Legacy is a format where a two-card combo can deck your opponent or cheat an unstoppable 15/15 into play, and yet such decks are only marginally competitive.
Folks argue if you're doing nothing broken you're doing nothing period.
I don't buy that. Take Zoo and Merfolk as examples. They play dudes and they turn those dudes sideways. Maybe along the way they hit a curve of islandwalking Muscle Slivers via Aether Vial while Wastelanding and Dazing your attempts to develop. Maybe they drop a 4/5 for 1G, draw three burn spells off Sylvan Library and sacrifice two mountains to kill your ass.
And yeah, that's rough and stuff. But my point is Legacy is not a format defined by who can stick Iona first and effectively make the other player quit Magic.
(onward)
Maybe that's why I like Rock decks lately. They're not doing anything particularly effing insane, but on the whole they are raping your hand, fucking the board, dropping better guys than you have, and ratcheting up card advantage all the while. I dunno what the last three cards of this list should have been, but it's a pretty solid framework to build from.
It's weird to me how Grim Lavamancer tends to wind up alongside Tarmogoyf, but there's no denying it's good. Last summer I had a deck very similar to this, except with Cloud of Faeries into Standstill into Ninja of the Deep Hours, and running white for Swords to Plowshares instead of red for Lightning Bolt. It was effing hard to deal with, but by no means would I call any of it broken.
Speaking of pretty far from broken, I'm pretty amazed mono-blue control has been fighting its way up the lists lately, but you don't hear me complaining. See also: Soldiers. How in the hell? Nevermind, whatever, it's awesome. Shit, Landstill might not be as dead as once seemed either.
Alright, this is bugging me: the Bant Charm decks with Cold-Eyed Selkie are often seen running ONE Brainstorm. Are these budget Vintage decks that folks randomly sling in Legacy events? What the hell? And I'm surprised by the inclusion of Lightning Greaves, but I fully intend to try it and in fact hope to like it.
And while we're on the subject of decks sporting Stoneforge packages and Sylvan Library, look at this. It's like Land Hax without the Fathom Seer and Force of Will. So basically it's like if someone reworked Land Hax in a form I could fully embrace.
Anyway, to close out our theme of allegedly "fair" decks - those that don't cast three Cruel Ultimatums and a Bogarden Hellkite on turn two - I'll leave you with one silly combo: Legacy Hive Mind.
Yep.
-Dan
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
5-3 at Starcity Atlanta with GWb Legacy Homebrew
I knew going into Atlanta that I wanted to roll tribal aggro like Merfolk, mix disruption with a passable beatdown clock, and not fall total prey to the rampant graveyard hate I figured everyone would be siding. Oh, and not be zoo. Plus if I could put my Karakas (Karaki?) to work against Iona, all the better. I hate losing to Counterbalance, but my hope was to either dodge it or stick a crucial Thoughtseize or Pridgemage fast and swarm them from there.
I also aspired to pack the Iona/Retainers combo myself, without going to the trouble of playing islands. Playing islands helps Merfolk, and usually means you’re also running Force of Will and Brainstorm. Those cards are too skill intensive for me - Just being honest, I don’t practice enough to 2-for-1 myself in a consistently favorable way using FOW. Instead of being the paintbrush, I wanted to play the wrench, and that meant instead of FOW and Brainstorm I wanted Thoughtseize and Dark Confidant.
I’d been tinkering with a Survival-based list that was probably trying to do too much: that is, it ran Birds of Paradise but couldn’t find room for Cabal Therapy. Again, with an aim toward trading out the scalpel for a hammer, the night before, we cut the Survival and the Iona/Retainers package, arriving at this:
4 Mother of Runes
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Qasali Pridgemage
3 Gaddock Teeg
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Serra Avenger
2 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Basilisk Collar (!)
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Karakas
3 Wasteland
7 Fetch
7 Dual
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
SB:
3 Krosan Grip
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Extirpate
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Kitchen Finks
Match 1:
Wu is a guy playing U/B Reanimator, with a twist.
He was super nice and seemed happy to chat. I’m not actually smart enough to get inside my opponent’s head by making conversation during the match, but it makes things more interesting than punting in silence.
Game one I lose the die-roll and he opens with land, go. Yes! I open with Thoughtseize and take his reanimation spell before unloading fast beats. He Brainstorms a couple times, rearranging his top cards, and starts to go off – he puts an Emrakul in his graveyard, then announces he screwed something up, shuffles his graveyard into his library, thinks some more and scoops.
Game two he Thoughtseizes me on the play, then once again I stick a few beaters before he’s close to going off. By now I’ve drawn Faerie Macabre and am not taking him very seriously when once again he Entombs for Emrakul. “Trigger on the stack?” he asks, offering priority. My premature ass dives into his ruse: “Trigger on the stack, RFG Emrakul.” He responds with Goryo’s Vengeance. “I have to read this.”
Go ahead and look that card up yourself; I’ll wait.
It’s an instant speed Kamigawa Corpse Dance. Yeah. He gets a hasty Emrakul… you’ve seen Emrakul right? The guy that 15’s you while making you sack six permanents? Hurtful. I read his shit. “I… just misplayed.”
Four guys watching our game laugh in agreement.
Okay, fine, so he punted one and now I punted one too. My deck is tuned to aggravate him, there’s still game 3; move on in life and get in there.
Because of his Thoughtseize, he’s seen that I board Diabolic Edict, so he knows naming black with Iona might be smart. He succeeds in this endeavor before I manage to gear up Serra Avenger with Basilisk Collar, effectively triggering a staring contest between the two angels. We play draw-go for a few turns and I’m close to Vialing in Knight of the Reliquary to fetch out Karakas when he goes off again with another hasty Emrakul.
Yeah.
Games: 1-2. Matches: 0-1.
Round Two: Aaron with random MGA.
This is where I got a game loss because some judge thought my registered sideboard list said 5 Faerie Macabres. As awesome as that would be, I asked him “Is my head bleeding?” To which he replied “Does this look like the other 3’s you wrote down?” Whatever. I’ll just plan to 2-0 here and it’ll be fine.
Aaron played mono-green with stuff like Llanowar Elves, Treetop Village and Ant Queen. Hooray. I don’t remember a huge amount about this match, except that I played sloppy once I had Umezawa’s Jitte AND Basilisk Collar in play, even though they were just gearing up Teeg and Bob, who are not exactly my best beaters. I think I Thoughtseized an Overrun early on, and dipped down to 1 at some point?
Anyway. The Collar traded some dude for his Ant Queen, who was wearing Blanchwood Armor as like an 11/11, and Jitte counters then chomped down some ant tokens. Prettymuch the story of the match.
Other than that, I only remember accomplishing one half-smart play: at 2 life, I peeled a Jitte counter to gain life BEFORE revealing to Bob. I only mention it because later on I watched my teammate call a judge and blow a guy out this way. Parker said he probably would’ve lost that game, but the guy with the active Jitte hadn’t planned to flip Tombstalker with Bob. Lolz.
Side note: For the sake of science, when totaling up wins, I’m ignoring the aforementioned game loss from the judge.
Games: 3-2. Matches: 1-1.
Round Three: Jedi Emreka
Did I mention I’m the only member of our crew who isn’t playing stupid “Do I just win here?” combo? Four of the guys I’m with are playing Eureka. As in “Eureka/Show and Tell, put Progenitus/Emrakul into play, I have FOW/Daze backup and I hate you.” Part of the reason I’m mainboarding Karakas and boarding Diabolic Edict is because fuck those fools. That plus Dustin seems smart-ish and he told me to. Hey speaking of Dustin, he’s playing that deck I was just hating on, like, against me, in Round 3. Lol. Lol!
Playing your friends for stakes cold sucks so I offer to just draw with him, but he insists it’s important that he crush me if he’s going to prize out. I came to play, so I guess that’s okay too.
Game one I lose the die-roll and then mull to six. My six has a Karakas in it, which is fantastic as long as he cheats in Emrakul and not Progenitus. Dustin does me right with a Show and Tell for the Big E., and I show him Karakas. Game two!
Is basically the same story, except this time I got to Thoughtseize him, his cantrips gave him garbage and his Show and Tell for Emrakul was a top-deck. It lets me cheat Knight of the Reliquary into play, and Dustin knows that means I’m getting Karakas on my turn. He calls me a “soulless witch” and scoops.
Games: 5-2. Matches: 2-1.
Hey now, I know what you’re thinking, and before you start, just don’t, okay? Don’t. Don’t feel bad for Dustin. I offered to draw with him, remember? And then rolled him with his own good ideas from when he helped me tune my pile. Anyway like a month ago Dustin bought some idiot’s collection for $7500 and just sold it to Starcity in Atlanta for $18k+. What I am saying is that Dustin had an okay weekend even though I fucked him over. Eventually he moved on to bigger and better things, like dropping, and later on buying me a BK veggie burger. Thanks Dustin!
Round 4
This is an older guy from Florida, who appropriately goes by the name Skip, as in ‘Skip says he’s drifted in and out of Magic over the years, and only recently came back.’ He’s happy to think out loud with me, which is enjoyable. Plus at some point he said he has cable and I can visit him in Florida. He seemed hetero so I’d call it a net gain.
Anyway I open with Thoughtseize and see he has an Urborg, Dark Depths, a Living Wish, and two Hymns to Tourach. I’m holding a fairly aggressive hand plus Swords to Plowshares, so I figure I’ll let him waste a couple turns getting Marit Lage out and then Swords it, provided he doesn’t shred my whole grip first; I choose a Hymn.
Sure enough, he Wishes for a Vampire Hexmage and immediately goes unprotected to make Marit Lage. I kill it and start beating him down with a Bob and a Goyf. He has a lot of extra life to bleed off while trying to top-deck, and I’m reluctant to overcommit and beat him down faster for fear of Pernicious Deed, but eventually he scoops.
I don’t remember much about games two and three except that in two he managed to stick Marit Lage, and judging from our life totals in game three I opened on Thoughtseize again, stuck a Bob and Swords’d something. Skip’s life total goes 26, 15, 8, done.
Games: 7-3, Matches: 3-1.
And in case you wonder, yes, I did ask afterward, and Skip did indeed run Deeds; he just never saw them.
Also, it turned out I had game three in the bag no matter what; he cast Living Wish for Hexmage in game two, then forgot to take it back out for game three. At some point he resolved a Wish in Game three, looked through his sideboard, said nothing, looked through his sideboard again, then handed himself Dark Depths, which he was already holding a copy of, simply because there was no Hexmage left to grab in his 14-card sideboard. Heyyy…
Round Five: Justin
Justin is a nice guy and probably would’ve been more talkative if I hadn’t opened Mom, Bob, Stoneforge Mystic, Jitte+equip against his Goblins deck. I remember this match taking longer than it should have – at one point he was able to Ringerleader for FOUR but wouldn’t let me chest-bump him with the +3 card-advantage on the stack.
At some other point I had a big/big Knight of the Reliquary on the field and he Vialed in Siege-Gang Commander to boost his goblin count high enough to kill the KotR by cycling Gempalm Incinerator. Plays like that were good, but Dark Confidant stayed alive too long and I eventually killed him with two Tarmogoyfs, who each enjoyed an additional +1/+1 because Justin was too nice and reminded me Warren Weirding provides Tribal.
I think in game two he top-decked a Vial on his second turn, late to the party, and then when he missed a land-drop I blew it up with Pridemage and further aggravated his development with a random Wasteland. My scrawled life count indicates I persisted Kitchen Finks as well; I think they made him sad.
Games: 9-3, Matches: 4-1.
Afterward Justin’s friend told me Justin had more possible outs and just got on tilt and punted. Maybe it was me talking too much and getting inside his head? Or maybe his can-win attitude is just relatively fragile; that’s what his friend seemed to think. Whatever, sign here, nothing personal guy.
Round Six: Chris.
Hey, remember that time somewhere in the preceding 1600 words where I said I never practice and am a basically shitty player? These things matter when you’re at the big-kids table with the other 4-1s, seated among the top 20 players in a field of 200.
Chris was no fun to talk to. Like, he was at the big kids table and he knew it and he took that seriously. If we were at work or in court that would be respectable, but I do not believe in having a job or showing up for court in Atlanta. Maybe Chris writes some column I’m too cheap to pay to read, and perhaps he was miffed I didn’t ask him to sign whatever card bears his likeness? Actually, let me start this whole paragraph over: Chris was no fun to sit across from and talk at.
Anyway. Chris was playing Progenitus Bant except with Knight of the Reliquary in lieu of Rhox War Monk. I stuck an early Teeg against him, which was a big part of my plan against his deck: keep him off Natural Order and Force of Will by sticking Teeg, then blank his Dazes by living past turn four, and then win because while we both have Goyf/KotR, I also have the benefit of Mom and equipment and Bob. Sounds good, until we remember that my plan against Counter-Top (read: the other half of Chris’s deck) is to basically have him dead-on-board before he can disable 2/3 of my deck with his awful, frustrating CounterTop combo.
Anyway. I Thoughtseize a D-Top early on, ignoring FOW and Natural Order because I have Teeg and Mom down, then he takes forever wondering if he should FOW something but I feel like I’d be a penis if I were to point out I have a Teeg down rendering his FOW unplayable, so I wait until AFTER he’s decided to try to FOW. No sir.
We proceed to play draw-go for a very long time, and he thins his deck with KotR while I try to use mine to Wasteland him down, but he just sacks whatever land I target in response and finds another fetch. Soon his KotR is bigger than mine, but because I have Mom out the staring contest continues.
During this period I draw no Bobs and he amasses four Goyfs to my one. I do some cute blocking using Karakas to save Teeg while chumping, but Chris ultimately deads me.
Game two was pretty infuriating. He stuck a fast Countertop and even though I boarded in Krosan Grip I’m taken down pretty quickly. I’m not sure how Dark Confidant came up in conversation afterward, but he sounds genuinely surprised when he’s all “Oh, you play that card?!”
Games: 9-5, Matches: 4-2.
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Suuuure, shittalk the guy and your suck draws cos he 2-0’d your bitch ass.” And you’re basically correct. Later when Chris and I passed in the hall and I asked his record he actually sounded like he was about to cry when he said he’d lost another round, meaning he probably wasn’t in the running for Top 8 anymore. And for some reason my reflex was to switch to a high, whiny voice and answer “Waaah” as I turned for the men’s room. Whatever. When they announced standings and he was tied for like 11th (still in the money) he acted all huffy and yelled out “Oh, of course!” like that’s juuust his luck. Not to be a jackass, but probably in fact, IT IS.
Shittalk shittalk shittalk. I’ve wasted over 2000 words just getting 2/3 of the way through a report about going 5-3, and you’re still reading this? Really? REALLY? Go pet a kitty and go swimming or something. Alt-tabbing over to pornography doesn’t count.
Go on. Get! Scram!
…
Aww, you came back! There, isn’t that nice? Less sticky.
Mmm, yeah.
Round 7 with Jacob.
Jacob was a lot of fun to banter with. He was playing Goblins using Zendikar Fetches to find Sacred Foundry, I think for Path to Exile? I don’t remember a lot about this match-up, but my life-sheet seems to indicate game one I cast Thoughtseize early, Swords’d a Lackey, traded one attack and then ran him over.
Game two he mulls before drawing seven again. I point this out without raising my hand or yelling but he prettymuch immediately calls the judge on himself. I feel kind of bad for this, because people let my stupid ass slide about dumb mistakes all the time, and I missed my opportunity to intervene here and pay that forward to Jacob. Anyway, he gets his warning, then proceeds to stomp me fairly handily for game two.
Game Three I’ve been waiting to tell you about for almost two weeks.
Game three I mull to six before keeping a hand of Vial, Bob, Mystic, Avenger, and two Wastelands.
I decide that Fuck It and keep, because I forgot he probably fucks me with turn-one Lackey and now it’s too late. I go Wasteland Vial pass, and sure enough, he sticks the Lackey.
Next turn I add a counter to Vial, play my second Wasteland and say go. It should be all over, right? I kept a shitty hand against a deck that goes hell of dumb on turn two, and now I lose, right?
He swings in and triggers Lackey to put down… another Lackey? Yeah no dude for real he just wasn’t holding goddamn anything.
So I proceed to whiff on my third land drop,start Vialing out dudes and just hope I live long enough to equip the Jitte I’m fetching with Mystic, that is, before he finds a Ringleader and SGC to cheat in. I think he realizes I’m light on land here and hits my Wasteland with one of his own, and then starts tapping my remaining land down with Rishadan Port.
On my upkeep, I remember that FUCK IT and Waste his Port. I now have zero lands, active Vial on two, some two-cost dudes, and he has Goblin Lackies and not very much land either.
Top-deck war, GO! Jacob proceeds to rip not shit, and Bob gives me all the help I need. What can I say? I didn’t build this deck to show off what an amazing player I am.
Games: 11-6. Matches: 5-2.
Final round: Eight. With Ian.
I’m finishing out of the money, I’m tired, Ian is fun to talk to and probably plays a lot more Legacy than me, and we’re both in GWB. His deck is full of weird choices. I Thoughtseize him early and take some random threat instead of Armageddon in hopes of racing, but then lose my Pridemage because I have to blow up a singleton Crucible of Worlds to keep Ian off Wastelock. Judging from my notes he Swords’s my other guy here.
At some point he sticks the Armageddon and I should have the upper hand except he then gets out a Kor Haven. Like I have equipment on dudes but it accomplishes fuck all. Ian tells me he should’ve blown me the fuck out at this point but botched and will explain later.
A weird stalemate evolves at some point in which I have to call a judge to explain to me how amazing Mom is with Basilisk Collar at killing Ian’s giant swinging Knight of the Reliquary. I do kooky shit to cling to life, like block with a Stoneforge Mystic, Vial in another one to find a Jitte, use the blocking one to cheat in Jitte before she dies. It was probably more of a danger of cool things type situation than a real tech play. I was tired and more stupid than usual. Ian finally sticks a Tabernacle at Pendrill Vale – which he says he should have fetched almost immediately after Armageddon - and since I never really recovered from Armageddon anyway, I scoop.
I don’t remember a goddamn thing about game two except losing. My friends tell me I made horrible moves, like “reveal to Dark Confidant, lose some life, forget my draw phase.” It was pretty hard to care; time to get in the car and drive home through the Appalachians during a ridiculous storm to the newly flood-ravaged Nashville. You’re welcome!
Final record: 11-8, matches 5-3.
As to the list, I like Mom but I’m not sure she’s good enough. Still, she does important shit like keep Bob alive long enough to matter, she makes Basilisk Collar even more awesome, she lets Serra Avenger stall Iona forever, and she helps solve Goyf stalemates.
Gaddock. Teeg. Is. House.
Sword of Fire and Ice costs too much fucking mana and doesn’t help enough when it matters. I’m thinking of cutting it and one Stoneforge Mystic for two Maelstrom Pulses. Adding another KotR and incorporating Bojuka Bog into the 75 might not be a miserable choice either.
Props:
Talkative opponents, for making punting fun.
Parker, for making top 16 with a deck his friends handed him and keeping all the money anyway.
Dustin, for help tuning and for Burger King.
Ryan, for making top 16 in the standard.
Slops:
Parker, see above.
Whoever the fuck snored in the room.
Me and Tacosnape, for not meeting each other in person.
You, for reading 3,000 words about a random homebrew that only went 5-3 in Atlanta. That’s something I would do.
Nashville, for flooding and causing me to take two weeks to write this.
EDIT: Props, me, for rushing the end of this tournament report to go dancing. With a girl! Gasp!
Cheers
-DP
I also aspired to pack the Iona/Retainers combo myself, without going to the trouble of playing islands. Playing islands helps Merfolk, and usually means you’re also running Force of Will and Brainstorm. Those cards are too skill intensive for me - Just being honest, I don’t practice enough to 2-for-1 myself in a consistently favorable way using FOW. Instead of being the paintbrush, I wanted to play the wrench, and that meant instead of FOW and Brainstorm I wanted Thoughtseize and Dark Confidant.
I’d been tinkering with a Survival-based list that was probably trying to do too much: that is, it ran Birds of Paradise but couldn’t find room for Cabal Therapy. Again, with an aim toward trading out the scalpel for a hammer, the night before, we cut the Survival and the Iona/Retainers package, arriving at this:
4 Mother of Runes
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Qasali Pridgemage
3 Gaddock Teeg
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Serra Avenger
2 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Basilisk Collar (!)
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Karakas
3 Wasteland
7 Fetch
7 Dual
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
SB:
3 Krosan Grip
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Extirpate
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Kitchen Finks
Match 1:
Wu is a guy playing U/B Reanimator, with a twist.
He was super nice and seemed happy to chat. I’m not actually smart enough to get inside my opponent’s head by making conversation during the match, but it makes things more interesting than punting in silence.
Game one I lose the die-roll and he opens with land, go. Yes! I open with Thoughtseize and take his reanimation spell before unloading fast beats. He Brainstorms a couple times, rearranging his top cards, and starts to go off – he puts an Emrakul in his graveyard, then announces he screwed something up, shuffles his graveyard into his library, thinks some more and scoops.
Game two he Thoughtseizes me on the play, then once again I stick a few beaters before he’s close to going off. By now I’ve drawn Faerie Macabre and am not taking him very seriously when once again he Entombs for Emrakul. “Trigger on the stack?” he asks, offering priority. My premature ass dives into his ruse: “Trigger on the stack, RFG Emrakul.” He responds with Goryo’s Vengeance. “I have to read this.”
Go ahead and look that card up yourself; I’ll wait.
It’s an instant speed Kamigawa Corpse Dance. Yeah. He gets a hasty Emrakul… you’ve seen Emrakul right? The guy that 15’s you while making you sack six permanents? Hurtful. I read his shit. “I… just misplayed.”
Four guys watching our game laugh in agreement.
Okay, fine, so he punted one and now I punted one too. My deck is tuned to aggravate him, there’s still game 3; move on in life and get in there.
Because of his Thoughtseize, he’s seen that I board Diabolic Edict, so he knows naming black with Iona might be smart. He succeeds in this endeavor before I manage to gear up Serra Avenger with Basilisk Collar, effectively triggering a staring contest between the two angels. We play draw-go for a few turns and I’m close to Vialing in Knight of the Reliquary to fetch out Karakas when he goes off again with another hasty Emrakul.
Yeah.
Games: 1-2. Matches: 0-1.
Round Two: Aaron with random MGA.
This is where I got a game loss because some judge thought my registered sideboard list said 5 Faerie Macabres. As awesome as that would be, I asked him “Is my head bleeding?” To which he replied “Does this look like the other 3’s you wrote down?” Whatever. I’ll just plan to 2-0 here and it’ll be fine.
Aaron played mono-green with stuff like Llanowar Elves, Treetop Village and Ant Queen. Hooray. I don’t remember a huge amount about this match, except that I played sloppy once I had Umezawa’s Jitte AND Basilisk Collar in play, even though they were just gearing up Teeg and Bob, who are not exactly my best beaters. I think I Thoughtseized an Overrun early on, and dipped down to 1 at some point?
Anyway. The Collar traded some dude for his Ant Queen, who was wearing Blanchwood Armor as like an 11/11, and Jitte counters then chomped down some ant tokens. Prettymuch the story of the match.
Other than that, I only remember accomplishing one half-smart play: at 2 life, I peeled a Jitte counter to gain life BEFORE revealing to Bob. I only mention it because later on I watched my teammate call a judge and blow a guy out this way. Parker said he probably would’ve lost that game, but the guy with the active Jitte hadn’t planned to flip Tombstalker with Bob. Lolz.
Side note: For the sake of science, when totaling up wins, I’m ignoring the aforementioned game loss from the judge.
Games: 3-2. Matches: 1-1.
Round Three: Jedi Emreka
Did I mention I’m the only member of our crew who isn’t playing stupid “Do I just win here?” combo? Four of the guys I’m with are playing Eureka. As in “Eureka/Show and Tell, put Progenitus/Emrakul into play, I have FOW/Daze backup and I hate you.” Part of the reason I’m mainboarding Karakas and boarding Diabolic Edict is because fuck those fools. That plus Dustin seems smart-ish and he told me to. Hey speaking of Dustin, he’s playing that deck I was just hating on, like, against me, in Round 3. Lol. Lol!
Playing your friends for stakes cold sucks so I offer to just draw with him, but he insists it’s important that he crush me if he’s going to prize out. I came to play, so I guess that’s okay too.
Game one I lose the die-roll and then mull to six. My six has a Karakas in it, which is fantastic as long as he cheats in Emrakul and not Progenitus. Dustin does me right with a Show and Tell for the Big E., and I show him Karakas. Game two!
Is basically the same story, except this time I got to Thoughtseize him, his cantrips gave him garbage and his Show and Tell for Emrakul was a top-deck. It lets me cheat Knight of the Reliquary into play, and Dustin knows that means I’m getting Karakas on my turn. He calls me a “soulless witch” and scoops.
Games: 5-2. Matches: 2-1.
Hey now, I know what you’re thinking, and before you start, just don’t, okay? Don’t. Don’t feel bad for Dustin. I offered to draw with him, remember? And then rolled him with his own good ideas from when he helped me tune my pile. Anyway like a month ago Dustin bought some idiot’s collection for $7500 and just sold it to Starcity in Atlanta for $18k+. What I am saying is that Dustin had an okay weekend even though I fucked him over. Eventually he moved on to bigger and better things, like dropping, and later on buying me a BK veggie burger. Thanks Dustin!
Round 4
This is an older guy from Florida, who appropriately goes by the name Skip, as in ‘Skip says he’s drifted in and out of Magic over the years, and only recently came back.’ He’s happy to think out loud with me, which is enjoyable. Plus at some point he said he has cable and I can visit him in Florida. He seemed hetero so I’d call it a net gain.
Anyway I open with Thoughtseize and see he has an Urborg, Dark Depths, a Living Wish, and two Hymns to Tourach. I’m holding a fairly aggressive hand plus Swords to Plowshares, so I figure I’ll let him waste a couple turns getting Marit Lage out and then Swords it, provided he doesn’t shred my whole grip first; I choose a Hymn.
Sure enough, he Wishes for a Vampire Hexmage and immediately goes unprotected to make Marit Lage. I kill it and start beating him down with a Bob and a Goyf. He has a lot of extra life to bleed off while trying to top-deck, and I’m reluctant to overcommit and beat him down faster for fear of Pernicious Deed, but eventually he scoops.
I don’t remember much about games two and three except that in two he managed to stick Marit Lage, and judging from our life totals in game three I opened on Thoughtseize again, stuck a Bob and Swords’d something. Skip’s life total goes 26, 15, 8, done.
Games: 7-3, Matches: 3-1.
And in case you wonder, yes, I did ask afterward, and Skip did indeed run Deeds; he just never saw them.
Also, it turned out I had game three in the bag no matter what; he cast Living Wish for Hexmage in game two, then forgot to take it back out for game three. At some point he resolved a Wish in Game three, looked through his sideboard, said nothing, looked through his sideboard again, then handed himself Dark Depths, which he was already holding a copy of, simply because there was no Hexmage left to grab in his 14-card sideboard. Heyyy…
Round Five: Justin
Justin is a nice guy and probably would’ve been more talkative if I hadn’t opened Mom, Bob, Stoneforge Mystic, Jitte+equip against his Goblins deck. I remember this match taking longer than it should have – at one point he was able to Ringerleader for FOUR but wouldn’t let me chest-bump him with the +3 card-advantage on the stack.
At some other point I had a big/big Knight of the Reliquary on the field and he Vialed in Siege-Gang Commander to boost his goblin count high enough to kill the KotR by cycling Gempalm Incinerator. Plays like that were good, but Dark Confidant stayed alive too long and I eventually killed him with two Tarmogoyfs, who each enjoyed an additional +1/+1 because Justin was too nice and reminded me Warren Weirding provides Tribal.
I think in game two he top-decked a Vial on his second turn, late to the party, and then when he missed a land-drop I blew it up with Pridemage and further aggravated his development with a random Wasteland. My scrawled life count indicates I persisted Kitchen Finks as well; I think they made him sad.
Games: 9-3, Matches: 4-1.
Afterward Justin’s friend told me Justin had more possible outs and just got on tilt and punted. Maybe it was me talking too much and getting inside his head? Or maybe his can-win attitude is just relatively fragile; that’s what his friend seemed to think. Whatever, sign here, nothing personal guy.
Round Six: Chris.
Hey, remember that time somewhere in the preceding 1600 words where I said I never practice and am a basically shitty player? These things matter when you’re at the big-kids table with the other 4-1s, seated among the top 20 players in a field of 200.
Chris was no fun to talk to. Like, he was at the big kids table and he knew it and he took that seriously. If we were at work or in court that would be respectable, but I do not believe in having a job or showing up for court in Atlanta. Maybe Chris writes some column I’m too cheap to pay to read, and perhaps he was miffed I didn’t ask him to sign whatever card bears his likeness? Actually, let me start this whole paragraph over: Chris was no fun to sit across from and talk at.
Anyway. Chris was playing Progenitus Bant except with Knight of the Reliquary in lieu of Rhox War Monk. I stuck an early Teeg against him, which was a big part of my plan against his deck: keep him off Natural Order and Force of Will by sticking Teeg, then blank his Dazes by living past turn four, and then win because while we both have Goyf/KotR, I also have the benefit of Mom and equipment and Bob. Sounds good, until we remember that my plan against Counter-Top (read: the other half of Chris’s deck) is to basically have him dead-on-board before he can disable 2/3 of my deck with his awful, frustrating CounterTop combo.
Anyway. I Thoughtseize a D-Top early on, ignoring FOW and Natural Order because I have Teeg and Mom down, then he takes forever wondering if he should FOW something but I feel like I’d be a penis if I were to point out I have a Teeg down rendering his FOW unplayable, so I wait until AFTER he’s decided to try to FOW. No sir.
We proceed to play draw-go for a very long time, and he thins his deck with KotR while I try to use mine to Wasteland him down, but he just sacks whatever land I target in response and finds another fetch. Soon his KotR is bigger than mine, but because I have Mom out the staring contest continues.
During this period I draw no Bobs and he amasses four Goyfs to my one. I do some cute blocking using Karakas to save Teeg while chumping, but Chris ultimately deads me.
Game two was pretty infuriating. He stuck a fast Countertop and even though I boarded in Krosan Grip I’m taken down pretty quickly. I’m not sure how Dark Confidant came up in conversation afterward, but he sounds genuinely surprised when he’s all “Oh, you play that card?!”
Games: 9-5, Matches: 4-2.
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Suuuure, shittalk the guy and your suck draws cos he 2-0’d your bitch ass.” And you’re basically correct. Later when Chris and I passed in the hall and I asked his record he actually sounded like he was about to cry when he said he’d lost another round, meaning he probably wasn’t in the running for Top 8 anymore. And for some reason my reflex was to switch to a high, whiny voice and answer “Waaah” as I turned for the men’s room. Whatever. When they announced standings and he was tied for like 11th (still in the money) he acted all huffy and yelled out “Oh, of course!” like that’s juuust his luck. Not to be a jackass, but probably in fact, IT IS.
Shittalk shittalk shittalk. I’ve wasted over 2000 words just getting 2/3 of the way through a report about going 5-3, and you’re still reading this? Really? REALLY? Go pet a kitty and go swimming or something. Alt-tabbing over to pornography doesn’t count.
Go on. Get! Scram!
…
Aww, you came back! There, isn’t that nice? Less sticky.
Mmm, yeah.
Round 7 with Jacob.
Jacob was a lot of fun to banter with. He was playing Goblins using Zendikar Fetches to find Sacred Foundry, I think for Path to Exile? I don’t remember a lot about this match-up, but my life-sheet seems to indicate game one I cast Thoughtseize early, Swords’d a Lackey, traded one attack and then ran him over.
Game two he mulls before drawing seven again. I point this out without raising my hand or yelling but he prettymuch immediately calls the judge on himself. I feel kind of bad for this, because people let my stupid ass slide about dumb mistakes all the time, and I missed my opportunity to intervene here and pay that forward to Jacob. Anyway, he gets his warning, then proceeds to stomp me fairly handily for game two.
Game Three I’ve been waiting to tell you about for almost two weeks.
Game three I mull to six before keeping a hand of Vial, Bob, Mystic, Avenger, and two Wastelands.
I decide that Fuck It and keep, because I forgot he probably fucks me with turn-one Lackey and now it’s too late. I go Wasteland Vial pass, and sure enough, he sticks the Lackey.
Next turn I add a counter to Vial, play my second Wasteland and say go. It should be all over, right? I kept a shitty hand against a deck that goes hell of dumb on turn two, and now I lose, right?
He swings in and triggers Lackey to put down… another Lackey? Yeah no dude for real he just wasn’t holding goddamn anything.
So I proceed to whiff on my third land drop,start Vialing out dudes and just hope I live long enough to equip the Jitte I’m fetching with Mystic, that is, before he finds a Ringleader and SGC to cheat in. I think he realizes I’m light on land here and hits my Wasteland with one of his own, and then starts tapping my remaining land down with Rishadan Port.
On my upkeep, I remember that FUCK IT and Waste his Port. I now have zero lands, active Vial on two, some two-cost dudes, and he has Goblin Lackies and not very much land either.
Top-deck war, GO! Jacob proceeds to rip not shit, and Bob gives me all the help I need. What can I say? I didn’t build this deck to show off what an amazing player I am.
Games: 11-6. Matches: 5-2.
Final round: Eight. With Ian.
I’m finishing out of the money, I’m tired, Ian is fun to talk to and probably plays a lot more Legacy than me, and we’re both in GWB. His deck is full of weird choices. I Thoughtseize him early and take some random threat instead of Armageddon in hopes of racing, but then lose my Pridemage because I have to blow up a singleton Crucible of Worlds to keep Ian off Wastelock. Judging from my notes he Swords’s my other guy here.
At some point he sticks the Armageddon and I should have the upper hand except he then gets out a Kor Haven. Like I have equipment on dudes but it accomplishes fuck all. Ian tells me he should’ve blown me the fuck out at this point but botched and will explain later.
A weird stalemate evolves at some point in which I have to call a judge to explain to me how amazing Mom is with Basilisk Collar at killing Ian’s giant swinging Knight of the Reliquary. I do kooky shit to cling to life, like block with a Stoneforge Mystic, Vial in another one to find a Jitte, use the blocking one to cheat in Jitte before she dies. It was probably more of a danger of cool things type situation than a real tech play. I was tired and more stupid than usual. Ian finally sticks a Tabernacle at Pendrill Vale – which he says he should have fetched almost immediately after Armageddon - and since I never really recovered from Armageddon anyway, I scoop.
I don’t remember a goddamn thing about game two except losing. My friends tell me I made horrible moves, like “reveal to Dark Confidant, lose some life, forget my draw phase.” It was pretty hard to care; time to get in the car and drive home through the Appalachians during a ridiculous storm to the newly flood-ravaged Nashville. You’re welcome!
Final record: 11-8, matches 5-3.
As to the list, I like Mom but I’m not sure she’s good enough. Still, she does important shit like keep Bob alive long enough to matter, she makes Basilisk Collar even more awesome, she lets Serra Avenger stall Iona forever, and she helps solve Goyf stalemates.
Gaddock. Teeg. Is. House.
Sword of Fire and Ice costs too much fucking mana and doesn’t help enough when it matters. I’m thinking of cutting it and one Stoneforge Mystic for two Maelstrom Pulses. Adding another KotR and incorporating Bojuka Bog into the 75 might not be a miserable choice either.
Props:
Talkative opponents, for making punting fun.
Parker, for making top 16 with a deck his friends handed him and keeping all the money anyway.
Dustin, for help tuning and for Burger King.
Ryan, for making top 16 in the standard.
Slops:
Parker, see above.
Whoever the fuck snored in the room.
Me and Tacosnape, for not meeting each other in person.
You, for reading 3,000 words about a random homebrew that only went 5-3 in Atlanta. That’s something I would do.
Nashville, for flooding and causing me to take two weeks to write this.
EDIT: Props, me, for rushing the end of this tournament report to go dancing. With a girl! Gasp!
Cheers
-DP
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Om nom nom Format
Merfolk seems to be the linchpin around which everything hinges in Legacy right now. It keeps Counterbalance in check while getting hosed by Zoo, and you'd better be ready for all three when you sleeve up. The CounterTop combo will never fall too far off the radar in a format where almost everything has to be fast, cheap, and therefore vulnerable to a vexing CB soft-lock, but Qasali Pridemage has made his own indelible mark on the format as well. Let's get to the lists:
To improve their game against aggro, Merfolk players are turning to a splash color. Often this is green for Tarmogoyf, but white remains a fair option as well, given Swords to Plowshares and the lifelinking Sejiri Merfolk, a playset of which took 2/178 in Italy.
There are a couple of cute decks out there running full sets of Counter/Top, and eventually killing you with Enlightened Tutor for the Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek combo. If you're not familiar, those last two cards have wrecked extended, because together they read "X: Gain X life. Produce X 1/1 flying artifact tokens. Go nuts. Seriously. Run wild with that shit."
One Thopter-combo build is grafted over a Landstill shell, (1st and 8th of 36 in Europe) and sports Diabolic Edict as an apparent out against Progenitus, as well as Iona naming white. That unfortunate situation sometimes occurs against not just Reanimator but also Survival and even Ichorid match-ups. Two things worth noting on that build: it can tutor for Humility, and packs zero copies of Counterspell.
Anyway, the other list seems more determined to get its combo online quickly, and sports Chrome Mox and Thirst for Knowledge to prove it. It took 1/178. Both builds are more than glad to work under Humility, though the latter reserves that option for the sideboard. A public service announcement: Humility could give a good goddamn about Qasali Pridemage, and is hilarious against Inkwell Leviathan. Picture that.
While I'm thinking about it, Cousin Chelsea has plans to proxy up an Enchantress list. This is about how the modern incarnation of the deck looks, but I have 20 Pegasus tokens if she ever misses the ponies from Sacred Mesa. And in case you wonder, Karakas is another answer for Iona on white. Shoo.
I think it's always helpful to have an Ad Nauseam/Tendrils of Agony list on hand, especially one that doesn't rock Lion's Eye Diamond or ridiculous Doomsday stacks and is therefore semi-possible for mediocre players to win with. All the better if said list can place 6/178.
People have been talking about breaking Metalworker for months, but this is the first list I've noticed that's come anywhere close; it still looks janky as all hell. Power Artifact this Staff of Domination, go ape-shit with Metalworker, draw my deck, tap your field, swing for infinite with Wake Thrasher and Stroke of Genius you beyond oblivion? Truly the work of a mad scientist.
What else? Loves me some mono-red Goblins. 5/62.
Oh, and in case you missed the memo: Stoneforge Mystic is in a lot of decks. It gears up hate bears you can't counter and goes 4/62, it makes persisting Kitchen Finks and fresh Bitterblossom tokens good and scary after a big sweep at 5/40, and is goddamn hilarious when you Lightning Greaves up an exalted Cold-Eyed Selkie and get the fuck in for three -- cards. Yeah, that seems like it'll get you 2/98.
Happy hunting!
To improve their game against aggro, Merfolk players are turning to a splash color. Often this is green for Tarmogoyf, but white remains a fair option as well, given Swords to Plowshares and the lifelinking Sejiri Merfolk, a playset of which took 2/178 in Italy.
There are a couple of cute decks out there running full sets of Counter/Top, and eventually killing you with Enlightened Tutor for the Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek combo. If you're not familiar, those last two cards have wrecked extended, because together they read "X: Gain X life. Produce X 1/1 flying artifact tokens. Go nuts. Seriously. Run wild with that shit."
One Thopter-combo build is grafted over a Landstill shell, (1st and 8th of 36 in Europe) and sports Diabolic Edict as an apparent out against Progenitus, as well as Iona naming white. That unfortunate situation sometimes occurs against not just Reanimator but also Survival and even Ichorid match-ups. Two things worth noting on that build: it can tutor for Humility, and packs zero copies of Counterspell.
Anyway, the other list seems more determined to get its combo online quickly, and sports Chrome Mox and Thirst for Knowledge to prove it. It took 1/178. Both builds are more than glad to work under Humility, though the latter reserves that option for the sideboard. A public service announcement: Humility could give a good goddamn about Qasali Pridemage, and is hilarious against Inkwell Leviathan. Picture that.
While I'm thinking about it, Cousin Chelsea has plans to proxy up an Enchantress list. This is about how the modern incarnation of the deck looks, but I have 20 Pegasus tokens if she ever misses the ponies from Sacred Mesa. And in case you wonder, Karakas is another answer for Iona on white. Shoo.
I think it's always helpful to have an Ad Nauseam/Tendrils of Agony list on hand, especially one that doesn't rock Lion's Eye Diamond or ridiculous Doomsday stacks and is therefore semi-possible for mediocre players to win with. All the better if said list can place 6/178.
People have been talking about breaking Metalworker for months, but this is the first list I've noticed that's come anywhere close; it still looks janky as all hell. Power Artifact this Staff of Domination, go ape-shit with Metalworker, draw my deck, tap your field, swing for infinite with Wake Thrasher and Stroke of Genius you beyond oblivion? Truly the work of a mad scientist.
What else? Loves me some mono-red Goblins. 5/62.
Oh, and in case you missed the memo: Stoneforge Mystic is in a lot of decks. It gears up hate bears you can't counter and goes 4/62, it makes persisting Kitchen Finks and fresh Bitterblossom tokens good and scary after a big sweep at 5/40, and is goddamn hilarious when you Lightning Greaves up an exalted Cold-Eyed Selkie and get the fuck in for three -- cards. Yeah, that seems like it'll get you 2/98.
Happy hunting!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
We're going
to the Star City Open in Indianapolis next month.
I've long been a fan of Back to Basics in Legacy because it limits most decks to maybe three functional lands. In other words, it causes your opponent to stop playing Magic. A summer ago I went 3-2-1 in a Chicago 50-man playing Mono-Blue Control, maindecking four Back to Basics and four Propaganda. Aggro Loam and Domain Zoo haaaaated me; it was lovely. But I went to time a lot, and Mono-Red Goblins was a nightmare match-up. Further, Morphling just isn't good enough anymore.
This deck seems to address a lot of those complaints. Splash white but keep the Basics plan - Why didn't I think of that?
First thing I'm doing is cutting the Cunning Wishes for extra copies of Back to Basics, and probably dumping the Divining Tops for fourth copies of Fact or Fiction and Counterspell.
Past that, I get to board in Meddling Mage? Hell and damn yes. Plus the Sphinx is everything you pay 5 mana each turn to wish Morphling was, and I want to marry Elspeth.
In other news, this Pox deck seems exciting, although I've never been keen on Nether Spirit. "Ooh, my 2/2 with no abilities just won't go away, hahah, unless you're playing the most common removal spell in the format. What, Swords my guy? Aww..." I guess he chumps Tarmogoyf for awhile. Great. (I don't mean that. I do not think it is great at all. AT ALL.)
I mean, at the very least you could play Bloodghast instead...
Oh, and if like me you've been wondering whether that Vintage Selkie deck could find a viable port into Legacy, here's your answer.
Last thing: I don't really want to play Storm in Indianapolis, but if I were assembling a build for someone to test against, this would be it. No Lion's Eye Diamond, decent protection, and no ridiculously complicated kills using Doomsday or Ill Gotten Gains. In other words it's cheaper and easier to learn. Which is to say, in the hands of an idiot it's probably the more effective build.
That's what I love.
-Dan
I've long been a fan of Back to Basics in Legacy because it limits most decks to maybe three functional lands. In other words, it causes your opponent to stop playing Magic. A summer ago I went 3-2-1 in a Chicago 50-man playing Mono-Blue Control, maindecking four Back to Basics and four Propaganda. Aggro Loam and Domain Zoo haaaaated me; it was lovely. But I went to time a lot, and Mono-Red Goblins was a nightmare match-up. Further, Morphling just isn't good enough anymore.
This deck seems to address a lot of those complaints. Splash white but keep the Basics plan - Why didn't I think of that?
First thing I'm doing is cutting the Cunning Wishes for extra copies of Back to Basics, and probably dumping the Divining Tops for fourth copies of Fact or Fiction and Counterspell.
Past that, I get to board in Meddling Mage? Hell and damn yes. Plus the Sphinx is everything you pay 5 mana each turn to wish Morphling was, and I want to marry Elspeth.
In other news, this Pox deck seems exciting, although I've never been keen on Nether Spirit. "Ooh, my 2/2 with no abilities just won't go away, hahah, unless you're playing the most common removal spell in the format. What, Swords my guy? Aww..." I guess he chumps Tarmogoyf for awhile. Great. (I don't mean that. I do not think it is great at all. AT ALL.)
I mean, at the very least you could play Bloodghast instead...
Oh, and if like me you've been wondering whether that Vintage Selkie deck could find a viable port into Legacy, here's your answer.
Last thing: I don't really want to play Storm in Indianapolis, but if I were assembling a build for someone to test against, this would be it. No Lion's Eye Diamond, decent protection, and no ridiculously complicated kills using Doomsday or Ill Gotten Gains. In other words it's cheaper and easier to learn. Which is to say, in the hands of an idiot it's probably the more effective build.
That's what I love.
-Dan
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