Playing Legacy at the DCU Center in Worcester is something I look forward to all year. However, during the week leading up the event I began to have serious doubts about playing Punishing Maverick as originally planned. I thought maybe I should just play GWb Maverick, or even a different archetype altogether. I actually played Zoo at FNM the night before, and went to sleep still undecided.
When I woke up on Saturday morning I decided to stick with Punishing Maverick. I had faced this same dilemma before GP New Jersey in 2014: I chose to play GWb Maverick at that event even though I wanted to play Punishing Maverick, and ended up regretting it. While Punishing Maverick isn't the best deck choice objectively, I concluded it was the best deck choice for me. I tried out a few different things with the list recently but ultimately settled on something very similar to what I played at EE4:
I finished sleeving up the deck at home, and when I got to the site I completed the deck registration without any hesitation. My primary goal at that point was to make it to Day 2.
Day 1
Round 1 - Canadian Thresh (2-1)
Game 1: I had good spells but was too light on mana to get things going.
Games 2 & 3: Scavenging Ooze did a lot of work in conjunction with removal.
Round 2 - Merfolk (2-1)
Game 1: Turned into a race. I appeared ahead but made a serious blunder by forgetting to give a Knight Protection before attacking one turn, and fell behind to multiple True-Name Nemeses.
Game 2: A quick affair with Scryb Ranger + Jitte.
Game 3: I had removal to keep his creatures at bay but no pressure, and time in the round was running out. I drew Stage and went on the Depths plan, managing to untap with a Knight and fade Submerge to kill him with Marit Lage.
Round 3 - RG Lands (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent this round appeared quite nervous, which was possibly adversely affecting his play. Despite having an active Loam and Exploration, he was never able to interact in a way that could protect his combo from my toolboxing Knight. Eventually I made my own Marit Lage at the end of his turn by copying his Depths with my Stage, and on my turn Wasted his Maze and bounced his Marit Lage with Karakas to swing for lethal.
Game 2: I had a solid hand with Hierarch, Rec. Sage, and Crop Rotation. He stalled as I Stone Rained his Mox and then bricked on Loam for a turn. He played out a Depths, which I copied with my Stage off Crop Rotation to kill him with Marit Lage again.
Round 4 - Eldrazi (2-0)
Game 1: Ended quickly after I untapped with a large Knight and drew Thespian's Stage.
Game 2: My opponent kept a slow hand with Leyline of the Void, a classic mistake in this matchup. I got out a turn 2 Knight, and drawing Stage again, decided to go for the combo. He cast All is Dust to destroy my board, and while I could tutor Depths up in response, I only had one other land so I couldn't make Marit Lage that turn after All is Dust resolved. I still felt confident, as I basically just had to draw a land before he stuck Pithing Needle (if it was in his 75), got Endbringer on-line, or killed me with running Reality Smashers. I drew a land on my next draw step to kill him with Marit Lage.
Round 5 - UB Reanimator (2-0)
Game 1: On the play my opponent had an explosive opening hand that cost almost all his cards to put Griselbrand into play. Fortunately, I had Karakas in my opener, which was a total blowout. I continued to develop my board as he dug for more action. He managed to put Grave Titan into play, but his life total was too low to survive Mother of Runes + attacker.
Game 2: He appeared to be in a lot of trouble after I Wasted his only land with a turn 2 Knight. He was able to put Tidespout Tyrant into play but by then I had a sizeable board presence including a Mother. The turn after he tapped out to Reanimate Tyrant I chose to cast another Knight instead of Thalia, which turned out to be a huge mistake. He had been stockpiling spells in hand and was started to go to work bouncing my board. Mother of Runes proved to be a hindrance to this plan however, and I was able to continuously keep enough things in play to pressure him, eventually swinging past his Tyrant for lethal.
Round 6 - Grixis Delver (2-0)
Game 1: Involved a drawn-out fight over Punishing Fire with multiple opposing Deathrite Shamans. He was able to get rid of the first one but I drew another and he conceded shortly after if I remember correctly.
Game 2: I resolved an early Stoneforge for Batterskull with Mother of Runes protection. I made a sloppy play by leaving the activation up to use on his end step. After seeing Cabal Therapy in game 1 I wasn't very afraid of Stifle, and figured if he had a Grudge it would be better to force him to use all of his two mana on that turn to cast it. After the match he told me he had a Clique but needed to find a 3rd land that turn. Had he found it I might have been in trouble.
Round 7 - Death & Taxes (2-0) @ Table #1
Game 1: A confusing affair with clogged board states on both sides, but he didn't have the tools to stave off my large Knights.
Game 2: My opponent resolved Rest in Peace but didn't have a lot of action and I was able to get the beats going with a motely crew that included Legacy all-stars Squire (formerly a Deathrite Shaman) and Grizzly Bear (formerly a Scavenging Ooze). Batterskull and Qasali Pridemage joined the party to finish him off.
Round 8 - Dredge (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent was on five cards with no lands, and I had a relatively quick Marit Lage to end things, despite chump-blocking Narcomoebas.
Game 2: He had an explosive draw that put nine Zombies and Iona into play on his second turn against my lone Deathrite Shaman.
Game 3: I had Surgical and Crop Rotation in my opening hand. He went all in after I used Surgical on Narcomoeba, resulting in about 3/4 of his Library getting savagely blown out by Bojuka Bog. A follow-up Scavenging Ooze sealed his fate.
Round 9 - Shardless BUG (1-1)
After playing two grindy games we couldn't finish the third. I think we both played at a reasonable pace so it couldn't really be helped. Props to Marit Lage for taking down game 1.
I finished Day 1 in 3rd place with an 8-0-1 record.
Day 2
Round 10 - Eldrazi (1-1)
Game 1: An extremely drawn-out affair where I was able to get huge Knights in play but was at too low of a life total to make safe attacks into his horde (my kingdom for Kessig Wolf Run). Eventually he got Endbringer on-line, but conceded once I had Marit Lage and three 14/14 Knights.
Game 2: I couldn't hang on after my Germ had to chump-block Reality Smasher and he kept me off mana to equip Batterskull to my Knight. We just finished resolving mulligans for game 3 when time was called. A judge was at our table and ended the match in a draw since we hadn't started yet. I could have messed up here by not being aggressive enough to finish the first game in a timely manner.
Round 11 - Lands (1-2)
This was an extremely swingy match that ended in about ten minutes.
Game 1: My opponent had a fast Marit Lage I couldn't answer.
Game 2: He led with a tapped Tranquil Thicket against my Deathrite into Thalia + Wasteland.
Game 3: He had a fast combo I couldn't answer again. So it goes. I was honestly relieved this one ended relatively painlessly considering how grindy this matchup can be.
Round 12 - BR Reanimator (2-1)
Game 1: I mulliganed to five and was facing down Sire of Insanity and Griselbrand on his first or second turn. I scooped up all my cards instead of discarding my hand.
Game 2: I got multiple Deathrite Shamans active that he couldn't seem to deal with.
Game 3: I had Surgical and Bog in my opening hand. He had an Unmask on his second turn so I had to use Surgical on a Thoughtseize he discarded to Faitless Looting. I got to check out his deck and saw that Massacre was his only way of killing my creatures, and also saw his hand was light on action. I was able to keep him pinned on mana while building towards a Depths kill with Knight, all while playing around Massacre by using a Hierarch for White.
Round 13 - UG Infect (1-2)
Game 1: Don't remember well, but I died pretty quickly.
Game 2: I had a removal heavy draw that lined up well against his threat light draw.
Game 3: I kept a hand with a Krosan Grip and Punishing Fire for interaction. He ran out an Inkmoth pretty early, so I comitted to leaving up Grip mana to get rid of it. Unfortunately, I was a bit light on mana, and he was unwilling to activate Inkmoth into my open mana (could he have gotten a read on Grip?), resulting in huge tempo losses for me as I was barely developing my board. Eventually he ran out a Corrupter and when I passed my following turn he Crop Rotated away his Inkmoth. He untapped and attacked confidently with his Corrupter. At zero poison and with Fire still in hand I declared no blocks. He had Invogorate + Vines + Berserk to kill me real good through it.
Round 14 - UG Infect (2-1)
Game 1: Felt the same as the first game of last round.
Game 2: A weird one, but I was never put under much pressure and was able to find a path to victory.
Game 3: I had a very strong draw and my opponent had a few stumbles.
Round 15 - Miracles (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent led on Volcanic and Ponder, and missed his next land drop. I assumed he was on Grixis Delver. However, he discarded a Terminus to hand size, making my board of Mother of Runes and Birds of Paradise look pretty embarrassing. He wiped my board with a Terminus and I conceded to the follow-up Mentor. I couldn't believe the irony of dodging Miracles all weekend only to finally face it in the most crucial match.
Game 2: I established an early board of Mother, Thalia and G. Teeg. My heart sunk when he cast a Preordain, suggesting he was on an aggressive build with four Mentors and no Jaces, which requires a different sideboard plan (Gaddock Teeg is noticeably worse against this version). Surely enough, he landed a Mentor and was poised to go crazy on his next turn but I had Fiery Justice right on time. He had 3 monks left but they were ineffective in the face of Thalia + Mother and he conceded.
Game 3: This one swung back and forth until we were both playing draw-go with piles of lands out. It was one of the last games happening so a large crowd was beginning to gather around us. He got Mentor going and it looked like that was it for me. However, Dark Depths rolled off the top of my library, and with my Stage already in play he was suddenly facing lethal next turn. He attacked with everything and I went down to four after being forced to make Marit Lage to block. On my turn he had a Vendilion Clique to attempt a block, but Punishing Fire paved the way for Marit Lage to reduce his life total to zero. What a way to end the event!
Final Record: 11-2-2
My record turned out to be good for 11th place. After my rough start during the first two rounds of Day 2, I thought Top 8 had already slipped out of reach for me. As it turned out, I came incredibly close-one more win could have put me in a position to make it.
The words from this post I wrote a few weeks ago regarding deck choices in Legacy turned out to be weirdly prophetic. I'll be honest: I'm a mediocre Magic player. In hindsight, it was my intimacy with the deck and the Legacy metagame, plus a healthy dose of luck, that enabled me to achieve this result. As friends and acquaintances repeatedly expressed their surprise (and congratulations) at how well I was performing throughout the event, I could only say one thing to explain it: "I'm just playing cards I like".
My deck got a shout-out in this article, check it out!
When I woke up on Saturday morning I decided to stick with Punishing Maverick. I had faced this same dilemma before GP New Jersey in 2014: I chose to play GWb Maverick at that event even though I wanted to play Punishing Maverick, and ended up regretting it. While Punishing Maverick isn't the best deck choice objectively, I concluded it was the best deck choice for me. I tried out a few different things with the list recently but ultimately settled on something very similar to what I played at EE4:
| PUNISHING MAVERICK, 7/9/16 | |
|---|---|
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I finished sleeving up the deck at home, and when I got to the site I completed the deck registration without any hesitation. My primary goal at that point was to make it to Day 2.
Day 1
Round 1 - Canadian Thresh (2-1)
Game 1: I had good spells but was too light on mana to get things going.
Games 2 & 3: Scavenging Ooze did a lot of work in conjunction with removal.
Round 2 - Merfolk (2-1)
Game 1: Turned into a race. I appeared ahead but made a serious blunder by forgetting to give a Knight Protection before attacking one turn, and fell behind to multiple True-Name Nemeses.
Game 2: A quick affair with Scryb Ranger + Jitte.
Game 3: I had removal to keep his creatures at bay but no pressure, and time in the round was running out. I drew Stage and went on the Depths plan, managing to untap with a Knight and fade Submerge to kill him with Marit Lage.
Round 3 - RG Lands (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent this round appeared quite nervous, which was possibly adversely affecting his play. Despite having an active Loam and Exploration, he was never able to interact in a way that could protect his combo from my toolboxing Knight. Eventually I made my own Marit Lage at the end of his turn by copying his Depths with my Stage, and on my turn Wasted his Maze and bounced his Marit Lage with Karakas to swing for lethal.
Game 2: I had a solid hand with Hierarch, Rec. Sage, and Crop Rotation. He stalled as I Stone Rained his Mox and then bricked on Loam for a turn. He played out a Depths, which I copied with my Stage off Crop Rotation to kill him with Marit Lage again.
Round 4 - Eldrazi (2-0)
Game 1: Ended quickly after I untapped with a large Knight and drew Thespian's Stage.
Game 2: My opponent kept a slow hand with Leyline of the Void, a classic mistake in this matchup. I got out a turn 2 Knight, and drawing Stage again, decided to go for the combo. He cast All is Dust to destroy my board, and while I could tutor Depths up in response, I only had one other land so I couldn't make Marit Lage that turn after All is Dust resolved. I still felt confident, as I basically just had to draw a land before he stuck Pithing Needle (if it was in his 75), got Endbringer on-line, or killed me with running Reality Smashers. I drew a land on my next draw step to kill him with Marit Lage.
Round 5 - UB Reanimator (2-0)
Game 1: On the play my opponent had an explosive opening hand that cost almost all his cards to put Griselbrand into play. Fortunately, I had Karakas in my opener, which was a total blowout. I continued to develop my board as he dug for more action. He managed to put Grave Titan into play, but his life total was too low to survive Mother of Runes + attacker.
Game 2: He appeared to be in a lot of trouble after I Wasted his only land with a turn 2 Knight. He was able to put Tidespout Tyrant into play but by then I had a sizeable board presence including a Mother. The turn after he tapped out to Reanimate Tyrant I chose to cast another Knight instead of Thalia, which turned out to be a huge mistake. He had been stockpiling spells in hand and was started to go to work bouncing my board. Mother of Runes proved to be a hindrance to this plan however, and I was able to continuously keep enough things in play to pressure him, eventually swinging past his Tyrant for lethal.
Round 6 - Grixis Delver (2-0)
Game 1: Involved a drawn-out fight over Punishing Fire with multiple opposing Deathrite Shamans. He was able to get rid of the first one but I drew another and he conceded shortly after if I remember correctly.
Game 2: I resolved an early Stoneforge for Batterskull with Mother of Runes protection. I made a sloppy play by leaving the activation up to use on his end step. After seeing Cabal Therapy in game 1 I wasn't very afraid of Stifle, and figured if he had a Grudge it would be better to force him to use all of his two mana on that turn to cast it. After the match he told me he had a Clique but needed to find a 3rd land that turn. Had he found it I might have been in trouble.
Round 7 - Death & Taxes (2-0) @ Table #1
Game 1: A confusing affair with clogged board states on both sides, but he didn't have the tools to stave off my large Knights.
Game 2: My opponent resolved Rest in Peace but didn't have a lot of action and I was able to get the beats going with a motely crew that included Legacy all-stars Squire (formerly a Deathrite Shaman) and Grizzly Bear (formerly a Scavenging Ooze). Batterskull and Qasali Pridemage joined the party to finish him off.
Round 8 - Dredge (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent was on five cards with no lands, and I had a relatively quick Marit Lage to end things, despite chump-blocking Narcomoebas.
Game 2: He had an explosive draw that put nine Zombies and Iona into play on his second turn against my lone Deathrite Shaman.
Game 3: I had Surgical and Crop Rotation in my opening hand. He went all in after I used Surgical on Narcomoeba, resulting in about 3/4 of his Library getting savagely blown out by Bojuka Bog. A follow-up Scavenging Ooze sealed his fate.
Round 9 - Shardless BUG (1-1)
After playing two grindy games we couldn't finish the third. I think we both played at a reasonable pace so it couldn't really be helped. Props to Marit Lage for taking down game 1.
I finished Day 1 in 3rd place with an 8-0-1 record.
Day 2
Round 10 - Eldrazi (1-1)
Game 1: An extremely drawn-out affair where I was able to get huge Knights in play but was at too low of a life total to make safe attacks into his horde (my kingdom for Kessig Wolf Run). Eventually he got Endbringer on-line, but conceded once I had Marit Lage and three 14/14 Knights.
Game 2: I couldn't hang on after my Germ had to chump-block Reality Smasher and he kept me off mana to equip Batterskull to my Knight. We just finished resolving mulligans for game 3 when time was called. A judge was at our table and ended the match in a draw since we hadn't started yet. I could have messed up here by not being aggressive enough to finish the first game in a timely manner.
Round 11 - Lands (1-2)
This was an extremely swingy match that ended in about ten minutes.
Game 1: My opponent had a fast Marit Lage I couldn't answer.
Game 2: He led with a tapped Tranquil Thicket against my Deathrite into Thalia + Wasteland.
Game 3: He had a fast combo I couldn't answer again. So it goes. I was honestly relieved this one ended relatively painlessly considering how grindy this matchup can be.
Round 12 - BR Reanimator (2-1)
Game 1: I mulliganed to five and was facing down Sire of Insanity and Griselbrand on his first or second turn. I scooped up all my cards instead of discarding my hand.
Game 2: I got multiple Deathrite Shamans active that he couldn't seem to deal with.
Game 3: I had Surgical and Bog in my opening hand. He had an Unmask on his second turn so I had to use Surgical on a Thoughtseize he discarded to Faitless Looting. I got to check out his deck and saw that Massacre was his only way of killing my creatures, and also saw his hand was light on action. I was able to keep him pinned on mana while building towards a Depths kill with Knight, all while playing around Massacre by using a Hierarch for White.
Round 13 - UG Infect (1-2)
Game 1: Don't remember well, but I died pretty quickly.
Game 2: I had a removal heavy draw that lined up well against his threat light draw.
Game 3: I kept a hand with a Krosan Grip and Punishing Fire for interaction. He ran out an Inkmoth pretty early, so I comitted to leaving up Grip mana to get rid of it. Unfortunately, I was a bit light on mana, and he was unwilling to activate Inkmoth into my open mana (could he have gotten a read on Grip?), resulting in huge tempo losses for me as I was barely developing my board. Eventually he ran out a Corrupter and when I passed my following turn he Crop Rotated away his Inkmoth. He untapped and attacked confidently with his Corrupter. At zero poison and with Fire still in hand I declared no blocks. He had Invogorate + Vines + Berserk to kill me real good through it.
Round 14 - UG Infect (2-1)
Game 1: Felt the same as the first game of last round.
Game 2: A weird one, but I was never put under much pressure and was able to find a path to victory.
Game 3: I had a very strong draw and my opponent had a few stumbles.
Round 15 - Miracles (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent led on Volcanic and Ponder, and missed his next land drop. I assumed he was on Grixis Delver. However, he discarded a Terminus to hand size, making my board of Mother of Runes and Birds of Paradise look pretty embarrassing. He wiped my board with a Terminus and I conceded to the follow-up Mentor. I couldn't believe the irony of dodging Miracles all weekend only to finally face it in the most crucial match.
Game 2: I established an early board of Mother, Thalia and G. Teeg. My heart sunk when he cast a Preordain, suggesting he was on an aggressive build with four Mentors and no Jaces, which requires a different sideboard plan (Gaddock Teeg is noticeably worse against this version). Surely enough, he landed a Mentor and was poised to go crazy on his next turn but I had Fiery Justice right on time. He had 3 monks left but they were ineffective in the face of Thalia + Mother and he conceded.
Game 3: This one swung back and forth until we were both playing draw-go with piles of lands out. It was one of the last games happening so a large crowd was beginning to gather around us. He got Mentor going and it looked like that was it for me. However, Dark Depths rolled off the top of my library, and with my Stage already in play he was suddenly facing lethal next turn. He attacked with everything and I went down to four after being forced to make Marit Lage to block. On my turn he had a Vendilion Clique to attempt a block, but Punishing Fire paved the way for Marit Lage to reduce his life total to zero. What a way to end the event!
My record turned out to be good for 11th place. After my rough start during the first two rounds of Day 2, I thought Top 8 had already slipped out of reach for me. As it turned out, I came incredibly close-one more win could have put me in a position to make it.
The words from this post I wrote a few weeks ago regarding deck choices in Legacy turned out to be weirdly prophetic. I'll be honest: I'm a mediocre Magic player. In hindsight, it was my intimacy with the deck and the Legacy metagame, plus a healthy dose of luck, that enabled me to achieve this result. As friends and acquaintances repeatedly expressed their surprise (and congratulations) at how well I was performing throughout the event, I could only say one thing to explain it: "I'm just playing cards I like".
My deck got a shout-out in this article, check it out!
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