The Grand Prix isn't even two whole weeks away, and my Gauntlet has grown massive. Right now it's Zoo, New Horizons, Dredge, Goblins, Merfolk, Dreadstill, The Gate, Enchantress, Dragon Stompy, the Rock and possibly something else I forgot.
Note the absence of Storm combo and Reanimator - decks you'll recall Wizards tried last month to push out of the Legacy metagame. You know, Legacy?
Anyway, fail on their part: Reanimator made 3rd out of 138 in Spain two weeks ago - which is to say, just after the ban took effect. Mostly the deck just swaps Mystical Tutor for Personal Tutor, and incorporates the one-of tutor-target Turbulent Dreams both as a discard outlet and to buy time off the opponent's clock.
Tendrils of Agony still kills Legacy players as well: 6/30 with Doomsday here, and 1/28 with Burning Wish here.
So to me the question isn't if those decks will be an issue in Ohio, but to what extent.
In other news, Survival of the Fittest is suddenly high fashion. It finally cracked the $20 mark on StarCity, and outside the familiar Bant lists that combo off Loyal Retainers into Iona, there are some fascinating possibilities. This one uses Veteran Explorer to power out Greater Gargadons li3k whu7, possibly while clearing the way in with a False Prophet. Mul Daya Channelers and Primal Command seem wacky, but who am I to say?
And despite having made no distinct improvements since like 2007, Welder Survival posted 4/42.
Alright.
Another burgeoning archetype is honest control. To wit: Baneslayer Control, piles of Planeswalkers and creature kill, or good old-fashioned Cunning Landstill (1/138! But do you think that's really the Jace he meant? I sorta doubt it).
Next up, devouring opponents with hoards of ravenous zombies is nothing new -- 7/138 btw, and the only diff from my build is my cheap ass plays Citadels over Paradise. But you already realized my list rocked :-P -- but I've wanted someone to plow down MBA-style since Death Baron was printed. Hooray!
Last thing: I usually steer away from decks that play 4x FOW, Goyf, Brainstorm and Swords because they just feel so... I dunno, obvious? Mainstream? But this build found room for a light equipment package, Elspeth, Spell Pierce and a modest tempo suite. Seems fun. I might swap the second Jitte for Basilisk Collar though, I love the 1x Jitte/Collar/Mystic package so.
If I don't write you again before the GP, rip your fourth land off the top with no cantrips and try not to walk into Cursecatcher.
-Dan
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Spinning Bird Kick
Funny how for the last big Legacy event before Mystical Tutor's exit, it didn't ruin a damn thing.
For my money, Tarmogoyf sucked up way more oxygen from players rabbling for the banhammer than the Tutor ever did, and the Wizards team was unscientifically free-stylin' in proclaiming the only reason Reanimator and Tendrils weren't devouring the format is somehow Legacy players are too gentlemanly to fully exploit the Tutor's power. (I mean, have they talked to Legacy players? Plenty of words come to mind, but 'gentleman' isn't one of them.)
All I know is I built a deck that took Reanimator into its meta-account (alongside other completely disparate concerns like tribal aggro) and played an 11-man event where I beat three different Reanimator decks. Only one of those decks even made top 4. Storm combo was also present, and also missed the cut.
To wit: The top four was me (two-drop Rock), New Horizons, U/W Tempo, and the aforementioned lone Reanimator.
In other words, no "gentleman's agreement" kept the meta off Mystical Tutor, but it didn't matter - those decks all lost out. If there was any such unspoken playground rule, it was precluding pure aggro like Zoo or Goblins - that day I don't think I saw either, even though they've cold eaten up StarCity top-8's lately.
Anyway, regarding the unbannings: If Illusionary Mask mattered, wouldn't it have already done something in Vintage other than cheat Phyrexian Dreadnoughts into play? Pleeeaase, Legacy can handle Dreadnoughts.
Then there's Grim Monolith, which continues a push by Wizards to facilitate big-mana mono-brown lists in Legacy. Again, look to Vintage for a clue. That deck's whole plan is to make Magic unplayable for the opponent.
Now, the argument for why cards like Mystical Tutor go (and cards like Tarmogoyf stay) is Magic should be about interacting: combat, trading tricks and removal, etc. Fine. And yeah, I'll admit it's hard to interact when a turn-two 7/7 flyer has turned off half your deck, or your opponent is ramping up Storm count after casting Orim's Chant and you've become his de-facto fluffer, just shuffling his deck for him a lot.
The reason I mention this is, as far as failure to interact goes, I'm not looking forward to the day my Swords to Plowshares can't interact with an opposing Lodestone Golem because Chalice of the Void is set at 1 and my Trygon Predator got wiped by All Is Dust. They're working on it.
Bottom line: Infer what you want about the wisdom behind the latest B/R update. The format will survive, but not because this list-change is saving Legacy; rather, it's just too beautiful a format to keep down.
Have fun,
Dan
-
Decks you should see:
A Counter-Top Thopter list feat. Counterspell and Jace 2.0 took StarCity St. Louis. I had the privilege of losing to this guy in Indiana back in March; he played a turn-two Crypt against me game-one when I was with Reanimator, and killed me under Humility. I knew the winner was him when I heard he used Jeweled Birds for tokens. Classy.
Also in that top 8: MossNought meets Show-and-Tell/Emrakul. When Andy Shugart deck-teched Jedi Emreka in Atlanta he joked that Progenitus was his back-up plan. Here it's like they trumped the 10/10 with a 12/12 back-up plan instead. WTF mate, seems fun.
Back on the subject of decks packing Counterspell and Jace TMS: Nice UBG Landstill list, although wouldn't you rather pay extra for Doom Blade over Ghastly Demise just for the superior artwork? I seriously might. Anyway, bonus: At the same event, Planeswalkers are moving up in the world. Just ask this Zoo player.
Alright, now, bear with me. If a Magic player were just crazy as a loon, and holding Intuition and just one of the following cards:
--Life from the Loam
--Academy Ruins
--Thopter Foundry
--Sword of the Meek
...then the Intuition for the other three would be pretty sweet right? Because that's where I think this Bant list is going, plus along the way he gets to beat you down with decent creatures. He doesn't actually run Force of Will, but unwitting opponents will play around it anyway.
And if activating Knight of the Reliquary is good, how can you go wrong by untapping her and doing it again via Scryb Ranger? Especially when it lets you activate a Weathered Wayfarer in response.
I figure that Gaea's Cradle is what powers out his big dumb gear package. I'm not sure why he plays Birds of Paradise over Noble Hierarch, except that maybe the flying works nicely with equipping the two Swords? I guess it could be a budget concern, but somehow I doubt that... C'mon, admit it: there's something refreshing about a green/white beatdown deck with neither want or need for Tarmogoyf.
For my money, Tarmogoyf sucked up way more oxygen from players rabbling for the banhammer than the Tutor ever did, and the Wizards team was unscientifically free-stylin' in proclaiming the only reason Reanimator and Tendrils weren't devouring the format is somehow Legacy players are too gentlemanly to fully exploit the Tutor's power. (I mean, have they talked to Legacy players? Plenty of words come to mind, but 'gentleman' isn't one of them.)
All I know is I built a deck that took Reanimator into its meta-account (alongside other completely disparate concerns like tribal aggro) and played an 11-man event where I beat three different Reanimator decks. Only one of those decks even made top 4. Storm combo was also present, and also missed the cut.
To wit: The top four was me (two-drop Rock), New Horizons, U/W Tempo, and the aforementioned lone Reanimator.
In other words, no "gentleman's agreement" kept the meta off Mystical Tutor, but it didn't matter - those decks all lost out. If there was any such unspoken playground rule, it was precluding pure aggro like Zoo or Goblins - that day I don't think I saw either, even though they've cold eaten up StarCity top-8's lately.
Anyway, regarding the unbannings: If Illusionary Mask mattered, wouldn't it have already done something in Vintage other than cheat Phyrexian Dreadnoughts into play? Pleeeaase, Legacy can handle Dreadnoughts.
Then there's Grim Monolith, which continues a push by Wizards to facilitate big-mana mono-brown lists in Legacy. Again, look to Vintage for a clue. That deck's whole plan is to make Magic unplayable for the opponent.
Now, the argument for why cards like Mystical Tutor go (and cards like Tarmogoyf stay) is Magic should be about interacting: combat, trading tricks and removal, etc. Fine. And yeah, I'll admit it's hard to interact when a turn-two 7/7 flyer has turned off half your deck, or your opponent is ramping up Storm count after casting Orim's Chant and you've become his de-facto fluffer, just shuffling his deck for him a lot.
The reason I mention this is, as far as failure to interact goes, I'm not looking forward to the day my Swords to Plowshares can't interact with an opposing Lodestone Golem because Chalice of the Void is set at 1 and my Trygon Predator got wiped by All Is Dust. They're working on it.
Bottom line: Infer what you want about the wisdom behind the latest B/R update. The format will survive, but not because this list-change is saving Legacy; rather, it's just too beautiful a format to keep down.
Have fun,
Dan
-
Decks you should see:
A Counter-Top Thopter list feat. Counterspell and Jace 2.0 took StarCity St. Louis. I had the privilege of losing to this guy in Indiana back in March; he played a turn-two Crypt against me game-one when I was with Reanimator, and killed me under Humility. I knew the winner was him when I heard he used Jeweled Birds for tokens. Classy.
Also in that top 8: MossNought meets Show-and-Tell/Emrakul. When Andy Shugart deck-teched Jedi Emreka in Atlanta he joked that Progenitus was his back-up plan. Here it's like they trumped the 10/10 with a 12/12 back-up plan instead. WTF mate, seems fun.
Back on the subject of decks packing Counterspell and Jace TMS: Nice UBG Landstill list, although wouldn't you rather pay extra for Doom Blade over Ghastly Demise just for the superior artwork? I seriously might. Anyway, bonus: At the same event, Planeswalkers are moving up in the world. Just ask this Zoo player.
Alright, now, bear with me. If a Magic player were just crazy as a loon, and holding Intuition and just one of the following cards:
--Life from the Loam
--Academy Ruins
--Thopter Foundry
--Sword of the Meek
...then the Intuition for the other three would be pretty sweet right? Because that's where I think this Bant list is going, plus along the way he gets to beat you down with decent creatures. He doesn't actually run Force of Will, but unwitting opponents will play around it anyway.
And if activating Knight of the Reliquary is good, how can you go wrong by untapping her and doing it again via Scryb Ranger? Especially when it lets you activate a Weathered Wayfarer in response.
I figure that Gaea's Cradle is what powers out his big dumb gear package. I'm not sure why he plays Birds of Paradise over Noble Hierarch, except that maybe the flying works nicely with equipping the two Swords? I guess it could be a budget concern, but somehow I doubt that... C'mon, admit it: there's something refreshing about a green/white beatdown deck with neither want or need for Tarmogoyf.
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