Tarmogoyf and double Mongoose, I eventually StP Wirewood Channelers #1 and #2 and am looking at a mid-game hand of:
Force of Will
Spell Snare
Plains
A short while later, everything is under control: I’m comfortably sitting on double Force of Will and five lands on the board, I play in classic Counter-Sliver mode going forward: countering obnoxious crap while I smash away with my Green beaters.
On the draw, my game 2 opening hand:
Tundra
Daze
Polluted Delta
Force of Will
Windswept Heath
Nimble Mongoose
Brainstorm
Serviceable, but nothing to brag about. I Force a second turn Rofellos (he had played a mana elf on turn 1 so I couldn’t Daze), and drop a third turn 3/4 Tarmogoyf with only three cards in my graveyard.
Around turn 6 or so, my opponent produces the first frightening threat in our games so far: Platinum Angel. I get lucky and draw a Swords to Plowshares off Mental Note (dredging Pithing Needle and Brainstorm), bringing my Tarmogoyfs to 5/6s. Realizing the game is pretty academic from here, I drop a blind Meddling Mage on Umezawa’s Jitte and keep swinging for seven.
On the turn that I expected to be greeted with the “gg,” the unthinkable happens: Tooth and Freaking Nail! I crap you not. Tooth, with entwine, fetches Darksteel Colossus and Akroma, Angel of Wrath and I’m out of Swords to Plowshares. I take my beating like a man, but a little part of me died on the inside.
I begin our third game with vengeance in my mind. My opening hand:
Tropical Island
Pithing Needle
Daze
Brainstorm
Force of Will
Meddling Mage
Daze
Solid. I set my second turn Meddling Mage to “Tooth & Nail;” deploy 3/4 Tarmogoyfs on turns 3 and 4 with only three cards in my yard. I eventually drop another Meddling Mage on “Fireball,” which solicits the “GG.”
On man, I can’t believe I lost to Tooth for a game… (Shudder.)
2-1
Match 5 versus B/G/u/w RecSurvival
In case it need be said, I have no idea what I’m facing in the first game of each of these matches. My opening hand in game 1:
Tropical Island
Mental Note
Swords to Plowshares
Force of Will
Flooded Strand
Mystic Enforcer
Tarmogoyf
I’m not too pleased to see Enforcer in my opening hand (which is why I only run one in the maindeck), so this is basically a mulligan to six with a bonus Enforcer; luckily, it is otherwise workable against aggro, aggro-control and combo, so I keep it.
I won the die roll, finally, and play the Strand. My opponent, having mulliganed to six, leads with a Windswept Heath into Bayou into Duress. I cast the Mental Note in response, dredging Spell Snare and Nimble Mongoose, drawing Force of Will. Seeing a stocked hand and little options, he takes a Force of Will and passes the turn. I drop a 4/5 Tarmogoyf on turn 2 (Duress, Windswept Heath, Mental Note, Nimble Mongoose), who nearly goes the distance. I continue to counter annoying stuff and my opponent concedes when I drop ‘Goyf #2 onto the board, now a 5/6.
My opening hand for game 2:
Windswept Heath
Tarmogoyf
Brainstorm
Mental Note
Force of Will
Nimble Mongoose
Meddling Mage
While I only have the one mana source, being on the draw will help (I draw a Tundra in my first draw step) and I have that Brainstorm to dig for another land regardless. By the end his second turn, my opponent, “Tank,” has three Birds of Paradise in play. With five cards in my graveyard, I win with a 4/5 Tarmogoyf and a Meddling Mage chanting against “Survival of the Fittest.”
2-0
Match 6 versus Reanimator
On the play, my opening hand in game 1:
Tundra
Force of Will
Windswept Heath
Spell Snare
Spell Snare
Forest
Plains
I lead with the Heath, immune to Wasteland, but it can find the mana for Spell Snare if the need arises. My opponent begins with Swamp, go; an all too-common sight on MWS. After a few turns, he casts Buried Alive (burying White Akroma; Reya Dawnbringer; and Razia, Boros Archangel), I can see where he wants to lead the game. By this point, I still have double Spell Snare for his Animate Dead and my ignorance of reanimate spells has me dropping a Meddling Mage on “Exhume” (which also has a cost of 2). As the game proceeds, I Spell Spare an Animate Dead, set a second Meddling Mage against Recurring Nightmare and beat my opponent to death with double Magi and a 5/6 Tarmogoyf.
My opponent wants a rematch and I am happy to oblige.
Not really sure how to board here, I bring in a single Krosan Grip, plus double Loaming Shaman for a Mental Note (my opponent will do a good enough job getting creatures and enchantments into his graveyard) and two Pithing Needles.
My opening hand for our second game:
Force of Will
Loaming Shaman
Mental Note
Polluted Delta
Spell Snare
Nimble Mongoose
Windswept Heath
Given the match-up, this is a keeper.
My opponent leads with Swamp into Putrid Imp, pitching the White Akroma. I drop the Delta, sac it for a Tropical Island and cast Spell Snare when goes for Animate Dead on the legendary angel on his second turn. On his third turn, my opponent taps out for Buried Alive again; I consider Force of Will, but look at the Loaming Shaman in my hand and just let him go for it. He dumps Akroma, Angel of Fury; Necroplasm; and Reya Dawnbringer into his graveyard. I play a land and my have my shovel-wielding centaur empty his graveyard of his reanimate targets. On my next turn, I juggle Brainstorm, Mental Note, and a Windswept Heath to boost Nimble Mongoose to a 3/3 and proceed to beat my opponent bloody for six damage a turn, casting another Spell Snare on Exhume or Animate Dead when he attempts to reanimate a Phantom Nishoba near the end of the game.
These games were just an unrepentant slaughter. Sorry, dude.
2-0
Match 7 versus Suicide Black
On the play again, my opening hand:
Swords to Plowshares
Nimble Mongoose
Pithing Needle
Tropical Island
Plains
Nimble Mongoose
Daze
Not having much better to do, I lead with the Tropical Island and play a first turn Nimble Mongoose, usually a play of last resort. If my Trop gets Wasted, I’ll at least have the Goose and a Swords to Plowshares to go with my basic Plains. On his first turn, my opponent leads with Bloodstained Mire into a basic Swamp to play Dark Ritual (which I contemplate Dazing…), leading with a Duress, nabbing my Daze and using his remaining mana to drop a Rotting Giant. Though vaguely defensible, I was hoping he would use the ritual mana for Phyrexian Negator, which I would have gladly Dazed. Anyway, I quickly Swords the giant zombie and begin attacking with my weenie Mongoose. My opponent then drops a Nantuko Shade, but I’m ready with a Pithing Needle for the thing.
By the mid-game, we’re off to a race to the death with him and his neutered Shade plus double Hypnotic Specters. I eventually drop a blind Needle on Umezawa’s Jitte, while he keeps molesting my otherwise stable manabase with Sinkholes and Wastelands. Eventually he is forced to chump block my guys and double Mongeese take him down. Overall, this was an easy game.
Game 2, however, is an entirely different matter.
My opening hand, on the draw:
Daze
Tropical Island
Mental Note
Nimble Mongoose
Daze
Plains
Spell Snare
Weird, this is just like my last hand. I didn’t find much in the way to sideboard against him, just a Krosan Grip, Mystic Enforcer #2, and an Engineered Explosives (since most of his threats cost two mana) for three Meddling Magi, I believe.
Unfortunately, he keeps his opening seven and places Leyline of the Void into play. Even before I take a turn, I know this is going to be a rough one.
Again, he leads with a Badlands and Duress, nabbing my Spell Snare this time. I drop my Tropical Island, pray that it doesn’t get hit by Wasteland and play the Nimble Mongoose. The next turn my opponent draws a card, plays a land and passes. I do nothing of consequence. The following turn, with one land untapped, he plays Nantuko Shade. Seeing no better option I double Daze the Shade and he responds with Dark Ritual. Ouch! What a fantastic beating. Facing almost certain death, I entertain the notion of conceding, but decide the play the sucker out.
Though I’m clearly the underdog, I give it my best: Spell Snaring a Dark Confidant and ripping through my deck for answers, but he eventually gets out double Phyrexian Negators. He swings with both into my 1/1 Nimble Mongoose and 4/5 Tarmogoyf. I double block Negator #1, take 5 damage from the other and he loses most of his board except for a land or two, the Leyline and Negator #2. I’m left with the lone Mongoose, pretty much no hand and three or four lands.
It is in this instance that, compared with Werebear, Tarmogoyf was a game-winner since it was gaining “threshold” by counting the Bloodstained Mire, Duress, Dark Confidant, and Dark Ritual in my opponent’s graveyard. If I were running Werebear instead, it would be a 1/1 for the duration of the game and I wouldn’t stand even a small chance of winning. Note that I’m still not out of the dark woods yet.
Eventually, I find another Swords to Plowshares to send the Negator farming, bringing my opponent to 25 or so life. Things are looking grim, but I finally find my savior in this game: Mystic Enforcer. My opponent continues to draw hand and land disruption when I have no hand to speak of and more land than I need.
I begin a slow ground assault with my 3/3 (protection from Black!) Mystic Enforcer plus the single Mongoose I played on my first turn in this game. My forces are joined by Mongoose after Mongoose as my topdecks are giving me the goods. I then proceed to Spell Snare another Confidant and beat my opponent to -5 with the 3/3 Enforcer and three 1/1 Mongeese. Close game!
2-0
(Between matches seven and eight, I played a couple of one-gamers, handily beating some kind of Workshop-esque deck with Juggernauts and Akroma’s Memorial, and losing another to a much different version of Enchantress/Replenish. This one was much closer than my Match 2 game, and I was hopeful I was going to win, if not for a late-game Solitary Confinement. Man, that card sucks. In this particular variation of the deck, the kill was Sacred Mesa; and I’d much rather get hooved to death by a stampede of flying Pegasi than lose my board to Words of Wind. Anyway, neither opponent stuck around for a second game, so I won’t give these games too much thought.
Parenthetically, as we are between parentheses at the moment, the new Replenish decks have a strong advantage in all being “rogue” at the moment. I’ve seen quite a few different lists and they’re all so different in how they tackle the mid/end-game.)
Match 8 versus Secret Force
My opening hand, Game 1:
Serum Visions
Swords to Plowshares
Mental Note
Serum Visions
Pithing Needle
Polluted Delta
Spell Snare
My notes for game 1 are a little sketchy. From what I can gather, after Spell Snaring the first Natural Order, I set a Meddling Mage against future uses of that card, and beat my opponent into the loam with double 4/5 Tarmogoyfs. I also stuck a Pithing Needle into a Quirion Ranger, for whatever that might be worth.
My notes from game 2 are pretty much the same: dual 4/5 Tarmogoyfs and a Meddling Mage on Natural Order win the game for me; the rest of my control cards handled anything otherwise annoying or ominous.
My game 2 hand (on the draw):
Meddling Mage
Brainstorm
Daze
Flooded Strand
Polluted Delta
Brainstorm
Daze
After this, and desperately needing a change of pace, I thrashed him with my updated “Mostly Mono-Blue Control.”
Mostly Mono-Blue Control
Dan Spero
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
2 Spell Snare
2 Stifle
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Vedalken Shackles
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Mishra’s Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
4 Snow-Covered Island
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tolaria West
1 Faerie Conclave
1 The Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale
1 Maze of Ith
Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Engineered Plague
4 Duress
2 Massacre
1 Chalice of the Void
Again, a clean 2-0 win against his U/B control deck. Incidentally, I love this deck! The allusion in the deck’s name should be obvious to anyone who enjoys a good read.
Having found the level of competition in this last match to be somewhat lacking, I challenged Joe Cahill (a.k.a. “Bruenor”) of Team BHWC to a match.
Match 9 versus BHWC Landstill
Despite Joe rolling a 3 on a d20, I’m somehow on the draw, again. We both keep our opening seven. My hand:
Tundra
Daze
Force of Will
Swords to Plowshares
Forest
Tarmogoyf
Meddling Mage
Our first game proceeds badly for me. I (perhaps) foolishly drop my first Meddling Mage on Fact or Fiction and a Pithing Needle on Wasteland, since he has Wasteland recursion with Crucible of Worlds. Predictably, I lose my board to Pernicious Deed (the correct Needle target) and am clobbered to death by Nantuko Monastery. Lousy monks.
Not having a sideboard plan worked out for this match, I board thusly for Game 2:
+3 Armageddon
+2 Krosan Grip
-2 Mental Note
-2 Daze
-1 Spell Snare
I knew I wanted the ‘Geddons and Grips, but I wasn’t quite sure how best to make room for them. Mental Note seemed like an easy choice, since Joe is running more than enough artifacts and enchantments to power-up Tarmogoyf. And unless Landstill is desperate under extraordinary board pressure, I’m unlikely to counter anything with Daze. Finally, I went down to two Spell Snares because I wasn’t sure what else to cut. Hold your forum suggestions for the moment, I believe I figure out the correct boarding strategy a few paragraphs from now.
In game 2, Joe mulls to five and, on the play; I keep my opening seven:
Swords to Plowshares
Flooded Strand
Force of Will
Pithing Needle
Tundra
Daze
Island
This has a keepable mix of lands and disruption, with Swords to Plowshares being an effective answer to recurring manlands, Pithing Needle having a plethora of excellent targets and enough land to get me up and running.
Ultimately though, the game boils down to one card: Armageddon. With the game effectively reset and many of Joe’s control cards depleted, I recover quicker than he can, Spell Snare a Standstill, and proceed to win with Mystic Enforcer and a Meddling Mage chanting against “Pernicious Deed.”
Just as we’re about to start our third game, we have some “technical difficulties” and I’m forced to reboot my computer, reload MWS, etc. In that time I get to reconsider by boarding strategy against Landstill and decide to go with the “man plan,” sideboarding in every creature I can find in an effort to exhaust Joe’s control of the game. I still leave in the Armageddons and Krosan Grips, which are amazing against Landstill.
+3 Armageddon
+2 Loaming Shaman
+2 Krosan Grip
+1 Mystic Enforcer
-4 Daze
-2 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Serum Visions
-1 Mental Note
Instead of trying to win the game quickly, I plan on grinding out a slow attrition-based victory. Since I have yet to Daze any of Joe’s spells, those can go. In retrospect, I should have dumped all of the Swords and kept my cantrips instead. Oh well.
On the draw, I mulligan a shaky seven into a playable six.
Joe keeps his opening seven and places a Leyline of the Void into play. Ugh, not again! Two glasses of red wine, thirty-three minutes and fifty-five turns later, with that stinking Leyline still in play, I somehow emerge victorious.
Our last game opens with Joe’s first turn Cabal Therapy naming “Pithing Needle.” He sees my opening hand:
Nimble Mongoose
Serum Visions
Mystic Enforcer
Loaming Shaman
Polluted Delta
Mental Note
I lead with the Delta, fetching a basic Island to play Serum Visions (seeing two more cantrips in my scry cards, which I keep on top). The next turn Joe drops a Standstill that I break to play a Meddling Mage on “StP.” After that Joe plays another Cabal Therapy ripping two Mystic Enforcers from my hand. I drop another Meddling Mage on “Pernicious Deed” and sneak in damage whenever I can.
The game proceeds slowly, though Joe’s mid-game Fact or Fiction threatens to turn the game around. I Brainstorm in response, but can’t find a counter for it. Fact reveals the following:
Tropical Island
Standstill
Nantuko Monastery
Counterspell
Swords to Plowshares
I split Counterspell and the Monastery against the dual, Standstill and StP; he takes the two-card pile. I throw a Loaming Shaman into that Counterspell to start clearing the control cards out of his hand; the monks then come out their wooded homes to whack me twice. I find my other Loaming Shaman to rob the Monastery of threshold; Joes responds to the Shaman with another Fact or Fiction, I try to Force Fact #2, pitching Meddling Mage #3, Joe Forces back, pitching a Counterspell and another Fact or Fiction resolves (ugh!), revealing:
Nantuko Monastery
Swords to Plowshares
Pernicious Deed
Nantuko Monastery
Leyline of the Void
Thankfully, this is a blank Fact; I have my Magi chanting against Swords and Deed, redundant Leylines are useless and he’ll have no graveyard when the Shaman eventually resolves for Monasteries.
I split the Deed and a Monastery against the rest, Joe again takes the two-card pile. When Shaman finally resolves, he shovels nineteen cards back into Joe’s library. It’s times like this that I’m thankful to have Shaman and not Jotun Grunt in my sideboard, who would be too slow to rob Joe’s graveyard of threshold and would die to Monastery-fuelled first strike. Incidentally, that’s another plus for Tarmogoyf over Werebear, since first strike on a 4/4 doesn’t mean much when facing down a 4/5 or 5/6.
The next few turns are filled with bloodshed as a Monastery gets me low on life and my Meddling Magi get Joe down to one life. In an effort to keep from dying, the Mage chanting against Deed chump blocks a potentially fatal Monastery. Predictably, Joe resets my board with Pernicious Deed and it’s looking all downhill for me. While my Armageddon #1 ran afoul of Counterspell earlier, on the turn before I would have otherwise lost, Geddon #2 resolves after Joe frantically Brainstorms for an answer: to no avail. By the end of turn 33, the only thing left on the board is that Leyline of the Void.
Despite having half as many land in my deck as Joe, I begin to rebuild my mana first. In the many draw-go turns following the ‘Geddon, I accumulate two Tarmogoyfs and a Nimble Mongoose to finally end the game. When I draw into a Polluted Delta, I have a feeling that winning is finally within reach. I search my library for a source of Green mana and am appalled to realize that all of my green mana is in my RFG pile; I lost two Tropical Islands to early-game Wastelands and Trop #3 and my basic Forest to my Armageddon. In the seventeen remaining cards in my library, Meddling Mage #4 offers the only way for me to win. The drama!
Long story short, and nine turns later, I finally find and play the Mage, Joe and I Force of Will in response to each other (Joe Forcing the Mage, me Forcing Joe’s Force) and that is game. Whew!
2-1
Match 10 versus R/g Goblins
I tried to find Machinus online for a quick rematch with our updated lists, but he was unavailable over the weekend, moving into his new place and finishing up with finals. Still wanting some “real” competition, I found my teammate MattTheGreat online who agreed to play R/g Goblins against me.
Yet again, I’m on the draw and keep my opening seven as Matt took a mulligan to six.
My opening hand:
Serum Visions
Flooded Strand
Tundra
Force of Will
Tarmogoyf
Brainstorm
Serum Vision
Matt starts the game by messing with my lands, trading a Wasteland with my Tundra and tapping down anything he can with Rishadan Port. To his distress, I respond to the Port activations with my instant-speed cantrips and slowly amass a sizable army of a 3/3 Mongoose, 4/5 Tarmogoyf, and a flying Enforcer. In counter-sliver mode again, I keep blockers off the board with my control cards and Matt scoops facing imminent doom.
For game 2, I board in my Chills, Hydroblasts, and a Mystic Enforcer, replacing all of my Meddling Magi and Spell Snares. The early game sees me off to a strong start, Dazing Matt’s second turn Chalice of the Void and getting a Chill and a 4/5 Tarmogoyf into play. While looking good for me, the wheels fall off once Matt resolves consecutive Chalices for 1 and 2. While this blanks nearly my entire deck, I topdeck a Mystic Enforcer who proceeds to beat Matt down to six life before Siege-Gang Commander makes and appearance and ends the game on the spot.
As I lose, I reveal a hand of Tarmogoyf, Hydroblast, Pithing Needle, and double Swords to Plowshares.
On the play, we both keep our opening hands in game 3. Mine:
Force of Will
Daze
Force of Will
Tundra
Brainstorm
Windswept Heath
Brainstorm
I lead with the Tundra and Brainstorm/Daze when Matt goes for the first turn Aether Vial. I let him have a Piledriver, but Daze his Goblin Warchief. A 5/6 Tarmogoyf puts Matt on the defensive and he concedes when I trade a Daze and Force of Will for two consecutive Goblin Ringleaders. Woot!
2-1
Afterwards, I earned another hard-fought 2-1 against Matt playing Goblins again; winning game 1 in some forgettable manner, losing game 2 to triple (!) Goblin Ringleaders, and winning game 3 with Chill plus a Pithing Needle for Aether Vial.
Summary of Matches:
M1: 1-0 versus U/G/w Threshold (on the draw)
M2: 0-2 versus Enchantress / Replenish * (d)
M3: 2-0 versus High Tide (Solidarity) (d)
M4: 2-1 versus ElfBall / Tooth & Nail (d)
M5: 2-0 versus G/B/u/w RecSurvival (on the play)
M6: 2-0 versus Reanimator (p)
M7: 2-0 versus Suicide Black (p)
M8: 2-0 versus Secret Force (d)
M9: 2-1 versus BHWC Landstill (d)
M10: 2-1 plus 2-1 versus R/g Goblins (d), then (p)
* Combining my M2 and M7.5 games.
Again, you’ll obviously need to take these games with a grain of salt, as they say. The range and skill of my opponents was pretty broad, from “modest” to very good, which is why I refer to the MWS network as the “land of the x-1 bracket.” Still, the results should be good enough to demonstrate that this is an excellent deck, worthy of further tuning and development.
Returning to Part II of this article, I believe these results demonstrate how impressively Tarmogoyf fills the Werebear slot. There was no time that I wished I had a Werebear instead of a ‘Goyf and I played a few games that I would have outright lost had I been playing Werebear instead. This is true even in the matches where I would have previously thought that Werebear’s mana-ability might have given it an edge over Tarmogoyf (i.e. against Landstill and Suicide Black).
Epilogue. Farewell?
One positive consequence of StarCityGames.com going to a column-based site and not dealing with a horde of unpredictable submissionists was to motivate me to help organize the writers for this column and make a successful pitch to Pete and Craig. We weren’t in the original line-up, you may recall. Overwhelmingly, my largest fear when SCG made their announcement in mid-January was the inevitable dearth of high-quality Legacy content on the Internet leading up to the largest Legacy tournament in more than a year. Little did I know that an unforeseen and obscure two-card combination would do more to advertise Legacy than could be accomplished with all of the writers in this column writing together.
After this article, however, my future as a “Legacy Writer” is uncertain. I’m starting my dream job next Monday and I’m not sure how much time I’m going to have to write these articles after that. I don’t know how other freelance writers manage their work and life, but, for me, each of my articles is an exhausting labor of love that takes a surprising amount of time to research, write and edit. When you add in trying to manage a professional career, family life, my relationship – not to mention a frightening backlog of deferred house and yard maintenance – well, something was bound to give.
None of this should be read that I’m quitting Magic: the Gathering. Hardly. I’ll always need some distraction from the insane demands of life and Magic fits that role very, very well; besides, I freaking love this game.
Wrapping this up, I’m happy that I should end (for now) on a topic that got me writing for StarCityGames.com nearly three years ago: Threshold. It’s like the cycle of birth and dying or something. Cazart.
Alright, I’ll see you around the forums.
Dan Spero
“Bardo” around the Internet
“Bardo Trout” in the SCG Forums
Team Reflection
Appendix A: Bardo’s Updated Sideboard Guide
What follows is a sideboard guide for my current version of the deck (June 2007). Honestly, I haven’t had the time to thoroughly test all of my suggestions below, but it’s a step in the right direction. As I mentioned far, far above, I can’t honestly support Engineered Explosives’ inclusion in the sideboard going forward and have dropped it for another Pithing Needle. The rest of my sideboard is strong and I found myself using each card multiple times over the course of my test games.
For reference:
3 Armageddon
3 Chill
3 Hydroblast
2 Loaming Shaman
2 Krosan Grip
1 Mystic Enforcer
1 Pithing Needle
Finally, naming targets with Meddling Mage and Pithing Needle is so highly contextual, that I considered omitting those sections entirely. This said, what is listed in each of the sections are the cards that I commonly find myself naming in different matches.
Versus Goblins
+3 Hydroblast
+3 Chill
+1 Mystic Enforcer
+1 Pithing Needle
-4 Meddling Mage
-3 Spell Snare
-1 Force of Will
Meddling Mage: Goblin Ringleader, Goblin Warchief, Siege-Gang Commander
Pithing Needle: Aether Vial, Rishadan Port, Tormod’s Crypt, Wasteland, Goblin Tinkerer
Versus Affinity
+2 Krosan Grip
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Mystic Enforcer
-4 Daze
Meddling Mage: Cranial Plating, Thoughtcast
Pithing Needle: Aether Vial, Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, Atog
Versus Sligh/RDW, R/G Beatdown, Burninator
+3 Hydroblast
+3 Chill
+1 Mystic Enforcer
-4 Swords to Plowshares (if creatureless) / -4 Meddling Mage (otherwise)
-2 Pithing Needle
-1 Spell Snare
Meddling Mage: Fireblast, Price of Progress, Lightning Bolt; highly dependent on build, game state, etc.
Pithing Needle: Cursed Scroll, Grim Lavamancer
Vs. Threshold (mirror-match)
+2 Loaming Shaman
+1 Mystic Enforcer
-2 Pithing Needle
-1 Meddling Mage
Meddling Mage: Very game-state specific; Swords to Plowshares, graveyard hate (Grunt, Crypt, Shaman), Mystic Enforcer, etc. I could probably write an entire article on just this section.
Pithing Needle: Tormod’s Crypt; otherwise, Needle is pretty poor here.
Versus B/w Confidant, Suicide Black, Fish, Angel Stompy, White Weenie
+1 Mystic Enforcer
+1 Pithing Needle
-2 Meddling Mage
Meddling Mage: Dark Confidant, Vindicate, Hymn to Tourach; Umezawa’s Jitte, Cataclysm, Swords to Plowshares
Pithing Needle: Nantuko Shade, Withered Wretch, Cursed Scroll, Wasteland; Umezawa’s Jitte, Mother of Runes, Sword of Fire and Ice, etc.
The inclusion of Spell Snare is a powerful weapon with which to fight Legacy’s aggro-control decks in general – particularly Fish and B/w – since the most concerning threats cost two mana. You’ll need to play around with the sideboard some, as Krosan Grip is also useful if you need more artifact/enchantment control, but Pithing Needle handles these cards, in multiples, for a third of the cost. Otherwise, Mystic Enforcer is a key trump against all of these decks.
Versus BHWC Landstill
+3 Armageddon
+2 Loaming Shaman
+2 Krosan Grip
+1 Pithing Needle
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-4 Daze
Meddling Mage: Pernicious Deed, Swords to Plowshares, Fact or Fiction
Pithing Needle: Pernicious Deed, Nantuko Monastery, Mishra’s Factory, Wasteland
Versus Psychatog
See BHWC Landstill; -2 Krosan Grip (unless you’re expecting Vedalken Shackles or something similarly vicious), +2 Swords to Plowshares
Versus Storm combo (High Tide/Solidarity, IGGy Pop)
+3 Armageddon
+2 Hydroblast (pitches to Force of Will)
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Pithing Needle
Meddling Mage: High Tide (Solidarity), bounce spells you anticipate; Empty the Warrens, Tendrils of Agony (IGGy Pop)
Pithing Needle: Usually weak in this match, unless your opponent is running something like Cabal Pit, etc.
Again, the cards to name with Meddling Mage and Pithing Needle is all so highly contextual on the game state, life totals, cards in hand, what’s on the board, your plan, how you’ve sideboarded, what you expect was sideboarded in against you, etc., etc. Use it as an approximate guide.
Appendix B: Mr. Nightmare’s Diving Top / Counterbalance Threshold
Last up, I wanted to highlight Captain Adam J Barnello, Esq. (seriously) a.k.a. “Mr. Nightmare’s” recent version of Threshold, running the potent Divining Top / Counterbalance engine:
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Meddling Mage
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
4 Predict
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Counterbalance
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
2 Island
1 Forest
Sideboard
4 Disrupt
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Krosan Grip
3 Pithing Needle
2 Hail Storm
Personally, I’d squeeze another fetchland or two in the list, likely at the expense of some duals. Regardless, this has a lot of potential, with Counterbalance being a very powerful weapon against the characteristically low casting-cost of the cards in the Legacy tournament environment. Try it out.
Ciao.