As some of you might know, I played a lot of Vintage back in the day, and one of my favorite things back then (way back—think late nineties) was the ability to play Balance in old school Keeper (five-color control) decks. Seeing how Wizards had just reprinted Time Walk and Wheel of Fortune as miracle cards, I was quite hopeful when writing my last article that the white mythic might be Balance—only to have my hopes dashed when it turned out to be Entreat the Angels instead.
Yet soon after, I got something even better: Terminus.
You see, the reason Balance was so good in control decks wasn’t that it could sometimes work as a Mind Twist (when you drew a lot of Moxen) or Armageddon (when you drew Zuran Orb), though those were definitely powerful elements of the card.
Most of the time I cast Balance, it was as a two-mana board sweeper that would clean out any kind of threat. I’d usually even have to discard a card or sac a few lands myself.
This additional “cost” to playing Balance was well worth it, given that it provided a sweeper that kept up with the speed of the still creature heavy format. And that experience is what makes me believe that jumping through a few minor hoops to support Terminus is the future for actual hard control decks in Legacy.
I’m quite confident that the fact that we now have a total sweeper effect at a cost that makes it competitive (if you topdeck it or set it up) opens the doors for the format to become even more diverse. Lately Legacy has been dominated by tempo and midrange decks as well as a smattering of different combo decks. Now that control has the tools to interact with multiple or hard to kill threats on time, it should be able to grab its slice of the cake even on the big stage.
Now, if I were in any position to write preview articles for Wizards, Terminus is the kind of card I’d love to present. A Wrath of God that can be cast for a single mana is so up my alley, there isn’t much that could excite me more.Â
Obviously, the card wasn’t spoiled yet the last time I wrote; otherwise I’d have talked about it there at length and started brewing all those things that could suddenly become possible because of a cheap Wrath effect. Instead, I’m going to get to do this today, fittingly starting by updating my two self-created Legacy control decks: Caw Cartel and CAB Jace.
Terminator Cartel
A week ago, as I’m writing this, the first big Legacy event here in Berlin for years happened, and I entered playing my trusty old Caw Cartel list. Between running bad, misregistering my deck for the first time in years, and a number of bad plays on my part, the tournament didn’t go at all as I would have liked it to.
Even with all of that, there still were some problems with the list and how it matches up with the format. As such, while I think that the core engine of the cantrip cartel and Squadron Hawk plus Jaces still has enough raw power to provide the core for a good deck, there will need to be changes.
Luckily, a lot of my problems had to do with the high cost and double-white commitment of some of the reactive spells (aka Moat and SB Wrath of God) that also are your main outs to Nimble Mongoose (that guy is so annoying). Terminus should help remedy these problems.Â
I know there are a few of you out there who love Cartel as much as I do; this article will bring you up to speed as to what I’m testing right now and how the core synergies of the deck help you exploit a one-mana Wrath of God to the fullest.
Let’s start with the list I’m currently testing:
Creatures (8)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (20)
Spells (30)
The two Sensei’s Divining Tops might want to go back to being Preordains because those are significantly better at digging you into your good cards and lands, but the synergy between Top and miracle is quite enticing. I’ll see which I like better after more testing with this new version. So far I’ve had games I lost because Top is so much slower than another cantrip, while I also won games because Top plus miracle is sick.
The benefits from Avacyn Restored are quite sizable. Terminus gives you a mass removal response card that will usually be cheap enough to both come in time and be protected against opposing Tempo strategies. Entreat the Angels, on the other hand, delivers a finisher worthy of the name (and slot). It ends games before the clock ticks down and is actually a ridiculous game changer once you’ve reached five mana in play (assuming you can set it up or just draw into it) instead of being totally dead/of too small impact until you’re ready to win.
There are a few things that make Terminus particularly appealing in Caw Cartel. First, the cantrip engine to set up miracle casting is already a core part of the deck, which means miracles just fit right in. The only change I made to accommodate them was to try out Tops instead of the Preordains and to make room for a third Snapcaster Mage to be able to spend Brainstorms more freely early on while still having access to one to realize the Hawkcestral later.
That isn’t all, though. Terminus’s effect of putting creatures under your library instead of into the graveyard actually has great synergy with the Squadron Hawk draw engine, allowing you to Wrath while you have your Hawks out and actually benefit from it. Just make sure the last Hawk is still in hand, and you’ll be able to refill once again. I thought this would come up rarely, but I’ve happily recycled two Hawks back into my deck often enough to actually consider it relevant by now.
A few other changes have happened since I last talked about the deck. A maindeck and sideboard Jitte had already found their place in my pre-Avacyn list, simply as ways to trump a lot of board states (especially involving Lingering Souls) as well as gain life and to straight up win faster. 50-minute rounds weren’t this deck’s friend and being able to put a Jitte on a Hawk helps with that. I was skeptical at first because of the deck’s low creature count, but the cantrip engine in concert with Hawks turning up in flocks has made the card look good so far.
Finally, the fourth Jace doesn’t feel necessary anymore, as weird as that is for a deck so focused on landing one. You can generally find one when you need it thanks to all the manipulation anyway. With so many decks relying on a multitude of cheap threats instead of their own planeswalkers, I feel ok so far making room for one fast, overwhelming win condition in the form of Entreat the Angels by cutting the fourth copy of the best planeswalker ever.
This might still prove a mistake that needs correction; I clearly haven’t finished testing these changes. What I can say is that Entreat has impressed me a lot. As long as you can miracle it somehow—say by top decking it at some point after turn 5 or by using a Brainstorm effect—this generally ends the game in a turn or two.
We haven’t had a single card control finisher this powerful before, and I think that the combined availability of a cheap sweeper and a ridiculous finisher will definitely in some way work out to bring actual hard control back to the top tier again, even if it turns out that shell isn’t Caw Cartel.
Returning to True Board Control
One of the first Legacy decks I built and had success with was an extreme form of a board control deck I called CAB Jace and which I wrote about in my very first non-talent search article more than a year ago.
In the meantime, more countermagic based control decks developed that could still survive the onslaught of the aggro decks of the time and therefore made the existence of something like CAB Jace superfluous (as you’re ultimately always weaker against combo when running a deck focused on the board).
With Maverick being one of the strongest contenders in the metagame, though, especially because it preys on most blue control decks so well, Terminus might be the final incentive to go back to blowing things up instead of countering them.
This is what I’m testing:
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (29)
Spells (28)
The ability to just run a ton of Wraths in the maindeck has been fantastic for this deck, which shouldn’t be surprising given the Maze of Ith defense engine it’s built around.
The (often) cheap white sweeper has made it possible to stabilize the mana base, not so much because you can run more basics, but because you need fewer colors to be fully active. Actually, you really only need colors other than blue and white to ramp up Engineered Explosives and cast spells post-board now. Having an actual Wrath effect has also made it unnecessary to have the Cunning Wishes, whose most important role before was to give you an out to threats like Progenitus and Thrun.
Now the sideboard finally has room to actually address all the unfair decks (and Burn) reasonably well with a combination of graveyard hate, countermagic and an Enlightened Tutor toolbox (note that Ethersworn Canonist plus Forbid hard locks just about any combo deck).
As to playing the deck, I actually had forgotten how powerful the Treasure Hunt draw engine is but have rapidly learned to love it again. Drawing a bunch of lands when so many of them have abilities is pretty sweet. Not to mention it refreshes Top and provides Brainstorm fodder.
Other Options
Now we get to the part of the article where I talk less about things I actually have experience with and more about decks I’m considering as a result of Terminus becoming legal soon.
First, let’s go over some theoretical considerations most of the miracle cards share. The biggest one here is that you’ll want some way to set them up when you need them and a way to get rid of them when they’re in your hand (given that most of them are not actually reasonable to cast for their full cost before you get to the lategame).
The two best tools to do this are Brainstorm (does it all) and Sensei’s Divining Top, because it not only sets up when you draw the miracles but also allows you to instant speed them. “End of turn make 20 power in Angels, untap, you’re dead,” is quite sick.
But there are other ways. Ponder sets up miracles quite well and allows you to dig much faster than Sensei’s Divining Top. Even Portent might finally earn a place in some decks, simply because it allows you to cast any miracle you find this turn (well, on your opponents upkeep) instead of having to wait for your next draw step. It’s also much better at setting up regular miracle draws on your turn than Preordain. For the moment I’m still skeptical because drawing non-miracles you need right now is often very important, especially when chaining cantrips together, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to run Portent through a few games at least.
Also in the Brainstorm camp falls Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Even if all you do is Brainstorm once and Fog their attack (because they hit Jace), setting up a one-mana Wrath of God (which you’re free to follow up with another Jace should you have it) makes the four-mana investment actually kind of worthwhile.Â
Outside of blue and artifacts, the card that springs to mind the most is Sylvan Library, already an insanely good card which also allows you to make sure you’ll draw your miracle when you’re actually ready for it.
One enabler that sold like hotcakes as soon as Temporal Mastery was spoiled is Personal Tutor. I feel that particular Portal card is still mainly destined to set up Reforge the Soul, not any of the less combo-y miracles.
I might be wrong and there’s some control deck that wants to make sure it draws Entreat the Angels, Terminus, Temporal Mastery, and some non-miracle goodies like Vindicate at exactly the right moment, but I don’t think that’s going to be good enough.
Top deck Tutors are rather weak in control decks, especially if they aren’t instant speed so as to tailor your search after knowing what your opponent did on their turn. Then again, there is Sensei’s Divining Top and possibly things like Nihil Spellbomb to make sure you can miracle as soon as you’ve passed the turn.
As such, I might be wrong—somehow that keeps happening—and there’s something great waiting behind the door of Tutor based control. This is the list I’m planning to use to see if there is potential I’m overlooking:
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (23)
Spells (34)
It probably isn’t perfect, but it should at least provide enough play to see if using Personal Tutor for something that isn’t combo makes any sense at all.
Another control deck that should get stronger thanks to Terminus is Counter-Top. The deck already wants to run a full set of Tops, and its two biggest weaknesses are threats that have come down before you got the lock online and decks that can easily play through Counterbalance, often thanks to Green Sun’s Zenith.
Given that these kinds of decks tend to be very soft to a cheap Wrath and said Wrath solves the “stuff that has resolved before Counterbalance” problem, this approach feels like something worth exploring.
Creatures (3)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (22)
Spells (31)
Counterbalance curve:
0: 22
1: 13
2: 10
3: 2
4: 4
5: 5
6: 4
The low amount of three-drops might come back to bite you against the Show and Tell decks (and Clique should help with that a little post-board), but other than that this curve is sweet if a little light on twos in those matchups where you plan to rely on Counterbalance (combo, burn, and tempo decks mainly) while the rest of the deck hopefully deals with non-Counterbalance-able decks.
The list uses a few Stoneforge Mystics because cheap threats are quite powerful if you can drop them with Counterbalance in play, and Batterskull is one of the most resilient threats to have when you’re casting Terminus. After all, it only costs you some mana to get it going again.
Essentially, what it all boils down to is playing a Counterbalance deck in those matchups where that matters while being a deck with four maindeck Wrath of Gods, Stoneforge Mystic, Jace, and Entreat the Angels against those decks where the lock is lackluster. Is the list perfect like that?
I doubt it given that I haven’t done any testing and some choices seem suspect even to me (three Mystics and a single equipment?). It seems like a solid starting point for further development, though, which is how I like to start testing when building new decks.
Article Terminated
Well, at this point I’m going to spend a white mana and put all these words on the bottom of your library. Given all the hype and excitement the more obvious splashy miracles have received, I believe Terminus is actually going to be the one with the biggest impact on Legacy in the long run.
It gives the format something that wasn’t available before: an actual board sweeper at a mana cost that makes it competitive and very maindeckable in the format. I know I’ll be working on control with renewed vigor. I hope you will, too.
Until next time, watch the miracle of Termination.