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foxgirlintestines · 5 years

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“Pioneer Needs”

Ok, so WotC is pushing a new non-rotating format with a ban list that only includes the fetchlands. So let's look back on the cards that dominated Standard and might be contenders to pick up if the format actually succeeds.

Disclaimer: I do not think this format is nessisarily going to even last, let alone be the next Modern, but might as well ponder about it. I probably also forgot some stuff, but this is partially to help speculate about some cards you might want to pick up fast in case they get bought out in the hype.

Collected Company: This card was everywhere during its life in standard. It is simply just so much advantage and can be slotted in to most creature-based decks. In its standard life cards like Reflector Mage Spell Queller and other impactful etb creatures made the resolution of this spell sometimes backbreaking. We have plenty of strong options available for both aggro and midrange to make use of this card. CoCo saw a lot of modern play as well and synergizes very well with tribal strategies. We have lots of options for that especially with many human or spirits from Shadows over Innistrad that form most of the core for the modern decks. Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy: There was a time when 4 color decks were rampant because Jace was so good you would shove him into 3 color decks and alter the mana base just for him. Dark Bant, Wet Jund, or lots of other silly names for them were real decks. Snapcaster didn’t make the cut off, so Jace is possibly one of the best cheap value creatures that will be legal. He is strong in both Mid-Range and Control and some limited heavy Burn/Prowess Aggro. Though the lack of Delver of Secrets does hurt the prowess decks.

Search for Azcanta: This will probably be seen in a mix with Jace as another efficient card advantage engine for low investment. Its strong, not easy to interact with, and gains a steady stream of cards. It sees a bit of Modern and Legacy play, it's definitely good enough for this format. It’s a bit slow though, and competes with Jace who’s creature typing has some advantages with reanimation and things like CoCo.

Opt: It's going to be our standard 1 cost cantrip. Not much to really say here, it's going to help smooth out the draw of blue decks and fill graves fast which will probably be relevant.

Abrupt Decay/Assasin’s Trophy: We do not have an abundance of efficient removal to choose from, but for 2 cost removal these are bread and butter for any GB+ deck

Fatal Push: Black will be weighted heavily for its removal selection since there is no Path to Exile. This is probably going to be considered the best spot removal in the format against creatures.

Thoughtseize: Theros gave us this reprint, and it will be a big part of the meta. Thoughtseize makes it hard to rely on big spells like 4+ cost planeswalkers and allows black decks to strip games down to raw advantage and top decking. Its not the best against aggro, but Inquisition of Kozilek is not legal to split up the discard for less pain.

Kholagan’s Command: While more expensive this card is a lot of advantage. If artifacts such as things from Kaladesh become popular then it will have a big demand. Otherwise recycling creatures and having great utility might be enough to see play.

Siege Rhino: A big body and a decent life swing made this card oppressive in Standard. I’m not sure it really scales up to the level and speed of some newer strategies since a lot of new options to interact with 5 toughness have been added since it was in standard, but it is still a very solid creature. Energy: This isn’t just one card but the whole archetype broke Standard and caused Kaladesh to be one of the blocks with the most bannings in its Standard. While its no Urza’s level of ridiculousness these cards will be legal. Aetherworks Marvel in particular can open up some degenerate cheat strategies with Eldrazi.

Emrakul, the Promised End: While the other Eldrazi were always a bit of a stretch to cast Emrakul reduces her mana cost and can be completely crippling to resolve. Not only a 13/13 with flying and trample but you get to completely ruin your opponent’s resources by taking over their turn. Run their threatening creatures into her, use removal on their own stuff, make their Planeswalkers turn on their owner. She can really make a mess if the format is slow enough that she can resolve. Eidolon of the Great Revel, Monastery Swiftspear, Skewer the Critics, and all that Mono-Red: Burn will always exist in every format with 60 cards not named Vintage. We don’t have Lightning Bolt or Goblin Guide, but this format is weaker than Modern so the reduction in speed might not be too bad. Shock Lands are going to be hurting players off the start, and without Fetches multi-color decks will be less consistent. Burn or RDW could take an early lead in this format.

Liliana, the Last Hope: When a card sees consistent Modern and even Legacy play you can guess it will shine in weaker formats pretty safely. Lili is raw card advantage, removal for small creatures, and her ult is very hard to contend with and difficult to pull off. She could very easily be one of the planeswalkers that becomes the face of the format. Teferi, Hero of Dominaria: While the 3-cost version of Teferi has started to replace the big guy, he is still a very powerful card that frustrated players until they were calling for bans. He is still probably one of the most impactful 5 drops that we have for control. Elspeth, Sun’s Champion: Elspeth was the only win condition Azorius decks needed in Theros. Her plus makes it very hard to stop her without trample or flying and she can easily double as a wrath for bigger threats. She can easily overtake a game, though there is a lot of competition now for a control finisher. The 3 cost WAR Planeswalkers: You see them in standard, you see them in Vintage. They will probably be in Frontier. Deathrite Shaman: This card is banned in Modern and Legacy, it is the 1 cost Plneswalker who is also a mana elf. The downside is no fetches means it is not a consistent mana dork. That’s what really limited DRT and kept it out of Standard. It's certainly a powerful card, but this one really needs to see the shape of the format. Field of Ruin: Every format needs their Strip Mine to punish greedy mana or press an advantage further when you have the board. Especially with no Fetches this card will see play, but just how much depends on how stretched the mana is. Shocks and Buddy lands or Fast Lands might be the mana of choice, and Basics might be pretty low in number. This could either be a slow Strip Mine, a utility land answer, or not good enough for the main based on how the decks are built.

Dig through Time and Treasure Cruise: Deathrite is banned almost everywhere, but these cards go far enough to be restricted in Vintage as well. Search for Azcanta and Jace VP can fuel these, they refill your hand after slinging a lot of spells. Longer control games can rely on these to simply bury their opponents in advantage. The lack of Fetches hurts these cards, but there are a lot of other enablers and even playing them “fairly” is good enough. Monastery Mentor/Young Pyromancer: Less about speed and more about simply overwhelming opponents with each spell cast these cards can form the basis of a Jeskai tempo deck that can pressure other decks pretty hard. Jeskai Ascendancy: This card is crazy, but not the easiest to use. We do not have the best cantrips, but we do have Opt. One thing that’s potentially scary though is Treasure Cruise and Faeburrow Elder both give this card big mana generation and pay offs. The new Bloomtender taps for 4 with an Ascendancy out and has the potential for a Storm-like deck that might even end with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. Alternatively, it could make a deck similar to the Modern Combo with Emry and Mox Amber. It's not a straight forward guaranteed Frontier deck, but it's got potential.

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: We do not have the overwhelming ramp like Tron, so Ugin might be just too slow. It’s a consideration for Control top end though. It is hard to fight a resolved Ugin.

Saheeli Rai: Copycat is a functioning deck in Modern that replaced the Splinter Twin decks of old. Though, its current iteration relies heavily on Arcum’s Astrolabe. Like Jeskai Ascendancy this combo has a lot of potential especially with limited interaction as there are not many good counterspells and removal is very limited outside of black. Not having the best removal yourself without straining your mana might be an issue for a more tempo oriented combo deck, but Copy Cat can win on turn 4 out of nowhere outracing aggro and can just play a patient game against a control deck.

#Pioneer #MtG #Speculation

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frosty-mage · 5 years

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Lands at Legacy Champs

I had a great time at my first eternal weekend this year, where I brought Lands to the event. You can find my decklist (and some commentary) here. I wanted to add on a full tournament report as well, written for people who have no experience beyond knowing the basics of the game.

This will be fairly lengthy, so I’m gonna put a read more.

I’m going to assume you’ve looked at the list and read the description. That way, you have some basic idea of what I’m playing. I’ll link cards the first time (for convenience), plus if it’s been a while since it’s been referenced.

That said, let’s get into the event!

Round 1: I played against Czech Pile, which is a base blue-black deck that touches on red and green for a few other powerful cards, such as Leovold, Abrupt Decay, and Kolaghan’s Command. Unfortunately for them, while their deck is packed with powerful spells, their manabase is rather fragile. They don’t have much ability to play around repeated Wastelands, especially not recurring ones, since their lands are mostly fetchlands (like Misty Rainforest) and the original duals (such as Underground Sea, which can be fetched with the aforementioned rainforest since it is an island), with few basic lands. As a result, your primary gameplan is to reduce their manabase to nothing before killing them with whatever method is easiest.

I unfortunately don’t have notes from game 1 of this match, but I did win it after executing the game plan said above. He can’t stick a threat, and soon he can’t cast threats or answers. A Marit Lage soon ended him.

Game 2 was one of the most sickening kick-in-the-junk games I’ve played in a while. He lost the previous game, so he went first, and lead with a Misty Rainforest. I cracked my own fetchland for a Taiga, cast Mox Diamond, and followed that up with Sylan Library. My opponent cracked his fetchland for a Tropical Island, then cast Brainstorm during my end step. He then untapped, cracked a fetchland for an Underground Sea, and cast Abrupt Decay to kill my library, since an active library isn’t something that he can compete with.

I then untapped and played Stage into Choke. My opponent’s lands stayed tapped. He didn’t play a land on turn 3. I had a Dark Depths to follow up. He missed his next land drop. I made a 20/20 on his end step, then attacked him for lethal. He then revealed his hand, which contained two copies of Diabolic Edict (sacrifice does get around indestructible) and a copy of Ensnaring Bridge, none of which were castable.

Round 2: I played against mono-red prison. This deck is dedicated to playing Blood Moon (and its little brother, Magus of the Moon) as soon as possible, sometimes as early as turn 1. It also plays Chalice of the Void to lock out large chunks of cards. I faced Chalice on 1 on my opponent’s turn 1, and while I was able to delay the blood moon for a few turns, I wasn’t able to stop it. I have no way of beating that particular combination in my maindeck, so I lost.

I do bring in 3 copies of Krosan Grip after sideboard, but even those weren’t enough. I got quickly run over by a Goblin Rabblemaster after getting hit by an early moon. I wasn’t expecting to win this matchup. It happens. 1-1.

Round 3: I played against a sweet blue-black control deck that splashed green for Sylvan Library and Abrupt Decay. It wanted to hide behind powerful planeswalkers, such as Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Liliana of the Veil, but also played Sinkhole and Smallpox to disrupt the opponent’s mana. Unfortunately, his mana is more vulnerable than mine, so I was able to do to him what he wanted to do to me. It was closer than the decks would suggest, but I still came out with a win in two games. 2-1 so far.

Round 4: I played against one of the champions of the archetype I was playing, Jody Kieth. However, he was playing 12-post, a deck dedicated to using Cloudpost to generate lots of mana, using Vesuva to copy it and Glimmerpost for even more Loci. This mana then gets funnelled into casting gigantic spells, such as Ulamog.

I wish I took more notes on this matchup, because it was very intense and very challenging, but unfortunately I can’t say more than that this was a close win in three games. We talked quite a bit after the match and he gave me some tips and discussed what the correct way to build the deck was. 3-1.

Then wizards’ event running program crashed, and we had about an hour between the end of the 50 minute round timer and the start of round 5.

Round 5: I played against mono-red burn. This is a deck that focuses on killing you as quickly as possible with fast creatures and Lightning Bolts to the face. This is one of my better matchups, since they can’t beat a Glacial Chasm lock and have no answers to a fast Marit Lage. They mulliganned on the play in game 1, and managed to get me down to 8 before dying a painful death to a giant squid.

In game 2, I opened on Forest, Crop Rotation, Depths, Stage, Wasteland, Ghost Quarter, Tranquil Thicket. While that hand has next to no disruption, it does put a 20/20 into play on turn 3 (after crop rotation for Ancient Tomb), and that should be enough. I then drew Manabond and put it into play on turn 1 instead. 4-1

Round 6: I played against Sneak and Show, a deck dedicated to using Sneak Attack and Show and Tell to put Griselbrand and Emrakul into play. I have a bad matchup here, because they’re a fast combo deck with a manabase that dodges Wasteland. My only real hope is that they help me put a lage into play. I can’t really beat Sneak Attack, but Karakas can help me win.

I lost game 1 to a turn 2 Show and Tell into Emrakul off Ancient Tomb. No Karakas or crop rotation to get me out of it. In game 2, my opponent put Grislebrand into play, but I made a Marit Lage on the same end step, forced him to block, and then killed him with the squid. In game 3, I never really got off the ground, and he had another early grislebrand. 4-2.

Round 7: I played against Blue-white Miracles, a controlling deck with a lot of 1-mana deck manipulation spells, like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Portent. The things to worry about are Swords on your Marit Lage token and maindeck Back to Basics. While this does give you a lot of life, it doesn’t stop the last ability of Jace, the Mind Sculptor from killing you. This is a fairly accurate description of how game 1 went. He was attacking me with a pair of Snapcaster Mages, and started using the +2 of jace to filter my draws. I had to do something, so I tried making a Marit Lage, which did stop me from dying to the mages, but it got Swords’d and I died to a Jace ultimate soon after.

However, this matchup changes greatly after sideboard. I have Choke, Krosan Grip to deal with his back to basics and Counterbalance, and even a couple Tireless Trackers to pressure Jaces and require him to use removal on things that aren’t Marit Lage.

In game 2, I managed to resolve a pair of early chokes, so he couldn’t really get out from under them. I then made a Marit Lage, but it got Swords’d. My gameplan then shifted to casting Punishing Fire repeatedly at my opponent’s face, using Grove to get it back. While he did have a pair of copies of back to basics, I had a pair of Grips to deal with them.

In game 3, he managed to get down a quick back to basics again. However, I got down a Marit Lage, which once again decided to take up farming. Luckily, my list is designed to be able to win through back to basics: I have two basic forests, which is enough to dredge Life from the Loam, cast loam to get back stage and depths, then replay stage, next turn replay depths and make a token end of turn. Even miracles struggles dealing with a 20/20 every other turn, and while he did manage to remove the first, my second got there. I’m not supposed to win that matchup, and I’m definitely not supposed to win when all seven of my sideboard cards are in the bottom 10 cards of my library. Got there anyway through a resolved hate card. 5-2 and feeling amazing.

Round 8: I faced Eldrazi-post, a deck that uses the lands mentioned in round 4, but is only colorless rather than playing green. It instead chooses to pair them with Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors to power out threats like Thought-knot Seer and Reality Smasher. It also plays artifact disruption, such as Chalice of the Void and Sorcerous Spyglass. This matchup is close to even. While I can sometimes blow up all of their lands, sometimes they just run me over. Additionally, they tend to bring in both Leyline of the Void (which stops Loam) and Ensnaring Bridge (which stops Marit Lage).

In game 1, they got an early start and cast Chalice with 2 counters. This stops my loam recursion and my punishing fires. However, I managed to stall with a Glacial Chasm for a while, while a looming force presented itself on the other side of the board. My opponent misplayed by tapping their Ancient Tomb to charge their Walking Ballista, bringing them from 21 life to 19. Additionally, they didn’t prioritize getting Endbringer into play. He finally cast it, but this was also the turn that I drew Crop Rotation to get Dark Depths, which put a 20/20 into play on his end step, which flew over his team for the win.

In game 2, I got run over by a pair of thought-knot seers, one of which took the Drop of Honey I sideboarded in. It happens.

In game 3, I managed to get a Molten Vortex down early, but had to give him a few life off Grove plus his own Glimmerpost. Once again, he got Endbringer on the same turn that I got Marit Lage, but I got an attack in, bringing him to 3, and finished him off with Loam+Vortex. 6-2.

Round 9: I’m playing against Grixis Delver, a blue-black-red deck designed to stick a threat (such as Delver of Secrets or Young Pyromancer), then counter your spells and deny your mana to stop you from stopping them in time. I completely punted game 1 by running a Crop Rotation into a Spell Pierce that he revealed to transform his delver. I could have played Ancient Tomb on the previous turn, but didn’t because it’s not a standard maindeck inclusion and I wanted to try getting a surprise Marit Lage. I then got run over in game 2 by a strong delver draw to my mediocre one. 6-3.

That was the end of that day’s tournament. Sunday would have the last two rounds of swiss for the legacy event, then the top 8 of the vintage tournament, then the top 8 of legacy tournament.

Round 10: I played against blue-white stoneblade. It’s a similar deck to Miracles, but it trades the more reactive/slow cards, such as Terminus, Counterbalance, and Entreat the Angels, for more proactive cards like Stoneforge and True-name Nemesis. This list was also running maindeck Back to Basics, so it plays similarly to the miracles matchup before, but with them having more pressure but not the counterbalance-jace combination to lock out Life from the Loam recursion (repeatedly put a card with converted mana cost 2 back).

Game 1 goes about the same as game 1 of miracles in round 7. They are on blue-white, start getting basic lands, eventually play back to basics. They apply some pressure with a threat (this time, it’s a true-name instead of a snapcaster), start ticking up a Jace, I make a Marit Lage, they swords it, and I can’t make a second before Jace kills me. Same old, same old. Once again, however, I get to bring in a lot of cards to deal with his threats and present my own backbreakers.

In game 2, he was forced to keep a hand with his only lands being Arid Mesa and Plains. He needed to use his library manipulation to draw into a third land to cast his back to basics, but that meant he had to get Tundra, which left him vulnerable to my Wasteland. While he did find an island, he was stuck on those two lands for a while. I made one Marit Lage; he had it take up farming. I made a second; he died.

In game 3, he played not one, but two copies of Rest in Peace, which shuts off Loam and Punishing Fire. I make a Marit Lage, hoping that will be enough, but he Plows it, forcing me to try again. In the process, I also manage to use Crop Rotation to deny myself green mana, so everything in my hand isn’t castable. we both draw a card and pass with no play for a few turns in a row. I play a Taiga, which turns on the three (!) Krosan Grips I have in hand. He taps out for a back to basics, but I turn my Ancient Tomb into a Thespian Stage with a Crop Rotation, then make another marit lage and kill him with it. 7-3, and holy hell I just won through three active hate enchantments.

In the 11th and final round, I played against burn (this being the only repeat deck I’ve faced the whole event). I easily win game 1 by making an early Marit Lage. However, in game 2, he has an Alpine Moon out of the sideboard, which he uses to name Thespian’s Stage. I can no longer make a marit lage that way, so I have to stall with Glacial Ghasm in order to win with Molten Vortex or Punishing Fire. Unfortunately, I put my one copy of Vortex (the faster kill) into the graveyard by dredging Loam, and I have no way of getting it back. I then take forever to find a Grove to start recurring Fire. All the while, my opponent is whiffing on an instant-speed burn spell to kill me while I don’t have a chasm (between my upkeep and main phase). Eventually, however, they find it and I die.

In game 3, I keep Taiga, Gamble, Exploration, two copies of Dark Depths, Wasteland, Rishadan Port while going first. I keep this hand, figuring that I’m not beating Alpine Moon with a six card hand anyway and this has a good chance of turn-3 Marit Lage (I can either draw crop rotation or stage in my first draw step to get it on turn 2, or if I don’t, I can gamble for stage and hope to not discard that particular one of my 5 cards, and if I do discard it, I can always hope to draw it or a crop rotation soon after anyway). In total, I have over an 84.9% chance to get a marit lage by turn 3. However, I landed in that 15% of universes where I don’t draw stage or rotation and my gamble hit the one in five chance of discarding stage. I putter around for the few turns it takes him to kill me. I did slightly mess up; I should have held the Wasteland I played on turn 1 after leading with Taiga into Exploration. While this does win me the games where I draw stage/rotation and he draws alpine moon on turn 2 exactly, it also removes an extra card from my hand. Had I held onto the wasteland instead of playing it on turn 1, I would have had 6 cards in hand instead of 5 when discarding to gamble, which could have been the difference between winning and losing. Variance will sometimes get you though.

Overall, I finished 7-4. I’m happy with my performance, other than the punt in round 9. I had played magic from 9:30 to 7 before that, though, so take that how you will.

The event was a lot of fun. I’ll definitely do it again next year.

#mtg #eternal weekend #mtglegacy #legacy lands #tournament report

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trainedarmodon · 6 years

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What I'd Play at GP Richmond

First I'll start by saying I haven't been able to think of anything interesting to write about recently. I was going to write the follow-up to my previous Tron article on why control was bad in Modern. But unfortunately Gerry T beat me to it and I agree with all of his points to where I don't believe another similar article needs to be written. Then I was busy with GP Providence and SCG Baltimore prep. But now I'm back and I'm discussing something I'm dying to talk about.

As the title gives away I unfortunately won't get to make it to GP Richmond. I wasn't able to secure the time off of work to go down and unlike every other tournament when I can just drive down the Friday before the GP starts, the format I care about starts on Friday. But not being able to go hasn't stopped me from spending some time thinking of the list I think I could of used to win the whole thing.

What to Expect?

Before I go into detail about my list however let's go over what I expect the metagame to be at Richmond. Obviously with Legacy people will bring their pet decks that they've been playing for years but for the people trying to make a meta call and adjust to what's been happening in the format recently I expect three decks to be represented more than most with two others not to far behind.

1. UB Death Shadow

The break out deck of Pro Tour 25, this deck has been seeing a lot of play on MTGO ever since. This is the tempo-yist Delver deck available right not it does the tempo game better than RUG due to its much harder to answer threats But what makes it better than many other decks is its power to switch roles when needed as it can play the control role extremely well if it's initial plan is being hampered.

2. Colorless Eldrazi

This is by far the best Chalice deck at the moment because of the pressure it applies after locking the opponent out. Also with less to almost no 4 color decks being present anymore the value of Blood Moon and therefore Mono-R Prison has gone down.

3. Death and Taxes

This deck is a great entry point for the format and with its most recent success I expect lots of players to choose this one for Richmond. Obviously it helps that this deck is also very good right now as it can be adjusted for any field.

I expect the next two decks to see significantly less play but still have their fair share of the metagame percentage.

1. Grixis Control

Honestly in my opinion this deck isn't very good and I'd much rather play Grixis Delver in the "Sukenik" style. But a lot of great and well known players usually pick decks that give them an edge when they are the better player at the table and Grixis Control does just that.

2. Sneak and Show

Traditional 8 put into play effect and 8 Fatty package of Emrakul, the Aeon’s Torn and Griselbrand. Straight to the point sneak and show which no one currently seems to agree with me on. I think Omniscence has lost a lot of stock as a card. When all the other top deck options can grind a game out when necessary the Show and Tell player just needs to end the game and not durdle around.

Choices, Choices Everywhere

Now enough of what I expect, time to show you where I ended up if I was able to attend.

4 Stoneforge Mystic

3 Snapcaster Mage

4 True-Name Nemesis

2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

2 Blood Moon

1 Umezawa’s Jitte

1 Batterskull

4 Brainstorm

4 Ponder

4 Force of Will

2 Spell Pierce

2 Pyroblast

4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Council’s Judgement

1 Supreme Verdict

4 Flooded Strand

4 Scalding Tarn

1 Arid Mesa

1 Volcanic Island

1 Tundra

1 Karakas

3 Plains

5 Island

1 Mountain

Sideboard

2 Surgical Extraction

2 Flusterstorm

2 Disenchant

2 Meddling Mage

2 Containment Priest

1 Sword of Feast and Famine

1 Council’s Judgement

1 Dack Fayden

1 Supreme Verdict

1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Explanations

Now I know there are some things that stand out immediately but I will be going over the decklist card by card.

4 Stoneforge Mystic

Wouldn't be Stoneblade without it.

3 Snapcaster Mage

I believe 3 is just the correct number if the game is dragging on long enough that you need the 4th to get back into it you've more than likely lost already. And if you're already ahead any card can do just as much as another Snappy.

4 True-Name Nemesis

First of the rather strange choices. I'll start by saying I think Vendilion Clique is overplayed, overcosted for it's effect and underwhelming. I believe this deck needs to close out the game quickly after establishing control. We are a midrange deck after all. Playing the 4th hard to answer threat just makes sense especially when we can make up the percentage points for our combo matchups in other ways.

2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

Typical number. You don't want to draw to many 4 man sourcerys that don't immediately win you the game. But Jace is the most powerful Planeswalker in legacy so we have to play him because he gets pretty close to winning the game even if he doesn't outright do so.

2 Blood Moon

As I mentioned before the value of Blood moon has gone down significantly since before the bans. So if people are expecting less and less of this card that is the time to play it. The likelihood of people being prepared is lower meaning the chance of just getting free wins in higher. Also this card completely locks out UB Shadow which is better then Back to Basics because of how cheap all of the answers and threats are in that deck. It also completely shuts down Eldrazi, Lands, and unless it was played around Grixis Control. Shutting down three of your tougher matchups is good enough for me.

1 Umezawa’s Jitte + 1 Batterskull

Usual equipment package I don’t think Sword of Fire and Ice is actually very good right now in anything other then the D&T matchup where Jitte already is good enough.

4 Brainstorm + 4 Ponder

Usual cantrip package, haven’t tested any number of Preordain yet and most likely won’t as I don’t play enough to see the marginal percentage gains or losses.

4 Force of Will + 2 Spell Pierce

Usually 4 Force for the unfair matchups. Now for Spell Pierce, I’m playing 2 instead of the usual 1 because I cut the Clique so we needed an extra card for combo decks and also with the growing popularity of Grixis control K-Command is reentering the format. Paying 5 for K-Command while possible is rather unlikely and I feel we can take game 1 against Grixis as long as we avoid the complete blowouts. I also chose a second Pierce over the 1st Fluster main because of Jace. A resolved Jace is so hard for our deck to beat with usual lists only running 1 or 2 answers main and if the opposing Jace gets to activate twice we are probably just dead. So the easiest way to deal with it is before it hits the board.

0 Counterspell + 2 Pyroblast

Time for probably the most situational and tournament specific decision. I chose to put 2 Pyroblasts main instead of the usual Counterspell because out of the 5 top decks I expect this card has game against 3 of them. Shadow, Grixis and Sneak and Show. Pyro is also obviously good against any blue mirror as well so there are a lot of other matchups it's also good in. Another reason I really like Pyro main is it gives us 2 more clean answers to an opposing Jace or True-Name which by far are the hardest cards for our deck to deal with.

4 Swords to Plowshares

Don’t play white if you aren't playing 4 Swords.

1 Council’s Judgment

Answer to Chalice, Trinisphere, Planeswalkers, TNN, Leovold and much much more. I was playing 2 but with the 2 Pyros main I felt it was ok to cut to 1.

1 Supreme Verdict

Another argumentative chose where I’ve seen others play a Path to Exile instead. I feel that path is just terrible if you want to go either the Blood Moon or Back To Basics route. I also like Verdict because it gives you a 1 outer in a lot of situation you would usually be dead. Facing a Shadow and Gurmag and they are holding counter…GOTTEM. Chalice on 1 against 3 Eldrazi....GOTTEM. And so on.

1 Basic Mountain

We have red cards main and need a reliable source of mana that can be found in the face of Wasteland

Sideboard

2 Surgical Extraction

Usual choice, very good in a lot of combo matchups.I think 2 of these is enough since we also play Snappy.

2 Flusterstorm

Good in combo matchups and fair blue mirrors. Two is more then enough since after all it can’t answer every threat but it is still insane.

2 Disenchant

Chalice, Trinisphere, Ensnaring Bridge, Search, Counterbalance, Jitte, Batterskull and the list goes on.

2 Meddling Mage

More for testing then anything but like I said I don’t value Clique very highly meaning we need more cards for combo matchups and this card does work.

2 Containment Priest

Reanimator matchup, Elves any Zenith deck, Sneak and Show and Vial decks although I usually don’t bring it in much against those.

1 Sword of Feast and Famine

Shadow and Grixis. Allows you to play the control role while constantly deploying threats.

1 Council’s Judgment

More of what I said before. An extra one just in case, you can never be to prepared.

1 Dack Fayden

Grindy Matchups, the Mirror and Death and Taxes. It’s spicy I know but it feels so strong.

1 Supreme Verdict

Gotta have a backup plan for your backup plan.

1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Insane in grindy matchups and also good for making ground blockers when that is relevant like with Eldrazi. Just sit back and keep making dudes till your opponent dies.

And that is the abnormal list I would of played this weekend at GP Richmond. Hopefully this can be useful to someone there as a last minute swap or after the tournament is done to see how this would fair against the decks that came out of the tournament.

#MtG #magic the gathering #magic: the gathering #gprichmond #GP Richmond #legacy #competitive #competition #article #decklist #Thoughts

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neingel · 7 years

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Far Wanderings: Pauper

Hello again fellow readers! I have decided to make a new series of articles for the blog starting from today, as you can see from the title - Far Wanderings would be a new series of articles where I go talking about a certain format/deck/topic about the game. No competition/banning reports in this series, it’ll just be a very specific somewhat narrow view of the selected topic I have chosen to write about.

So as for the very first article of this series, the topic I would like to rumble on today, well the name was already given away in the title, it’s Pauper! Pauper is quite a well-known format in today’s day and age, it’s the format where only commons are allowed as well as some cards that have had their rarity downgraded to common. Pauper is usually more popular on Magic Online, where there are daily regular events/leagues, with a good amount of participants as well.

“Pauper isn’t exciting right? It’s just commons....”

On that note you’re definitely wrong. Pauper isn’t just a format where people play under-powered commons, Pauper has been referred to many older players to be a “lite” version of Legacy. The fact that it has a large pool of cards to play with, a fair banlist and it’s an eternal format does give it a lot to talk about.

A small example of signature cards in Magic’s history that are common and see tons of play in Pauper

Due to Pauper having a huge card pool, a lot of iconic/familiar cards see actual play in Pauper. Such examples include:

Ponder

Preordain

Daze

Gush

Hydro/Pyro-blast

All 3 Tron lands

All original Mirrodin artifact lands

Atog

Mulldrifter

Capsize

Chromatic Star/Sphere

Ancient Stirrings

Expedition Map

Mystical Teachings

Rancor

Nettle Sentinel

Quirion Ranger

Vines of Vastwood

Slippery Boggle

Armadillo Cloak

Chainer’s Edict

Gitaxian Probe

Ancestral Mask

Doom Blade

Kiln Fiend

Chain Lightning

Rift Bolt

Lava Spike

Searing Blaze

Fireblast

Priest of Titania

I mean..that’s a lot of good cards that have seen play in larger eternal formats, I don’t see why Pauper is being labelled as an “underpowered” format by a few.

“Blue seems powerful in this format - is the meta solved?”

A very frequently asked but simple question: to start it off, I’ll show a sample Delver list - which is probably Pauper’s oldest and best blue deck.

As you can see, the deck itself is strong, having a slight resemblance to a mono-blue Legacy Delver build. However, despite this being the most popular deck(probably in Pauper’s history), there are many decks which produce solid results, which I’ll show a few below.

Mono-Green Stompy

Murasa/Temur Tron

Affinity

Kiln Fiend Combo

As you can see through the decklists, all of the decks are very well designed. But what if I told you that many decks of different archetypes achieve a 5-0 on Magic Online everyday/week? Now that will probably take a lot of people aback.

As you can see, within 24 hours, 7 different decks end up with a 5-0 on a Magic Online league, with many and much more ending up being not so lucky with a 4-1. However, this clearly proves my point that Pauper is not like Legacy, in which it is not a blue-dominated format and it has a good, balanced spread of archetypes in the metagame.

So what’s Pauper’s biggest selling point?

One problem that runs in many formats of today is money. I mean some formats require a lot of money and commitment, something which I and majority of many other players have very little of. Pauper, running completely on commons is the perfect format to get into around with a small budget, yet being able to play powerful commons and build a top tier deck in a format all without the hassle of money

As you can see from this metagame screenshot, the cost of Pauper’s high tier decks are dirt cheap when compared to Standard’s,Modern’s and Legacy’s.

When I mean Pauper is cheap, I mean you can build a top tier Affinity deck in Pauper including Atog and original artifact lands - being 15 times cheaper than it’s Modern counterpart. 15 times!! This also encourages many players who have played Modern or Legacy to dive into Pauper, as building a “common” version of their deck in Modern/Legacy is seen as a challenge in Pauper. Pauper is also an excellent format for any new players trying to dive into an eternal format without spending too much money in it, it teaches them the power level of cheap commons and brings them to a metagame where the power levels of most decks are very very close when compared to each other.

“Is Pauper being played actively in Paper?”

If you asked me that a few years ago, I would say no. But the community of the format has grown together with it’s popularity, now there are quite a lot of LGSs hosting Pauper events(not sanctioned of course due to Wizards seeing it as an “online” only format). With the biggest Pauper event being Card Kingdom’s Rags to Riches, combined with it’s large playerbase on Reddit, Pauper is continually being talked about almost everyday! It is definitely a unique take on eternal formats in today’s age, it might look small to a few for now, but it could prove it’s weight in the future with the current potential it shows today.

Conclusion

Pauper is still a growing format, but it is already attracting the attention of many players with it’s unique playstyle, strong metagame and cheap price. I do enjoy playing Pauper, however there aren’t too many stores in Singapore that would agree to host them. The future is looking very bright for Pauper though! All in all, I hope this was a good read and I’ll be looking forward to writing more Far Wanderings preferably one article every 1-2 weeks. Closing it off, follow the blog, check out more if you’ve missed them and flip those Delvers with Brainstorm! See ya!

#mtgpauper #mtgcommons #mtgformat #mtgonline #farwanderings

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pauperpedia · 4 years

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Tuesday Brewsday 21: Fathomable Faeries

I’ve often wondered what the big deal was about Delver of Secrets in mono blue decks when it comes to Pauper. Now, I know I’m going against the grain with this article, and most of you will say what I’m about to is unfathomable, but I have to at least argue my point. So, why do I dislike Delver? Well for one, I never seem to have any luck with the crazy wizard flipping blindly. It always takes a set up turn or two to guarantee a flip. By then my opponent has already done better things with their turns, or outright destroyed my Delver. Second, Most “Delver” decks you see in Legacy only run about 14 creatures, while mono blue Delver in Pauper has been running 20 creatures lately. Personally, I don’t like those odds. Which brings me to my third point, Wouldn’t it be nice to up our creature count a bit and take advantage of Spellstutter Sprite & Ninja of the Deep Hours? Besides, players have always been on the fence about which turn 1 Faerie is better anyways... so why not run both!

4 Faerie Seer

4 Faerie Miscreant

4 Spellstutter Sprite

4 Ninja of the Deep Hours

4 Spire Golem

2 Fathom Seer

2 Ponder

4 Preordain

4 Accumulated Knowledge

3 Snap

4 Counterspell

1 Deprive

2 Sunken City

3 Mystic Sanctuary

15 Snow-Covered Island

I’ve been one of the few that have like Faerie Seer better than Faerie Miscreant. Although the Seer doesn’t have as high a ceiling as the Miscreant, it always does something when it enters the battlefield. Being able to scry 2 is no joke. It can turn a sketchy one lander on the draw into an absolute snap keep, knowing you get four chances to find that second land drop for turn two. Running both Faeries increases your chances for a turn two ninjitsu Ninja of the Deep hours, and makes Spellstutter Sprite even better. Sure, you’re taking away you’re explosiveness, but I like to think you’re sacrificing that for more consistent game play.

Fathom Seer is Jherjamesb’s pet creature they’ve been playing with since Mystic Sanctuary plagued graced our format. It’s almost reminiscent of the good ol’ Gush days. Morphing this and returning two islands to your hand, one of which better be Mystic Sanctuary, to draw two cards is a strong play. Especially if you’re replying Sanctuary to place an important spell on top of your library. Adding Fathom Seer alongside a playset of Spire Golem is something that probably wouldn’t be done if you were playing Delver of Secrets, which is fine by me.

Since I’m running a playset if Faerie Seer, I’m able to cut down on Ponders, since I’m still manipulating my library with scry effects. In return I can also run Accumulated Knowledge, something most mono blue decks don’t do since they’re too busy running eight sorcery speed cantrips. The only mono blue deck that does is the control variant. I like to view my version as a more tempo oriented deck, and prefer the instant speed options that come with running AK. Besides, who doesn’t love casting a bunch of cards for two mana, especially if you can buy one back with Mystic Sanctuary.

The other surprise in this deck’s mainboard I need to touch on, is the appearance of Sunken City. Since I’m running an abundance of 1/1s I needed to find a solution to Electrickery and be able to close out games quickly. Sunken City does exactly that and all it costs is two mana every turn. Giving our blue creatures +1/+1 can turn the tide on a close matchup and again is something you wouldn’t typically see in a Delver deck.

2 Winter's Rest

4 Blue Elemental Blast

2 Echoing Truth

2 Coral Net

1 Relic of Progenitus

1 Stormbound Geist

1 Aura Flux

1 Sunken City

1 Viridian Longbow

This is pretty much your typical sideboard you would see in a Delver deck. The one exception being another copy of Sunken City. I really don’t like Electrickery or Shrivel and this gives me a way to avoid it without trying to play around it.

Winter’s Rest is cool tech since Guardian of the Guildpact isn’t seen much nowadays. Being able to permanently tap down an opponent’s creature when it enchants it is amazing. It can allow your Ninja to attack in the turn it’s played if that was your opponent’s only defender. Just a solid card that deals with big threats that were able to sneak by your counter magic.

Running mono blue without Delver of Secrets really isn’t unfathomable now is it? I truly believe a build like this has a home in our meta. Imagine, maybe someday we will get an aggressive flying 2/1 Faerie for one mana that works like War Falcon does, but with Faeries. I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy for dropping Delver, but I hope I’ve at least stirred the pot for conversation. Please visit and like/follow my Facebook page pauperpedia, a fan page dedicated to bringing you links to daily articles, videos, and podcast covering Pauper. You can also email me at [email protected] if any of you have submissions as well. Till next time folks, have a happy Brewsday!

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arcanite2805 · 7 years

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Pauper - A View from the Outside

Before my first stream tomorrow, I thought I’d give a brief overview of Pauper as a format. Unfortunately, the brief slightly went out the window. Pauper as you’re probably aware, is a format played primarily on Magic Online, where only cards that have been printed at a common rarity are legal. The exception of course are the small number of cards on the banned list, which at the time of writing includes Cloud of Faeries, Cloudpost, Cranial Plating, Empty the Warrens, Frantic Search, Grapeshot, Invigorate, Peregrine Drake, Temporal Fissure and Treasure Cruise. Almost all of these were banned because they enabled extremely fast kills, or combos that were overly oppressive to the metagame.

Many extremely powerful commons have been printed across the history of magic, even today, with powerful cards from Amonkhet and Kaladesh making an impact on the format. The biggest impacts have been felt due to the rarity shifting of certain cards in the Masters sets, such as Peregrine Drake and Burning Tree Emissary most recently. The format does have a few facets missing that are normally found in others, such as the lack of planeswalkers and unconditional board sweepers for example. However, the format is cheap and healthy, and a great way to start playing on Magic online.

The Mana:

Like all decks across MTG, Pauper decks are constrained by their mana. Unlike Modern, Legacy and Vintage, the luxury of fetchland and shock/dual lands are not available. Neither are the powerful 5 colour lands like Spire of Industry, Mana Confluence and Glimmervoid; Utility lands such as Ghost Quarter and Desolate Lighthouse; or creature lands such as Celestial Colonnade or Treetop Village.

However, it is still possible to run functional multicolour manabases in Pauper. The primary multi-coloured lands used in Pauper are the neo-refuge cycle from Tarkir Block (ETB Tapped and Gain a life, T: add X or Y) and the Bounce lands for Original Ravinca Block (ETB Tapped, and return a land to your hand, T: add XY). These also have the benefit of the incidental lifegain to offset the slower mana development, or the virtual card advantage provided by giving yourself additional land drops.

Further colour fixing can be provided by Evolving Wilds/Teramorphic Expanse or by recent Commander Deck printing, Ash Barrens. These also have the additional benefit of thinning your deck of additional lands, which can be particularly valuable in decks that want to draw action spells regularly.

Additionally, multicolour decks and artifact synergy based decks utilise mana artifacts like Chromatic Sphere, and Prophetic Prism, as the 5-colour fixing, or the artifact synergy is valuable to the deck’s strategy. Some ramp decks also utilise the Signets from the original Ravinca block. Green decks can use auras like Abundant Growth and Utopia sprawl as additional fixing.

Specific decks also use more niche lands, such as Affinity’s Artifact lands, and Tron decks utilising Haunted Fengraf as an additional mana sink. Even Snow covered lands are used to power up specific cards, like Skred as additional removal spells.

Metagame:

The Current Pauper Metagame (June 2017) appears to be reasonably diverse, with aggro, tempo, control, combo and ramp decks all viable, and with significant metagame share. Tradditional Midrange (think modern Jund, or standard creature based decks) is somewhat reduced in prevalence, although some decks in the metagame can take this position in a given matchup.

My theory for this apparent lack of metagame share is because the lack of efficient 2-for-1 answers and generic solutions to the wide range of pauper threats mean that it is extremely difficult to line up threats and answers in the right manner. This can be alleviated with sufficient card advantage, which is hard to come by in non-blue decks, which then tend towards a more consistently controlling approach.

The recent release of the Conspiracy 2 cards for Magic Online has given some hope to these archetypes with the ‘Monarchy’ cards (Palace Sentinels and Thorn of the Black Rose). These both allow you to add a reasonable body to the board, whilst providing an easy, recurring source of card advantage. They also add a fun level of strategic complexity to the game, as if you take a hit, your opponent steals the monarchy and your card advantage!

The main source of data that we can use to appreciate the state of the pauper metagame is the successful lists from Magic Online tournaments. These have recently been mostly 5-0 deck lists from leagues, along with the top decks from the recently added “Pauper Challenges”. Although these clearly don’t give a complete picture of the metagame, it is the primary force that drives churn in the metagame. MTG Goldfish takes these decks and groups them (roughly) by archetype, from which a picture of the metagame can be formed.

Delver (UR/Mono-U):

As you might expect, Delver is one of the most popular decks in Pauper. The allure of playing cheap efficient threats, disruption and removal and the ability to have a fighting chance in any matchup is often too much to pass up. Along with Delver itself, Faerie Miscreant and Spellstutter Sprite add a disruptive and card advantage angle to the deck. More card advantage comes from the Ninja of Deep Hours, who are easily set up by the evasive nature of the other threats. Augur of Bolas (UR) and Spire Golem (Mono-U) round out the threat suite.

The threats are supported by efficient countermagic like… uhhh… actual Counterspell, Daze and Logic Knot. Opposing threats are dealt with by efficient removal like Lightning Bolt and Skred, and bounce spells like Snap and Vapor Snag that can also be used to protect your creatures in a pinch.

All this value is tied together by Ponder and Preordain: two of the greatest cantrips ever printed deemed two powerful for modern. A little extra draw power is provided by Gush – which is now only legal at a full 4 copies in Pauper.

Mono Green Stompy:

Since the release of Modern Masters 2017, Burning Tree Emissary has unleashed its true power on Pauper. Stompy looks to flood the board with extremely cheap threats, and force damage through with Hunger of the Howlpack, Rancor and Vines of Vastwood (which also protects your creatures from pesky removal.

The threats are somewhat homogenous, all costing one or two mana. Young Wolf adds a little resiliency, whilst Nettle Sentinel and Skargan Pit Skulk offer immediate two power for one mana (and a little evasion in the case of the Skulk). Quirion Ranger, whilst not offering a particularly high power, allows you to reuse your lands on turns where you don’t hit your land drop, allowing you to continue deploying threats.

Moving up the curve, Burning Tree Emissary allows you to deploy multiple threats as quickly as possible, and enables your best draws. Nest Invader adds an additional body to the board, whilst River Boa and Silhana Ledgewalker and Vault Skirge add some more evasion.

Affinity:

Again, featuring cards deemed too powerful for Modern, Pauper Affinity is powered by the full power of the Artifact Lands. Along with a collection of cheap artifacts, the true Affinity threats of Myr Enforcer and Frogmite can see the light of day again. These are supplemented by the pretender Gearseeker Serpent and the efficient metalcraft threat Carapace Forger. Finally, Atog makes an appearance, as a powerful quick combo kill by eating your redundant artifacts to get in a huge hit (sometimes powered by Temur Battle Rage), or to literally ‘Fling’ it at your opponent.

Digging for these threats is made easy using Thoughtcast and Perilous Research, whilst a variety of cheap artifacts (Chromatic Star, Springleaf Drum, Ichor Wellspring and Prophetic Prism) power affinity, draw cards and fix your coloured mana. Galvanic Blast rounds out the deck with a little more reach and interaction with whatever creatures your opponent tries to contest the board with.

The huge amount of manafixing also enables a very customisable sideboard, able to be customised to whatever the metagame throws at it. Conversely, Affinity is vulnerable to specific artifact hate, and as one of the key players in the format, most sideboards will attempt to prepare for affinity with powerful cards like Gorilla Shaman, Natural State and Gleeful Sabotage.

Kuldotha Boros:

Affinity isn’t the only deck that utilises the cantripping artifacts as a value engine. Kuldotha Boros uses Prophetic Prism and Alchemist’s Vial to draw cards, pick them up and replay them again with Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher, which are simply efficient threats when you turn their downside into an upside. Thraben Inspector also pulls double duty, generating a clue, and becoming a decent self-bounce target too. Additional value can be generated with cycling lands, which can be picked up later in the game by your threats or bouncelands once you have sufficient mana.

Two different approaches can then be employed. Traditionally, a token based approach using Kuldotha Rebirth and Battle Screech, with a final push from Rally the Peasants is used to kill the opponent once the board is under your control. The release of Palace Sentinels has allowed builds to take a more traditional midrange and card advantage approach instead.

This is made possible with a varied removal suite including damage based removal like Lightning bolt, Flame Slash and Galvanic Blast (additionally powered by artifact lands), along with more general removal such as Journey to Nowhere to deal with larger threats.

Tron:

Tron decks use the Urzatron lands (Urza’s Mine, Power Plant and Tower) to generate a huge mana advantage, and use powerful expensive spells to take over the game. Thanks to the colourfixing from lands like Painted Bluffs (and its functionally identical variants) and Prophetic Prism, a range of game plans can be used. Big Win conditions include the largest creature in pauper, Ulamog’s Crusher, the biggest burn spell, Rolling Thunder, or more intricate value based plans involving Dinrova Horror.

Dinrova Horror and Ghostly Flicker combine well with the Mnemonic Walls (a staple across all versions) to decimate the opponents board, as the mana advantage provided by Tron allows multiple iterations of the combo each turn. It also works well with the other value creatures included in the deck: Mulldrifter and Sea Gate Oracle.

A variety of interaction can be included in the Tron decks, thanks to their flexibility. Counterspells such as Condescend can be used to good effect Along with card advantage tools such as Mystical Teachings and Forbidden Alchemy. Some decks choose to interact with red removal, whereas others choose to ignore their opponents while setting up, and rely on Moment’s Peace to keep them alive while setting up their endgame. Most of the interaction used

Tron is assembled by utilising the card draw throughout the deck, along with searching tools like Crop Rotation and Expedition Map.

UB Control:

Like Tron, UB control exists in a variety of forms. The fundamental gameplan of control the game until you have enough resources to put away the game. The most common build utilises a ghostly flicker combo like Tron, but uses Chittering Rats and Archeomancer to completely lock the game as the components are cheaper, and UB doesn’t have the overwhelming mana advantage that Tron does. Other versions use Gurmag Angler as a finisher, or in the most extreme case, a single copy of Curse of the Bloody Tome.

The win conditions are supplemented by a range of card advantage. Augur of Bolas, Sea Gate Oracle and Mulldrifter are all seen, particularly in Ghostly flicker builds. Creature less builds and Angler builds rely strongly on Mystical Teachings and Forbidden Alchemy respectively. As well as the standard Ponder and Preordain, some builds also utilise thought scour to power up graveyard synergies.

The interaction comes primarily in the form of counterspells (Counterspell, Remove Soul, Prohibit, Exclude etc.) and removal (Chainer’s Edict, Disfigure, Doom Blade, Echoing Decay etc.), with a huge variety of options available. Some builds can also utilise Evincar’s Justice as both a Win condition and sweeper with incidental lifegain such as Pristine Talisman.

Bogles:

Just like the Modern Version, Bogles seeks to load up hexproof creatures with as many auras as possible, so they hit as hard as possible, and neutralize opposing forms of interaction. Slippery Bogle, Gladecover Scout and Silhana Ledgewalker are the key threats, with some builds utilising the power of Aura Gnarlid as an additional threat.

Ancestral Mask and Ethereal Armor both scale with the numbers of auras in play, resulting in huge creatures. Rancor and Armadillo Cloak both provide Trample to prevent token blockers from being effective. Abundant Growth and Utopia Sprawl fix your mana for the white splash, whilst increasing the aura count. Amonkhet has reinvigorated the archetype, with Cartouche of Strength adding some interaction, and Cartouche of Solidarity protecting your creatures from pesky edict effects.

Izzet Blitz:

A similarly all in deck, Izzet Blitz aims to use Kiln Fiend or Nivix Cyclops, along with a handful of cheap spells to kill the opponent in one shot. The damage is ensured to hit your opponent thanks to Slip Through Space and Temur Battle Rage, or Apostle’s Blessing, which also protects your creatures.

The combo is put together with the standard cantrip suite of Ponder and Preordain, along with Faithless Looting and Gitaxian Probe. Augur of Bolas and Gush also help dig towards your combo pieces. Dispel also acts to protect your creatures, and Lightning Bolt adds a little interaction to slow opponents down.

Others:

Other decks with fewer consistent finishes include Elves, Various Blue Control Decks, Slivers, Mono White Tokens, and Burn just to name a few. There are even infinite combo decks such as Midnight Guard + Presence of Gond in the format.

One of the best features about the Pauper format is that because the format is so cheap, brewing new decks is incredibly feasible. With a small number of exceptions, cards are extremely cheap, and decks usually cost less than forty tickets ($40) on magic online. Once I am more familiar with the format, expect to see me brewing and playing more unique decks.

Stream:

This Week’s Stream on Friday will (likely) feature a friend and I running UR Delver through a league, and who knows where we will end up after that! I’m aiming to start sometime before 7:30 and 8:00 (BST), on https://www.twitch.tv/arcanite2805. Hope to see you there!!!

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thetopdeck · 7 years

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I ended up grabbing the last few pieces I needed to complete this deck last week. After goldfishing some at home, I decided to just jam it at the weekly Legacy tournament at my LGS. This is the list that I settled on. There were a few things I was going back and forth on. I’m still not really sure on the snow-covered basics and the Into the North package, but it worked out okay. Expedition Map just might be better though. I’m also still not sure on the split between Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek. Sideboard looks okay. Surgical Extraction might be better than the Faerie, but it does get around Chancellor of the Annex. I think there was a PPTQ at another local shop, so there were only 8 people that showed up. So we had three rounds, then cut to a playoff between the top 4.

Round 1 - Infect

A turn one Thoughtseize showed that my opponent was on Legacy Infect. It was my first time playing against it, but I know how fast the deck can be, so I was a little nervous. I took his only pump spell, leaving him with two creatures in hand. He spends the next two turns playing his dudes, but I play Hexmage on my turn two and Dark Depths the next turn, for which he has no answer. I brought in 3 Toxic Deluge and 3 Abrupt Decay, taking out 3 Not of This World and 3 Pithing Needle. Game 2, he Wastelands my Bayou and has an Inkmoth Nexus so I started to regret taking out Pithing Needle, but oh well. Game 3 I just decide to run the same 60 back. It ends with a necessary Crop Rotation getting countered and he is able to get there pretty quickly with a Become Immense that I can’t do anything about. Not a promising start with the deck, but I wasn’t too discouraged.

Round 2 - Mono-blue Delver (I think)

I had no idea what he was on for the longest time. He didn’t land any creatures, but just countered all the land tutors I was trying to play. I didn’t draw into any discard, but naturally hit Thespian’s Stage and Dark Depths by the time he puts down a True-Name Nemesis after we take a few turns doing nothing. After getting down a Marit Lage, I had a Not of This World for an Echoing Truth. He counters that but I have a Crop Rotation to fetch up a Sejiri Steppe to win. I can’t remember much about game 2, but my life total looks like I Thoughtseized him twice and then went on to win without him touching my life total.

Round 3 - B/R/g Reanimator

I win this match in 2 games, because he has to aggressively mulligan both games. In both games, I’m able to strip away the reanimate spells before he gets a chance to cast them. That’s just how B/R Reanimator goes sometimes, I guess.

Top 4

Two guys wanted to play it out and I had the time, so we did. I ended up being paired against the guy on Elves. Game 1 he was on the play, but had a slow start. He ends up drawing a few more cards, but isn’t able to put enough power on the board before I find a Hexmage for my Dark Depths. I brought in 2 Abrupt Decay and 3 Toxic Deluge, taking out 3 Not of This World and a Duress. I made a play mistake here, naming Heritage Druid on a Pithing Needle because I forgot that it’s a mana ability. It’s bad since I should have just named Wirewood Symbiote or a Quirion Ranger which he goes on to play in the following turns. He does his elf stuff and gets out a Craterhoof Behemoth for the win. I don’t make the same mistake in game 3. I don’t have the combo in my starting seven, but have just enough to slow him down. I strip a Heritage Druid from his hand and then play a Pithing Needle on the Wirewood Symbiote. I keep him off enough mana to cast the Craterhoof in hand and draw a timely discard spell to take the Abrupt Decay from his hand and go for Marit Lage on the following turn. All these games were pretty intense and seemed like they took forever, but my opponent pointed out that each of the games were less than 4 turns, reminding me that Legacy is an interesting format.

For the final, I’m up against the Infect player I lost to in game 1, but he’s nice enough to split, so I get to go home with some new cards I got with the store credit and a slight feeling of satisfaction. Overall, I like the deck. I think that my sideboard was alright for the decks I saw, but I’ll have to re-evaluate where I’m at with the deck after more testing.

#mtg #legacy #turbo depths #dark depths

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