*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 attended the SCG Open in Atlanta primarily with the intent of playing Legacy. Because I needed to enter four more events (and make at least one top 16), to qualify for the 50K, I decided that I’d play in standard even if I hated my deck.

Under some influence from John Cuvelier, I was fixed on running Open the Vaults. Since I don’t play a great deal of standard, I didn’t actually get to play test any games until the day before the event. About ten games later, I was done with the deck. Perhaps I just had no idea what I was doing, but I was getting crushed by outdated Mono-Red and Naya Allies, and I wasn’t doing so well against Jund either.

I tried weighing my other options, including chilling in the hotel all day and cube drafting, but decided that I should definitely play the event. I recalled Sam Riley talking about an insane Polymorph deck on our online discussion group. Moreover, Sam Riley had been trying to pawn off a few decks on our group in exchange for a cut of winnings. I decided to give him a call, and about ten hours later (less than twelve hours before the tournament), I had a 75-card copy of Riley’s UGW Polymorph ready to go. I played some practice games against Naya Allies, and it felt a bit over 50-50, though Mono-Red was still terrible. Whatever the case, the deck seemed pretty cool, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

4 Awakening Zone
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Deprive
2 Negate
3 Path To Exile
2 Iona, Shield Of Emeria
3 Elspeth, Knight-errant
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2 Day Of Judgment
4 Polymorph
4 See Beyond

1 Forest
4 Island
4 Plains
1 Arid Mesa
2 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Khalni Garden
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Seaside Citadel

Sideboard:
1 Realm Razer
4 Flashfreeze
2 Negate
1 Path To Exile
2 Silence
1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
1 Progenitus
2 Day Of Judgment
1 Mountain

The Mountain and Realm Razer were supposed to be for control decks, but I never actually boarded them in as I’d rather just get Iona in nearly every situation.

—

Round 1 – Michael Chen – UW Control

I started with a double mull, but hit all my land drops, while Chen was stuck on two after keeping his six. I was able to apply pressure with Elspeth and eventually resolved a Polymorph with Deprive backup.

+2 Negate, +2 Silence, -1 Elspeth, -2 Day of Judgment, -1 Path to Exile

In game two, I kept six, and ran out a turn three Awakening Zone. Michael fired back with Jace, the Mindsculptor, but I called with Elspeth. After my Soldiers took down Jace, I played one of my own, and had a Deprive for Michael’s Baneslayer Angel. Several turns later, I dug into a Polymorph, and Michael scooped it up.

1-0

Round 2 – Kennen Haas – Bant Aggro

Kennen, a local player, brought a rogue Bant aggro deck featuring the very annoying River Boa. In game one, Kennen brought some heat with multiple Rhox War Monks, but I had Awakening Zone to soak up much of the damage. Eventually, Iona came down on white, and we were off to the races. An Elspeth eventually came down to throw off some of the math, and I was able to pick up game one.

+2 Silence, +1 Path to Exile, -1 Elspeth, -1 Negate, -1 Awakening Zone

In game two, I was able to hold off Kennen’s offensive, including some River Boa beats, by holding all my Islands. On one of Kennen’s turns we had a counter war over a Garruk or something, then I untapped and played an upkeep Silence in response to my Awakening Zone trigger. With only two or three mana up, Kennen was helpless to my mainphase Polymorph into Iona on white. Kennen had a few turns to draw into an Into the Roil with counter backup, but despite several Explores and Ponders, was unable to get there.

2-0

Round 3 – Steve Smith – Mono White Control

Steve literally did nothing besides play a few Knight of the White Orchids and Everflowing Chalices. He was able to ramp into a lot of mana both games, which made me fear Into the Dust — so much so, that I boarded into Emrakul, figuring he’d have to be an idiot to not board out Day of Judgment, and Oblivion Ring would likely be played on my Planewalkers.

-2 Iona, -2 Day of Judgment, +1 Emrakul, +1 Negate, +1 Path to Exile, +1 Silence

3-0

Round 4 – Derek Davis – ?????

I have no recollection of this round, but my score sheet shows him gaining eight life at some point, so he must’ve been hitting me with Rhox War Monk and Baneslayer or an Elspeth’d Baneslayer.

4-0

Round 5 – August Benard Caras – WW/g

August was playing a pretty cool white weenie variant with Student of Warfare, Ranger of Eos and Stoneforger Mystic, with green for Knight of the Reliquary and Stirring Wildwood. He came out the gates quickly in game one, but I had Day od Judgment along with the typical ground clogging Elspeths and Awakening Zones for games two and three.

-2 Deprive, -2 Negate, +2 Day of Judgment, +1 Silence, +1 Path to Exile

5-0

Round 6 – Jeffrey Loveday – Naya Allies

I was able to steal a very close game one from Jeffrey with Iona on red, when he left only Ancient Ziggurat untapped on the end of turn five. I mulled to five in game two, and wound up land flooded, while in game three, Jeff had a very fast draw, and had time walked myself too many times with “comes into play tapped” lands.

-4 Deprive, -2 Negate, +2 Silence, +1 Path to Exile, +2 Day of Judgment, +1 Flashfreeze

5-1

(At this point Riley had been knocked out of top 8 contention at 4-2.)

Round 7 – Isaiah Ley – UG Polymorph

Game one was very epic, taking nearly the entire fifty minutes. I kept a four lander, but didn’t draw another spell until around turn seven. By then, the board was something like my Elspeth, Colonnade and Awakening Zone versus Jace, the Mindsculptor, Garruk (with three dudes, and four loyalty) and a polymorphed Iona (on White). I was able to attack Isaiah to to three with the Elspeth’d Colonnade, while he raced back with Iona. At three, Isaiah finally was able to deal with Elspeth, bouncing it with an Into the Roil. He attacked with Iona (dropping me to six), then Polymorphed the tapped Iona into an untapped one. On my turn, holding four lands and two Elspeth, I drew See Beyond. See Beyond hit another See Beyond, which hit a third See Beyond. By now, I had Deprive and Polymorph in hand. I went for Polymorph on Isaiah’s Iona, killing it and revealing his library. Based on this information, it appeared he had a Negate in hand. Since I was dead if I passed turn, I had no option but to tap out for Elspeth. To my surprise, it resolved, and some random token got in for the last three damage. Phew…

-2 Elspeth, -1 Iona, -2 Day of Judgment, +2 Negate, +2 Silence, +1 Path to Exile

Because there wasn’t much time left in the round, I boarded with the intention of locking Isaiah out of Polymorph, with no real intention of outright winning the game. Ironically, Isaiah, in desperation, tapped out for Garruk or something, and I was able to resolve Polymorph into Iona on blue.

6-1

Round 8 – David Sharfman – Jund

The match was featured on ggslive.com. See it here:
Video 1
Video 2

-1 Negate, -1 Jace, the Mindsculptor, -2 Deprive, -2 Iona, +1 Path to Exile, +1 Emrakul, +4 Flashfreeze

Game two is missing, but was fairly anticlimatic. Sharfman fired off a few Duresses early, but had very little pressure. Somewhat later, Sharfman tapped down for some threat, and got Emrakul’d.

Round 9 – David Yancey – Chapin Mono Red

The matchup was depressing. It was even close to close. David started game one, on the play, with double Goblin Guide. I tried to make some blockers with Elspeth, but they all met Searing Blaze. Game two was more of the same, with David leading out with Goblin Guide and a Dragonlord, with multiple Searing Blazes for Awakening Zone tokens and such.

-1 Jace, the Mindsculptor, -2 Negate, -4 Deprive, +4 Flashfreeze, +2 Silence, +1 Path to Exile

Round 10 – Jason Byram – Naya Allies

Jason started with a mulligan, and was very quickly facing down an Iona on white. He was able to get in with a few allies, but his Bloodbraids kept hitting white spells, and I had plenty of tokens with which to chump. With the life totals 10-13, I attacked with Iona, then played Jace to bounce Bloodbraid. Bloodbraid came back down, and hit another white spell, at which point Jason scooped it up.

-4 Deprive, -2 Negate, +2 Silence, +1 Path to Exile, +2 Day of Judgment, +1 Flashfreeze

Jason started game two with a turn two Harabaz Druid, but with Day of Judgment in hand, I mentally took a victory lap. On his second turn, Jason ran out three other allies. None had haste, and I wound up clearing the board still at 20 life. Jason played a few more guys on the following turn, but I had a Path and Oblivion Ring. An Elspeth came down on the following turn, and had no problem racing with the few creatures Jason had left.

—–

I finished in 12th place, which is good enough to get the points I need to qualify for the $50K provided I play in at least one other Open.

After the event, Riley and I discussed possible changes to the deck. I think the deck is pretty close to perfect, though I had some mana hiccups along the way. I think I’d try tweaking the mana base some, and probably try out Terramorphic Expanse, since it gives some more fixing without making Glacial Fortress terrible. Additionally, with Stark’s Planeswalker deck shaping up to be the ‘deck to beat,’ it’d probably serve well to add an addition Oblivion Ring in the main.
What’s particularly nice about the deck, is you have access to way more counterspells than any other deck in the format. I think that gives Polymorph a huge advantage in control matchups. The only real problematic matchup is mono-red aggro, but you’re likely not going to beat them with the Planeswalker deck either.

Also, I have no idea what the Progentius in the sideboard is for. Maybe someone reading this can tell me. Whatever the case, it’s getting the axe for now.

4 Awakening Zone
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Deprive
2 Negate
3 Path To Exile
2 Iona, Shield Of Emeria
3 Elspeth, Knight-errant
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2 Day Of Judgment
4 Polymorph
4 See Beyond

1 Forest
4 Island
4 Plains
1 Arid Mesa
2 Celestial Colonnade
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Khalni Garden
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Seaside Citadel

Sideboard:
1 Deprive
3 Celestial Purge
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Flashfreeze
2 Negate
1 Path To Exile
2 Silence
1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
2 Day Of Judgment

Speaking of Mono-Red, that deck seems utterly busted in this metagame. If I were to start testing for Grand Prix DC, or Regionals, I’d start with Taylor Raflowitz’s build with some minor updates. Taylor seems to be an actual master of the game, so I’m much more comfortable running something he’s been tweaking and testing with than some random net list.

Maindeck:
4 Ball Lightning
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Guide
4 Hell’s Thunder
4 Plated Geopede
4 Burst Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Searing Blaze
3 Staggershock
3 Devastating Summons

13 Mountain
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Teetering Peaks

Sideboard:
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
3 Manabarbs
2 Unstable Footing
3 Earthquake
3 Quenchable Fire

It should have a pretty easy time taking down Polymorph and Planeswalkers, with a 50-50′ish Jund and Naya Allies matchups. I imagine Bant might be hard, and if the UW Control decks care enough, those matchups could be hard also, but UW Control has bigger fish to fry, since they pretty much get curb stomped by Polymorph and Planeswalkers.

For those curious, I scrubbed out of the Legacy with Life & Taxes. You can read more about that deck on my blog. I still feel it’s a pretty strong deck in the current metagame, but sometimes you just lose to Pernicious Deed.dec.

–

Keith McLaughlin

*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! =)

With Pro Tour San Diego in the books, we’ve come to find ourselves, yet again, in an uphill battle against the dreaded Jund. Although only three copies of Jund made the final tables at PT:SD, two of them wound up face-to-face in the finals. With results like this, it’s no suprise to see so many players proclaiming Jund as the “best” deck in the format. But is this actually the case?

The people running PT:SD were kind enough to supply the decklists for every participant in the entire PT (aside from a few dozen lists that were omitted, presumably on accident). Although, I had to go through each decklist by hand to determine all the archetypes, once I had those, along with the match results, I wrote some code to perform some analysis. Before I get into the details, let me first introduce the archetypes (omitting those that were played by less than five players).

——————–
(380 decks recorded in total)

Jund — 95 players (79 w/Leech, 16 w/out)
The BGR aggro deck, centered around Blightning, Sprouting Thrinax, Broodmate Dragon and Maelstrom Pulse. A very large number of cards in the deck are capable of generating card advantage, whether that be through the cascade mechanic, discard-effects, Planeswalkers, or otherwise. Because of it’s large numbers, I’ve divided Jund into versions with and without Putrid Leech.

WW — 42 players
People used to joke that white weenie was an archetype defined by the ability to get as many creatures in play as fast as possible so they could all die to Wrath of God. Now with the printing of Stoneforge Mystic and Kor Firewalker, in addition to the already fine arsenal of Steppe Lynx, Elspeth and Path to Exile, WW has become a real fine choice in standard.

Vamps — 30 players
Oh Edward! Wizards has obviously pushed Vampires to be a contender with Vampire Nighthawk, Gatekeeper of Malakir and Vampire Nocturnus. Worldwake gives the deck another weapon in the form of Kalastria Highborn. Mind Sludge seems to be optional in this deck, although it’s hard to imagine losing a game when one resolves.

URW — 30 players
The control deck revolving around bad counter-spells, Ajani Vengeant and Earthquake, typically using Sphinx of Jwar Isle for the kill. LSV and others briefly promoted this deck prior to the release of Worldwake.

MonoRed — 19 players
Ball Lightning and Lightning Bolt! Is this 1997? Deadguy red is back. There’s no Fireblast or Cursed Scroll shenanigans, but Goblin Guide and Searing Blaze are still fairly powerful.

Junk — 19 players
PT Junk was a popular archetype in Extended after the printing of Pernicious Deed and Vindicate in Apocalyspe. The GWB deck’s strategy was to play the best removal, disruption and creatures. Today, many of the best creatures are still in green and white. Add Maelstrom Pulse to the mix, and you have the 2010 version of Junk.

UWControl — 18 players
With their new Worldwake tools, many swapped out their Ajani Vengeants and Earthquakes from URW, and replaced them with Treasure Hunts and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Pat Chapin’s nearly-creatureless UW Control deck is kept distinct from this category.

BossNaya — 14 players
The latest creation from ChannelFireball, this GRW Naya list tries to imitate Jund, by generating as much card advantage as possible, without actually playing blue spells. Along with the usual Bloodbraid Elf and Ranger of Eos, Boss Naya runs Stirring Wildwood, Raging Ravine and Sejiri Steppe to turn Knight of the Reliquary into a card advantage engine. The presence of Stoneforge Mystic, and sideboarded Cunning Sparkmages gives the deck easy access to the brutal Sparkmage + Basilisk Combo.

Bant — 12 players
This, like Junk, simply takes a couple of cards and shuffles them into a stack of green and white dudes. In this case, the cards of interest are Jace, the Mindsculptor and Rhox War Monk.

SummoningTrap — 8 players
Basically a Bant deck in the early game, but with 4x Summoning Trap and 4x Iona, Shield of Emeria. Iona is lights-out for many of the decks in the field, while Summoning Trap is a very brutal trick against decks trying to resolve Double Negatives and Essence Scatters.

Time Sieve — 7 players
Time Sieve uses card drawing engines to put tons of artifacts in play, then sacrificing them to take extra turns with Time Sieve. Time Warps and Fog-effects along with spells like Howling Mine and Jace Beleren fuel the deck, until it builds up to a huge Open the Vaults. Tezzeret is typically the kill spell.

Grixis — 7 players
Similar to URW, but ixnay the Ajani Vengeants, Baneslayer Angels and Path to Exiles in favor of Cruel Ultimatum, Blightning and Terminate.

Eldrazi — 7 players
Eldrazi green is the prototypical mono-green aggro deck. The deck relies on getting several guys into play, and powering them through with Garruk Wildspeaker’s ultimate or Eldrazi Monument.

BigNaya — 6 players
Many players brought a more-midrange GRW aggro deck featuring multiple copies of Acidic Slime, Baneslayer Angels and a singleton Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, all powered out by Lotus Cobra and Trace of Abundance.

BantControl — 6 players
This UGW mid-range aggro/control deck mixes some of the best mana accelerators (Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise) to power out Garruk Wildspeaker and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, while playing strong defensive creatures (Calcite Snapper and Rhox War Monk) to protect them.

Valakut — 5 players
Valakut picked up some steam at the beginning of Zendikar standard, before falling off the radar for the most part. It tries to abuse Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle by running as many Mountains as possible along with Khalni-Heart Expedition, Harrow, Explore and Rampant Growth.

Mythic — 5 players
Yet another Bant deck. This version has been promoted by one Zvi Mowshowitz. It attempts to outclass other decks by always having the biggest, most-lethal creature, either on it’s own merit, or via Finest Hour or Rafiq of the Many.

Jacerator — 5 players
Similar to Time Sieve, this deck uses Howling Mines and Jace Beleren in conjunction with Time Warps and Fogs as fuel. In this archetype, the card drawing the opponent is doing is eventually turned against him/her, typically via Archive Trap.

Boros — 5 players
Boros plays the most aggressive creatures in red and white, such as Steppe Lynx, Goblin Guide and Elite Vanguard. Ranger of Eos fetching Goblin Bushwhacker is typically the selling point of the deck, being able to go from an empty board to nine-to-the-face in a single turn.

————————–

Phew. That’s a lot of archetypes. Although a Pro Tour may not be the best place to make a metagame prediction for your local SCG 5K or FNM, it’s certainly worth taking a look. With 95 players running Jund, that’s 25% of the entire metagame. Coming in a distant second was White Weenie with only 11%, with Vamps and URW in third at 8% a piece.

When going into a tournament, the important number is likely not the percentage of *players* pilotting a particular deck, but rather how many matches will be played with each deck in total. For example, if you’re in a tournament where there are ten players running Deck X (out of 100 players total), but nine of those players are out of the tournament by round three, then counting X as 10% of the metagame is clearly a mistake.
Rather, we should add up every match played by X, and divide by the total number of matches played in the entire tournament. Here are those numbers for the top 15 decks.

———————
Matches % Deckname
503 0.216810 LeechJund
287 0.123707 WW
181 0.078017 URW
173 0.074569 Vamps
117 0.050431 Junk
114 0.049138 MonoRed
92 0.039655 BossNaya
86 0.037069 NoLeechJund
81 0.034914 UWControl
72 0.031034 Bant
50 0.021552 SummoningTrap
38 0.016379 Sieve
38 0.016379 Grixis
37 0.015948 BantControl
36 0.015517 BigNaya
34 0.014655 Mythic
34 0.014655 Boros
33 0.014224 GWKnightfall
31 0.013362 Valakut
28 0.012069 Eldrazi
———————–

Here we see, that while the numbers for some of the decks clearly reflect the popularity of each deck, we also see some big movers. GWKnightfall wasn’t even mentioned previously, as it was only piloted by three players (1.05%), but the deck managed to play in 1.4% of all matches. That’s a rather large move, considering the scarcity of the deck. BossNaya made an even bigger jump, from 37% to nearly 40%, while Eldrazi players clearly didn’t fare too well, only playing in 12% of all matches, despite being run by almost 16% of the participants. We would expect that these numbers be noticable in the match win percentages for each archetype, and that turns out to, in fact, be the case.

———————
(25 match minimum)
WinPCT W-L Deck
0.785714 22-6 ChapinUW
0.678571 57-27 BossNaya
0.676471 23-11 Mythic
0.617647 21-13 Boros
0.591837 145-100 WW
0.545455 18-15 GWKnightfall
0.531017 214-189 LeechJund
0.522124 59-54 Junk
0.509091 56-54 MonoRed
0.490566 78-81 Vamps
0.486111 35-37 Bant
0.483871 15-16 Valakut
0.480000 24-26 SummoningTrap
0.472222 17-19 BigNaya
0.464286 39-45 NoLeechJund
0.432432 16-21 BantControl
0.411765 14-20 Grixis
0.396450 67-102 URW
0.346154 9-17 Eldrazi
0.333333 12-24 Sieve
0.306667 23-52 UWControl
———————–

First, we find that Eldrazi in fact put up some pitiful numbers, while BossNaya and GWKnightfall fared particularly well, but that’s all beside the point. If you want to know how often you will play a particular match up, it doesn’t make sense to calculate what percentage of players are piloting that deck, but rather how many matches are played with it — in the case of PT:SD, you’d be far more likely to play against GWKnightfall and BossNaya than one might first expect.

Second, a very humorous result is that while ChapinUW put up the best match win percent by a huge margin, all other UW Control strategies combined put up the worst! I guess those Calcite Snappers and Wall of Denials aren’t so great when Day of Judgment kills them all. URW also appeared to be an extremely weak strategy, only winning 39.6% of it’s matches.

Third, for quite some time people couldn’t decide whether Putrid Leech belonged in Jund lists. The mistake some players make, is to think it’s an auto-include, because a 4/4 for 2 is obviously quite good. I don’t think that’s the true dilemma. Rather, it’s the constraint it’s mana cost puts on the deck. With so many lands that come into play tapped, along with an already shaky mana base, having BG up on turn two isn’t guaranteed. However, it apparently happens often enough, as the Jund lists with Leech fared much better than those which cut the Leech (53% wins versus 46%). This, perhaps, emphasizes the utility of this sort of analysis. Simply trying to play games with the Leech and no-Leech versions, one would have to play twenty matches to just begin to detect a difference of 5%. Given the variance in Magic, to make a confident stance that the no-Leech version is
inferior would likely take upwards of 50 to 100 matches. Well, here it is for free. Run the Leech.

Fourth, UWChapin, BossNaya and Mythic are clearly the front-runners to take the format, with each winning over 65% of it’s matches. To put that in perspective, in my analysis of the Legacy portion of SCG 5K Richmond (coming soon), not a single deck won 65% of it’s matches. Those are truly fantastic numbers.

Fifth, many archetypes which have been thought to be particularly strong, MonoRed, Junk, Vamps and Bant are actually quite mediocre, all within 3% of 50-50. You may as well be running SummoningTrap or Valakut, if you want to run these decks.

And most importantly, according to these statistics, Jund is clearly NOT the best deck. In fact, it’s performance was rather mediocre (besides winning the whole event), with a win percentage 6% lower than WW, 8% lower than Boros, and 12% lower than the 65% threshold.

That’s right. Jund isn’t the best deck***. In fact, it’s far from it. Now, perhaps, many of the lists played in PT:SD were inferior, but seriously, how difficult is it to build Jund. The biggest decision to be made (aside from Leech), is whether to run 26 or 27 lands. That’s hardly pivotal. Perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but we are talking about a Pro Tour here. None of the Jund players are running Grizzly Bears, Vampire Aristocrat, or anything else that is obviously bad. If you want to win playing Jund, clearly the most important thing to do is to practice your cascades, because unless you’re Bloodbraids are hitting Blightnings every time, you’re looking to win ~53% of your matches.

(*** Disclaimer: Jund still might be the *strongest* deck, with it’s win percentage pulled down by mirror-matches, but going into a tournament one doesn’t care _who_ he (or she) wins/loses against. Keep in mind, that if a deck wins 65% of it’s matches, and Jund is 25% of the field, that deck is likely doing quite well against Jund.)

For the finale, I present to you, the match-up grid from PT:SD:

Along the top row and left-most column are archetypes, and in each intersecting cell, we have the win-loss data for that particular matchup. The table should be read such that LeechJund is (24-9) against Vamps.

As expected, the decks that put up the best win-percetages, with the exception of one, put up strong numbers against Jund. WW (45-22), ChapinUW (3-1), Boros (5-1) and Mythic (6-2). The exception, BossNaya, still put up decent numbers against LeechJund (10-11) — making this matchup comparable to the Jund-Jund mirror, except in this case, BossNaya is clearly stronger against the rest of the metagame, winning 46 of it’s remaining 63 matches.

————————————-

That’s all I’ve got for standard. I’m really not a big fan of the format, to be honest — clearly I’m a Legacy player. I’ve already got my next article in the works, which will be analysis similar to this, except for Legacy SCG 5K Richmond. If you don’t hear from me again before the 27th, I’d like to wish all of you “good luck” in SCG 5K Orlando, and I hope that these numbers prove to be helpful. Feel free to leave questions/comments here, or hit me up on facebook.

Keith McLaughlin

*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! =)

Since the last time you’ve all heard from me, I made some significant changes to the Life deck, now incorporating Black in the main deck, replacing Meddling Mage and Pithing Needle with Thoughtseize and Tidehollow Sculler. I’m a big fan of the new changes, as being able to know exactly what your opponent can do to stop you from going-off is extremely valuable information. That’s not to mention some of the cute tricks you can do with a Tidehollow Sculler with Vial [1] or Diamond Valley [2]. Additionally, Doran becomes much easier to cast, and we can now easily support multiple copies in the main deck, greatly strengthening the deck against strategies that can win without having to deal damage, i.e. Grindstone, Academy Ruins [3] and Jace, the Mind Sculptor.

[1] Using Vial to make a Tidehollow on an opponent’s draw step allows you to deny the opponent their top deck for a turn.
[2] Put Tidehollow’s ability on the stack, then sacrifice him to Valley to permanently exile a card from your opponent’s hand.
[3] The presence of Academy Ruins in 38-Land allows them to easily deck the Life player.

As many of the true innovators out there know, making drastic changes to a deck requires much time and effort; it’s not unusual for the theory behind certain card choices and strategies to prove itself invalid. Nevertheless, it’s important to learn as much as possible for such experiments. In the case with Life, we did not immediately think that Black was a stronger choice than Blue, rather it was the product of a failed experiment.

Due to the popularity of those troublesome strategies mentioned above, myself and some non-local players [4] decided it may be worthwhile to combine Life with Cephalid Breakfast [5], adding to the deck’s flexibility, while also adding a possible turn 2 nut-draw kill. This is exactly the same sort of reasoning used recently by Yurchick’s GP Oakland 2nd-place Thopter-Depths, and as far back as Kai Budde’s Oath of Trix, which combined the aggro-stomping Oath of Druids engine with the popular Illusions-Donate kill. As it turned out, two problems plagued our hybrid deck. First, the presence of Dread Return, Sutured Ghoul, 3x Narcomoeba, Dragon’s Breath and Lord of Extinction made the deck mulligan at least 80% more often. In many testing sessions, I’d be ecstatic to only mulligan to six, but even then, those hands would commonly include a Narcomoeba or the like, effectively making them five-card hands. Second, many games you’d be forced to choose whether to go for the cephalid kill or infinite life. The two are completely mutually-exclusive since the using the cephalid reduces your library to only a few cards at most. If the opponent had a Sensei’s Divining Top in play, there was some probability that there is a Swords to Plowshares just waiting on top of the library for the Ghoul to hit play, complicating the decision to some degree.

[4] Doug Azzano, in particular.
[5] The combo involves targetting Cephalid Illusionist a large number of times with Shuko, or Nomads en-Kor to deck oneself. Several Narcomoebas come into play, which are sacrificed to Dread Return targetting a very large Sutured Ghoul (removing Lord of Extinction or Terravore). Dragon’s Breath gives the Sutured Ghoul haste.
[6] Turn 1 Shuko or Nomads en-Kor, turn 2 Cephalid Illusionist.

Though we had a lot of problems with consistency, we found that a few of the matchups had vastly improved (at the expense of others). We were nearly beating Merfolk every game as we could determine the exact number of Stifles and FoW’s we needed to fight though before committing thanks to Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize.

After giving up on Cephalid-Life, it became clear that we could strengthen some matchups by making the blue-for-black swap, while also slightly shoring up our weak manabase [7]. Here is the list:

Dark Life
4 Aether Vial
4 Shuko
3 Nomads en-Kor
3 Daru Spiritualist
3 Task Force
4 Thoughtseize
3 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Doran the Siege Tower
4 Eladamri’s Call
4 Living Wish

3 Diamond Valley
2 Starlit Sanctum
4 Windswept Heath
4 Marsh Flats
3 Horizon Canopy
2 Savannah
2 Bayou
2 Scrubland
3 Plains
1 Forest

Sideboard
1 Diamond Valley
1 Nomads en-Kor
1 Daru Spiritualist
1 Doran the Siege Tower
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Progenitus [8]
3 Nature’s Claim
3 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Gaea’s Blessing

[7] We were already playing a couple sources of black mana in the main deck for Doran and sideboarded cards.
[8] To prevent being decked. Build up to a full hand, then discard Progenitus whenever you draw it.

I was prepped and ready to run a very similar list in a local tournament, but I figured it’d be more exciting if I wrote about something new. I convinced Nolan Blackwelder to switch decks with me prior to the tournament so I could talk, instead, about his interesting concoction, Bomberman [9].

[9] Nolan lost in the top 8 with the Life list, though he was winning both games prior to receiving a game-loss, and the unfortunate mistake of forgetting to board in the Progenitus against Stax.

Here is the list I piloted.

UWr Bomberman
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Fire/Ice
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Trinket Mage
3 Auriok Salvagers
2 Intuition
1 Painter’s Servant
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Grindstone
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Pithing Needle

1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
1 Dust Bowl
4 Flooded Strand
3 Arid Mesa
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Ancient Den

Sideboard
2 Shattering Spree
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Meddling Mage
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
2 Painter’s Servant

I don’t agree with all the card choices, but I decided to play the deck as-is. With around twenty players, the tournament structure was annouced to be four rounds, with a cut to the top-eight. Here we go:

Round 1, Robert Cone (U/G Natural Order)
Robert started on the play, and after a mulligan, ran out a Llanowar Elf on an Elvish Spirit Guide (no land). I untapped and played a Swords to Plowshares, practically ending the game on the spot. Robert found a City of Brass on the next turn and played a Concordant Crossroads, and on the following turn played a Birds of Paradise before passing. I ran out a Trinket Mage fetching Lion’s Eye Diamond and beat in for two. Robert didn’t do much on his following turn before passing back, where I resolved an Auriok Salvagers and generated infinite mana with Lion’s Eye Diamond [10], before drawing my deck with an Aether Spellbomb and going for the kill with Pyrite.

[10] Sacrifice the Lion’s Eye Diamond for three mana, then return it to your hand with Salvagers for two. Replay, rinse, repeat.

I sideboarded in the extra Painter’s Servants, Engineered Explosives and 2x Meddling Mage for the Tormod’s Crypt, Pithing Needle and 4x Accumulated Knowledge. This time Robert led off with a turn one Verdant Catacombs and City of Brass before playing a Vexing Shusher, while I played a Painter’s Servant. Robert resolved a main phase Mystical Tutor fetching Natural Order, and passed back before I ran out a Trinket Mage, fetching Grindstone. Robert, untapped and went for his Progenitus, I played out my 4th land drop along with the Grindstone. Robert scooped immediately, though I actually tried to stop him to ask if he had a second Progenitus in his deck. He hadn’t realized at the time, but Grinding into a Progenitus with Painter’s Servant ends the game in a draw, as the Progenitus keeps replacing itself only to be hit by the Grindstone again, creating an infinite loop [11].

[11] This is only the case because Progenitus’s ability is a replacement effect. If it were a triggered ability, the game would continue leaving the player with only Progenitus in his library.

Round 2, Todd Palmer (Merfolk)
I played first, but Todd started with an Aether Vial before getting first blood by beating in with a Mutavault. I played a Trinket Mage fetching Engineered Explosives. Todd attacked again with the Mutavault, but I opted against blocking, and Todd Vial’d a Lord of Atlantis into play to add a point of damage, before adding a second Mutavault. I untapped and used Engineered Explosives to dispatch the Lord, before attacking with Trinket Mage. Todd stayed aggressive by sending both his Mutavaults, sending me to 11 life. A turn later, Todd came in again with both Vaults, and I decided to throw the Mage in front of one, but Todd Vial’d a Merrow Reejerey to pump his Vault. I attempted a Swords to Plowshares, but he has Force of Will, sending me to 8 life. On my following turn, I cycled an Aether Spellbomb, but didn’t have much action, with only a Swords to Plowshares, a Lion’s Eye Diamond and a bunch of lands, and had to send the turn back. Todd ran out a Jitte, and hooked up his Reejerey, but I send it to the farm, and dropped to 3 from the Vaults. He passed the turn back, and I was all dead-on-board, until… I peeked at the top card of my library… Auriok Salvagers. I ran him out, into Todd’s two card hand, but he had no Force of Will. The Lion’s Eye Diamond hit the board next, and Todd scooped it up.

I sideboarded out all the copies of AK, the Tormod’s Crypt and the Intuitions for 2 Red Elemental Blast, 2 Engineered Explosives, a Pyroblast and 2 Painter’s Servant.

In game two, Todd started out with a Silvergill Adept, followed by a Lord of Atlantis and got in for a few points before an Stp dispatched the Lord. An Engineered Explosives on two was met by Force of Will, and a Mutavault joined Todd’s team. A Red Blast took out the Adept and a Trinket Mage hit play, but a Jitte came online for Todd, and the game ended soon after.

In game three, Todd led off with Wasteland and Pithing Needle on Grindstone. I had a Pithing Needle of my own, but opted to hit up his Wastelands. A Standstill came down, which was met by my Force of Will. Todd ran out an Aether Vial and a second Standstill along with a Force for my Counterspell. We passed the turn back and forth several times, with Vial moving up to three counters, but without ever putting a guy into play. Finally, a Rejeerey hit play along with a Mutavault, and I was forced to break the Standstill with a Swords to Plowshares. I tried a Painter’s Servant but Todd had another Force of Will. A Dust Bowl hit play, and I was started taking out the Mutavaults, while using various removal on Todd’s remaining creatures. This went on for several turns before time was called, with the board being my Pithing Needle and Academy Ruins against Todd’s Aether Vial, Pithing Needle and three turned-off Wastelands. On turn one of the final five, Todd peeled a Tormod’s Crypt but I put the Servant on top with Ruins in response, and followed with a turn two Trinket Mage fetching Grindstone and played an Explosives on one (to deal with the Pithing Needle on Stone). Todd could only add a Reejerey to his army on turn three, while I had enough mana up to Grind him out of cards on the fourth, forcing him to deck on the final turn. Phew!

With only four rounds before the cut, I was safe to draw into the top eight.

Quarterfinals
Natalie Scott (Dredge)
With Natalie on the play, the first spell she attempted was a turn two Putrid Imp. I went for the Force of Will, hoping to lock her out of discard outlets, but she had a Careful Study, discarding a few dredgers. On the following turn, I was able to counter a Breakthrough, but the damage had been done, and within three turns I was facing down six Bridge from Below tokens and a Bloodghast. I managed to peel an Engineered Explosives (which I called ahead of time, as it was my only out), and put an end to the tokens, but was already down to three life. The Bloodghasts cleaned things up fairly quickly.

I cut a Fire/Ice, three Swords to Plowshares, the AK’s, Intuitions and the Pithing Needle for 4 Red Blasts, 2 Tormod’s Crypt, 1 Relic of Progenitus, 2 Meddling Mage and 2 Painter’s Servants.

I elected to play, but my opening seven was just a bunch of Counterspells, Salvagers and lands. Without a winning gameplan here [12] I sent it back and received a similar six. The five wasn’t much better, and finally I wound up keeping the following four: Tormod’s Crypt, Red Blast, Painter’s Servant and Counterspell. Notice the lack of lands. Natalie came out the gates with a Pithing Needle on Crypt, followed by a turn two Tireless Tribe pitching Golgari-Grave Troll. She managed to dredge for three turns, without card drawing, her draw wasn’t very explosive. Not to mention, she didn’t hit a single Narcomoeba and only a single Bridge from Below. A Therapy came down, and missed on Trinket Mage. Finally, I peeled a second land, and ran out my Painter’s Servant naming blue. Natalie, still not hitting much action on her Dredges, continued to dig before passing back the turn, not realizing that her Pithing Needle was about to succumb to my Red Blast. And with that, the Red Blast knocked off the Needle and the Crypt took out her bin. A pair of Fire/Ices locked the land-light dredge deck out of blue mana for a couple turns before a Meddling Mage shut off Dread Return entirely. Natalie finally was able to hit a few Narcomoebas a few turns later, but it was too late. A Trinket Mage found Grindstone, and Natalie entered her scoop phase.

[12] I need to be able to lock her out of discard outlets, or have access to an early Tormod’s Crypt.

Being on the draw makes Counterspell much worse, so I cut two copies for a pair of Intuitions.

After such an epic game two, game three was quite anti-climactic. Natalie started with a Putrid Imp, to which I answered with a Tormod’s Crypt and Relic of Progenitus. Natalie was in no position to try to dredge and was forced to just hardcast a bunch of crappy guys. Between a pair of Trinket Mages and seven self-inflicted damage points from a Coliseum and City of Brass, the game ended in a hurry.

Semifinals
Carrena (Stax)
I kept my opening hand, with a Painter’s Servant, Trinket Mage, Force of Will, Intuition and three lands, and was pretty sure this game would be easy. That was, until Carrena resolved a Trinisphere on turn two. I figured that since I was going for the Grindstone kill, I should save my FoW for something more important, like Armageddon. That was until I realized that I couldn’t cast Force without paying three mana! On the following turn, I burned the FoW on morphed Exalted Angel, as I simply didn’t have anything better to do. When I tapped down for a Trinket Mage on the following turn, Armageddon hit the stack, my lands hit the bin, and I packed it up.

I boarded out the narrow removal spells (StP and Fire/Ice) along with two Intuition and a Tormod’s Crypt for Relic of Progenitus, 2 Shattering Spree, the pair of Painter’s Servants, 2 Meddling Mages and 2 Engineered Explosives.

We played land-go for a few turns before Carrena attempted a Crucible of Worlds, which was met by Force of Will (as she had Wasteland). A turn later, she tried a Trinisphere, which resolved, but was met by my Shattering Spree. Unfortunately, this left me tapped out, giving Carrena an opening to resolve Choke. Within a few turns, Carrena added a Smokestack, and fairly soon I was completely out of land. I started to build back, and was able to resolve a Painter’s Servant, and could Trinket Mage for a Grindstone as soon as I drew a mountain to Red Blast the Choke. Unfortunately, Carrena found an Armageddon before I could pull that off, ending my presence in the top eight.

3-1

After playing in the short tournament, I feel like I got a pretty good feel of what the deck wants to do, and how to play it fairly well. I noticed that it typically felt it was easier to go for the Painter’s Grindstone kill than Salvagers combo, particular post-board, although on paper it seems that the latter should be easier to set up.

Here are a few comments on the deck:
1. The Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge engine felt especially bad, as one doesn’t typically have that kind of time to invest, and drawing three cards is not necessarily better than using the Intuition as a tutor. Honestly though, if I was able, I almost always pitched AK or Intuition to Force of Will when given the opportunity. Perhaps I’m doing it wrong, but I don’t really think so.
2. I was very unhappy with the Tolaria West. I think it makes more sense if the deck had Pact of Negation. As is, I never found myself in a situation when I would rather transmute for a spell, than just play a land. That could also just mean that the deck is too land light.
3. The lack of Plateau put me in several situations where I had to choose between having access to red or white mana. The presence of Wasteland in the format, makes this come up more often than one might think.
4. Thirst for Knowledge seems very good in a deck with this many artifacts, particularly since most of those artifacts don’t mind being deposited directly into the graveyard.
5. Though Meddling Mage is a nice trick out of the sideboard, I think Counterbalance would be even stronger, and has the obvious synergy with the fetchable Sensei’s Divining Top.
6. There isn’t enough red mana in the deck to support Shattering Spree and I’m not sure if there is enough board space to worry about blowing up artifacts in a metagame that isn’t heavily shifted towards Stax.

And an updated list,

UWr Bomberman
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Fire/Ice
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Trinket Mage
3 Auriok Salvagers
2 Intuition
1 Painter’s Servant
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Grindstone
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Pithing Needle

2 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
3 Arid Mesa
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tundra
2 Plateau
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Ancient Den

Sideboard
3 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Counterbalance
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
2 Painter’s Servant

That’s all for now. Don’t forget to leave me some nice comments!

Keith McLaughlin

*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