DECK: UW Stoneblade, 7/11/16

I decided to take a break from Maverick to play something a bit different for my Monday Legacy event. I came up with this UW Stoneblade list and had a blast. I'll probably run it again soon.

Stuff that wins the game

Stuff that helps win the game

Lands

Sideboard

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DECK: Punishing Maverick, 7/3/16

I'm continuing to test Maverick in preparation for the SCG Legacy Open in Worcester this coming Saturday. I sleeved up GWb Maverick for a few events, but was pretty unsatisfied with it overall, so I'm going back to Punishing Maverick. Punishing Maverick is probably a "worse" deck, but suits me much better, which is ultimately quite important.

This time around, I've decided to try dropping the maindeck Loam and Dark Depths combo to play a 4th Wasteland and a full Equipment package of 3 SFM + 1 Jitte + 1 Sword + 1 Batterskull. The Loam was ok, but never quite pulled its weight. One reason I decided to play Loam was to have the ability to buy back the Dark Depths combo, but this situation never arose in the many games I played with it. While Dark Depths has been great, I sometimes miss having all 4 Wastelands.

In the sideboard I'm trying Xenagos, the Reveler in place of Garruk Relentless. I'll definitely play Garruk at Worcester, but Xenagos might not be terrible. Another card I'm trying is Winter Orb, which I've never played before. It looks solid against unfavorable matchups like Miracles, Lands, and Cloudpost while fitting into an E-Tutor package.

Creature Spells

Noncreature Spells

Lands

Sideboard

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Tournament Report: Eternal Extravaganza 4 with Punishing Maverick, 6/18/16

I'd been looking forward to this event since it was first announced months ago. When the date for the U.S. Legacy GP was fixed to be the weekend immediately before EE4, at first I thought I would go to the GP instead. However, I settled on going to EE4 since it was only a ~5 hour drive away. As things happened, our group reached the hotel at 2AM after a 7 hour drive plagued with traffic and other mishaps. I wasn't as rested as I wanted but still arrived at the venue later that morning eager to put the Punishing Maverick deck I'd been honing for weeks to the test. The well-used, A/C-less hall coupled with 90 degree heat outside promised some level of discomfort, but everyone was happy to be there playing Legacy. The event had ~320 players so it was going to be the full 9 rounds. Here is the 75 I registered:

PUNISHING MAVERICK, 6/18/16
Creature Spells (20) 4x Mother of Runes 3x Deathrite Shaman 1x Birds of Paradise 1x Noble Hierarch 2x Stoneforge Mystic 2x Qasali Pridemage 1x Scavenging Ooze 1x Scryb Ranger 1x Gaddock Teeg 4x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (15) 4x Swords to Plowshares 4x Green Sun's Zenith 3x Punishing Fire 1x Life from the Loam 1x Sylvan Library 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Sword of Fire and Ice
Lands (25) 4x Windswept Heath 3x Wooded Foothills 2x Savannah 2x Taiga 1x Bayou 1x Plateau 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Forest 1x Plains 3x Grove of the Burnwillows 1x Karakas 3x Wasteland 1x Thespian's Stage 1x Dark Depths	SB: 3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben SB: 2x Surgical Extraction SB: 1x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Phyrexian Revoker SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Scavenging Ooze SB: 1x Crop Rotation SB: 1x Bojuka Bog SB: 1x Krosan Grip SB: 1x Garruk Relentless SB: 1x Fiery Justice

After testing without Dark Depths a little, I quickly went back to it and continue to maintain its a strong choice for most builds of Maverick. Another tweak I made in the manabase was dropping the Horizon Canopy for a basic Plains, which I've been satisfied with so far.

For the Equipment package, I decided to go with 2 SFM + Jitte + Sword despite my preference for 3 SFM + Jitte + Batterskull. I thought a Sword was better positioned against Miracles and Shardless and wasn't expecting a whole lot of Delver decks. Its also worth noting that Batterskull isn't the slam dunk it used to be against the predominant Grixis Delver game 1 now that maindeck Therapies have become common.

Round 1: UG Infect (0-2)
My opponent is a known Infect player, so I kept a hand on the play with a turn 2 Jitte. Jitte is quite strong against Infect and in game 1 they have no way of removing it. Unfortunately, my Jitte got countered by Force of Will. I realized I had overlooked a crucial component of my opening hand: Gaddock Teeg. Since my opponent led on Noble Hierarch I could not die on turn 2. Therefore, the superior play would have been to lead on Gaddock Teeg before casting Jitte, which at that point would be both Force and Daze proof. I would also have the mana to equip it the same turn and start attacking. As it turned out, I drew no more interaction and died pretty quickly.
Game 2 I had a solid interactive draw and felt poised to take over the game, but my opponent Brainstormed into Invigorate + Berserk to kill me with his last threat a turn before I could get Jitte going.

Round 2: Grixis Painter (2-0)
These games were pretty similar. My opponent was digging a lot with Top and cantrips but never seemed find what he needed in the face of my hodge-podge of creatures and removal.

Round 3: Esper Deathblade (2-1)
Game 1 was a grindfest and my opponent eventually got the better of it after landing Jace and protecting it for several turns.
Game 2 I blew up his hand with a Wasteland and quickly ended the game with Exalted beats.
Game 3 I was on a mulligan but could present a relatively quick Marit Lage that he wasn't able to answer.

Round 4: Death & Taxes (1-1)
I played too slowly and conservatively this round, resulting in a draw in turns despite me being overwhelmingly favored to win game 3.

Round 5: ANT (1-2)
Game 1 my opponent had to sweat it on Ad Nauseam flips after 2 life and 1 life, but found what he needed to get there.
Game 2 I mulliganed to a hand with a turn 2 Knight and a Wasteland as my only potential interaction. I managed to fade a turn 2 kill and destroyed both his lands.
Game 3 I had a promising mulligan to 5 with Mother into Revoker, but it was blown up by Dread of Night into Chain of Vapor into Tendrils for 20.

Round 6: Esper Control (2-0)
My opponent is someone I'm familiar with from Massachsetts. I know he's on an Esper Control brew (Planeswalkers, Painful Truths, Vindicates, no Stoneforge Mystic or True-Name Nemesis) that lines up very poorly against my deck based on our previous matches. This time is no different.

Round 7: Miracles (2-1)
Game 1 he gets Mentor + double Top going and I die to a swarm of Monks a turn before I can make Marit Lage to swing for lethal.
Game 2 on a mulligan I have a quick Marit Lage he can't answer.
Game 3 he has Top into Counterbalance, but I'm able to resolve Scryb Ranger and Stoneforge Mystic for Jitte after seeing a Mentor floating around. He gets aggressive with Mentor and I go down to 2 life, but Scryb Ranger + Jitte is able to decimate all his Monks. We end extra turns with no clear conclusion and I'm prepared to draw, but my opponent decides to concede and drop.

Round 8: Gw Cloudpost (0-2)
Once again I know what my opponent is on, and keep a hand with a potential turn 2 Knight. Unfortunately, no lands are fetched so my Deathrite Shaman-turned-Squire is unable to bring my hand together. Without another land I decide to spend my second turn Zenithing for Noble Hierarch only to have Thought-Knot Seer exile my Knight, totally blowing up my game plan. I was able to strap on both my Equipments to my Squire and get some pressure going, but he resolved Primeval Titan, with Glimmerposts and my Plow giving him enough time to resolve Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.
Game 2 I have a mulligan with a Wasteland. I use it on his Ancient Tomb instead of Savannah, and  savagely topdeck my Loam next turn. I go after his tapped Cloudpost but get blown out by Crop Rotation. Oops. He resolves Rest in Peace on his next turn, and is quickly able to demonstrate an infinite turn loop.

At this point I am out of prize contention and in a zombie-like state from exhaustion so I drop.


Final Record: 4-3-1

While not the best result, I feel good about the deck, which was limited not by its power but by my poor play in several spots. Looking ahead, I am hoping to attend SCG Worcester in July. At this point I will probably just hold course and play some kind of Maverick deck.

Eternal Masters & Legacy Musings

Spoilers for the eagerly anticipated set Eternal Masters began in earnest this week, promising widespread reprints of rare and/or valuable Eternal staples. Its somewhat interesting that WotC decided to shine light on Eternal formats with this release, considering they have traditionally been rather laissez-faire about supporting and endorsing such formats. But here we are, and this set could prove to generate a huge amount of new interest in Eternal Magic.

While the Reserved List remains as inscrutable and immovable as ever, the vast majority of the Eternal cardpool is non-RL and subject to reprint in this kind of supplemental product. If these reprints bring down the price of entry to Legacy, the format will certainly see growth**. Many players are interested what Legacy has to offer, but consider it "too expensive". If you read the Magic hivemind that is r/magicTCG on Reddit, you would get the impression that this perceived expense makes Legacy an ultra-exclusive format no one can afford to play. This impression is simply false.

Lots of people play Legacy, though in the United States this is somewhat regionally biased towards major metropolitan areas. While Legacy players are on average older and have higher income, many are still of modest means, and are no better off than Standard or Modern players. These players are simply willing to pay the premium of entry for the great experience that is Legacy Magic. Most Magic players simply can't justify spending potentially thousands of dollars on cardboard, which I can honestly sympathize with.

However, there are a few points worth making in regards to the "Legacy is too expensive" argument:

• There are many Magic players who build multiple Tier 1-2 Modern decks or play a lot of Tier Standard over the course of several rotations. The investment put towards these efforts will often equal the cost of a Legacy deck. Players in this category could choose to make that investment in a Legacy deck instead. Legacy isn't too expensive for these players, they just choose to direct their Magic investment towards other formats and activities.

• There are several Legacy decks available that fit into many players' budgets, including Belcher, Burn, Dredge, Manaless Dredge, and Oops All Spells. These are all totally legitimate and competitive Legacy strategies. Of course, these strategies aren't appealing to everyone. But their existence means that its not Legacy as a format that is too expensive for many-its certain archetypes within the format that are.

• Perhaps most importantly, people need to realize that as great of an experience as Legacy is, no one is entitled to be able to play Legacy and WotC does not have a mandate to make Legacy more accessible. Legacy has been very healthy for years, and has actually become more popular over the last two years in particular, despite the persistence of the RL and general lack of reprints. If Eternal Masters hypothetically did not exist, I am confident that Legacy would continue to see gradual growth.

**To return to the point marked above, it is unclear if Eternal Masters will make Legacy significantly more affordable. As we learned with Modern Masters, limited print run reprints often don't actually decrease prices, since they stimulate increased demand that negates the increased supply. We already saw many RL cards spike after the EMA announcement, and whatever non-RL staples aren't in the set will probably also spike once the complete spoiler is out.

Honestly, I am cautious to treat the potential growth of Legacy heralded by Eternal Masters as a net positive for its community and play experience. An unpopular truth is that the relative exclusivity of Legacy does in fact make it a more enjoyable experience than other formats for myself and many others. Since most Legacy players have spent a lot of money on the format out of choice, no one gets salty or upset about others playing expensive decks, which I have observed in other formats. Legacy won't put you on the Pro Tour-you play it because you love it. No one is willing to spend that kind of money unless they are passionate about Magic and Legacy. Naturally, this excludes many low to mid-level grinders, who are often the most unpleasant category of player. I have played Standard, Modern, and Legacy from the local to GP level, and with this experience have concluded that Legacy players are the most mature, courteous, interesting, and enjoyable to play a card game with on average.

On the positive side, I will be very pleased if Eternal Masters turns out to be a great thing for Legacy and proves these fears baseless. Its entirely possible that some time from now, people will look at Legacy as the Pre-Eternal Masters era and the Post-Eternal Masters era. While I don't plan on buying any of the sealed product or even singles, its been very satisfying to see this set of Eternal all-stars come together, and I look forward to that continuing next week.

Update: A few hours after publishing this post the full spoiler was dropped. Guess I don't have to wait until next week, whooo!

DECK: Punishing Maverick, 5/22/16

I have a few bigger events coming up this Summer and I'm strongly considering playing some kind of Punishing Maverick deck, so I've been playing the it extensively for the last few weeks. I tried to come up with a build that had game against Miracles, Shardless BUG, Lands, and Eldrazi. This pile was the result:

Creature Spells

Noncreature Spells

Lands

Sideboard

Imgur Album w/ full-size images

The list felt pretty good overall. I'm still on the fence about whether Deathrite Shaman should be played in Punishing Maverick. I do often miss the cleaner manabase of a pure Naya version with a basic Plains, and the intermittent mana production of Deathrite Shaman can sometimes be a liability in a deck that wants to make a lot of mana. However, Deathrite's sheer versatility as a hedge against random stuff can't be ignored and is probably best for a large, unknown meta. 

Keep on Punishing

While not a well known Legacy player, Fabian Goerzgen has a quietly impressive resume including two Legacy GP Top 8's and one BoM Top 8. No matter where you see his name, the deck next to it remains unchanged: Punishing Maverick.

This archetype is clearly a labor of love for Goerzgen, who has played it for longer than I've played competitive Magic and twice as long as I've played Legacy. Its a crazy amount of time to invest in one archetype from my insignificant perspective. Punishing Maverick hasn't been a top-tier strategy for years now, yet Goerzgen isn't just playing the deck-he's continuously putting up strong finishes with it.

The latest was at last weekend's 400+ player MKM Legacy Series event in Frankfurt, where Goerzgen split Top 8 with this list:

PUNISHING MAVERICK, 5/15/16
Creature Spells (21) 4x Mother of Runes 3x Deathrite Shaman 1x Birds of Paradise 1x Noble Hierarch 3x Stoneforge Mystic 2x Scavenging Ooze 1x Qasali Pridemage 1x Gaddock Teeg 4x Knight of the Reliquary 1x Aven Mindcensor	Noncreature Spells (13) 4x Swords to Plowshares 4x Green Sun's Zenith 3x Punishing Fire 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Batterskull
Lands (26) 4x Windswept Heath 3x Wooded Foothills 2x Savannah 2x Taiga 1x Bayou 1x Plateau 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Forest 3x Grove of the Burnwillows 1x Horizon Canopy 1x Maze of Ith 1x Karakas 3x Wasteland 1x Thespian's Stage 1x Dark Depths	SB: 2x Enlightened Tutor SB: 2x Choke SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Bojuka Bog SB: 1x Tormod's Crypt SB: 1x Pithing Needle SB: 1x Null Rod SB: 1x Phyrexian Revoker SB: 1x Moat SB: 1x Engineered Plague SB: 1x Sylvan Library

Most of the comments I read regarding this list around the internet were quite amusing, permeated by a general misunderstanding of how the deck works and how it could be successful. Their confusion is somewhat understandable: the deck looks more or less like a relic from 2011.

Goerzgen truly demonstrates that experience is one of the most important ingredients of success in Legacy. No matter what the archetype is, if you love it and invest the time and effort in learning its intricacies, you can perform well with it at the highest level. This is a lesson all Legacy players can take to heart.

Check out my Punishing Maverick primer to read more about the archetype and see Goerzgen's past lists.

DECK: Burning Wish Loam, 5/6/2016

I played Aggro Loam with Burning Wish at FNM last night. I have sworn off playing this deck multiple times, but the allure of Burning Wish and Devastating Dreams proved too strong yet again.

Lands

Noncreature Spells

Creature Spells

Sideboard

Imgur Album with full-size images

I put the deck together in a bit of a hurry so there were a few mistaken card choices-the Windswept Heath was supposed to be a 3rd Grove, and the 2nd G. Teeg in the sideboard was supposed to be the 3rd Canonist.

In future I will consider cutting a Tarmogoyf and Green Sun's Zenith out of the maindeck for a Scavenging Ooze and the 4th Abrupt Decay. In the sideboard, I'm still unsure of the right mix of hatebears to have and may throw in Thalia. The slightly toned-back 10 sorcery Wishboard felt good and will probably remain the same.