#GPSEATAC has come and gone, and while it was quite a whirlwind, I had the time of my life.
Legacy is a format that I absolutely love. In fact, when I first started writing and taking Magic a bit more seriously from a competitive point of view, it
was when I started having some success in Legacy. My first Open Series Top 8 was Standard, but a large majority of them after that fact were Legacy. My
first Open Series win was Legacy, but then I took a break.
Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay were printed, and I lost my groove. The format had changed significantly, and I found myself having more success smashing
with Polukranos, World Eater and Stormbreath Dragon in Standard than I used to have with Stoneforge Mystic in Legacy.
When Khans of Tarkir was printed, things changed in Legacy with Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time, leading eventually to Treasure Cruise being
banned and Dig Through Time to take over the format. I jumped on the Omni-Tell bandwagon pretty quickly after a list with Young Pyromancer did well in a GP
overseas and tried to talk as many people into playing the deck as I possibly could.
I had gotten my Legacy groove back and it was awesome. Cashing Legacy Opens and Top 8ing/winning Legacy Premier IQs all over the place. I was excited for
GP Seattle!
Then Dig Through Time got banned.
I really didn’t know what to do. I tried Shardless Sultai since it seemed great and everyone was playing it. I got three unintentional draws in the event
and decided to just not play the deck again. I thought Blood Moon was well-positioned, so I put together Imperial Painter only to run into Death and Taxes
and Jund and realize that Blood Moon just isn’t good enough anymore since everyone has basics.
At the Thursday night Legacy event that I played in before the GP with Imperial Painter, I was chatting with Gerry and bemoaning my experience with the
deck. I mentioned that I felt like Sneak and Show was in a pretty good spot, but didn’t have the cards on hand to play the deck. I was then informed that
Gerry was planning on playing Sneak and Show and had a list he was working on, and upon seeing it, I instantly knew that I wanted to play the deck.
I already have a pretty decent past with Sneak and Show and Show and Tell decks in Legacy in general, so I was excited to be back in the saddle.
Interestingly enough, there was a bit of a snafu with the list he sent Cedric to register for me on site (since I was running late), and the list he
registered left us playing different cards in the sideboard. Here is the list I played:
Creatures (8)
Lands (19)
Spells (33)
Gerry ended up playing Izzet Staticaster, but wished that he had Sudden Shock. I wished that I had two Sudden Shock and one Izzet Staticaster, but it’s
pretty negligible.
In the end I finished 11-4 and managed to sneak into Top 64 for a couple hundred dollars and some Pro Points, and I couldn’t be happier. The deck ran very
smoothly, and I was quite happy with my choice. My losses were to Aluren (which I feel isn’t as bad as my initial thoughts, and I played it horribly), Reanimator, Four-Color Delver, and a scoop to Ari Lax who was playing Miracles.
I don’t really have any Legacy events coming up soon so I’m not going to delve too much into the thought process behind the card choices, but there are a
few things I do want to touch on.
I’ve been a pretty big proponent of Gitaxian Probe in the past since I really liked the information that you could gain in addition to Sneak and Show being
a bit more of an all-in type deck, whereas the Omni-Tell decks had a bit more play to them with Dig Through Time. It was also nice that you could afford to
just play both Preordain and Gitaxian Probe in Omni-Tell, but here we don’t really have that luxury.
I think that at some point though, we have to go with Preordain and not rely on the “training wheels” that Gitaxian Probe gives us. I also really like
having Preordain along with the Omniscience. It makes it a bit better to just brute force Show and Tell an Omniscience onto the battlefield when we have
the additional digging aspect of Preordain.
Speaking of Omniscience, when Gerry hit me with his list, this was the first thing that stuck out for me, and I love it. One of the main reasons I didn’t
just go hard on Sneak and Show for #SCGSTL and ended up on Shardless Sultai was because I couldn’t really come up with a clean answer for Containment
Priest. Omniscience is just that in addition to being an amazing trump in the Show and Tell mirrors.
One card that over-performed for me was Misdirection. I was able to Hymn to Tourach my opponent in one game; and in another, my opponent was forced to take
the Misdirection with a Thoughtseize since they wanted to try and resolve a Hymn to Tourach the following turn. I played against Burn three times in the
event (twice on the second day), and I got to point my opponent’s Fireblast to their own Monastery Swiftspear to not die. It also was just another pitch
counter when I was trying to jam an early Show and Tell, which isn’t a bad thing.
I’m sure plenty of you are wondering just what the Sudden Shocks were for, and it was primarily a card that could kill Thalia, Guardian of Thraben through
a Mother of Runes, but still be able to kill Containment Priest and Meddling Mage. It does have other applications, like killing Deathrite Shaman, Young
Pyromancer, and Delver of Secrets, but with a converted cost of two, it’s quite mana-hungry. I definitely want to have access to some moving forward and
was pretty happy with the card overall.
I highly recommend Sneak and Show for anyone who is just starting to get into Legacy or for anyone planning on battling in the 5K Premier IQ at #SCGKC
coming up.
This weekend though, is #GPATL! Battle for Zendikar Sealed is the format of choice, and unfortunately, I’ve been preparing for Constructed events
non-stop since it was released, so I really haven’t had much of a chance to play Sealed with the set. The few Sealed events I have done on Magic Online
have all be highlighted by just how insane Grip of Desolation is, so keep that one in mind.
Commander is the name of the game for the non-main event experience at #GPATL, and I’m definitely excited for all of you 100-card enthusiasts who will be
making the trip to take part in all of the battling and seminar action.
Now, I’ve never really made my foray into the format. Well, that’s not exactly true. I did build a Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary deck when they unbanned it
from being a commander, and scrapped it when they rebanned it again (and rightfully so).
Now that I am up here in Seattle, and without access to close highly competitive events every weekend, I think it’s about time that I jumped in and built a
Commander deck to have some fun with. To be honest, this is mainly sparked by the new Commander 2015 decks coming out this week, and one card in
particular.
I am a complete sucker for big flashy cards that can do a lot of things, and this one is very nice. I’m not completely sure just what kind of deck that I
want to build, but I know that this card is definitely going to be in it. It isn’t really a “build around me” card and just does a bunch of efficient
awesome things, so what I need now is your help! I’m going to list some things/cards below that I would like to do in Commander, and hopefully you all can
give me some suggestions on commanders and decklists to try out!
– First and foremost, this is my favorite card of all-time, so I definitely want to play this one.
– I’m not a huge fan of countermagic in Commander, but I understand that some is necessary to protect myself (and others if necessary).
– I enjoy ramp, obviously, and Dragons. I’ve played with a Maelstrom Wanderer deck before and it seemed sweet, but I want to build and play something new.
Wanderer is obviously powerful, but I kinda want to do something else.
– I enjoy creatures with enters-the-battlefield abilities.
– My favorite card is blue, but my favorite color is green, so I would like to at least be Simic, if not more colors.
Thank you in advance to anyone who wishes to share their ideas and experiences with Commander with me!
Now, I can’t really write an article without talking a little bit about Standard.
It seems that Todd Anderson Top 8’d yet another Open, which likely solidifies his spot in the Players’ Championship at the end of the year. Sadly,
this wasn’t the main thing that made headlines from #SCGPHILLY.
First through fourth place in the Open were Abzan decks; three aggro and one midrange-ish splashing blue for some counterspells.
Honestly, I’m not all that surprised. I mean, did Siege Rhino and Abzan Charm ever become bad cards? With Hangarback Walker and Ojutai’s Command being so
big, Anafenza, the Foremost seems like she’s as well-positioned as ever, and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is well, just basically bonkers.
I haven’t been excited for this Standard format for a bit, but in the last few weeks my interests have really been piqued by one deck in particular. I’m
sure you can all guess what it is though…
Creatures (13)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (25)
Spells (18)
This is definitely what I plan on sleeving up digitally to battle this week on my stream. Ramp and giant
monsters is exactly what I’m in the market for, and while the ramp isn’t as good as it’s been previously, Explosive Vegetation is insane, and we are
already starting to see just how well Sanctum of Ugin and Shrine of the Forsaken Gods works with Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. I think that as we see the
format continue to evolve and change when new cards get added that we’re going to realize that ten mana is just too little in comparison to how insane
“New-lamog” is.
For those of you who follow me on social media or follow my stream, then you may have noticed that something very important to me happened last week. I
decided that it was time to take the next step in my life’s adventure, and I surprised my girlfriend, Nicole, by proposing to her. I happened to actually
do it live on my stream as I wanted it to be recorded, and what better way than to do it than in front of a bunch of awesome people that I already share so
much with?
We received lots of heartfelt “congratulations” between Facebook, Twitter, and while we were at the GP this last weekend, and I just wanted to say thank
you to everyone who took the time to share kind words with us. We really appreciate it all, and we look forward to sharing even more wacky things with
everyone. Like our pugs, who we brought to the #GPSEATAC site briefly Sunday evening!
You can view the proposal video below:
Again, thank you everyone, and good luck to those battling in Atlanta or at any of your local IQs this weekend, be it 40, 75, or 100 cards!