Sam had to choose between #SCGINVI and testing for the Pro Tour, but he wanted to share his take on Legacy with this Jeskai Ascendancy playtesting video!
As much as I would have liked to spend last weekend at the Season One Invitational, because I had a great time at the Season Four Invitational in Seattle last year, I spend every release weekend drafting the newest set of Magic, as it has always been an important part of my Pro Tour preparation. At the Season Four Invitational, I played Jeskai Ascendancy Combo in Legacy and I loved the deck, which helped take me to a Top Eight finish. Since then, Treasure Cruise has been banned… but despite that major blow, I think the deck still might have what it takes in Legacy. I thought I’d try it out for you while we wait for Dragons of Tarkir to hit Magic Online.
The first game was close, and I almost certainly would have lost if my opponent had forced the Jeskai Ascendancy instead of the Wind Zendikon. I have absolutely no idea why that happened. I had a plan to beat the hate for the second game, but it was slow and fragile, and ultimately not good enough. In the third game, I stopped recording when I’d won, but my opponent stopped taking actions. Apparently fetching the second Underground Sea was a misclick, which likely cost them the game. So I won the match, but it’s possible that my opponent could have won all three games.
I really didn’t expect to win game one, it all just barely came together, I don’t even know what to say about it. I loved the second game–using my opponent’s Liliana to combo faster was awesome.
This was another game one where I felt totally hopeless, and then somehow just managed to win against all odds. Dig Through Time is a very good card. Game two showed what I really love about this strategy. It was better when I had Treasure Cruise too, but the basic idea is that there are so few good ways to actually draw extra cards that against the control decks, I can just trade cards and then draw ahead of them with Dig Through Time while taking advantage of a much lower land count, so I’m under no pressure to try to win a fast game.
Well, that first game wasn’t really reasonable, and in the second game, my opponent both stuck on one land and didn’t know to Abrupt Decay as soon as possible rather than waiting until my turn, but for what it’s worth, I do think my post sideboard matchup against Elves is quite good.
Overall, the deck was obviously better with Treasure Cruise, and while most other decks were too, the point of this deck was that its cruises were the best cruises. However, now most people don’t even have Dig Through Time, so it’s almost as good. It’s early to say, but this still feels competitive to me.