Primer: Introduction to Legacy GWx Maverick - with Budget Tips

What is Maverick?

Maverick is a GWx creature-based midrange deck that contains both aggressive and controlling elements. The most important aspect of the deck is a toolbox of "hatebears", disruptive creatures that hinder the opponent's game plan, which can be tutored for and protected. In a sense, the goal of Maverick is to lock out the opponent with an overwhelming board presence. Maverick is built on synergy rather than raw card power, and is flexible enough to have game against almost any strategy. While intuitive to play at a basic level, Maverick is a difficult deck to master, as it is very interactive and has many lines of play available. If you want to play a deck with creature interactions and toolbox elements, Maverick could be the deck for you!



The Short History of Maverick
The original Maverick deck was developed by M@verick in 2010. It was pure GW with cards like Aether Vial and Weathered Wayfarer, and looks a bit like the archetype now known as Death & Taxes. The story of Maverick as we now know it began after the banning of Survival of the Fittest and the subsequent printing of Green Sun's Zenith in early 2011. These new GW Maverick decks, built on the pillars of Green Sun's Zenith, Knight of the Reliquary, and Mother of Runes, began seeing success in 2011 during the Mental Misstep era.

The printing of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben early in 2012 launched Maverick to new heights of power and popularity that lasted until the release of Return to Ravnica. However, the addition of Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay to Legacy in Fall 2012 was to have lasting consequences. Both cards proved to be effective against Maverick and pushed other fair decks like Punishing Jund, Team America, Shardless BUG, and Deathblade into new territory. Maverick itself soon adopted Deathrite Shaman and a Black splash superseded GW as the dominant Maverick variant.

By 2013, Maverick was struggling to re-invent itself in the new meta as decks like Sneak & Show, Death & Taxes, and Elves began to rise. The printing of True-Name Nemesis in Fall 2013 was another huge blow to Maverick, not because of that card's effectiveness against Maverick as popularly thought, but primarily because Maverick fell victim to splash damage from the hate people began to play to combat True-Name Nemesis.

2014 looked to be another bleak year for Maverick but for the repeated competitive successes of Thomas Herzog on the SCG tournament circuit in the United States. Herzog's streamlined, "back to basics" approach to Maverick earned him three Top-8 finishes throughout that year, and inspired me (and certainly many others) to pick up Maverick as my first Legacy deck. It was also during this time that Miracles, another challenging matchup for Maverick, finally began to rear its head as a real force to be reckoned with in the Legacy meta.

Treasure Cruise threw most of the format into chaos in the Fall of 2014. In the ensuing onslaught of UR Delver, Maverick was able to re-assert its relevance as a foil to Delver decks, and took down an SCG Open in the hands of David McDarby that December. As Dig Through Time supplanted Treasure Cruise early in 2015 however, Maverick was on the back foot again against new Dig-fueled decks like Grixis and Omni-Tell as Blue continued to push record setting levels of dominance in Legacy.

With the Delve era finally coming to a close in Fall 2015, Maverick may be positioned to make a comeback. New threats like Lands, Monastery Mentor, and Eldrazi have emerged so it won't be easy.

Tl;dr - the reports of Maverick's demise since 2012 have been greatly exaggerated. The deck continues to maintain a small but loyal following, and can still put up strong tournament results in the hands of a skilled player.


Introduction
Here are some reasons to recommend Maverick as a starter Legacy deck:

• Relatively cheap, which will be elaborated on more below. You can build a competitive Maverick deck for less than $1,500.
• Flexible and capable of beating every strategy in the format.
• Highly customizable, can be built to suit personal playstyle and preferences.
• Maverick will help you learn about Legacy. Due to the deck's hatebear-centric strategy, you will have to learn how other decks function in order to identify the cards best suited to fight them.
• Relatively intuitive and easy to play at "level zero". As a creature-heavy GW deck it may feel somewhat similar to decks you have played in Standard or Modern, particularly ones with Green Sun's Zenith, Fauna Shaman, or Birthing Pod.
• At the same time, the deck will often punish you for making misplays. Take these in stride as opportunities to learn and improve your play.

Depending on your budget and interests, it may important to identify what other decks the cards you are buying for Maverick can be used in. Maverick will provide you cards that primarily slot into the following decks:

• Death & Taxes
• Elves
• Bant Stoneblade
• Nic-Fit
• 4C Aggro Loam

If you're only interested in building Maverick, great! Regardless of which Maverick variant you want to end up with, you should start with the GW core. Let's dive right into it.


The Stuff You Really Need
As the name implies, these are the cards that form the backbone of any true Maverick deck. As it turns out, many of them are quite cheap.

4x Mother of Runes ($)
Protects your key creatures from removal spells and combat damage, and can be used offensively as well to push damage past blockers.

4x Swords to Plowshares ($)
This efficient and versatile creature removal spell is among the strongest in Legacy.

4x Green Sun's Zenith ($)
Allows you to tutor for a specific creature and improves your consistency while remaining relevant at all stages of the game.

4x Knight of the Reliquary ($$)
Your principal threat, which can grow to a huge size while affording an invaluable layer of utility with the land-tutoring ability in conjunction with the many powerful lands available in Legacy.

          

4x + Mana creatures ($-$$$)
Maverick needs a lot of mana to function and has many ways to utilize excess mana, so mana creatures fulfill a crucial role in the deck. Avacyn's Pilgrim will do fine to start with, but you want to upgrade to Birds of Paradise, Deathrite Shaman, and/or Noble Hierarch.

1x Dryad Arbor ($)
Invaluable as it converts all your Zeniths to ramp spells for X = 0. Unique card with a number of other nice interactions.

4x Windswept Heath + Green Fetchlands ($$)
Fetchlands fuel your Knights and facilitate color fixing, especially important if you are starting out with zero or only a few dual lands. Windswept Heath is the best choice since it gets every fetchable land in a GWx deck. Beyond 4 of those any Green fetches will do. I would not recommend White fetches like Flooded Strand or Marsh Flats, because being able to fetch a basic Forest or Dryad Arbor at all times is quite important.

4x Wasteland ($$$)
This card is important. Really important. You will win a huge number of games off Wasteland + Thalia and Wasteland + Knight. Getting 4 of these should be a very high priority, and they should be the first expensive card you buy.
UPDATE: Wasteland has become substantially more affordable with its reprint in Eternal Masters!

2x Gaddock Teeg ($$)
G. Teeg is a crucial part of your creature toolbox as a hedge against many Legacy strategies. You can get the 2nd copy for your sideboard later, but having 1 in your maindeck is necessary.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben ($)
Interferes with the many Legacy decks relying on casting cheap noncreature spells. First Strike also makes her very strong in combat against the numerous 1-2 toughness creatures in the format.

Qasali Pridemage ($)
Affords removal for some noncreature permanents in the maindeck while having a relevant body with the Exalted ability.

Scavenging Ooze ($)
Provides some graveyard hate and lifegain, and can become a large threat.

1x Karakas ($$$)
This card fulfills an important role against Legend-centric strategies such as Reanimator and Sneak & Show. It also has marginal utility against cards like Vendilion Clique, or in conjunction with your own Thalias and G. Teegs. If you are playing in a known meta where you know there are no decks it is effective against you can hold off on it, but if you want to do well against an open meta it is a must-have. Fortunately you need only 1 since it can be tutored with Knight.
UPDATE: Karakas has become substantially more affordable with its reprint in Eternal Masters!



The Stuff You Need Eventually
These cards are staples in Maverick, but the deck will function without them so they are lower priority to acquire than the cards listed above. They are valuable additions to the strategy that are strongly recommended for higher level tournament play or if you plan to play the deck for a while.

Dual Lands ($$$-$$$$)
Oh yeah, these are important right? As I mentioned above, as long as you have fetchlands you can get away with basics or shock lands to start with (I consider Wastelands to be more important than Duals). Savannah is necessary, but the other Duals you require depends on which Maverick variant you're building.

Horizon Canopy ($$$)
A land that can turn into another card is quite powerful, and is a nice option to have in your land toolbox.

Sylvan Library ($$)
This notoriously off-color effect can generate a lot of card advantage and is extremely strong against other midrange decks or control decks.

Stoneforge Mystic ($$)
The most powerful White creature in Magic, which slots naturally into a Maverick deck since we have many creatures to carry her accompanying Equipment and can protect them with Mother of Runes.

Umezawa's Jitte ($$)
Often the most powerful Equipment in any "fair" matchup, this card can generate a huge advantage and quickly run away with the game. Importantly, it functions well without the assistance of Stoneforge Mystic.

Other Equipment ($$)
Batterskull and the various Swords can also be paired with Stoneforge Mystic. They cost more mana than Jitte so they are less effective without a Mystic, but are still quite powerful in certain situations.

Ethersworn Canonist ($)
This is a common sideboard card that is effective against many combo strategies in Legacy that win with a critical mass of spells. Maverick is always in the market for effective creature-based disruption since creatures can be protected by Mother of Runes.



Quick Matchup Guide (Depends on your exact 75)

• Favorable: Delver, Dredge, Eldrazi, Goblins, Lands, Merfolk, MUD, Shardless BUG, UWx Stoneblade

• Even: 4C Aggro Loam, Death & Taxes, Painter, Pox, Punishing Jund, Sneak & Show, Storm, UB Reanimator, UG Infect

• Unfavorable: Belcher, Burn, Enchantress, Elves, G/x Cloudpost, Omni-Tell, Oops! All Spells, Nic-Fit, UWx Miracles, Tin-Fins

Next Steps
The cards listed above only scratch the surface of what is possible in the Maverick archetype. There are several different Maverick variants, so I suggest looking at lots decklists to see which variant you want to play, and what other cards are available to fill out your 75 of that variant with. The following posts on this blog contain more information on Maverick variants, including decklists:

GWb Maverick: GW Maverick with Black splash (Most Popular and Best Performing Version Today)

Punishing Maverick: GW Maverick with Red splash

Bant Maverick: GW Maverick with Blue splash

Classic GW Maverick

Also check out my Maverick Card Interactions and Rules Primer for gameplay tips

Maverick Card Interactions & Rules Primer

          
                 

Here is a list of some important interactions in Maverick decks broken down by card. Understanding these kinds of interactions is a critical step towards becoming a proficient Maverick player since they afford a lot of power and flexibility. Furthermore, you will face opponents who are not aware of some of these interactions and will not play around them appropriately, granting you a huge edge. This list is by no means exhaustive, but I hope both new (and even not-so-new!) Maverick players find it useful.

Deathrite Shaman
- The first ability is not a mana ability since it designates a target. Pithing Needle naming Deathrite Shaman will disable this ability.
- The target of any of the abilities must be declared upon activation, but will not be removed until the abilities resolution. If that target is no longer a valid target when the ability resolves, the ability will fizzle.
- The above means that cards like Scavenging Ooze and other Deathrite Shamans can "stifle" a Deathrite Shaman activation.

Dryad Arbor
- With an open fetchland, you can fetch Arbor to sacrifice to an Edict effect, or use as a Flash creature.
- You can block with Arbor and sacrifice it with Knight before damage to create a Fog-like effect. This will stop Lifelink, and most importantly damage triggers like Umezawa's Jitte. Trample damage will still go through this however.
- Sacrificing Arbor to Knight is a method of removing Bridge from Below from the opponent's graveyard (triggers Morbid too I guess?).
- With Blood Moon in play, Dryad Arbor is a 1/1 Green Nonbasic Mountain that taps for Red mana.
- With Humility in play, Dryad Arbor is a Green 1/1 Nonbasic Forest that doesn't tap for mana.

Gaddock Teeg
- Remember that G. Teeg shuts off spells with alternate costs that still have a CMC of 4 or greater, such as Massacre, Force of Will, and Misdirection.
- Storm decks without Burning Wish will often concede to this card in game 1, since it shuts off their win conditions (Tendrils of Agony and/or Empty the Warrens) and they have no way of removing it.
- Remember that G. Teeg turns off your own Green Sun's Zeniths!
- Here are some decks with important cards G. Teeg shuts off:

• Miracles (Entreat the Angels, Force of Will, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Moat, Terminus)
• Eldrazi (All is Dust, Chalice of the Void)
• Elves (Green Sun's Zenith, Natural Order)
• Storm (Ad Nauseam, Dark Petition, Empty the Warrens, Massacre, Past in Flames, Tendrils of Agony)
• Sneak & Show (Force of Will, Sneak Attack, Through the Breach)
• MUD (All is Dust, Chalice of the Void, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon)
• Burn (Fireblast)
• High Tide (Blue Sun's Zenith, Force of Will, Time Spiral, Turnabout)
• Omni-Tell (Dream Halls, Enter the Infinite, Force of Will)
• Tezzeret (Chalice of the Void, Helm of Obedience, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas)
• G/x Cloudpost (Green Sun's Zenith, Repeal, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon)
• Esper Stoneblade (Engineered Explosives, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Supreme Verdict)
• Enchantress (Green Sun's Zenith, Helm of Obedience, Humility, Replenish, Sigil of the Empty Throne)

Green Sun's Zenith
- You search for a creature card with CMC X or less. Theoretically you can spend 10 mana to cast Green Sun's Zenith (X = 9) and put a 1-mana Green creature into play.
- The mana cost of this card on the stack is the amount of mana spent to cast it. So for the example above, the mana cost of the spell would be 10. This is crucial to keep in mind when playing against Counterbalance.
- The CMC of this card in zones other than the stack is 1. For example, If you were playing Green Sun's Zenith and Counterbalance in the same deck and revealed it to your own Counterbalance trigger, it would counter a spell with CMC = 1.

Karakas
- You can bounce your own Thalia or G. Teeg to save it from a removal spell, combat, or sweeper!
- In game 1 against Sneak & Show, if you can resolve G. Teeg with Karakas in play while they have no Sneak Attack, they will essentially be locked out of the game.
- If an opponent has Sneak Attack in play and multiple Red sources available for activations, Karakas will not be effective. They activate once to put a creature in, you bounce with Karakas, then they get priority to activate Sneak Attack again before combat.
- Blood Moon shuts off Karakas.

Knight of the Reliquary
- Be mindful of the clock Knight presents when deciding whether to attack or activate. If the clock doesn't change by activating, then it is generally better to activate to grow your Knight and remove land(s) from your deck.
- Sacrificing the land is a part of the cost of the activated ability. If the ability is Stifled, the land you sacrifice will still go to the graveyard, but you will not search.
- You can always grow Knight by two power with an activation by getting either a fetchland or Horizon Canopy and then sacrificing it. You can even grow it by three power by getting a Wasteland and destroying one of your own lands in play.
- With Blood Moon in play you will only be able to sacrifice a basic Forest or Plains to activate Knight's ability.
- You can time the ability to remove a certain land(s) in order to play around effects like Price of Progress, Massacre, and Submerge.
- If you activate Knight to sacrifice the only Forest you control, your opponent cannot cast Submerge using the alternate cost in response.
- Knight essentially is an uncounterable counter to Show & Tell---> Legendary creature. Put your Knight into play off Show & Tell, then untap on your turn and activate Knight to get your Karakas (make sure you have an eligible Forest or Plains to sacrifice!). Likewise, Exhume---> Legendary creature is an awkward line when you have a Knight in your graveyard.

Maze of Ith
- You can grant a creature pseudo-vigilance by attacking, then activating Maze to untap it after damage is dealt but before the combat phase ends. Especially powerful with Knight, since it allows you to attack then activate in the same turn.
- You can also "save" one of your attacking creatures in combat by Mazing it. It will become untapped, and will deal and be dealt no combat damage. This is another way of "fogging" on-damage triggers like Umezawa's Jitte.

Mother of Runes
- Outside of matchups like Eldrazi and MUD, almost never sideboard out Mothers. She is a lot more useful than she may appear in most matchups.
- Don't be afraid to attack with her in some situations. Against combo or control decks in particular the clock can be very relevant, and every point of damage counts.
- Against a combo deck such as Storm, if you have Mother and a hatebear in play when your opponent casts Pyroclasm, err on the side of using her to protect the hatebear rather than herself.
- Against combo decks with Cunning Wish such as Omni-Tell or High Tide, you can't always rely on the Protection effect due to the frequent presence of Wipe Away, Sudden Shock, or Kozilek's Return in the opposing Wish-board.
- Don't get complacent once you have an active Mother of Runes. Be wary of your opponent trapping you into activating Mother and then doing something to get around it in response.
- If you control a creature with Protection from White, you cannot target it with your own Mother of Runes! This can come up if you are playing Sword of Light and Shadow/Sword of War and Peace or have already resolved a Mother activation granting Protection from White in the same turn.

Qasali Pridemage
- Be wary of leaving only 1 mana for the activated ability open in the form of a fetchland. If you crack the fetchland with the intent of activating it, your opponent can use a removal spell on your Pridemage in response while you don't have a mana available, denying your use of the ability.

Scryb Ranger
- In my humble opinion, Scryb Ranger is one of the strongest cards in Maverick. It took me a while to realize this. She appears to do nothing, but in reality she does everything. Now I can safely say I would never play Maverick without her.
- You can re-use your two best creatures with tap abilities, Mother of Runes and Knight, at instant speed. This means for example you can use Mother to push through damage with a protected creature, then untap it to provide protection from a removal spell as necessary. You can also Wasteland twice in one turn with Knight. If you have no Wastelands in play or in hand, note that you must have at least three Forests or Plains in play in order to do this (sac one, bounce one to untap Knight, sac another).
- If you are missing a land drop you can generate an extra mana with a Ranger activation. If you also have a mana creature in play, you can generate two extra mana.
- You can create a Fog-like effect in conjunction with Dryad Arbor by blocking with the Arbor and bouncing it with Ranger before damage. This will stop Lifelink, and most importantly damage triggers like Umezawa's Jitte. Trample damage will still go through this however.
- You can also protect your Arbor from removal using this ability, or protect a Forest from a Wasteland.
- Remember Ranger's ability can be used once per turn. You can use it once during your turn, then once during your opponent's turn.
- Ranger will block Delvers forever, come out on top in a fight with a Clique or Strix, and cannot be bounced by Jace.
- No matter what the format, Flying is still one of the best abilities in Magic, particularly in a deck that battles almost entirely on the ground. Flying plus Exalted or Equipment can be very powerful.

Stoneforge Mystic
- Your opponent has a chance to respond to the activation before you place your Equipment in play. For example, this means they can target you with a Vendilion Clique trigger and put the Equipment in your hand on the bottom of your library in response to the activation. If this scenario arises when you have two Equipments in hand, you will be able to elect to put the second into play instead. If the card you draw off Vendilion Clique's ability is an Equipment you have the option to put it into play as well.

Sylvan Library
- This ability is a triggered ability, not an activated ability like the card text on the 4th Edition printing would lead you to believe.
- When resolving the trigger, make sure to keep the cards drawn separate from those in your hand.
- You can replace any number or order of drawn cards with a Dredge. If you Dredge any draw, you will have to pay 4 life to keep an additional card and 8 life to keep two additional cards. You cannot put the card you Dredged back on top of your library.
- Having two Libraries in play is generally redundant, but with an instant speed shuffle effect such as a fetchland available, you gain the option to use Library twice in a turn. On your draw step, you first draw a card, then resolve draw step triggers. Place your shuffle effect between the two Library triggers on the stack, resolve your first library trigger, shuffle, then resolve your second library trigger to see two fresh cards.
- If you have Courser of Kruphix in play, you must reveal the two extra cards you draw from your Library trigger, then reveal the top card of your library. Once you decide what cards to put back remember to make sure the top card of your library is revealed.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
- If your opponent has no mana available and you have Thalia in play, any free permission in their hand will be turned off, giving you free range to resolve spells.

Thespian's Stage
- A Thespian's Stage that is a copy of a basic land cannot be targeted by Wasteland.
- When Thespian's Stage is a copy of another land, it adopts the name of that land. This can be relevant when name effects like Pithing Needle come into play.

Tower of the Magistrate
- You can give your own creatures protection from Umezawa's Jitte activations or Sword of Fire and Ice's Fire trigger.
- You can target opposing creatures to "unequip" them. If you target a Batterskull-equipped Germ, the 0/0 Germ will die when the Batterskull falls off it.
- You can "Fog" a Modular trigger.
- Shardless Agent, Baleful Strix, and Mishra's Factory are artifacts.

Wasteland
- Wasteland can target itself. This is a useful option to have when playing around Price of Progress or to grow Knight in a pinch.
- Against the Thespian's Stage + Dark Depths combo, do not Wasteland Dark Depths in response to the Thespian's Stage activation targeting Dark Depths. Instead, wait until they select which copy of the Legendary Dark Depths to keep. Then, another trigger will be placed on to the stack ("When Dark Depths has no Ice counters on it, sacrifice it. if you do..."). You should respond to this trigger by Wasting the Dark Depths. Dark Depths will go to the graveyard, and the trigger wont't find a valid Dark Depths to sacrifice and fizzle. Doing it this way means they lose both Thespian's Stage and Dark Depths instead of just the Dark Depths.