Korey McDuffie has been doing a pretty good job of finishing just outside the Top 8 recently. At Grand Prix New Jersey, he finished 12-3 with Jeskai Stoneblade, and for the Season One Invitational in Richmond, he took an updated version of that deck to 11th place. He decided to cut the red and re-built the deck from the ground up. The deck ended up looking like an old school Stoneforge Mystic deck, but it was good enough to give him a 7-1 record.
His deck is interested in playing a slightly longer game than other Stoneblade decks out there. He’s got more Jace, the Mind Sculptors, actual Counterspell, and lots of lands, including the forgotten Mishra’s Factory. True-Name Nemesis, Snapcaster Mage, and Dig Through Time allow him to go long. Utility lands like Academy Ruins can help lock up a game by returning a destroyed Batterskull or Umezawa’s Jitte while Wasteland helps keep his Spell Pierces live.
If you thought the Legacy decks were well-defined and there wasn’t much innovating to be done, think again. Korey used his knowledge of the metagame and Legacy in general to figure out that the things he wanted to be doing weren’t the same as what everyone else was doing. His 7-1 record and 11th place finish, while it might sting, is very impressive.
Creatures (11)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (24)
Spells (22)
