Black Lotus. Sol Ring. Mana Vault. They’re too strong for Legacy, leaving us with acceleration that usually takes the form of Lion’s Eye Diamond, Lotus Petal and Chrome Mox. However, there are other cards that can mimic these broken accelerants that need a home in Legacy. Today, we’ll look at three that are begging to be abused, then we’ll wrap up with a new, clever deck, and a great announcement from StarCityGames.com!
First, let’s look at this elderly Red common:
Orcish Lumberjack, the bane of my casual gaming twelve years ago, does a great impersonation of Black Lotus with any Forest he can get his hands on. I remember direct-damage burn decks in The Old Days that used Jack to power out huge Lava Bursts to win the game. Looking back on it, I’d say we were playing fairly with the acceleration that Orcish Lumberjack provides. We certainly hadn’t made the connection that it enabled third-turn Craw Wurms or second-turn Balduvian Hordes (for those lucky enough to afford them!). It was, and still is, one of the best accelerators in the game.
Why should it graduate beyond the old casual tables? First, it’s incredibly easy to get a Taiga into play with fetchlands, enabling us to cast the Lumberjack on the first turn and have a Forest to eat in the following turn. Second, the extra three mana, giving us potentially five mana or more on the second turn, is kingly in Legacy. We would want it in an aggressive deck that needs the early mana to send it over the edge, one that can capitalize on the speed over the loss of a land. The natural fit, to me, is in Goblins.
The possibilities with the extra mana make me feel positively greedy. ‘Jack can function as another Goblin Lackey, cranking out a Siege-Gang Commander or Goblin Warchief and friends on the second turn. If we’re going to shoehorn Orcish Lumberjack into Goblins, we need four cards to cut. I’m inclined to remove Mogg Fanatics; they don’t do a whole lot these days and I feel I’d much rather have a Lumberjack essentially at any point in the game over a Fanatic. Unfortunately, we aren’t drawing the Orc from Goblin Ringleader and it makes our Gempalm Incinerators worse, but overall, the Lumberjack is worth exploring for the deck. Many players have played around with Ancient Tomb for extra acceleration, and Orcish Lumberjack looks much better than that in general. Another potential downside is that we might sacrifice lands that could help activate Rishadan Port or pay retail price for Goblin Matron or Goblin Ringleader. I’m unsure if Lumberjack is too greedy for the deck, but the opportunity to double the Siege-Gang Commanders we cast on the second turn seems too strong to ignore. The other logical place to make a cut in the deck is to remove Aether Vial. It’s a controversial idea, granted, and Vial helps the deck enormously against counterspells of all kinds. A crafty Goblins deckbuilder would do well to consider whether Aether Vial does a better job at accelerating out Goblins than Orcish Lumberjack does.
Beyond casting little red men, Jack also enables big, scary green men. Consider this deck, which took 7th in a 35-person German event recently:
Fires
4 Mountain
5 Forest
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Deus of Calamity
4 Blastoderm
4 Lumbering Satyr
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fires of Yavimaya
4 Saproling Burst
3 Pandemonium
Sideboard:
4 Firespout
4 Krosan Grip
4 Magus of the Moon
3 Blood Moon
This deck would kill for Orcish Lumberjack! I would cut the Sakura-Tribe Elders or Fyndhorn Elves straight-up for the Jack. Outside of combo, few other decks in Legacy can handle a second-turn Blastoderm or a Fires-fueled Deus of Calamity on the third turn. This deck is a clear example of one that would rather have a big monster on turn 2 than another land and the same monster on turn 3 or 4. I’m unsure if this is actually a playable Legacy deck or if its performance was a fluke, but Lumberjack goes a long way towards making it competitive. In one sample game, the deck was able to pull off the Saproling Burst/Pandemonium combo on the third turn against CounterTop after playing through Thoughtseize and Daze. That’s Legacy-level consistency and power.
Orcish Lumberjack can also accelerate out other goodies that enterprising deckbuilders should be aware of. It plays nicely with Sarkhan Vol, Gigapede, and Akroma, Angel of Fury. It can be utilized in a more controlling build with Solemn Simulacrum to replace the lost land or Plow Under to seriously hamper an opponent. For a dollar a playset from Star City Games, Orcish Lumberjack is a great investment for the Legacy player. The creature will only get better with time, as the quality of Green and Red cards increases.
Next, let’s check out a card that does a fine impression of Sol Ring:
Thran Turbine should make deckbuilders scratch their heads for some way to make it strong. It can:
– Activate Isochron Scepter during your upkeep to draw with Accumulated Knowledge or fire off a Lightning Helix.
– Combine with Oboro, Palace in the Clouds and Stasis to annoy your friends in new and interesting ways.
– Pay upkeep costs on things like Tabernacle of the Pendrell Vale or Magus of the Tabernacle.
– “Wash” the mana through Skyshroud Elf so you can cast spells with it.
– Spin a Sensei’s Divining Top and animate a Mishra’s Factory
All of these sound like fun applications, but they don’t justify running Turbine in Legacy. At first, I thought it would be a great basis for making a Rebels deck, since the Turbine can facilitate their searching. I attempted a WB Rebels list with Cabal Therapy, Big Game Hunter, Hymn to Tourach and other suspects, but it ultimately wasn’t very good. I was about to discard Turbine as a potential playable when I came upon this Extended list, the winner of a Kentucky PTQ:
Martyr-Proclamation
Scott Honigmann
2 Godless Shrine
1 Mistveil Plains
16 Plains
2 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of the False God
2 Crovax, Ascendant Hero
4 Eternal Dragon
4 Martyr of Sands
2 Akroma’s Vengeance
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Condemn
3 Decree of Justice
4 Oblivion Ring
2 Proclamation of Rebirth
4 Runed Halo
4 Wrath of God
Sideboard
2 Angel’s Grace
3 Boil
3 Disenchant
2 Exalted Angel
3 Extirpate
2 Gilded Light
Thran Turbine enables so many engines in this deck! It makes Proclamation fire a lot sooner, brings Eternal Dragon back for essential land development and can create two more tokens for Decree of Justice. I think Martyr is a fine deck to explore in Legacy, as many decks don’t have graveyard hate in the first game and cannot overcome the Martyr lock. This means that the Martyr player can win a drawn-out first game and just aim to draw the match in the second game, resulting in a 1-0 win. It’s somewhat risky but worth trying out. Such a deck could also run Sensei’s Divining Top to even out draws and see more cards in conjunction with Eternal Dragon.
The Turbine would be at its most natural fit in this style of deck and I’d love to see someone run with the idea (though I would not want to play against it, obviously!). One could win with Mindslaver recursion, Test of Endurance, Phyrexian Processor or a combination of those kill cards and others. The Martyr combo appeals to me specifically because the only real way to combat it in the first game is to Extirpate the Martyrs, or with Pithing Needle. Counterspells are nearly useless against the core of the deck, and cards like Runed Halo can prevent Grindstone-based wins. Other than that, only Thoughtseize on Proclamation has a chance at disrupting the lifegain, and Runed Halo and Sensei’s Divining Top can assist in playing around discard strategies. I’m inclined to run Black for Vindicate and other disruptive elements.
Much like Orcish Lumberjack, Thran Turbine is a steal at $3 for a playset and is only going to get better over time.
Last, consider this mana powerhouse:
If only we had Tolaria, Tomb of Urza to make things Islands alongside Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth…
Carpet is strictly a sideboard card unless you can find other compelling reasons to run Mind Bend in the maindeck. It’s certainly a non-traditional sideboard card at that. Often, we want answers off the board, not accelerants. Carpet makes us step back to consider other sideboarding strategies instead. One topic being discussed by Sam Black and others recently is the idea of sideboarding into a deck that is most capable of defeating an opponent’s deck, not just one that swaps in answer cards. If we look at a deck’s match against Blue-based decks and find that it most needs speed, not answer cards, Carpet is a great option.
My teammate, Kevin Cron, used to run Carpet of Flowers occasionally in his Vintage Stax sideboard against Mana Drain decks. Stax wanted two lock components out on the second turn and often contended with a shaky manabase that made casting Meddling Mage, Viashino Heretic, In The Eye of Chaos and Smokestack difficult to accomplish. Carpet wasn’t an “answer” the way Red Elemental Blast would be, but it did dramatically increase Stax’s speed against a deck that lost to early lock pieces. Further, Carpet of Flowers was an absolute coffin nail against Fish decks, rendering their Dazes and Spiketail Hatchlings feeble.
I’m unsure of which decks would really want that kind of acceleration post-board against Blue. You’d only want to bring in Carpet if you specifically felt that more mana was the key to beating the opponent; is it better than the Blood Moons in the Fires list above, for example? It’s unlikely to be stronger in that instance, but decks like Fires and the Gifts Rock list I wrote about last week are exactly the decks that Carpet would sing in.
I don’t think Carpet of Flowers is on par with the previous accelerants that I discussed, but it’s worth keeping in mind in a format where Islands are quite common. Like the other cards, playsets of Carpet of Flowers are very cheap and might be just what your Enchantress deck is looking for.
Deck Spotlight: Zur, The Enchanter
I came across this list earlier this week and it was too good to leave out of the column. Jorge Luengo Tabernero took it to a 1st place finish in a 43-person Spanish event three weeks ago:
4 Dark Confidant
3 Zur the Enchanter
1 Sower of Temptation
4 Brainstorm
1 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Counterbalance
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Pemmin’s Aura
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Steel of the Godhead
1 Threads of Disloyalty
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
Sideboard:
3 Meddling Mage
1 Aura of Silence
2 Chill
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Energy Flux
2 Engineered Plague
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Scepter of Fugue
It’s Zur! In Legacy!
You want more than that? It’s a CounterTop list that doesn’t mess around with green creatures, instead opting for the Baseruption-style Dark Confidants and Vedalken Shackles. It has a wacky and fun finisher in Zur, who usually puts on Morphling pants with Pemmin’s Aura and then grabs a Steel of the Godhead next turn to crash in for 8 flying, lifelinked points of damage. If there are pesky problems on the board, Zur finds Pernicious Deed instead or locks down the game with Counterbalance. Essentially, one swing with Zur can handle the biggest problem on the board. The wizard triggers on declaration of attack, so even if he dies somewhere along the way, his ability still triggers. If there’s a Tombstalker standing in the way, Zur can find an Oblivion Ring to remove it or go toe-to-toe with the monster using Pemmin’s Aura. I’d really like to hear from players who have tried out Zur Deck Wins regarding whether it’s an under-the-radar format stomper. One can also incorporate Solitary Confinement and Phyrexian Arena for a Zur-reliant lock or attempt several turns in a row with Second Chance. If nothing else, the deck looks way fun to play.
Our Very Own $5K Tournament!
Star City Games has taken the unprecedented move of putting up $5,000 for a Legacy tournament this year in Boston on 6/21! Check out the details in our forums. That prize is even better than the Legacy Worlds prize at GenCon and goes to show how much of a draw Legacy is for players all across the country. They’ve got EDH side events alongside a truly juicy main event that will likely set the tone for the American Legacy metagame. I know that this event is going to be so successful that SCG schedules more killer Legacy tournaments. Start making your hotel arrangements in Baaahstun for this great tourney!
Until next week!