Last weekend marked one very interesting first: the Japanese Legacy GP. Why is that important? Well, in spite of huge coverage and the massive
globalization of Magic throughout the past couple of years, Legacy metagames still tend to be somewhat insular as evidenced by the significant differences
between the European and US metagames we observe with some regularity. GP Kyoto finally allows us Westerners a good look at how the Asian Legacy community
(the Japanese one, in particular) differ from our established expectations.
There are a couple of things I’ve been told about the Japanese Legacy metagame. First, the Japanese supposedly have an even bigger blue bias than Europeans
and Americans, to the point that seeing non-blue decks is relatively rare, so I’d have expected this GP to deliver a very blue heavy metagame and
a lot of Delver decks, in particular. Second, the combo archetype of choice in Japan has been different Show and Tell variants, so I’d expect to see more
of that deck than I would in a European or US GP, and I’d also expect whatever versions see play to be well-tuned enough to give us excellent information
as to which Show and Tell archetype is the strongest and what it should look like. Sadly, I only have access to the top 8 lists (instead of top 16 or top
32 as we’ve gotten used to) as of writing this, but given a completely blue top 8 and Show and Tell making up nearly 20% of the day
two metagame, I’d say GP Kyoto fulfilled these expectations pretty well. As such, I assume the metagame biases I just mentioned have indeed been true.
The Real Show
The first thing that jumped out to me is how many players brought Omni-Tell and in how far these lists actually conform to what I suspected to be the right
build of the deck when I looked at the Season One Invitational results
two weeks ago.
Creatures (2)
Lands (18)
Spells (40)
Creatures (2)
Lands (19)
Spells (39)
Creatures (1)
Lands (19)
Spells (40)
The second list was undefeated on day one.
All of these are what you could call “next generation” Omni-Tell lists, eschewing the use of a clunky third combo piece in the form of Enter the Infinite
for an Omniscience endgame that looks a lot like what High Tide does. Omniscience serves to make your cantrips and, most importantly, Dig Through Times
free, which should usually allow you to locate an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (or a Cunning Wish for Eladamri’s Call) and Omniscience-cast it, Time Walk effect
and all, for the almost guaranteed win.
While this way to construct the deck opens you up to slightly higher variance in your endgame – the cantrip chain can miss the Emrakul, Enter the Infinite
always wins – you pay a minor bit of endgame percentage to give the deck much more consistent draws during the all-important set up stage of the game.
Because you’re essentially constructing a two-card combo (Show and Tell and Omniscience) and cutting down on actual kill cards (and the ones you do run
make for fine Show and Tell targets in a pinch, as the existence of Sneak and Show proves) to make room for even more cantrips, you both raise the
consistency of your cantrip draws and reduce the number of games in which you’re sitting around with a hand full of uncastable clunk waiting for that last
combo piece to manifest.
These latest lists honestly remind me of Kai Budde’s old Extended Mono-Blue Trix deck, and I’m not surprised a master like Shouta has chosen to play the
archetype. A mono-blue combo deck that aims for a modest turn 3 to 4 win with a decent amount of countermagic viable for defensive or offensive use as
necessary, a bit of mana acceleration, and a powerful two-card combo to win the game, all of it held together by a very powerful, high velocity draw
engine. What’s not to like? We haven’t seen too much of that Show and Tell card lately, but if Kyoto is any indication, that period of rest is about to
come to an end.
Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner
No awesome innovations took down this GP. Solid play and Yuuta Takahashi’s quite solid-looking build of Miracles – featuring three Ponders but Vendilion
Clique and Venser, Shaper Savant plus two Karakas over Snapcaster Mage, a choice I can quite understand in a field with a high combo (Show and Tell)
component, something which the choice of only three Terminus also points towards – were enough to give Miracles another berth in the GP winners’ circle.
Creatures (3)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (22)
Spells (32)
I’d feel a bit uncomfortable with this reasonably low disruption count in a field with a lot of Delvers, but it seems to have worked out quite perfectly
for him, so who am I to argue?
The Delver Menace
What would a Legacy GP be without Legacy’s infamous Insect? Two players managed to carry the little researcher that could into top 8 berths this time
around. Judging from the coverage, that sounds like a very reasonable result, given that 57 out of the 222 players in day two brought blue-based tempo
decks and that it felt as if every good Japanese player was running either a Delver variant or Omni-Tell.
In contrast to the American and European players, though, the Japanese seem to favor more aggressive Delver lists, clear descendants of the U/R Delver list
that dominated the Treasure Cruise metagame during its time, opting to simply replace the now-banned Delvecestral Recall straight up with the other delve
bomb, Dig Through Time, with an optional black splash for a Tasigur, the Golden Fang and a Cabal Therapy or two. Given that Sultai Delver was once again
not to be seen in the successful lists I have access to from the main event, while Temur and the more aggressive list are featured in the top 8, maybe we
should be rethinking how exactly we want our Delver decks to look. More tempo, less midrange might me the order of the day.
One list that I think is a particularly solid innovation is that of Akira Suzuki. He seems to have taken his inspiration from the old European four-color
lists but realized that Tasigur allowed him to clean up the manabase. By replacing the Nimble Mongooses and Tarmogoyfs of old with Tasigur and Young
Pyromancer, he manages to reduce the green splash to the bare minimum necessary for Deathrite Shaman activations, cleaning up the one big weakness that
Delver version had: its manabase.
Creatures (14)
Lands (18)
Spells (28)
The Power of Winning On Turn 1
If you had asked me if a Belcher deck could make it through day one of such a blue-heavy GP unscathed, I’d have given you pretty long odds against. Luckily
for me, nobody offered up that kind of bet going into the GP, as I’d have lost my money. Ryuichi Shirakihara not only managed to beat all comers on day one
with Belcher, he managed to do so with what we could call the tongue-in-cheek budget version (replacing Taiga with Stomping Ground).
Creatures (13)
Lands (1)
Spells (46)
- 3 Land Grant
- 4 Desperate Ritual
- 4 Burning Wish
- 4 Goblin Charbelcher
- 4 Seething Song
- 4 Lotus Petal
- 4 Lion's Eye Diamond
- 4 Chrome Mox
- 4 Rite of Flame
- 3 Empty the Warrens
- 4 Manamorphose
- 4 Gitaxian Probe
Sideboard
While I still think that Belcher as a whole is well kept in check by the existence of Force of Will, Shirakihara’s success is a powerful demonstration of
how good consistently threatening to do something busted on turn 1 is even if you have to go completely all-in doing so. I mean, even if they mulligan for
it, they won’t have the Force of Will all the time and should hopefully be clueless that they need it in game 1 to boot. At that point, it’s a little like
playing Dredge in Vintage – you only need them to not find the hate in one of the sideboard games and you get to mark down that nice, soothing W.
Some Sweet Tidbits
Obviously a Grand Prix wouldn’t be complete without some sweet new technology and some blasts from the past. In this case, the sweet things already start
with Kazuya Murakami’s runner up list. We’ve seen Sensei’s Divining Top and Counterbalance team up with Monastery Mentor in Fred Edelkamp’s SCG Premier IQ list before but still in a
more Stoneblade style set up. Murakami, on the other hand, is using them simply to turn Miracles into more of a tempo deck. He has Top, Terminus, and
Counterbalance to play a traditional Miracles control game, but instead of further supporting that gameplan with lategame tools like Counterspell, Entreat
the Angels, and even Jace, the Mind Sculptor, he uses Daze and Fate Reforged‘s most hyped 2/2 to threaten early board takeover and an infuriating
lategame token engine. For a modest fee of one colorless mana, Monastery Mentor plus two Sensei’s Divining Tops allows you to tap and recast your Tops over
and over again to create an army of 1/1 prowess Monks. You end up with quite the clock at that point – very similar to how Entreat the Angels operates in
the lategame honestly, minus the instant speed – but also gets busted draws along the lines of Top into Counterbalance into Mentor with Daze
backup–something a normal Miracles deck couldn’t produce. Definitely the kind of exploration I approve of!
Creatures (6)
Lands (20)
Spells (34)
Something else that couldn’t fail to warm my heart is Goblins finally doing something again somewhere in the hands of trial winner Hiroshi Takabe:
Creatures (27)
- 4 Goblin Matron
- 4 Goblin Lackey
- 3 Goblin Warchief
- 1 Sparksmith
- 2 Goblin Piledriver
- 2 Gempalm Incinerator
- 4 Goblin Ringleader
- 1 Mogg War Marshal
- 1 Stingscourger
- 1 Lightning Crafter
- 2 Goblin Chieftain
- 1 Tuktuk Scrapper
- 1 Krenko, Mob Boss
Lands (23)
Spells (10)
Takabe’s list has a couple of interesting innovations I’ve heard discussed but never seen in action. He’s running more Rishadan Ports than Wastelands
(which makes sense once you figure in that Goblins wants its mana denial to stall the game until Goblin Ringleader shenanigans come online), has both
Sparksmith and a Lightning Crafter as additional control tools (but not the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Skirk Prospector necessary to go full combo mode
with the latter), and is running four copies of Chalice of the Void between maindeck and sideboard (in a 3-1 split).
All of these things make a lot of of sense to me – Goblins one-drops are already useless late game and the deck has surprisingly few of them to begin with
while it also wants to play control against Delver and other tempo decks making Lightning Crafter an excellent piece of removal, especially if protected by
one of those Chalices.
Who knows, with the True-Name Nemesis plus Umezawa’s Jitte mondo combo taking up less and less of the metagame, maybe Goblins is poised to make a comeback
to playability – especially with a sideboard as hateful against combo as this one (I fully approve).
Another non-blue list out of the pool of trial winners that I find quite interesting is Gaku Ohashi’s Jund list:
Creatures (12)
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (23)
Spells (21)
What stands out here is that he has given up on the expensive Bloodbraid Elf value game and even the power of Tarmogoyf to give Jund more of a Suicide
Black with infinite removal vibe. A heavy eight piece discard suite clears the way for Dark Confidant and Gaku’s heavy damage dealer, Goblin Rabblemaster.
The tradeoff he is making is quite interesting. None of his creatures fight well on the board, so he is very reliant on removal to take over midrangey
grindfests, but both of his main threats are low-cost and win the game in short order if left unchecked (Dark Confidant through card advantage,
Rabblemaster straight up).
As a result, his deck’s is significantly different compared to more traditional Jund list. Against fair, creature-based strategies, his deck functions very
similarly, chaining a wide variety of removal spells – seventeen in total counting Liliana of the Veil – until he can stick some kind of threat, be it one of
his high-impact creatures or a Liliana, and take the game over that way. But the cheapness of his threats means he will usually be able to start the game
off with an aggressive tempo opening to possibly get ahead and win before the full grind actually comes into effect.
The biggest difference is apparent against the unfair decks, however. He curves heavy disruption into cheap, high impact threats that can easily threaten
to end the game in short order when combined with the disruption of Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach, and the Liliana-lock out. I think this is a very
interesting new look at the Jund strategy, and I’m interested to see what’s going to come of this in the future.
Finally one tiny card I’d like to highlight: the singleton Kolaghan’s Command. The trial results also include a Grixis Delver list sporting two copies, and
I’m intrigued to say the least. While the Command seems expensive on first sight, it provides a lot of value – very similar to a R/B Electrolyze, in fact,
and is extremely flexible (even the Shatter mode is great insurance against Jitte and Batterskull). I wouldn’t be surprised to see a copy or two sneak into
decks that can cast it in the future (which also bodes well for its Modern applications).
The final list I found particularly interesting is Shohei Yamamoto’s Esper Stoneblade list from among the undefeated day one players. Now, this isn’t
anything conceptually new, but his maindeck differs quite significantly from what we’ve come to expect in Stoneforge decks:
Creatures (9)
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (24)
Spells (25)
Look at how condensed that maindeck is. There is an absolute minimum of disruption (basically just four Force of Will), six efficient removal spells, and a
strong two into three threat-curve with lots of four and two-ofs rounded out by Jace and Dig Through Time to provide lategame card advantage. Clearly,
someone has been building their deck with a very concise plan in mind: stick an equipment on True-Name Nemesis and let your opponent scramble to deal. A
pretty good plan against any kind of fair deck, all things considered. Add the very high land count – taking pressure off the cantrip suite to fix your
early land situation – and we have a deck that should easily execute the same three-step plan every game. Figure out your opponent’s plan, use your
cantrips to find disruption when necessary, and execute the equipment hammer as soon as possible whenever you don’t need to slow your opponent down.
What this leads to is a very weird-looking maindeck that seems to splash only for the Flashback on Lingering Souls and a single copy of Tasigur, though I
suspect the real draw towards the third color stems from those sideboard Thoughtseizes to help shore up the matchups in which True-Name Nemesis is more
liability than ridiculous. Speaking of the sideboard, I really like what Shohei has done with this deck. Where his maindeck is hellbent on pressing his own
threat gameplan (a great plan against fair decks), his sideboard is almost exclusively filled with tools to deal with the different combo strategies – a
good choice given that four Force of Will alone is going to leave you behind against just about all of them. This heavy specialization (anti-fair maindeck,
anti-unfair sideboard) and linearization (“I will stick a Jitte on True-Name Nemesis”) are two things I can very much appreciate – I tend to build my decks
similarly, after all.
A Storm A-Coming
To round things out, a little treat to myself: Kai Thiele carrying Storm to the top 4.
Lands (15)
Spells (45)
- 1 Tendrils of Agony
- 4 Brainstorm
- 4 Cabal Ritual
- 3 Duress
- 4 Dark Ritual
- 3 Cabal Therapy
- 1 Rain of Filth
- 4 Lotus Petal
- 4 Lion's Eye Diamond
- 4 Infernal Tutor
- 4 Ponder
- 1 Ad Nauseam
- 2 Preordain
- 4 Gitaxian Probe
- 2 Past in Flames
Sideboard
This one is awesome for me not only because my beloved Storm archetype has locked up another Legacy GP Top 8 while being present only in low numbers, but
mostly because of the player involved. You see, Kai was living here in Berlin until earlier this year and is an old Storm-protege of mine (who clearly is a
master of his own by now), one of our Berlin crew who took up Storm after seeing me run it in our local events. When he moved to Tokyo, I told him to show
Japan what a real Storm is like – way to deliver, my friend!
As to his list, Past in Flames makes for an excellent replacement for Grim Tutor, especially if you expect a lot of games to be somewhat grindy in nature
or to involve soft-counters (having a Past in Flames in hand often makes things a lot cheaper), and Rain of Filth is a great tool that gives the deck more
explosiveness. The only thing I’m a little unhappy with is the heavy Abrupt Decay/Krosan Grip count without any Sensei’s Divining Tops to accompany it – I
just don’t think the full grind plan makes enough sense against Miracles if you don’t have some form of library manipulation that works under
Counterbalance to actually find the exact right number of these cards (nothing is worse than losing because you drew too many sideboard answers). That’s
nitpicking, though, and you could do much worse than straight up copy his list and run it if you’re contemplating joining the Storm troopers.
General Conclusions
So where does that leave us? First, it apparently is possible to have a more blue and combo heavy field than we have here in Berlin even without a couple
of crazy Storm players deciding to ruin the meta for people who just want to play on the board (Omni-Tell does the job just fine, it seems). No matter
which combo deck is forcing out the too-fair archetypes, though, the answer to that kind of metagame seems to be the same: Miracles. The deck has been the
solution to Delver and combo here in Europe, and now it has taken down the first Japanese Legacy GP – actually taken the whole finals if you count Kazuya’s
brew as a Miracles variant. Deck is good, learn to play fast.
If you aren’t interested in Miracles, though, there’s still a lot to be learned from that GP. A less extreme transition out of the Cruise era for the
Delver archetype than we’ve seen in the US, a coalescing as to what the correct way to build Omni-Tell should be (possibly even what the best Show and Tell
deck is in a Dig Through Time format), and a lot of interesting brews and blasts from the past littered throughout the results.
A lot of what the Japanese are doing looks similar, yet while some things are truly the same, there are a number of innovative tweaks and approaches to
decks that I haven’t really seen considered in such clear, polished forms before. I really hope we’ll get access to the full top 32 decklists like we have
in Legacy GPs lately, as it sure looks like there would be a lot more interesting information to learn there!
Tune in Next Week!
Join me next week for episode two of You Choose The Brew, 2015 edition! You have spoken, and with a tiny margin, Pack Rat – Life from the Loam – Grisly
Salvage (35.39%) edged out Nether Void – Cavern of Souls – Abrupt Decay (34.4%) and Root Maze – Suppression Field (30.21%) to qualify for the next round.
Tune in to see where things are going!