Deep Analysis — Firing a Glass Cannon at Columbus

I can’t be sure of how much they’ve told you, so I will begin at the very beginning.

About three weeks ago, my perennial partner-in-crime Zac Hill emailed me the idea that Trinity Green (a.k.a. “Elves!”) might be a good choice for a Fish-heavy Grand Prix when everyone was hating on Flash. Wasteland and Port clearly weren’t enough against Flash itself, though, which was expected to be the other big deck of the tournament, so I suggested Black for Leyline and a swath of disruption spells in the maindeck.

One thing led to another, and we ended up here:

As I was in charge of driving back to St. Louis (we got in at around 4am) from Columbus and have a deadline to meet, I’m writing this article at warp speed and won’t have time to discuss both the tournament and the deck in one article. If anyone would be interested in a Tronnovation-esque breakdown on how we arrived at the card choices we did, let me know in the forums. I’ll definitely be all about the Regionals articles for the next two weeks, but after that I’d be happy to talk more about the deck before moving on to Block Constructed. (Before you ask, we cut Gaea’s Cradle because the Factories and Ancient Tombs were essential and we couldn’t afford to fit any more lands that did not allow for the critical turn 1 Elf play. Elf Replica blows up Engineered Plague without dying to it. Everyone asks those two.)

The list has very favorable matchups against stock Fish decks, Flash – both the Disciple and the Karmic Guide variety – and Threshold, which we figured would be the most popular decks at the top of the standings. That meant that as long as we remained at the top of the standings, we’d continue to get paired against these decks and continue to beat them, right into the Top 8.

Even with Engineered Plagues in the board, we knew we’d have almost no chance of winning two games out of three against Goblins, but kept the Plagues in there in order to give us some chance of stealing a win, and because they’re good removal for Fish’s Wizards and Clerics in an attrition war anyway. We didn’t expect most Goblins players to survive the Flash in the earlier rounds, and this largely proved true; only Owen Turtenwald and Jon Sonne stayed at the top tables throughout the tournament, as far as I know.

Zac drove up on Wednesday, and we spent the evening testing. By the end of the night, we had brought our testing game-count against Flash up to around one hundred (counting all the usual ten-game sets strung together), and had a consistent game win rate against it of about 70%. The strategy was essentially to lose the games where they had The Nuts and we didn’t have a Leyline, but to be so consistent against them that we just won all the other games. That way they have to get The Nuts in two out of three games, and we can’t have a Leyline in any of those games, which are fantastic odds for us.

We didn’t do nearly as many test games against Fish, and even fewer against Threshold, but found those matchups so favorable because of Chalice-for-one, Mishra’s Factory, and our numerous must-answer threats like Masticore, Poacher, and Hermit, that we felt it more appropriate to focus on making sure we had the most powerful deck in the format beat.

On Thursday we got lunch at Carl’s Deli, a long-standing St. Louis institution, and playtested against Goblins to see if we stood a chance. I opted for the hot pastrami on wheat, which was clearly the right play, while Zac incorrectly – oh wait, no one cares.

We picked up good man Matt “Ogre” Stevens and Little Brian (who is solid, and who I had not met prior to this trip) Friday morning and booked it for Columbus. I signed up for a Grand Prix Trial in part for the potential three byes, but mostly in order to assess the accuracy of our metagame predictions; a Glass Cannon strategy of “Scoop to Goblins, the former most-popular deck in Legacy” is only a good one to commit to for the Grand Prix if Goblins had actually declined as much in popularity as we thought it had.

GPT Round 1: Anwar Ahmad playing Flash

In running the chats with Anwar before the match, something he says gives me the impression that he is running something rogue, so I keep an opening hand with little disruption and a lot of anti-creature punch. This does not work out for me when he Flashes in a Protean Hulk.

Games 2 and 3 aren’t close; I have Leyline game 2 and Crypt game 3, and repeatedly strip the relevant cards out of his hand along the way to victory.

GPT Round 2: Stephen Perigo playing W/B Stax

Game 1 I mull to five and Duress a Ghostly Prison, seeing a turn 2 Exalted Angel coming next turn off an Ancient Tomb. Stephen morphs it, unmorphs it, and kills me with it. I didn’t pack a whole lot of answers to flyers, after all.

I board in Elf Replica for his Ghostly Prisons and leave in Chalice because it counters both the Mox Diamonds that I saw him play late in game 1, and the feared turn 3 Angel morph that wrecks me. I take the second game easily, but can’t honestly remember why.

Game 3 I mull to five again, and he crushes me by casting Crucible of Worlds, Armageddon, and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. Sick.

I go to dinner with Zac, Cedric Philips, Adam Prosak, Ervin Tormos, Sam Stoddard, Adam Yurchick, and a few others that I’m forgetting to mention because my memory is awful. We walk to a Mongolian Barbecue place called “bd’s,” which is lower case and high quality. (If you’ve never met any of these guys, you should. They’re excellent company.) Good times are had by all, and we head back to the site after everyone’s had their fill of unlimited stir fry. I wish we had a bd’s in St. Louis.

Zac and I decide to cut the sideboarded Darkblasts to fit four Deeds and a Viridian Shaman because we hear that the Fish players are boarding Shackles and/or Old Man of the Sea for the mirror. We debate a lot on Deed versus Putrefy versus other options, and settle on the maximum number of Deeds because although it is slow, it takes out Engineered Plague (which Putrefy does not) and problem creatures like Jotun Grunt and Serra Avenger. Early Serra Avenger draws are Fish’s main shot at beating us.

As my Constructed rating plummeted after the end of Extended season, when I tanked two consecutive tournaments with four-color Flow, I now have only one bye on rating.

Round 2: Katy Levinson with Fish

As I sit down for the match, Katy’s first-round opponent walks by and does her a massive disservice by asking her how the Serra Avengers have been working out for her. The knowledge that she is playing Fish doesn’t help me in game 1, however, as she plays a turn 3 Serra Avenger and beats me down with that.

What’s that, you say? You can’t play Serra Avenger on turn 3? You’re right. I noticed this while deliberating my turn 4 play and we called a judge over. Katy received a warning, but the Avenger got to stay in play and outrace me. Awkward.

Having died horribly to a trio of Mesmeric Fiends and a Masticore in game 2, Katy opens game 3 with a Meddling Mage on…“What was that Black creature from last game? Oh yeah, Carrion Feeder.” I tear off a piece of paper, write “Carrion Feeder” on it, and put it on the Mage. I then untap and summon a Mesmeric Fiend. “No, you can’t –” she begins, pointing to the Meddling Mage, and then figures out what happened. “Aww…” I get this game, and therefore the match, with Jitte.

2-0

Round 3: Stephen Perigo with B/W Stax

Awesome. Paired against the same guy who crushed me in the GPT.

Although I didn’t win the GPT, playing in it allowed me to advance to 3-0 (instead of giving me three byes) because I knew ahead of time what Stephen’s deck was and how to play against it.

I keep an opening hand that is great against him, with Leyline for his Crucible and Chalice for zero to stop Mox Diamond and morphed Angel. I cast a Fiend, smile at the Mox Diamond stranded in his hand, steal something, and beat down with the Jitte-wielding 1/1.

Game 2, Stephen mistakenly keeps a hand of Mishra’s Factory plus Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. This would be a fine keep if Tabernacle tapped for mana, but as it doesn’t, he gets off to a very slow start and I am able to overwhelm him.

Whew! Dodged that bullet.

3-0

Round 4: Alex Majlaton with Affinity

I knew the name of this Grand Prix Top Eighter before we sat down. Did you know that Disciple of the Vault is legal in Legacy? Alex sure did.

In game 1, I assemble Masticore plus Jitte alongside a couple of Elves, but Alex has a very lethal Atog on the table and follows it up with a string of three Disciples, an Arcbound Ravager, and a Myr Enforcer. As I am locked under the Core, I have to go on the offensive or else I will surely be overwhelmed by his draw step, but as he is representing a deadly Atog counterattack every turn – and since I have to keep regeneration mana open for Masticore out of respect for Shrapnel Blast – the combat math for each of our turns is brutal.

After about forty minutes of tight play from both of us, my Masticore and Jitte pull it out.

Game 2 is unexciting. Alex plays out three Frogmites on turn 2 and attacks with them. I play a Deed, he cycles Chromatic Star for Black, and hits the Disciple he needed to make the Deed irrelevant.

I take control of game 3 pretty quickly, but play a bit too conservatively in one turn: I shoot a Nexus with Masticore before blockers and then opt not to finish it off when he taps it to pump itself. Had I shot it again, it would have died, but I couldn’t have afforded to activate Mishra’s Factory on his turn. Since he had out an Aether Vial with two counters on it, and since I still didn’t know if he had Shrapnel Blast or not, I didn’t want to take Factory out of the picture or else a Vialed-out Atog would take me within Blast range.

However, as an Atog wouldn’t actually kill me – it would only nearly kill me unless he also had a Blast, and I still had yet to see one from him – I probably should have just finished off the Nexus instead of letting him topdeck a string of creatures and draw the game because we were low on time.

Instead, I decide I will just shoot the Nexus again next turn before he can block with it, and continue to push damage in with the Core that way. Time is called, and my conservative play means I can’t finish him in time because he does topdeck the three requisite chump blockers needed to hold off the Masticore and secure the draw.

It’s my own fault I didn’t win this game.

3-0-1

Round 5: Daniel Overberd with Flash

I can’t remember what happened here, except that I crushed him. Apologies, but the Flash matchup really is that good.

I do recall that he was the Karmic Guide version and not the Disciple version, for what it’s worth.

4-0-1

Round 6: Brian Feigley with Mono-White Control

Brian’s deck seems to be a straightforward anti-creature implementation of mono-White control. I see Wraths, Renewed Faiths, Eternal Dragon, and so forth. I imagine he had crushed several Fish, Goblin, and homebrew decks on the way to his 4-0-1 record.

It takes him far too long to hit his fourth land in game 1, and I have gotten him so low before he could Wrath, it doesn’t take much further pressure to finish him off.

He opens game 2 with a Chant on my upkeep to guard against Duress, and follows with a turn 2 True Believer. With Duress and two Fiends in my hand, I am not pleased. I play a Mishra’s Factory so that he at least can’t attack with the Believer and pass.

… or so I thought. Declaring “Well, he’s not going to want to lose a land,” Brian sends the Believer into the red zone. When Mishra’s Factory has summoning sickness, it can’t pump itself to 3/3, but I’ll take the one-for-one trade with True Believer all day long when I’m holding three discard spells. I block, we trade, and I Fiend him into oblivion.

5-0-1

Round 7: Justin LaRose with R/W Goblins

Goblins in the draw bracket? Man! There goes my undefeated record.

Game 1 I Fiend a Mogg Fanatic after trading Elves for Lackey (Deal!) and get a Jitte active on the Fiend by declining to chump a Piledriver with the Elf that is my fourth mana source. He plays another Driver and attacks with the first, which I do not block once again. I bash back with the Fiend, expecting to hit four counters and having to remove two to kill one of the Piledrivers (I need to keep one or two counters on the Jitte at all times because if I exhaust it I’ll have only a 1/1 left that he can easily remove with Mogg Fanatic or Gempalm Incinerator to shut down the Jitte madness). Luckily, he blocks with the Piledriver and I can kill it with merely one counter’s worth of +2/+2. From there on the Jitte does what it does and I win.

Game 2 is a massacre. He has another turn 1 Lackey, and the Fanatic for my Elf. I have no Engineered Plague.

The deciding game sees a third turn 1 Lackey from Justin. Fortunately, I have not only the Elf to block, but also the Pendelhaven to defend it from Mogg Fanatic. I get a Masticore into play with Ancient Tomb, and start gunning down his Goblins one at a time. I get myself all the way down to five life from the Tomb activations, but it doesn’t matter because I kill all of his men along the way and smash across with the Core for the win.

I beat Goblins! Who needs Engineered Plague, anyway?

6-0-1

Round 8: Mitch Cowles with Flash

I start game 1 with a Fiend on Hulk. He untaps, draws, passes, and then Mystical Tutors for Flash one turn before I can play Chalice for Two. (He topdecked another Hulk in the one-turn window I gave him.) Nice.

I believe games 2 and 3 involve a Leyline, but honestly, most of the games I played against Flash were just a blur of disruption spells and face-punching. I wish I could tell you more, but after all those playtest games, they all just started to blur together.

7-0-1

Round 9: Jon Bowdin with Threshold

We split the first two games, and in the third I mess up. A similar circumstance to what happened in round 2 with the Serra Avenger comes up, when I draw a Deed and slam it down off an Ancient Tomb and a Bayou. For those of you counting at home, Ancient Tomb plus Bayou gets you either 2B or 2G, but not 1BG. I have another open Bayou sitting right next to it; had I paid for it correctly, I would have had to burn for one, but that’s fine – U/G/W Threshold has no reach, so I can ding myself all the way down to one life if it pleases me and still be in no danger of dying until the opponent has more men than I do.

Jon’s friend spots it before Ervin and Zac do, and calls the judge over. I am concerned that I might get a game loss or have to un-play the Deed (which would lose me the game), but was hoping I’d merely be forced to tap the Bayou and retroactively burn for one. However, the ruling was identical to the one made about the turn 3 Avenger: the offensive permanent stays in play, and I get a warning. Things proceed as planned from there, and I win.

8-0-1

Not a bad Day 1, eh?

L.B. and his goblins made Day 2 as well, while Zac’s Glass Cannon shattered as he faced Goblins and Landstill early on, putting him in a miserable bracket that ended his tournament quickly.

We get out around 11pm, and all the nearby restaurants are closed. Zac, L.B. and I wander around in search of a quiet place to eat and test against Fish post-board some more. We settle on Gordon Biersch Brewery / Restaurant, and are disappointed to learn that they are only serving appetizers this late; Zac and I split some wings and spinach-artichoke-crab dip served in a sourdough bowl. Pricey, but delicious.

The player meeting for Day 2 is at 8:30am, so between driving to and from the hotel and checking out, I end up with about five hours of sleep and McDonald’s for breakfast. Bad beat.

Round 10: Paul Cheon with “Bigger Fish”

Cheon and Luis Scott-Vargas (LSV) played a Fish deck that was a lot tougher for me than the stock U/B/W list. Taking a look at it in the coverage, you can see why: maindeck Shackles and Finkels, Old Man of the Sea and Meloku in the board, and a hearty resistance to Chalice-for-one – normally one of our aces against Fish. Fortunately, I know about most of these pitfalls ahead of time because I was hanging around Paul and LSV when they were coming up with these modifications Friday night.

I resolve a Jitte in game 1, then a Duress, then a Chalice for two after he plays a Shadowmage Infiltrator instead of the Meddling Mage and Serra Avenger I saw with the Fiend. I’ve never cast Chalice for two against Fish before, but it’s definitely good here, as it blanks two cards in his hand and protects my Jitte advantage.

Paul snuck in a Confidant before I played the Chalice, so I attach Jitte to my Factory and use one of the resulting counters to smoke the offending 2/1. I also Duress him and note that he has no answers to the Poacher or the Hermit in my hand that I need only topdeck a second Green mana to cast.

Next up for Cheon is a second Finkel, which presents me with a problem. If I suit up Factory and hit him again, I’ll get the Jitte up to three counters, allowing me to kill one of the Finkels and continue bashing…but to kill the Finkel, I’ll have to exhaust my Jitte’s supply of counters entirely. If he finds a blocker – especially Serra Avenger or Jotun Grunt – in his draw step or using the card from Finkel, or a Swords, I’ll lose my only creature (the Factory) if I try to Jitte away the other Finkel.

So I hang back, defend with the Factory so he can’t attack with either of his Finkels without losing one, and hope to draw a Green source before he draws the Swords he needs to take out my Factory as a blocker. He gets there before I do, and overwhelms me with an avalanche of card advantage fueled by two Finkels smashing my face every turn.

If you saw the punt, good job! Back when I decided not to attack with the Factory because I’d be messed up by a 2/2 blocker or an Avenger or a Grunt…I had a Chalice for two in play. He couldn’t have played any of those cards even if he had drawn them. I missed it because I’m used to having a Chalice out for one against Fish, not two, and that blunder cost me the game.

I resolve a Poacher early in game 2; Paul tries to answer it with a Shackles, but I Poach out a Viridian Shaman and then equip a Jitte to it. Savage. After I Poach out a Deranged Hermit on the following turn, we move to game 3.

The third game once again sees me lacking a second Green mana source. Paul Forces my attempted Engineered Plague on Wizard and gets to start drawing with his Confidant. He lands a Serra Avenger and some other beaters, which include Old Man of the Sea. I find an Elf for my second Green source, but that does me no good because he steals it immediately with the Old Man.

I take my first loss of the tournament to Fish – er, and in general I guess – due to my game 1 punt.

8-1-1

Round 11: Kyle Tracy with Fish

Sweet! A regular fish deck.

This was another one of those matches that I can’t remember, but my life total pad indicates that I rolled him in two games.

9-1-1

Round 12: Daniel Pham with U/G/R Threshold

My first-ever feature match (which also showcases the first-ever photographs taken of the lumberjackish beard I’ve been working on for the past month) sees me hit Leyline of the Void and Chalice for one in both games against Threshold. It is extremely difficult for me to lose when this happens, and I win game 1 even when he Fires away two Elves and Wastelands me down to an Ancient Tomb. The Tomb yields Chalice for one, Jitte, and an equip to Mesmeric Fiend, which is enough to take him down.

Game 2 is just a massacre. I draw three Factories and a Mesmeric Fiend, along with the aforementioned Leyline and Chalice for one. It’s not close at all.

10-1-1

Round 13: Steve Sadin with Flash

“This matchup is really bad for me, isn’t it?” asks Steve when we sit down. I affirm this, as I’ve tested a ton against Flash and am 3-0 against it so far. “You can always get lucky and beat me,” I offer. “I’ll do that, then,” he says.

To make a long story short, he makes good on that promise. I mull to five in the first game and keep Elf, Duress, Fiend, Fiend, Factory rather than going to four. I draw a Black source one turn too late, he Forces the Fiend, and combos off next turn.

I have a devastating opener in the second game: Elf, Duress, and a Chalice for Two that strands a Quirion Dryad in his hand because he has not found a Tropical Island yet. (They didn’t list Steve’s last four cards on the coverage, but I’m pretty sure they were Dryads because he played them against me.) Steve Plows my Elf and starts attacking with Bob. I have drawn only fetchlands since my opening hand, and am out of gas.

Bob continues beating me down, and I continue to draw fetchlands. Then I find a Jitte (with no creatures out, and Chalice for two in play besides), then an Ancient Tomb, then another Jitte, then two more Ancient Tombs. I never make another play for the rest of the game, and Steve kills me with the Confidant – and a Carrion Feeder that showed up later – from 21 life. Coral Eel would have done just about as good a job beating me this game.

10-2-1

Round 14: Max Tietze with Fish

I now need to win the last two rounds to make Top 8, so I’m excited to see another vanilla Fish player. I win game 1 easily with Masticore.

Game 2 sees another mull to five from me, and the card disadvantage proves too much in the attrition war that is this matchup.

Game 3 he plays a Serra Avenger turn 4, and the other one in his deck on turn 5. Avenger is the biggest problem card in the entire Fish deck for me, as it attacks evasively and holds off everything in my deck short of Masticore. Racing is not an option because he has two of them, not even after I resolve a Poacher and Chalice for one. I have to Deed the offensive flyers away, along with my Chalice, three Elves, and a Mesmeric Fiend. Gah.

Max Brainstorms two Swords to Plowshares on top of his deck when I play another Fiend post-Deed. Poacher is Plowed; I activate him in response, but cannot pay the upkeep on the resulting Hermit because of the four-land, three-Elf draw. Max plays two Jotun Grunts, I draw no answers, and fold.

The match went very close to time, and Max thanked me for not trying to stall him out. I probably could have forced a draw if I’d tried to, by thinking for long periods of time and chumping the Grunts with Squirrel tokens, but frankly that’s a scummy move and I’m above pulling it.

The wheels are falling off now; I needed to 2-1 or 3-0 my last three rounds to Top 8 and I’ve gone 0-2 so far.

10-3-1

Round 15: John Sittner with U/B Landstill

There is just no way I am beating this guy. He has Decree of Pain and Engineered Explosives in the main alongside countermagic and Standstills, and Damnation and Ghastly Demise post-board. I Poach out every Elf in my deck game 1 to try and get through his three-Factory defense, and still lose. The second game isn’t even that close.

I would expect I’d win maybe one or two out of ten games against this deck.

10-4-1

To the best of my knowledge, neither my loss to Steve nor my loss to Max (both made Top 8, and one won the whole shebang; congratulations, fellas) was because I misplayed or because the deck failed to perform as expected. I had one weak five-card hand in one game against Steve, and was stuck playing only the spells in my opening hand in the other. I lost one game to Max because of another weak five-card hand and folded game 3 to his extremely improbable turn 4 and turn 5 Avenger draw.

If that’s the only way I can lose to Fish and Flash, and the field was mainly Fish and Flash, I can hardly say I should have played a different deck… but obviously, given my preference, I’d prefer if the cards hadn’t fallen the way they did in those last few rounds.

Still, I can’t complain. I punted against Cheon for the loss and Majlaton for the draw, and can hardly claim I “deserved” to make Top 8 after messing up those games.

All in all, I had a great time on Day 2 even though I missed the cut. I got my first-ever feature match and interview from Brian David-Marshall, I got to meet the very cool Paul Cheon for the first time, and a Rock-lover named Chris had me sign his foil Spiritmonger and playmat. Ding!

It was also a StarCityGames.com-ful weekend for me; Evan Erwin interviewed me, Pete Hoefling personally sold me some Asian Hermits, I got dinner at a Greek place with England’s own Craig Jones, and I met (briefly) Stephen Menendian, Doug Linn, and Nick Eisel, along with (at length) The Ferrett. T.F., by the way, is every bit as engaging, articulate, and awesome as his online persona suggests – and Craig and I agree that his headshot is quite unflattering.

If I could do it all over, would I play B/G Elves! again? Elf Replica and all? In a heartbeat.

Legacy was a fun format to playtest, and although Flash was extremely broken, it definitely wasn’t degenerate. Format-warping? Absolutely; everyone designed around it, but enough disruption spells did let you beat it. That said, it’s probably ban-worthy now that Future Sight is legal and it actually can kill on turn 1 or 0 with Chicken Little-ish regularity.

I’d love to talk about the format more, but I’m out of time if this is going to see print Tuesday night. So thanks for reading, and hope you did well at the GP.

Up next week: Regionals!

See you then.

Richard Feldman
Team :S
[email protected]