I’ve written in the past on my feelings for Legacy. In short, it’s the best format, and I don’t think it’s very close at all. To say I was looking forward to Grand Prix Columbus would be an understatement.
I felt that, with the recent banning of Mystical Tutor, the format would devolve into creature battles between Goblins, Merfolk, and Zoo. Many people would lose respect for ANT and Reanimator, despite those decks still being solid choices. Naturally, I was looking for a deck that would crush creature decks, but not be completely embarrassing against combo.
I tested various builds of combo since I thought it wouldn’t be respected. The problem was that the two card combos (Painter/Grindstone, Dream Halls/Conflux, Mind over Matter/Temple Bell, Hive Mind/Pact, etc) weren’t incredibly powerful, and the pieces weren’t very good on their own. I decided to look elsewhere.
I sleeved up Lands for a local Legacy tournament and faced the nightmare matchups: Counterbalance round 1, Hypergenesis round 2, TES round 3. After those three rounds, I was 3-0, and IDing into Top 8. There I faced another Counterbalance deck, and the wheels finally fell off due to some minor play mistakes and major deck building errors. The entire tournament seemed incredibly easy.
The next few days I did some testing with locals Pat McGregor, Martin Lohman, and Julian Booher. Pat decided to put a Blood Moon in the maindeck of his UWr Enlightened Tutor Counterbalance deck, so obviously if people decided to be clever and do that, I would have a rough time.
Against Martin and his Supreme Blue-ish deck, I realized I needed to keep in all the Mazes, since basically the only way I was losing was to early Goyf beatdown. Lands could win the long game with Engineered Explosives recursion. Still, his Crypts and Relics were incredibly annoying, and I realized that I didn’t know exactly how to play around all the hate. I just wasn’t practiced enough.
If I were left without any other options, I could play Lands and feel relatively confident, but I would rather play something else. I think that if I had the Meandeck list, I would have adopted their Oblivion Stones and been happy playing with my list, which included Gamble and Intuition.
Cedric had been playing some Aluren online and singing its praises for weeks. I didn’t like the idea of it, but after watching some replays, I wanted to get in on the action. The problem with a lot of the two-card combos in the format was that they had no defense. You’d go searching for your Mind over Matter (or whatever) while some Grizzly Bears would be beating you down. Eventually, you assembled your combo with protection and mana left over to pay for Daze, or their disruption would get the better of you.
In Aluren, the innocuous 1/1 creatures would actually buy you valuable time. They also had plenty of inherit utility. Coiling Oracle pitched to Force of Will, Imperial Recruiter could tutor for Academy Rector, Bone Shredder, or even Llawan, Cephalid Empress. Suck on that one, Saito!
All I needed to combo in this format was a little time, and awkwardly enough, all I needed to do was add some crappy 1/1s to my deck.
I wasn’t sold on Aluren from the beginning. Cedric certainly put in a lot of work on the list, and I did a little bit more, but it wasn’t perfect. We didn’t know exactly how to sideboard, or what we even needed in every matchup, but it didn’t bother us. We need a little excitement in our lives.
My control instincts got the better of me, and I drew up a list that was the culmination of all the decks I had been working on, or seen being worked on by Pat, Julian, and Dan Skinner.
I joined a GPT with this:
Planeswalkers (2)
Lands (24)
Spells (34)
- 3 Sensei's Divining Top
- 4 Brainstorm
- 3 Counterspell
- 4 Force of Will
- 2 Smother
- 2 Intuition
- 4 Pernicious Deed
- 4 Innocent Blood
- 1 Engineered Explosives
- 1 Exile into Darkness
- 1 Life from the Loam
- 3 Spell Snare
- 1 Sword of the Meek
- 1 Thopter Foundry
Sideboard
I beat UGB Landstill round 1, but was paired against Zack Hall with Aluren round 2. My GPT was actually full of ringers!
Aluren should be a bad matchup, at least game 1. I was sitting on two colorless lands and an Underground Sea, and Zack wanted to keep me in the hole I was in by Forcing my Top. I understand why he did it, but I was still pretty sure that he shouldn’t. A fourth land appeared and I cast Pernicious Deed with FOW backup. He peeled a Blue card, and used all of his cards to play Aluren, FOW my FOW, and then Recruiter for his combo.
However, instead of a Parasitic Strix, Zack wanted to man up and only play a Selkie Hedge-Mage as his “win condition.” Very few decks can beat infinite life in Legacy, so that’s almost as good as killing them, plus you get to put all your lands into play with Coiling Oracle plus Cavern Harpy, and get infinite Regrowths with Harpy, Dream Stalker, and Eternal Witness.
He kept looping his combo, set his life to a million, but I kept making him play it out. Eventually, he decided that he couldn’t beat my Deed and conceded. While we were sideboarding in silence, he commented, “Did I just concede that game? What the hell is wrong with me?”
Second game I punished his manabase with a quick Intuition for Dust Bowl and Life from the Loam, and there wasn’t much he could do.
Third round was against a Zoo player that insisted that I was lucky because I drew (or in my case, mulliganed for) removal spells.
Round 4 was against Chris Coppola, who played some very solid Magic. He was gaming with a New Horizons-ish Counterbalance deck, splashing Red Elemental Blast and Firespout. I was pretty happy when he mulliganed to five in game 1, and then had to Force of Will my Pernicious Deed. Top, Jace, and removal took over, while Intuition set up the Thopter combo.
I believe I mulled in the second game, but was never really in it.
In the final game, I was facing down Tarmogoyf and a raw Counterbalance after several of my spells were blind Counterbalanced. End of his turn, I attempted to Intuition for Deed, Deed, EE (instead of a third Deed in case I drew Academy Ruins), but his Counterbalance revealed a Knight of the Reliquary.
He continued his assault with his Goyf and greedily played out his Knight. I prayed for the four outer, but it wasn’t forthcoming. I chumped the Knight with my Factory and went down to nine life. I played Top and activated it, seeing Innocent Blood and Exile into Darkness.
Since he fetched a Volcanic Island on turn 2, I was reasonably sure he had a REB, but if he didn’t have a counterspell, I would probably take control. Sure enough, he had the Force of Will and the REB for my Counterspell, and I died on his next turn.
One thing was certain: the deck was reasonable. You could play a Tutor-based bullet strategy with Counterbalance or just play four Pernicious Deeds and kill all their threats. I liked that option a lot more, but all of the rounds went to time. I would like to blame all of my opponents, since I play reasonably fast, and while I could have been a d*ck and constantly harassed them to play faster, I wasn’t really in the mood.
If it were on Magic Online, I probably would have stuck with my Exile into Darkness deck, but that wasn’t the case. Plus, I recently took up smoking, and being denied the opportunity to smoke or hang out with my friends in between rounds was kind of a blowout. It didn’t help matters that I was coming down with a cold that I probably caught from Julian.
I wanted to play something that was relatively fast. Goblins is great against Merfolk and supposedly bad against Zoo, but with more Weirdings, Perishes, Gempalms, and Mogg War Marshals, the matchup is pretty solid. A couple Goblin Piledrivers had to go since the deck is more mid-range at that point, but I never really liked having a ton of Piledrivers anyway. You don’t win by putting that kind of pressure on your opponents.
My buddy Tim Bulger (a.k.a. Tbulge) showed up that night. He had taken a family vacation to Boston then Cincinnati, and then stole his aunt’s car and drove to the GP solo. I had a copy of my Goblin list ready to go, and when he laid it out, he asked, “Where are the Goblin Grenades?” While I already knew Tbulge had an affinity for Grenades, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting.
Tim has played in several Pro Tours and even won Grand Prix: Madison in 2004 or so, so he’s no stranger to high level play, but he marches to the beat of his own drum. He loves drafting aggressive decks, most recently those with Aura Gnarlid, but he’s not too shy to play Demonic Appetite, Utvara Scalper, or Taste for Mayhem.
The man is aggressive.
I instantly asked if any of my friends had a Charbelcher deck, since that would probably be more his style than attempting to grind out wins with Goblins. My Minnesota homeboys Forest Ryan and Jason Schouseboe have basically everything, so assembling that deck wasn’t a problem. I decided to cut the Black and keep it simple for him.
Round 1 went well, but the second round was awkward. He was in a tight game 3 against a Blue deck and, being the accomplished poker player that he is, he knew his opponent had nothing. Tim started chaining rituals that led up to Lion’s Eye Diamond, followed by Burning Wish. He picked up his sideboard while he was waiting for his opponent, saw the Diminishing Returns we put in there, and excitedly pulled it out.
His opponent okayed the Wish, and Tbulge showed him the Returns, and his opponent replied with a shrug. Tim looked down at his LED, his Red mana floating, and awkwardly passed the turn. On the next turn two turns, Tim drew Tinder Wall and Lotus Petal, playing them both, and sacrificing them.
He announced Diminishing Returns.
His opponent informed him that not only did it cost four, but it was double Blue. Tim picked up Diminishing Returns, looked at it, and said, “What the hell? This isn’t Timetwister?”
He then tilt-dropped from the tournament.
Anyway, I had Goblins sleeved up and the decklist filled out the morning of the GP. Goblins seemed like a solid choice for tournament, since it’s one of those decks that cuts through the BS that people are trying to do, all the while being solid versus aggro and Counterbalance. It’s typically not my style, but whatever. I was going to make the most of it.
Tom Martell had been waffling back and forth between LSV’s Counterbalance list or Cedric’s Aluren deck, and said that I could have whatever he didn’t play. I wasn’t going to wait for him. I told him to make a choice, and after about thirty minutes of hemming and hawing, he chose Counterbalance, which I suppose worked out for him.
With roughly ten minutes left before the player meeting started, I handed off my deck box to E Hunt McKenzie so that he could battle, and I went scrambling for cards. Someone gave me a line on some Recruiters, which ended up with Alex Bertoncini graciously loaning them to me. With those taken care of, I was more than confident in my ability to get the rest of the deck.
I could have talked to Forest and Schmoosebooze again, but I had bugged Forest more than enough. Martell was already hitting up Michelle Cove for some cards that he needed, and he offered to do the same for me. I got some Brainstorms from one friend, a Llawan from another, some cards from Steve Sadin, and I was good to go!
Creatures (17)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Eternal Witness
- 1 Bone Shredder
- 4 Imperial Recruiter
- 1 Cavern Harpy
- 3 Coiling Oracle
- 2 Dream Stalker
- 1 Parasitic Strix
Lands (23)
Spells (20)
I played Aluren because it’s a combo deck that, while slower and weaker than the other combo decks, is better against aggro decks. You try to get Aluren onto the battlefield and then Recruiter for Recruiter, then for Dream Stalker, return Recruiter, get another Dream Stalker, then Recruiter for Cavern Harpy, which bounces Dream Stalker, which bounces Recruiter. Finally, you get Parasitic Strix and kill them.
Alternatively, you can Eternal Witness your entire graveyard, or Coiling Oracle all of your lands onto the battlefield. If they have some troublesome enchantment, you can Recruiter for Harmonic Sliver or Stern Proctor before Strix. Dream Stalker doesn’t target, so they can’t simply Swords your Recruiter in response. Two Dream Stalkers means they can’t just Swords one of those guys to break up your combo.
So you just Harpy-ed back your Dream Stalker, then Recruited a Strix. But you are still vulnerable to removal. You need to pay one life, return Harpy to your hand, recast it, return Dream Stalker, then pay one life again.
Then cast Cavern Harpy, respond to the gating by casting Strix. If they let the stack resolve, you just pick up the Strix and start the loop again. If they try to burn your Strix, you can just return Harpy and save it. This gets a little more difficult the lower on life you are, but ultimately, they can’t break up your combo.
Your backup plan of beating down with little dudes is actually viable against some decks, and you even have the Natural Order sideboard plan to sidestep a bunch of hate. For example, they might keep a slow Zoo hand with an Ethersworn Canonist, only for you to play Battleground, fetch land (into Dryad Arbor), and then bang! 10/10. Can you race that with your puny Zoo deck?
The decklist isn’t perfect. For starters, I would cut some number of Havenwood Battlegrounds. I might also cut a Cabal Therapy or two for real discard spells. I am severely out of practice as a sniper, and although I should still probably know what they have, I often talk myself into naming different cards. If I had Thoughtseizes (or training wheels, if you prefer), I would have done a little better.
Two byes due to pro level and rating, and they were over much too quickly. Third round I played against a Zoo deck, and was quickly under the gun.
I was at six life, with two Havenwood Battlegrounds and Island in play. My hand was:
Force of Will
Intuition
Aluren
Imperial Recruiter
Eternal Witness
It was his second main phase, and he had two cards, four land, Sylvan Library, Wild Nacatl, and Qasali Pridemage. I was in a tight spot. I needed to trick him into using his Pridemage so I could Recruiter in response and kill him.
He cast a Knight of the Reliquary, and I thought for the longest time that his last card was Fireblast. If that were the case, and with his Sylvan Library in play, it was likely that I was going to get burned out next turn. My plan of playing Witness during his combat step next turn, returning Birds of Paradise, and blocking both of his guys (forcing his hand on the Pridemage) wasn’t going to work if I just died.
I was kind of committed to that plan though, and Forced his Knight. I untapped, and drew Cabal Therapy, a blank. After thinking a bit more, I realized that I was probably going to die on his turn, so I panicked. I cast Eternal Witness targeting Brainstorm and cast it. He lapsed into thought, asking out loud, “What are the odds you have it?”
Eventually, he responded to the Brainstorm by Pridemaging my Aluren and I killed him in response. He tried to break up the combo by Fireblasting Strix, but my stack shenanigans took care of that idea.
Game 2 I Natural Ordered him to death.
After the match, Bobby Graves suggested that maybe I could have played that game one better. I agreed, but was wondering if he had something specific in mind. He did.
His line of play was to let Knight resolve, cast Aluren, and cast Recruiter. Our opponent would respond by killing Aluren, at which point we Force of Will our own spell, let that resolve, Witness Recruiter, and then go off.
Pure genius. The bad part about that play is that if he responds to the ETB trigger, we have no play (except Witness the Brainstorm and try to get there), but virtually no one does that. They will almost always respond to the spell. Also, if they let Recruiter enter play, he would need to blow his Fireblast on Recruiter if I have a Dream Stalker.
So he can play around Witness, Force, Blue card, and me having brain cells, or a lone Dream Stalker, but I suppose he had the Fireblast for that plan.
I would have locked that game up instead of having to trick him into making a mistake.
I won round 4, but got absolutely destroyed when my opponent mulliganed to four and five in round 5. He was playing ANT, which is supposed to be a bad matchup, but come on. I had the turn 3 combo game 1, but he comboed me turn t3 on the play. I lost every die roll on day one except for the last round.
Second game I mulliganed for Force of Will, but only had a Taiga for mana. I confidently Forced his Duress, lest he see that I have no resistance. At least this way, maybe he’ll think I have double Force. I had several discard spells, and just needed a fetch land to crush him. He eventually found a Xantid Swarm which made the second Force I drew the next turn embarrassing. No lands were forthcoming, and I eventually got stormed out.
I won the rest of my matches, before falling to Jason Ford and UGB Landstill in the last round, who played extremely well while I probably did not. Still, it was nice to lock up another Day 2 and get the chance to fight for some pro points.
Day 2 started with two Merfolk opponents. I beat the first easily enough, but my Llawan was sent farming in game 3 against Donnie Peck. He’s a friend of mine who ended up finishing 9th on tiebreakers, so congrats to him!
The next round I lost to another control deck, this time in the hands of Mike Bernat. Cabal Therapy was basically awful for me, since in my control matchups, I knew there were sitting on permission, and would just guess the wrong counterspell.
I rallied after that, beating up on some Charbelcher decks and Natural Order Bant before getting paired against Kurtis Droge playing Faeries in the last round. We did some quick math and realized that we could ID into top 64, but that same math basically meant that we were playing for top 32, which I desperately needed. It also meant that the loser would still make top 64, but we IDed without thinking about it too much, and it was essentially us both conceding.
I’m a fish.
In the last round, Pat Sullivan faced off against Guillaume Wafo-Tapa and Tim Aten commented that it was the real life Jace versus Chandra. In the end, Sulli’s Lava Spikes were too much.
During the middle of Day 2, Brian Six was playing against Tom Martell, and attempted to mind trick him. Martell had the game locked up with Counterbalance and Top, but was at two life. Six feigned defeat and said, “Let’s just get this over with,” and proceeded to cast Chain Lightning on himself. Martell wasn’t falling for any of that and Counterbalanced it.
In another round, Six was facing down five Merfolk and a Jitte with a couple of counters on it, and both players were at low life. Six calmly untapped and Sudden Shocked his opponent out of the game.
I had the pleasure of giving a couple of interviews during the course of the GP, but one of them went awry as you can see here. Chapin needs to get some credit, since clearly he picked a good target. I’m too apathetic to care about revenge, and much too lazy to execute it anyway.
That’s it for me. Next week: Gen Con!
GerryT