“Nothin’ beat surprise—‘cept rock.”
Finally, a return to Islands. This was a homecoming that was far too long in coming. I’d only been playing Wolf Run because I broke my arm and didn’t want to have to play long, drawn-out matches at a Super IQ with a control deck back in Knoxville. Flash forward to present day, where the only decks I lost to at the SCG Open in Atlanta and the Grand Prix in Orlando were decks packing Delver of Secrets. I finally wanted to get my hands “wet” again with blue mana sources and play U/B Control. The day before I left to go to our nation’s capital, I had a quick chat with our friendly neighborhood SCG Player of the Year Gerry Thompson.
Me: “So, I want to play U/B; what do you think?”
Gerry: “Sounds terrible. Do you want to win?”
Me: “Uh…yeah?”
Gerry: “Then play Delver.”
Creatures (15)
Lands (11)
Spells (35)
I had never touched this deck before, despite loving aggressive decks with Mana Leak. (Remember Dan Jordan with RUG? Yeah, check out who got 2nd in the StarCityGames.com tournament in Nashville before he won two back-to-back “5K”s, back when it was called U/R/G Titan Ramp.) I mainly scoured the results from GP Orlando for a list. Playing fewer than four Geists of Saint Traft seemed absolutely incorrect, and while Runechanter’s Pike was sweet, Sword of Makes Your Unblockable Creature Whack Your Opponent’s Life Total into Oblivion was even sweeter. While War and Peace may be the “worst” sword in Legacy, it is currently the best in Standard, especially while white is the best color.
The maindeck Revoke Existence was a concession to the mirror, as the matchup is primarily decided by whoever has the equipment advantage, followed by Geist advantage. It also gives you an out in your maindeck to Curse of Death’s Hold. I absolutely detest not having an out to a card that makes it nigh impossible for you to win.
Going forward I would probably cut the Pike and add in another removal spell, or possibly another Plains. I saw multiple matches decided by a player not having access to mana to cast their white spells. I suppose we could all adhere to the Gavin Verhey School of Learning and just add that extra land so we are able to actually play the darn game and make decisions!
The Swords of Feast and Famine were for the B/G Ramp Deck, which I found out was not a very good matchup. Thankfully I dodged it during the actual tournament.
Fellow Roanokean Todd Anderson came up with the idea of using Porcelain Legionnaire the night before the tournament, harking back to a previous version of Illusions he had tested. I wasn’t sold on a creature that would make you want to flip tables if it ever got Gut Shot or Vapor Snagged. But hey, he ended up as the one with the trophy, so maybe there’s some merit there…
Moving forward, I would be wary of this deck, as multiple flying 2/2s produced by Lingering Souls combined with an anthem and cheap, hasty creatures à la Strangleroot Geist are things tempo-based decks are not set up well to tangle with.
I played primarily the mirror and U/W Humans, which was most of the field, as shown by the top 16 decklists. I also played against U/B and U/W Control. But my Spirits and Insects proved too hard for them to, well, control. My very first round I faced the Puresteel Paladin / Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas Terrible Mana deck. I found my single Revoke Existence in my opening hand and wondered if it would be amazing or punish me for my desperate metagaming. After he cast a Flayer Husk on turn one, I chuckled to myself and braced for my seeming like a genius. Naturally I didn’t seem so smart when my life total was reduced to zero and my lands in play consisted of 6 Islands and 3 Moorland Haunts…
The mirrors played out rather unexcitingly, as whoever had the more SoWaPieces or Geistmen won. Invisible Stalker is on the chopping block, but those times where you go T2 Stalker, T3 Sword, and your opponent doesn’t Mana Leak it, the game is pretty much over, and there’s not a single thing they can do about it. Good game, thanks for playing.
Humans is pretty much a coin flip. If you flip an early Delver and cast a plethora of Vapor Snags, you’re alright. But those games where they empty their hand of one-drops or land a T2 Grand Abolisher and go to town with their larger creatures (thanks to their Pure Honor) are difficult ones to wretch the momentum back in your favor. This deck is quite unlike Rocky Balboa in the fact that if it gets knocked down, it’s hard trying to catch back up.
Nope, I’m just not seeing it.
After winning eight matches in a row (not a single one was a cakewalk; I was fairly lucky, and many of my opponents were not as lucky), I was ecstatic to be in the “Winner’s Circle” once again! Maybe this time I won’t lose in the quarterfinals after not dropping a match in the Swiss portion, like I had my previous two times… After I gave my best Hadouken imitation for the top 8 picture, I was ready to do battle against the love child of Humans and Delvers, the deck that Sam Black took to an impressive finish at the recent Grand Prix. After losing games where he had multiple Geists to kill mine and Sword advantage (despite me having more of both), I Parished to his Champions.
You don’t even want to see my Shinkuu Tatsumaki Senpukyaku.
Ah well, another day, another tournament! This was the first tournament I decided to shelve my Counterbalances and try a new archetype, COMBO!!! I was frustrated with my previous Legacy finishes, and after the long run with ramp in Standard (something I’d never really done before), I figured it was time to broaden my horizons, let loose, and spend all day in a building with tons of nerds staring at DIFFERENT pieces of cardboard. How exciting!
Creatures (7)
Lands (20)
Spells (33)
- 4 Brainstorm
- 4 Show and Tell
- 4 Force of Will
- 3 Intuition
- 3 Daze
- 2 Misdirection
- 4 Sneak Attack
- 3 Lotus Petal
- 4 Ponder
- 2 Spell Pierce
Sideboard
My good friend Mateen Mansoor (winner of the Draft Open in Atlanta!) played Sneak and Show at the Charlotte Invitational. Overall the deck is fairly new, as Emrakul and Progenitus have only been around in recent years. And besides the short run the Japanese gave it at Worlds, it hasn’t put up many good finishes, a fact that I suspect will change. As far as “combo” decks go, this is a pretty resilient one. It’s only two cards, and you have about eight copies of each side of the combo (a way to cheat your fatty into play and the required fatty). It dodges graveyard hate, artifact hate, and many of the ways decks try to keep things fair. Ensnaring Bridge does dull your day, but who even plays that card? Besides, it’s not like you don’t have counterspells and artifact removal.
You have two different ways to win, with two different creatures. These subtle differences in your linear strategy make things hard for the opponent to get a handle on. The Misdirections are essentially two more Force of Wills you have at your disposal, and the rest of the deck is pretty “stock.” I made the sideboard about three minutes before the tournament started. The Submerges were to not only stem aggro beats but were primarily to keep Knight of the Reliquaries from digging up Karakas (Karakases?) after they Show (or Tell) it in. I was paranoid of Affinity and MUD, hence the Shattering Sprees. And Diverts were there to combat black discard spells. All of them except for Duress get swerved back to the caster, and they HAVE to choose a card to discard! Wheeee!!
Against Maverick, the current flavor of Legacy creature decks to hate out the Insectile Aberration decks (he’s more often flipped out in this format than in Standard), this deck has a very good matchup, as Gaddock Teeg doesn’t stop Show and Tell, and the only thing that matters is their Karakas to bounce Emrakul and Enlightened Tutor for Phyrexian Metamorph to stop your Show-and-Tell creature. In fact pretty much every creature matchup is good for you, as they can’t do much while you’re bending the fabric of reality to call forth Cthulian monsters and hydra-gods to face your opponent’s girls with swords and zoo animals.
Against control decks, you have far more countermagic than they do, and most of their spells don’t matter. Just do your thing, and I guarantee it will be better than what they can do.
Bad matchups are against decks with discard (hence my playing Misdirections and Diverts—even then I’m still using cards to deal with their non-counterspell cards, something I am very unhappy doing), Pox, and decks with opposing fatties. This can be seen when I played against the mirror. He didn’t do anything, so I cast a third-turn Show and Tell, feeling pretty confident about my chances, what with my double Force of Will backup. Surprisingly, it resolved! I flopped down my Progenitus…and he flopped down his Emrakul… Yeah, sick life.
The deck is not only insanely fun but also comes with all the rewarding choices that come with Ponder decks in Legacy such as when to “go for it” and when to hold back, or how exactly to go about executing your plan of attack. My recent time playing Wolf Run in Standard taught me it is often correct to just start running out your spells against potential countermagic. If they have it, they have it, and you keep trying. If they don’t…you win! What’s there to lose? Especially since if they counterspell your Show and Tell or Sneak Attack, it’s not like you’re losing card advantage or anything; you simply traded spells! Of course oftentimes you will want to wait until you have that extra mana to cast, or play around, Spell Pierce or to wait until they devote resources to the board in order to strike.
Sneak Attack beats Red Elemental Blast, sorcery-speed removal, and Jace Bounce┢, but it is more expensive, and if you tap out to cast it, it could potentially be removed before you get a chance to use it. Show and Tell can lose to any of those things but is cheaper, requires only one Abomination of Reality, as it doesn’t have to be sacrificed, and is generally better. Be careful they don’t conjure an Oblivion Ring or Knight of the Reliquary that tutors up Karakas to rescind your Emrakul back into the æther. Your adversary can’t use a clone on them off Show and Tell, as they enter the battlefield simultaneously, and clones have to know what they’re entering the battlefield as BEFORE they actually do it.
The beauty of Legacy can expressed in the fact that I played a different deck every single round. I played against the mirror, The Perfect Storm, Lands, Enchantress, Elves, Zoo, Mono Red, BUG Control, and Maverick. I lost to Storm piloted by Robin Meeker-Cummings and BUG Control piloted by coworker Nick Spagnolo, both of whom top 8’d and both of whom are very good players. (Although in G1 of both of those matches, I died with over ten mana available to me.)
Playing against all the non-blue decks was almost comical. Most games I would bring an Eldritch Monster of unspeakable horror to class, while they tried bringing Lightning Bolts and tiny green creatures. All you have to do is protect yourself from the 2-3 cards in their deck that actually matter and not die in the 3-4 turns it takes you to invoke your spell. This deck has an insane aggro matchup, and I wondered why I had tortured myself with Counterbalance headaches for so long. I honestly don’t know why people are playing Reanimator over this. Sure, Entomb adds consistency, but this is so much more resilient. They often board into a bad version of this deck anyway! I am for sure piloting this at Richmond and strongly recommend you do too—that is if you want to win at Legacy and have fun doing it. It even dodges Grafdigger’s cage. Ding!
In the end, I finished 10th, and while it wasn’t my Top 8 finish like the previous day, I should still be happy with it. Both tournaments started with my losing in hilarious fashion in the very first game. However, I buckled down, tried to just play good Magic, and resisted the thought of “I’m almost there” because when I see the goal in sight, I tend to trip and fall flat onto my face. In all fairness I won’t be truly happy with myself until I actually get a dang trophy in my hands. I did have a good showing though and had a lot of fun. I just gotta keep Delvin’.
Thanks for reading!
LinukaX on MODO and Twitter