For the past few weeks, my life has been very different from that of your average teenager. Airports and airplanes have been my home, and Magic players have been my family. I think that, for the first time, I fully experienced what could be called the “pro player lifestyle”. I like it.
My decision to go to Stockholm, and follow it up with another GP, came shortly after Yokohama. I wanted to give myself another chance after my dreadful performance. I ended up settling on Columbus, not because I like Legacy more than Block Constructed (actually, quite the opposite — I hate Eternal formats, and I had never played Legacy in my life) but because I had a place to stay in the U.S. and nothing in Sweden or France.
Knowing I was going to Columbus, I had to ignore my hatred for the format and start to work on it. Thankfully I didn’t have much work to do, as our testing group found Flash before all of the forums did. I actually don’t know who had the original idea — I just know that we knew about it before the forum hype. It took us five seconds to go from Ornithopters to Shifting Walls, and another five seconds for me to add Duress. All that speed didn’t really matter, though, because some days later the forums found about it and they came to the same conclusions. Someone also pointed out that Future Sight wouldn’t be legal, which changed the deck from the best deck ever played by far to just the best deck by far. Originally we had Worldly Tutor over Summoner’s Pact, but then I replaced them with Lim-Dul’s Vault — playing since the age of seven or so has some benefits, after all. I knew most of the older cards. To my despair, forum players also eventually got to Lim-Dul’s Vault. Can’t those people stay quiet?!
As the word spread and everybody started writing about the deck, I didn’t really feel comfortable playing it anymore. That meant I had some work to do. I went through the archives of the last two Legacy GPs, and looked at all Top 128 lists. I read many Legacy articles and talked to people I knew played Legacy. It didn’t really help.
Some weeks before the event, Luis Scott-Vargas said he had arrived at a nice Fish list, which wasn’t very close to what he played at the event but closer to many people’s build. I thought it was a cute deck, but it felt too underpowered to play one mana 1/1 guys when my opponents were playing powerful cards. The underpowered feeling never left me. In Fish, I also disliked the fact that it was very hard to keep an opening hand properly if you didn’t know what your opponent was playing — Force of Wills and Stifles aren’t what you really want against Goblins.
I decided to settle the matter and think about it after the Limited GP, for which I had little to no practice.
I had a pretty decent result in Stockholm, losing the last round when I could have drawn in, and I finished 13th. After that, I flew to U.S. and stayed at my friend’s house in Hanover, PA for a week or so, and we drove to another friend’s house. We would spend a day there and then drive to Columbus. I was still clueless what to play.
Completely off topic: Some days before the event, I called for pre-registering and I had the following conversation:
“Name?”
”Paulo Vitor…”
“Can you spell it please?”
“P-a-u-l-o V-…”
“Z?”
“No, V”
“G??”
“No, V… as in… V for Vendetta.”
“Okay, go on.”
“… i-t-o-r.”
“DCI?”
”Wait, there is more.”
”Okay.”
“Damo da Rosa, D-..”
“G??”
”No, D, as in Dog.”
“C??”
“D… as in abcD!”
“G??”
”….”
After about ten minutes, I thought she had gotten it right. Then she asked for my DCI number, and I gave it, to which she replied “And now what’s the DCI for “Damo da Rosa?”
…
You didn’t think it would be easy, did you?
….
When I arrived, they had named me “Paulo Zitor Damodarosa”. I guess they got close enough.
Back on topic:
Originally we took a Boros list with Meddling Mages, Samurai of the Pale Curtain, Pithing Needle / Tormod’s Crypt and lots of burn, aiming to have a nice game versus Flash and an awesome game versus Fish. Sadly, we actually had neither of those, so I discarded it. I decided to build a list of Flash. I remembered seeing somewhere that Diabolic Vision was good with Unmask — I had wanted to play Unmask for a long time, but there weren’t enough Black cards — so I quickly threw together a list of every card I wanted. I got to approximately 65 cards, and after cutting some randomly, I arrived at the list I ended up playing in the GP:
Creatures (9)
- 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
- 1 Carrion Feeder
- 1 Karmic Guide
- 1 Body Snatcher
- 1 Benevolent Bodyguard
- 4 Protean Hulk
Lands (18)
Spells (33)
I tested it that day, with very good results. I was beating pretty much every deck, and I learned cool combo interactions that allowed me to win through cards like Lightning Bolt, Pithing Needle, and Planar Void.
Some of the card choices:
1 Massacre
This is awesome in the maindeck. A free answer to Meddling Mage and Samurai of the Pale Curtain. I believe everybody runs this by now.
1 Rushing River
The best bounce spell. I can see running one Chain of Vapor over it, if you are going for pure speed, but if you have to Tutor for it chances are you aren’t going pure speed, so I believe Rushing River is your strict best choice. It gets around multiples, unlike Chain of Vapor, and they can be multiples with different names, unlike Echoing Truth (i.e. Mage and Leyline), and it’s not stopped by Chalice of the Void for two. If you play Chain of Vapor, you lose to double hate. If you play Echoing Truth, you lose to Chalice. If you play Rushing River, you don’t lose.
1 Benevolent Bodyguard
If you are going to combo, it’s strictly better than Sylvan Safekeeper, because it doesn’t stop your combo if you have to save Karmic Guide. If your opponent knows what he is doing, he can stop the combo with a single Swords to Plowshares — he only has to wait for you to tap the Kiki-Jiki and then Sacrifice the Kiki-Jiki (you have to do that without passing priority), and if you use Safekeeper to protect your Guide the Kiki-Jiki will fizzle and you will be left with a mid sized Carrion Feeder only. The only instance Safekeeper is better than Bodyguard is when you go for the creatures plan, or when you are forced to get a Hulk and try to kill with it — overall, it’s not worth it.
18 Lands
Most people played fewer than that. Sadin played fourteen and four Mox, while Gadiel played fifteen and no Mox. I’m not sure what the correct number is. Eighteen served me right: I lost one game to not drawing lands, and I also won one by drawing seven for Protean Hulk.
The sideboard was much trickier than the maindeck. I had thought about a creature plan — Dryads, Negators and possibly Vinelasher Kudzus, but it seemed simply… bad. I didn’t actually want to morph against anything. Against Fish, I’d rather have Deeds, which solves all your problems. Rather this than relying on the fact that they might or might not have left their Swords to Plowshares in after boarding. A single Serra Avenger already makes it pretty hard to kill with Negator, and Mother of Runes means you aren’t winning without Massacre. My sideboarded ended up like this:
3 Pernicious Deed
For Fish, mainly, but also for decks like the Elves deck, with Chalice and Leyline. They were good.
2 Reverent Silence
To kill Leyline, but mainly against Goblins. Against Fish, you can afford to play a longer game (at least my build can, because it has more disruption than they have counters, and I think it holds true for every build). Therefore you don’t need the speed and Deed is better, but against Goblins this helps if Leyline is the only thing holding you back. All the Goblin players had Crypt over Leyline, which is probably better, so I would go to only one of those now.
1 Energy Field
This came to me through Zac Hill. This card is, against some decks, your best answer to Leyline. If you look at the Mono Black deck that made Top 4, for example, if they play Leyline and you Vault for this, they simply can’t win! Against some Fish versions (the ones without Vindicate or that board it out), this is also an auto-win, so I’d keep it.
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Against counter heavy decks, and also mirrors that board in Pyroblasts.
3 Extirpate
In my opinion, the best card for the mirror. It stops their combo dead, through countermagic, and they have to discard it first. It also counters Lim-Dul’s Vault and Mystical Tutor, simply by shuffling their Library, while looking at their hands in the meantime, which is huge for the mirror.
1 Goblin Chirurgeon
To replace Bodyguard against Red decks, so you don’t have to fizzle your combo Safekeeper-like by giving Karmic Guide protection from Red.
1 Massacre
For Fish.
1 Energy Flux
I needed a 15th card, and there was some Affinity in the trials, so I figured this might be good because it had to be an impact card to be tutored for. I spent about 12 hours agonizing over it, and in the end I settled for the card that I never boarded in.
Overall I was much happier with my maindeck than with my sideboard, even though I have no clue how I would do it if I had to do it again. Maybe the sideboard was good — most of the cards were good, there just wasn’t any need for them most of the time (i.e., people conceded after I Flashed so I didn’t need Chirurgeon, and I never ran into Leyline with Reverent Silence and the like).
In one game, I win the die roll and choose to play. I’m faced with the first interesting decision of the tournament. My hand is this:
Mystical Tutor
Protean Hulk
Underground Sea
Force of Will
Force of Will
Duress
Diabolic Visions
This hand is pretty good, and I’m almost assured to win if I draw a land… unless he has Wasteland, in which case I’m toast. I don’t know what he is playing, so I consider shipping it back, but the hand is too good for that, so I make what I think was a pretty good play (or maybe just retarded): I passed.
“Go.”
“You are playing first.”
”Yes… Go!”
“No, you said you’d play!”
“Yes, I’m passing. Go!”
“But you chose to play!”
”Yes, I’m playing and passing!”
“Oh! … Okay…”
Yeah, I passed without playing the Land. The reason for that is that I have to play the Tutor anyway, so by not playing a Land I don’t give up a turn — I can simply wait to draw a land (which has a high chance of being a Fetchland or a Basic) and then use it to Tutor. Then I’ll play the Underground Sea and cast the Flash, so there is absolutely no time loss — I’m not playing the Tutor this turn anyway because I need a Land…
Of course, a case could be made for playing the Land and Duress, but that is throwing my game away to Wasteland when I don’t really need to. If they play Wasteland, there is nothing I need to Duress, and if they don’t I can just Duress next turn, which is what happened — he played a Polluted Delta, and I didn’t draw a Land but played the Duress next turn. He was playing Threshold and I won both games quite easily, the second one through a hand of double Force of Will and triple Red Elemental Blast.
Some rounds later, I played against Fish. My hand was Flash, Hulk and double Force of Will, but only one other Blue card, so I decided to wait a turn to see if I’d draw another Blue card or a land to pay any Dazes. He played a turn 2 Meddling Mage. I decide it’s better to just combo in response. Whoever said this build doesn’t combo instant speed clearly doesn’t know anything about it — you don’t KILL at instant speed, but you get a 1000/1000 Carrion Feeder, a Bodyguard, a Karmic Guide and an untapped Kiki-Jiki (which you can use to get the Hulk back and then copy it for a double 6/6 attack, or to just go infinite again on your upkeep before paying the echo). That was enough.
Against the same Fish opponent (or was it a different one? All games look the same…) I knew his hand was double Swords to Plowshares, thanks to Duress and Unmasks that had to take other things away. He had a Dark Confidant in play, and he was at eleven Life. He attacked. I comboed him, not only at instant speed but also through double STP, and in the end I was left with a Protean Hulk, which killed the Dark Confidant and then him.
I won all my matches up to round 9, where I lost to Owen playing Goblins. Those games were very frustrating. Game 1 I get a lucky Brainstorm into Flash and Land, but I had all the time in the world to assemble the combo. Game 2 he has a turn 1 Crypt, but I have either the River or the means to find it. I Duress him and see nothing but a Wasteland. He draws, plays a second Crypt and Wastelands my land. I lay a land. He draws, Wastelands my land. I lay a land. He draws, plays a third Tormod’s Crypt. By then I’m taking damage from a Warchief, and I cannot find and play both the River and the Echoing Truth, so I lose. Had he drawn anything other than one Wasteland and two Crypts in those draws, I’d have had a much better shot.
Game 3 I keep a mulligan to five hand of Mystical Tutor, Hulk, and one land. My first draw is Body Snatcher and my second draw is Karmic Guide, which means I now have to tutor for Brainstorm because I cannot go off with both in hand. I Brainstorm into Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and two non-lands, and die without ever having played a second.
So I finished the day 8-1, losing to what is possibly my best matchup, which is still fine… I guess.
Day 2 I beat Fish, something else, and the Flash mirror. The third game there was very interesting — he led with Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author], Duress. One turn after that, I drew the missing Flash, so I had Hulk, Flash, Force of Will but no other Blue card. His previous turn had been “Go”, without laying a land, so I figured that it was safe to wait a turn for Force of Will — he likely has one of his, he doesn’t have more disruption (because he would have played last turn if he had), and if he has Daze it’s not a problem because I’ll get to play an extra land (that is, of course, if he does draw a Blue Land). It seemed better to run my combo into his almost sure Force of Will (it looked almost sure to me), and the only problem I saw with that was if he went Island, Flash, which he almost certainly wouldn’t do blindly. He drew, played an Underground Sea, and a Cabal Therapy! I responded with Flash, he responded with Peek and then Force of Will, removing Flash after thinking for a long time. By then I knew he had drawn the Force of Will, because if he hadn’t he would probably have removed the Peek for it, not the Flash, and he wouldn’t want to make himself vulnerable to Daze. He countered my Flash and Therapied away my Hulk. We play draw-go for a while, and he is stuck on those two lands. Eventually he plays Meddling Mage on Flash, and by then I know what my plan has to be. In two turns, I hardcast Protean Hulk.
I attack him down to six, and he plays Chain of Vapor on it, but by then I had drawn a Flash already so I just bounced it back on his Mage and comboed him.
After that (I was 11-1) I played against Gadiel in the Flash mirror. The first game was pretty stupid, as I mulliganed two bad hands into a pretty much unkeepable hand of four lands and Force of Will. I figure he wouldn’t keep a bad hand, with no Disruption, so I don’t have a lot of chance going to four and expecting to draw lands, Hulk, and Flash like I normally would in any other matchup, so I keep it hoping to draw something like a Brainstorm to go with my two Fetchlands. I draw Massacre and some more lands, and lose instantly. Maybe I shouldn’t have kept after all.
Game 2 I knew he would board in the man-plan, and I confirmed it when I Extirpated his Brainstorm after a Mystical Tutor. He had removed the whole combo, so I felt free to combo instant speed when he tapped out for Lim-Dul’s Vault, even though I knew he had Echoing Truth and I had sideboarded the Bodyguard out. I mess up a little here, because my brain is conditioned to getting the Body Snatcher, so I act like my Karmic Guide is a Body Snatcher and make mention to sacrifice it before I get the Hulk back. I then Sacrifice the Karmic Guide (again) and start looking through my library, as if I had sacrificed the Hulk. At this moment he stops me and says “You sacrificed the wrong guy.” I just swap them and he doesn’t mind, which was really not something I expected from him. It wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the game in any way, because I had the Body Snatcher still in my library and I would simply get it and bring the Karmic Guide back, but he could probably have gotten me a warning for looking through my deck without having sacrificed the Hulk (though the intent was pretty clear). During his turn, he Echoing Truths my big Feeder, but I just sacrifice it and bring it back with a copied Karmic Guide. Had he passed instead, I’d have had to copy the Karmic Guide and get a Hulk back, and then he could have responded by bouncing the Feeder, which would have given him another turn but wouldn’t have mattered as he had the man plan and that plan doesn’t stop double Hulk.
Game 3 was pretty normal too — we traded disruption for a while until I started drawing blanks and he started drawing creatures. In three turns, he drew Phyrexian Negator, Quirion Dryad, and Cabal Therapy, which took away the Hulk I had drawn. Eventually he killed me with the Negator.
My opinion on the man plan: I like it, but not for the mirror. If Negator and Dryad were Flash and Hulk, he would have killed me much easier and without the risk of me topdecking my win. With this plan, it seems to me you just make yourself more vulnerable to topdecks because you give them additional turns. I like his Red Blasts, though, even though I would probably feel a bit uncomfortable running them off a single Dual Land.
The Peeks were fantastic for him, though. Many times the difference between winning the game or not is waiting a turn for that Duress you know is on top of your deck or comboing right now, and Peek gives you information that renders the Duress moot.
After that I played against Suicide Black. I mulliganed to a five-card hand of two lands, Hulk, Flash, and Lim-Dul’s Vault, which is of course awesome. He went turn 1 Duress, which means he is dead on turn 3 not turn 2. He takes the Flash. He plays turn 2 Hymn to Tourach, and I Vault into both Hulk and Flash in response. He takes the other two cards away. I draw the Hulk and pass, knowing he is dead next turn. Then he plays Unmask, and I don’t draw the third Hulk or any way to fetch it. On a mulligan to five, I’d still have won relatively early if he didn’t have the trifecta of Duress, Hymn, and Unmask in that order. This deck is so good.
Game 2 I have my one Energy Field, but he doesn’t have Leyline. He has a Nantuko Shade, so I figure I might as well play it anyway — a discard spell kills it, but a discard spell also discards it if I’m holding it. One turn later he draws Unmask, and proceeds to kill me with the Shade as I Diabolic Vision into Hulk / Vault, but not Hulk / Flash… and I don’t have four mana. I spent a long time during this Diabolic Vision, because it was pretty complicated with Brainstorms and Vaults. I knew I’d get a Slow Play Warning, and I also knew the game was probably lost, but I figured the warning would be worth it if I could find a play that won me the game in that situation. I didn’t.
After that, I was only playing for ninth place, but I didn’t know back then so I didn’t concede (and I probably wouldn’t have anyway even if I knew). My opponent beat me in two short games. The first he had both Stifle and Force of Will for my Flash and Force of Will, and the second he just killed me with Dark Confidant by Vindicating my Pernicious Deed and countering my Energy Field. He then proceeded to make Top 8, as he had one more point than me.
I had done it — again. After a superb start of 11-1, I lost three in a row to finish 24th. I honestly don’t know why those things happen to me, but it’s not the first time. In Hawaii I was 9-1, then 9-4. In Prague I was 10-2, then 10-5. In Stockholm, 9-0-1, and then I lost last round to miss out on Top 8. Maybe I get nervous and play worse under pressure? I don’t really know. I’ll have to work on it, though, because it’s starting to annoy me.
Overall, though, the trip was pretty satisfying. It seems bad overall, because I was in good contention both times and both times I almost did it, but I guess going 13th and 24th in 700 and 800 player Grand Prix tournaments is nothing to be mad about. I also had a very pleasant trip, thanks in a big part to the people who did their best to make me feel at home in the U.S. — Tyler, Allen, Sean, and others I met there.
About Flash: it has to be banned. If it isn’t, I’d go back to the Disciple Kill, playing eight Pacts, because with Pacts you cannot afford to untap and attack so you can’t really combo instant speed. But I guess I’m not playing this format anytime soon, so I really don’t care.
About the format: I think it’s horrible. Regardless of what some people say, you will have trouble finding cards. It is a limiting factor. The format is also, in my opinion, completely matchup-based. You could split it into decks that run Mountains, decks that don’t beat Mountains if their life depends on it, decks that cannot lose a game to Mountains (with some exceptions *cough* triple Crypt *cough*), and now Flash which beats everything else (the only matchup I wasn’t comfortable in facing was the mirror). Even if Flash is banned, the format goes back to the previous three, and this is something I dislike very much.
Still, I’m not here to complain about the format. I’ve seen so much hype on the format nowadays, though, that I thought I’d share my view on it too. I’ll still play a Legacy Pro Tour if they have one, but I sincerely wish it doesn’t happen. It now shares a black spot in my heart, just like Two-Headed Giant.
If they ever sanction Two-Headed Giant Legacy, I’ll probably kill myself.
Cheers,
Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa. (And you can check the Evan’s latest video show to see how it’s pronounced!)