“Going Infinite” – A Legacy Tournament Report by Keith McLaughlin

Monday, January 25th – In this first of a series of tournament reports Keith McLaughlin shares his “Life Combo” deck list and provides his insight on MTG’s hottest format: Legacy.  

*Editor’s Note* – The Game Academy will host Legacy tournaments every Thursday; signups begin @ 6 PM and tournament entry is $7. All entry will be given back to top finishers in store credit to use towards anything in the store. Keith will always be in attendance, so if you have any questions or need deck advice don’t hesitate to ask! =)

I’ve been testing a little bit of Legacy lately, but as usual, I’ve decided to stick with my trusty Life deck for the time being. For those who aren’t in the know, the Life combo is a deck based which requires three pieces. The first is a Kor, such as Nomads en-Kor, Shaman en-Kor, Outrider en-Kor or whatever. You use the Kor to target Daru Spiritualist, Task Force or Angelic Protector an arbitrarily large number of times before sacrificing the Spiritualist/Force/Protector to a Worthy Cause, Starlit Sanctum (Spiritualist only), Condemn or Diamond Valley (Alternatively, Doran allows you to deal infinite damage with an unblocked Spiritualist/Force/Protector). Though three card combos that don’t outright win the game aren’t so hot, what makes this deck very strong is the redundancy. You have on the order of eight of each combo piece, along with Eladamri’s Call (which can fetch a Kor or Spiritualist) and Living Wish (which can get any piece).

The deck was played a billion years ago, but is mostly known during it’s time in Extended prior to the latest rotation, when the metagame shifted towards aggro decks, such as Red Deck Wins and Goblins. I wasn’t a big fan of the deck because of the popularity of the Mind’s Desire deck which won with Brain Freeze. A year or two later, everyone had forgotten about the Life deck. Doug Azzano, Jack Hutchings and myself were preparing for Grand Prix Philadelphia (I believe, 2005), which was Legacy. The most popular deck, by a large margin was Goblins. Other competitors were the Vault/Fusillade combo deck, Threshold and Solidarity (Reset/Brain Freeze). Life came to mind as being potentially being quite broken, just based on the volume of Goblin players at every event. This was before Doran was printed, so the best way to win after gaining infinite life, was by decking. Gaea’s Blessing was already going to be immensely helpful for the Solidarity matchup. After throwing together a list, we found that the only really weak matchup was against Time Vault/Flame Fusillade. I figured that deck wouldn’t be as popular as Time Vault was over $100 at the time.

(For a tournament report from that Grand Prix, search for my article on StarCityGames.com or check my website kmclaugh.myweb.usf.edu.)

Our gambit paid off, as I faced a total of seven Goblin players (going 7-0 matches), while never playing against a Time Vault the entire GP, while finishing 15th and earning an invite to Pro Tour Honolulu.

Since then, I’ve stuck with the deck for two more events, finishing in the top 8 of an 80-man Legacy event at Pro Tour Atlanta (in 2005, I believe) and then more recently splitting in the top 8 of a Grand Prix Tampa side event for a total of five dual lands and four fetch lands.

I’m not sure that Life is as strong as it was several years ago, as the other decks have become much more powerful, so I decided to give it a whirl in a local Legacy event in preparation for the Orlando 5K coming up in March. Here’s the list:

4 Aether Vial

3 Pithing Needle

3 Nomads en-Kor

4 Shaman en-Kor

3 Daru Spiritualist

2 Task Force

1 Doran, the Siege Tower

4 Meddling Mage

3 Condemn

4 Living Wish

3 Eladamri’s Call

3 Diamond Valley

2 Stalit Sanctum

1 Scrubland

1 Tropical Island

1 Tundra

3 Savannah

3 Horizon Canopy

3 Windswept Heath

1 Arid Mesa (I was short a Heath)

2 Marsh Flats

2 Flooded Strand

1 Forest

3 Plains

Sideboard:

3 Krosan Grip

1 Diamond Valley

1 Gaea’s Blessing

1 Doran, the Siege Tower

1 Task Force

1 Daru Spiritualist

1 Nomads en-Kor

3 Tormod’s Crypt

1 Pithing Needle

1 Tidehollow Sculler

1 Yixlid Jailer

Round 1 Dredge

Lost the die roll, and my opponent mulled to 5, which had me pumping the fist. He kicked off with a Gemstone Mine into a Cabal Therapy blindly naming Force of Will. He followed with a Careful Study on turn 2, but had no dredge outlet, and finally with a Breakthrough on turn 3. Meanwhile, I kicked off with a turn one Aether Vial, Meddling Mage’d Cabal Therapy on turn 2, and on turn 3 played Living Wish for Yixlid Jailer and Vialed him out. All but sending my opponent packing for game 2. As a sidenote, I avoided playing any Kors as I finished my opponent off with the Mage and Jailer, as I’m not typically fond of giving my opponents free information.

-3 Pithing Needle, -1 Task Force

+3 Tormod’s Crypt, +1 Yixlid Jailer

I brought in a Jailer, as Living Wish is the most common Therapy target, and it gives me some small probability of getting the nuts turn 2 Jailer. My opponent again mulled to five, while I kept six. He started off with land-go for a few turns, while I ran a Tormod’s Crypt on turn 1, followed by Daru Spiritualist and a Kor soon after. On turn four or five, my opponent still hadn’t significantly advanced his board position, and I was able to Condemn my Spiritualist for infinite life, sending him packing.

1-0

Round 2 – Jared Serrano – Reanimator

Game one, Jared had the nuts. He won the roll, and Entombed an Iona at the end of the my first turn (I played a Vial). A turn 2 exhumed Iona (naming white) blanked my two Condemn’s in hand. I wasn’t out of this game yet, as I had the Kor and Spiritualist that I could Vial out, but didn’t manage to get a Diamond Valley or Living Wish in time.

-3 Pithing Needle

+3 Tormod’s Crypt

Game two, I kicked off with a turn 1 Tormod’s Crypt and Aether Vial. Jared tried to set up for Reanimation with a Careful Study and Mystical Tutor for Intuition. Meanwhile, I Vial’d out a Nomad and Spiritualist. When Jared passed his third turn, I played an end-step Eladamri’s Call to fetch up Doran, and Vial’d him out for the next attack step.

Prior to game 3 Jared took forever to sideboard which drew a bit of suspicion from me. He kicked off the game with a Leyline of the Void, which was, at first, quite confusing. After realizing he was going to Helm of Obediance me out, I became pretty disappointed that the Pithing Needles were sitting in my sideboard. At the end of my first turn, Jared Mystical Tutor’d for Dark Ritual, and down came a turn 2 Helm. With no way of stopping his turn 3 kill, I scooped it up.

1-1

Round 3 – URB Combo/Control

My round three opponent had an interesting budget deck. It had no dual lands or other flashy cards, but ran both, the Painter Servant + Grindstone combo as well Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek, along with Remands, Brainstorm, Lightning Bolt (which we agreed should’ve been Red Elemental Blast), Trinket Mage and Duress.

Game one I ran out an Aether Vial, and made a Kor and Spiritualist, before it got Pithing Needle’d. Stuck on one land for several turns, I played my own Pithing Needle on Grindstone and ultimately drew a Condemn and was able to go infinite. My opponent had cluttered the board with a Vendilion Clique a Trinket Mage and Sower of Temptation, so I couldn’t get much damage in, but soon found an Eladamri’s Call for Doran. Unfortunately, I was still stuck on two lands, and my opponent eventually drew an Engineered Explosives to crack my Needles. On the following turn, he played out both, his Painter Servant and Grindstone and decked me.

-1 Condemn, -2 Meddling Mage

+2 Krosan Grip, +1 Gaea’s Blessing

In game two, I mulled to six keeping a hand with three lands and three Living Wish. My opponent started with a Cabal Therapy naming Daru Spiritualist and missing. I untapped and drew …… Another Living Wish! This was very scary, as my opponent is a single Trinket Mage away from Mind Twist’ing me. I played the first Wish for a Spiritualist. He had no Trinket Mage and I was able to attempt a second Living Wish, but he had Remand. On turn four, he still had no creature, and I was able to untap and play two of the remaining Living Wishes, for a Doran and a Nomads en-Kor. Two turns later we were shuffling up for game three.

In game three, both me and my opponent got slow draws. He kicked off with two Brainstorms (augmented by fetchlands) while I ran out a Meddling Mage on Trinket Mage, followed by a Shaman en-Kor and finally a Spiritualist. I attacked for several turns, then on turn six, my opponent tapped out to transmute a Muddle the Mixture for a Thopter Foundry, played a Sword of the Meek and Pithing Needle’d my Shaman en-Kor. With a Diamond Valley in play, I had the option to sacrifice the Spiritualist for infinite life prior to the Needle, but decided against it. Instead, I untapped and ripped a land off the top, to Living Wish for a Nomads en-Kor, and played a Doran with the help of my opponent’s Urborg (letting Diamond Valley tap for black), and went in for the kill.

2-1

Round 4 – Green Aggro

My round four opponent was playing a mono-green stompy deck with Berserk, Rancor, and a bunch of weenies along with Kavu Predator and Invigorate. This seems like an auto-win, as even an Kavu Predator isn’t very good against me, provided I am able to get two copies of Spiritualist/Task Force, the first to block, and the second to gain infinite life. After winning the roll, I opened up with the nut draw. Turn 1 Aether Vial, turn 2 Daru Spiritualist while using Vial to make a Nomads en-Kor, and a turn 3 Diamond Valley. My opponent opted to continue attacking (for no particular reason, but he likely had no outs, so who cares?), which gave me an opening to make a Task Force on the end step (with Vial), and attack with the team. When he declared no blocks on the Task Force, I used Eladamri’s Call to find Doran and used Vial for the win.

Game two was much of the same. My opponent mulled to six, and kept a sub-par hand, which only got worse. By turn four, I had infinite life, while he had two creatures in play, neither of which were Kavu Predator. From there Doran cleaned up.

3-1

This record was good enough to finish in second place. This would’ve been a first place finish, but Ross Chancey (playing my Merfolk deck minus a set of Aether Vials) decided to concede to Jared Serrano, to guarantee me a money-finish ($18 store credit). Turns out, had he not done that, we would’ve finished 1st and 2nd. Oops. Jared was a good sport about it and hooked Ross up with some dinner, so everyone was pretty satisfied.

—–

Before wrapping up, I just thought I’d talk a little more about Jared’s deck. Obviously reanimator has a really tough time winning through cards like Tormod’s Crypt, but Jared also plays Show and Tell. Now that card is admittedly very bad if your opponent is holding a Progenitus, but otherwise it’s pretty baller, even if your opponent puts a Dream Halls into play, since you’ll be getting Iona on blue. What that essentially does, is give your deck access to nut draws (Turn 1 Ritual, Entomb, Exhume/Reanimate, etc.), while also having a very strong backup plan. The following list is not Jared’s actual build, but is what I would run as a starting point for the deck.

4 Show and Tell

4 Exhume

4 Reanimate

4 Mystical Tutor

4 Dark Ritual

4 Iona, Shield of Emeria

1 Blazing Archon

4 Ponder

4 Careful Study

4 Force of Will

4 Thoughtseize

1 Intuition

1 Wipe Away

2 Verdant Catacombs

1 Bloodstained Mire

2 Marsh Flats

4 Polluted Delta

4 Underground Sea

3 Swamp

1 Island

I would imagine the matchup against Counter-Top-Balance is sketchy, and Merfolk appears to also be somewhat unfavorable, but this deck seems like it would have some serious game against pretty much anything else.

That’s all for this time. Feel free to hit me up with questions and comments.

Keith McLaughlin

kmclau@gmail.com