Punishing Maverick Update

After a few months of playing mostly Stoneblade decks, I reached the conclusion that Stoneblade was virtually unplayable as the format shook out to be dominated by Czech Pile. Considering the power of Punishing Fire in a sea of Deathrite Shaman + X decks, it was only natural that I returned to Punishing Maverick.

I've now been playing Punishing Maverick almost exclusively for over two months and testing all sorts of configurations. One thing that quickly became apparent was that the 4th Punishing Fire is necessary in this meta. Another reality of the meta is that Stoneforge Mystic is a flimsy threat in a non-Blue deck against the various Kolaghan's Command decks, and even against Grixis Delver due to cards like Stifle, Cabal Therapy, and Ancient Grudge.

These conclusions led me to do significant testing of lists without Stoneforge Mystic, in order to accommodate the 4th Fire + some other grindy cards. Here are some cards I tried in the slots normally occupied by Stoneforge Mystics and Equipment:

• Tireless Tracker - I got Tracker out in maybe 8 games but it never felt backbreaking. There was one spot I recall Zenithing for it instead of Knight to immediately make some Clues. This card definitely has potential and I'm willing to try it again. There's something to be said for having a continuous source of actual card draw.

• Ramunap Excavator - Adding to the long list of recently printed 3-drops fighting over flex slots in Maverick, Excavator has some strong synergies with the deck. My main concern with this card is that its another engine that is graveyard-based like Knight and Punishing Fire. For this reason, I generally prefer Tracker as it attacks from a slightly different angle. 

• Domri Rade - Any 3 mana planeswalker warrants a serious look in Legacy. I played Domri in a few events in 2014 and 2015 and he was never stellar. The +1 ability "misses" a lot since Punishing Maverick doesn't have a very high creature count. However, it enables you to bootleg some library manipulation in tandem with shuffle effects. The -2 ability has interesting implications with Exalted, Mother of Runes, and Punishing Fire, but isn't a reliable source of removal. One advantage I consider Domri has over a different grindy noncreature, nonartifact permanent like the 2nd Sylvan Library is that he functions against a Leovold. In testing Domri did tremendous work against a totally unexpected deck - Lands. I resolved him against Lands in 3 different games and won all of them...2 of them with the emblem! It turns out that once you have an active Knight and Scavenging Ooze, it becomes very hard for Lands to kill you or Domri. From this position its easy to make the Emblem, which evades Maze of Ith and makes all your creatures hit much harder. In the third game, I used Domri to immediately fight down a Tracker with my Knight, and my opponent scooped shortly after.

• Voice of Resurgence - While appearing to be a killer of control decks, Voice of Resurgence was downright embarrassing against the Swords to Plowshares/Terminus/Counterbalance combination out of Miracles, rendering it unplayable. However, in the new meta of control decks playing Fatal Push and Kolaghan's Command, this card's stock has increased drastically. It is also very effective against Delver and Burn.

After trying these cards I realized that while not always good, Stoneforge Mystic is a fairly efficient threat and has applications against an impressive range of strategies. Jitte ruins many creature-based decks and you're frequently happy to have more "looks" at it via Stoneforge Mystic. Playing against combo? Grab your Sword. Blood Moon or Ensnaring Bridge? No problem. Most of the cards I replaced Stoneforge Mystic with were either too clunky or too narrow. So I concluded the best course was to play the 4th Punishing Fire and limit the SFM package to 2 Mystics/1 Jitte/1 Sword.

All this being said, here is my current list:

Punishing Maverick, 9/30/17
Creature Spells (20) 4x Mother of Runes 3x Noble Hierarch 1x Birds of Paradise 2x Stoneforge Mystic 2x Qasali Pridemage 1x Scavenging Ooze 1x Gaddock Teeg 1x Scryb Ranger 1x Voice of Resurgence 4x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (15) 4x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Swords to Plowshares 4x Punishing Fire 1x Sylvan Library 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Sword of Fire and Ice
Lands (25) 4x Windswept Heath 3x Wooded Foothills 3x Savannah 2x Taiga 1x Plateau 1x Forest 1x Plains 1x Dryad Arbor 3x Grove of the Burnwillows 1x Karakas 3x Wasteland 1x Thespian's Stage 1x Dark Depths	SB: 2x Surgical Extraction SB: 2x Pyroblast SB: 2x Crop Rotation SB: 1x Bojuka Bog SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Grafdigger's Cage SB: 2x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Wear / Tear SB: 1x Scavenging Ooze SB: 1x Fiery Justice

The only spicy card that has stuck around is Voice of Resurgence, which is efficient enough and good enough in the right matchups that I think it warrants a maindeck slot over the 2nd Ooze, which I have moved to the SB.

Here are some updates on other cards I was testing:

• Always Watching - This has been a nice card and functions as intended. I've had it out in about 5 games and only lost 1 of those. However, hitting WW to cast it has been a slight concern. This card got squeezed out of the 75 to fit the SFM package, Voice of Resurgence, 2 Oozes, and the Cage.

• Wear / Tear - I honestly haven't drawn this card much, but it still feels useful and I bring it in often.

• Sudden Demise - I've switched this slot back to Fiery Justice. While Sudden Demise is stronger against "wide" strategies like Elves and Death & Taxes, Fiery Justice is still good against these decks while being way better vs Delver and generic midrange decks.
  

• Sword of Feast and Famine - This card is still worse than Sword of Fire and Ice overall.

Overall, my current run with the deck has been quite successful at the local level, producing over $200 of store credit so far. Notably I am 9-0 vs Lands and 5-0 vs Burn in sanctioned matches...playing 0 Deathrite Shamans! This should demonstrate that Deathrite Shaman isn't as crucial as some people think. There's an argument that you should play Deathrite Shaman in this deck right now mainly to interfere with your opponent's Shamans - but this interference goes both ways, and as a mana-hungry deck we don't like to have useless mana dorks.

Deck Tech: Punishing Maverick by morticiansunion (MTGO)

MTGO user morticiansunion (Ethan Gaieski) has recently been having successes with Punishing Maverick lists.

Here is the most recent iteration of his list

He later made a post about the deck on the MtG Legacy subreddit.

The post attracted a decent amount of attention and Ethan did a great job of explaining the deck's theory, advantages, and matchups.

I just wanted to share a few thoughts on his list:

The Good

6 dorks - Mana dorks are the bread and butter of Maverick, and Ethan has clearly embraced this. Playing this many mana dorks informs many of the deckbuilding choices. It makes the 4th Wasteland much better, and also increases the stock of Sanctum Prelate as a 2-of in the sideboard. While powerful, Sanctum Prelate can be slow compared to CMC2 hatebears like Thalia, Canonist, and G. Teeg. However, with 6 dorks you have a good enough chance of deploying her on your second turn that she's worth running over other options.

Elspeth Knight-Errant and Chandra Pyromaster - These are my two favorite Planeswalkers to play in a Naya deck and I'm glad Ethan appreciates their power . Chandra is notably better in Ethan's list than mine since he has more Red sources in the form of +3 Birds and the 4th Grove.


The Not as Good

4 Birds/2 Hierarch split - I first played Punishing Maverick with 4 Birds because I thought its ability to make Red mana was indispensable. I quickly learned through playing the deck that Noble Hierarch is generally a better card due to the Exalted trigger, despite not producing Red. Birds is still useful and good enough that I always play 1, but I've hardly ever wanted a second. I have to think that a 4 Hierarch/2 Birds split is superior.

Too Many 1-toughness creatures? - The list has a whopping 15 1-toughness creatures. For reference, I typically play 10, and regard this as one of the biggest weaknesses of omitting Deathrite Shaman from Punishing Maverick. Cards like Zealous Persecution, Golgari Charm, Marsh Casualties, Umezawa's Jitte, Liliana, the Last Hope, and more can be crippling to such a creature base. Ethan clearly doesn't share this concern, and maybe he's correct that the benefits of these creatures outweigh their vulnerability.

Deck Tech: Junk Loam

I haven't played Aggro Loam regularly for almost two years now. While a very powerful and flexible archetype, I was ultimately frustrated by its fundamental inconsistencies. One idea I always tinkered with was playing a 3-color Loam deck, in the hope that shedding the 4th color could ameliorate some of these consistency issues. This led me to play various Naya and Jund Loam builds at some weeklies here and there, but none were very successful.

I never fully explored Junk colors since I was loath to play Aggro Loam without Punishing Fire. Until now, the only Junk Loam variant I had played was the relatively combo-centric Junk Depths deck with Living Wish. However, a new printing has made a "fairer" Junk Aggro Loam deck appear much more appealing to me than before.

Collective Brutality slots very naturally into an Aggro Loam shell for several reasons.

• Interaction with a CMC of 2, so it plays well with Chalice on 1.

• It affords maindeck interaction with combo decks via the discard ability, and to a lesser extent the drain ability.

• Versatile maindeck card overall, with utility in fair matchups as a Disfigure as well. This versatility is very valuable in a non-Blue deck with little card selection.

• Cost of Escalating is often low since you have cards that are bad draws late game or in certain matchups, or cards that don't mind being in your graveyard.

Without further ado, here is the list I decided to start with:

Junk Loam, 7/2/17
Creature Spells (11) 4x Dark Confidant 1x Tarmogoyf 1x Gaddock Teeg 1x Scavenging Ooze 4x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (23) 4x Mox Diamond 4x Chalice of the Void 2x Sylvan Library 2x Green Sun's Zenith 2x Life from the Loam 3x Abrupt Decay 3x Collective Brutality 2x Liliana of the Veil 1x Maelstrom Pulse
Lands (26) 4x Verdant Catacombs 3x Windswept Heath 3x Bayou 2x Scrubland 1x Savannah 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Forest 1x Swamp 1x Horizon Canopy 1x Cabal Pit 1x Dark Depths 1x Thespian's Stage 1x Maze of Ith 1x Karakas 4x Wasteland	SB: 2x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben SB: 2x Containment Priest SB: 4x Leyline of the Void SB: 1x Toxic Deluge SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Garruk Relentless SB: 2x Swords to Plowshares SB: 2x Thoughtseize

The spell-base is very similar to a "stock" 4C Loam list, essentially just swapping Brutality in for Punishing Fire.

In the manabase, I tried to keep the number of utility lands to a minimum. The Dark Depths combo can be comfortably accommodated, which I felt was stretched thin in 4 colors. Notably, I eschewed Barren Moor/Tranquil Thicket entirely, playing Horizon Canopy as my only Cycling land. While atypical for an Aggro Loam deck, this change was motivated by an intent to be less reliant on Loam and to curve out more easily with untapped lands.

I have played this exact list in 3 different weekly tournaments and prized at all of them. Matches have been as follows:

Miracles (2-0)
Omni-Sneak (2-1)
Czech Pile (1-1)
UR Delver (1-2)
Punishing Zoo (2-1) <--(My list!)
RG Lands (2-0)
Goblins (2-0)
Manaless Dredge (2-0)
Slivers (2-0)
Omni-Sneak (0-2)
Omni-Sneak (2-1)
BR Griselbrand (2-1)

Some observations thus far are as follows:

• Collective Brutality is never bad but never amazing. Its versatility is indeed valuable, but its definitely an inefficient spell by Legacy standards.

• Deathrite Shaman and Baleful Strix are both quite problematic for this deck. The lack of Punishing Fire is very palpable against decks with those cards such as Czech Pile. Cabal Pit is absolutely necessary since it grants you some form of repeatable removal. Another possibility is running Darkblast in the sideboard.

• The manabase is quite solid. The basic Swamp feels unnecessary and there can also be room for another utility land in place of the 3rd Bayou or a fetchland. For additional utility lands, another Cycling land, Bojuka Bog, and a manland are all possibilities.

• The Maelstrom Pulse can probably become a 3rd Liliana.

• The sideboard has felt fantastic overall, I would like to somehow fit in a Golgari Charm though.

Maverick in GP Vegas Side Events

After a lacking 3-4 drop performance playing Punishing Zoo in the GP main event, I decided I would try my luck playing Maverick in side events for the rest of the week. There were several Legacy "Double-Up" events scheduled, which were capped at 4 rounds, run at Regular REL, and awarded prize wall tickets based on record. I was determined to craft a 75 for my first Double-Up on Friday afternoon that would have good matchups VS Burn and BR Griselbrand, which had been incredibly popular strategies in the main event. This motive led me to play GWb Maverick for the first time in around one year. Here is the list I came up with:

GWb Maverick, 6/16/17
Creature Spells (26) 4x Mother of Runes 3x Deathrite Shaman 2x Noble Hierarch 3x Stoneforge Mystic 3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2x Qasali Pridemage 2x Scavenging Ooze 1x Gaddock Teeg 1x Scryb Ranger 4x Knight of the Reliquary 1x Courser of Kruphix	Noncreature Spells (12) 4x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Swords to Plowshares 1x Sylvan Library 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Sword of Fire and Ice 1x Batterskull
Lands (22) 4x Windswept Heath 3x Verdant Catacombs 3x Savannah 1x Bayou 1x Scrubland 1x Forest 1x Plains 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Gaea's Cradle 1x Karakas 1x Horizon Canopy 4x Wasteland	SB: 3x Surgical Extraction SB: 3x Thoughtseize SB: 2x Zealous Persecuion SB: 1x Enlightened Tutor SB: 1x Grafdigger's Cage SB: 1x Phyrexian Revoker  SB: 1x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Path to Exile

I don't have much to say about the list, but I just want to bring attention to one card: Courser of Kruphix. While not flashy its a powerful advantage engine in long games. However, in the pre-Top banning meta Courser was incredibly bad against Wear / Tear out of Miracles, to the point that I deemed it uplayable. With Miracles significantly diminished I believe this card is a very viable option for a supplemental 3-drop once again. Tireless Tracker and Renegade Rallier have legs in this slot as well, but I don't own and haven't tested either of those cards yet.

My matches in this event went as follows:

Round 1: BUG Aluren (2-1)
Round 2: BUG Depths (2-1)
Round 3: A.N.T. (2-0)
Round 4: BR Griselbrand (2-1)

I offered a split to my Round 4 opponent but he wanted to play it out for more tix, so winning that round gave me the added satisfaction of being a "dream crusher". While rusty with GWb Maverick I think I played OK overall. Resting on the laurels of my 4-0, I was content to play Punishing Maverick in the next Legacy Double-Up on Saturday, combo decks be damned.

Punishing Maverick, 6/17/17
Creature Spells (21) 4x Mother of Runes 3x Noble Hierarch 1x Birds of Paradise 2x Stoneforge Mystic 2x Qasali Pridemage 2x Scavenging Ooze 1x Gaddock Teeg 1x Scryb Ranger 4x Knight of the Reliquary 1x Courser of Kruphix	Noncreature Spells (14) 4x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Swords to Plowshares 3x Punishing Fire 1x Sylvan Library 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
Lands (25) 4x Windswept Heath 3x Wooded Foothills 3x Savannah 2x Taiga 1x Plateau 1x Forest 1x Plains 1x Dryad Arbor 3x Grove of the Burnwillows 1x Karakas 3x Wasteland 1x Thespian's Stage 1x Dark Depths	SB: 2x Surgical Extraction SB: 2x Pyroblast SB: 2x Crop Rotation SB: 1x Bojuka Bog SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Phyrexian Revoker SB: 2x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Wear / Tear SB: 1x Always Watching SB: 1x Sudden Demise

This list incorporated several new cards I wanted to test:

• Wear / Tear: I recently tried this card out in Zoo as a Disenchant-type effect to supplement Qasali Pridemage and Reclamation Sage. While those are great cards and can be tutored with GSZ, they can be a bit inefficient so I saw the need for cheaper interaction. Krosan Grip and Ancient Grudge were considered but Wear / Tear is the most flexible overall.

• Sudden Demise: Sweepers can be awkward to slot into Maverick due to its creature-heavy nature but are very useful to have in some matchups where your spot removal isn't efficient enough or is taxed too heavily.  I've played Electrickery and Fiery Justice in this role before but am exploring Sudden Demise since it minimally impacts your own board in many situations due to its selective nature and is particularly potent VS multi-colored Leovold decks. Unfortunately, there is still no efficient Red sweeper that kills True-Name Nemesis.

• Always Watching: This is interesting technology a friend was thinking of trying in Bant Deathblade. Its well-suited to a Maverick deck since the anthem effect reduces your exposure to -1/-1 effects, and Vigilance pairs nicely with all your creatures with tap abilities. I put this card in the SB slot I typically reserve for a grindy Planeswalker as it has applications VS similar decks including Stoneblade, Shardless, Czech Pile, Death & Taxes, and Lands.

• Sword of Feast and Famine: I have played this card in Maverick sporadically over the years, and eventually concluded there was no reason to play it over Sword of Fire and Ice or Sword of Light and Shadow in a Miracles-dominated meta. Now that Miracles is diminished it may have a chance to shine again, but after playing it regularly in Stoneblade decks over the last month I'm still struggling to justify running it as the Sword of choice.

My matches in this second event went as follows:

T.E.S. (1-2)
Ur Omni-Tell (2-1)
Omni-Sneak (2-1)
Death & Taxes (2-0)

I ended up playing against a bunch of combo decks anyway, but managed to triumph over two of them and only narrowly lost to the third. Wear / Tear was great VS Death & Taxes and Omni-Sneak (got to pick off a Lotus Petal). I only brought Always Watching in against D&T but unfortunately never drew it.

This event brought my final record with Maverick decks over the weekend to 7-1 with 1400 tix worth of winnings, which I was able to convert into about $250 of cash via "alternative channels". Maverick is the greatest after all.

Top4 @ Legacy Loot with Punishing Zoo

Two local Legacy Dual Land tournaments were slated to take place on June 10th, the weekend before GP Vegas, one at Scholar's in Bridgewater and the other at Die Hard Games in Pawtucket. Both events had been on the calendar for some time and there was reportedly some back and forth between the two stores about a re-scheduling, but a compromise couldn't be reached. Thus, me and many other Legacy players based in MA had a choice of tournaments to attend. I ended up deciding on Die Hard's. While it had worse prize support it had cheaper entry and started later. Plus, I hadn't been to Die Hard in almost two years and felt like going there again.

Over a month ago I "locked-in" Bant Stoneblade as the deck I would play in the main event at GP Las Vegas. I played it almost exclusively in my weekly events since then, but a few days ago realized I wasn't as confident with the deck was I wanted to be for the GP and would probably be better off playing a Green/Punishing Fire deck. Unfortunately, I'd been neglecting Maverick almost completely since SCG Worcester, so that wasn't an appealing alternative. The "solution" I found to these apprehensions was to try Punishing Zoo. It has a lot of the same advantages Punishing Maverick offers while being a bit more straightforward to play. I decided to put Zoo to the test at Die Hard's event this weekend. Here's what I registered:

Punishing Zoo, 6/10/17
Creature Spells (20) 4x Noble Hierarch 4x Wild Nacatl 3x Qasali Pridemage 2x Scavenging Ooze 1x Gaddock Teeg 4x Knight of the Reliquary 2x Thalia, Heretic Cathar	Noncreature Spells (17) 4x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Lightning Bolt 4x Swords to Plowshares 3x Punishing Fire 1x Sylvan Library 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Lands (23) 4x Wooded Foothills 4x Windswept Heath 2x Savannah 2x Taiga 2x Plateau 1x Forest 1x Plains 1x Dryad Arbor 3x Grove of the Burnwillows 1x Karakas 1x Skarrg, the Rage Pits 1x Wasteland	SB: 3x Surgical Extraction SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 2x Pyroblast SB: 1x Wear / Tear SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Enlightened Tutor SB: 1x Null Rod SB: 1x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Grafdigger's Cage SB: 1x Umezawa's Jitte SB: 2x Blood Moon

There were 25 people at the tournament compared to 30 at Scholars, a near 50/50 split between the two stores. Some people bemoaned that they would have rather played in a single 55 player event, but I was content to play 5 rounds of Legacy regardless.

My rounds went as follows:

Round 1: Food Chain (2-0)
Round 2: Grixis Delver (2-1)
Round 3: Grixis Delver (2-0)
Round 4: ID
Round 5: ID
Quarterfinal: Grixis Delver (2-0)
Semifinal: Omni-Sneak (0-2)

I ended up claiming the 3rd place prize of 2 Revised Scrublands (Unfortunately I noticed after leaving that one of the Scrublands is in very sorry shape - while probably sleeve playable, it is definitely worthless).

My matchups weren't varied, but I gained the valuable knowledge that its difficult for this deck to lose to Grixis Delver. We'll see how I feel about this over the next few days...but if someone is going to play Zoo at the biggest Legacy event of the year, it should be me, right?

Why You Should Play a Sword in Your UWx Stoneblade Deck

The principal haymaker in the Stoneblade archetype is its namesake card, Stoneforge Mystic. While Stoneforge Mystic is a potent enabler, the actual payoff of the card is the powerful Equipment she brings with her. The two Equipments that will be found in every Stoneblade deck are Batterskull and Umezawa's Jitte. However, there are a few more Equipment cards worth considering for Stoneblade. I see the Sword cycle as filling a crucial role in a Stoneblade deck against the Legacy metagame, and would almost never consider playing Stoneblade without one of these Swords in my 75.

The Role of a Sword in "Fair" Matchups
Outside of True-Name Nemesis, Stoneblade typically consist of creatures that are fragile and line up poorly in combat against Legacy staples such as Tarmogoyf, Thalia, Young Pyromancer, and Baleful Strix. It is often difficult to attach Jitte to one of these creatures, and to have it survive multiple combat steps to get value out of the Jitte. On the other hand, while Batterskull comes with its own sizable 4/4 body, it can be inefficient to put into play and Equip without the help of a Stoneforge Mystic. A Sword provides an intermediate option between these two. It can reasonably be cast and equipped without a Stoneforge Mystic, and grows any creature in the deck to be a sizable threat with some form of evasion and threatening triggers. In some fair matchups, the evasion and triggers even make a Sword the first Equipment you tutor for. Furthermore, after sideboarding opposing fair decks will usually have more ways of interacting with your Equipment. Having a 3rd Equipment gives you redundancy against this interaction, and ensures your Stoneforge Mystics remain relevant in long and varied games by adding a threat with a different dynamic to your deck.

The Role of a Sword in "Unfair" Matchups
Batterskull and Umezawa's Jitte tend to be lackluster against spell-based combo decks. While Stoneforge Mystic into Batterskull on curve presents the fastest clock most Stoneblade decks can muster, this is often too slow, and the lifelink, vigilance, and activated abilities tend to be irrelevant. Likewise, Umezawa's Jitte loses a lot of use against decks without creatures (Griselbrand, Emrakul and the like hardly count as creatures!) and is also slow to present a clock. A Sword perfectly compensates for the weaknesses of both Batterksull and Jitte against combo: it increases your clock and has triggers that interact with your opponent. Furthermore, since unfair decks generally don't play creatures, the chance of triggering your Sword is very high. With this kind of Equipment available, Stoneforge Mystic transforms from a slow, clunky clock to a dynamic and compact threat in these matchups.

Which Sword Should I Play?
All of the Swords are powerful cards that can play the role I describe here, but they each have a unique set of advantages and disadvantages. Ultimately, deciding which Sword to play can come down to your preference or expected meta.

Bant Maverick Update

Last week I decided to sleeve up a Bant Maverick deck again for the first time in years. After playing some Modern recently I just wanted to Geist people out.

I crafted a pretty stock list with no Brainstorms, but went off the deep end with the 2 flex slots, playing a Dromoka's Command and an Elspeth Knight-Errant. While Dromoka's Command was a sweet blowout against Burn, I realized playing some anti-combo Blue cards maindeck was a luxury I could afford.

I changed the 2 flex slots into Spell Pierces and took the deck to a Dual land tournament the next day, going 3-3 (Wins: BUG Control, UR Stax, Grixis Delver. Losses: GWb Maverick, Omni-Sneak, Miracles).

While I got to Geist some people out which was awesome, the reality is time has not been kind to my angel-toting friend. A relentless string of widely adopted printings have eroded Geist's playability in Legacy to the point that it is all but obsolete. These include:
True-Name Nemesis
Council's Judgment
Gurmag Angler
Monastery Mentor
Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, etc.
Leovold, Emissary of Trest
...and more I probably forgot.

Geist may still find its way into my decks once in a while, but its competitive time over. Ironically, one recent printing looks like a perfect replacement for Geist even in this deck.

As soon as I saw Spell Queller spoiled I practically screamed "BANT MAVERICK!!!":

• Can be protected by Mother of Runes to negate its drawback
• Maindeckable combo interaction that's still relevant in fair matchups
• Flying, 3-toughness body is great with Equips & Exalted

After the Dual land event I decided to get my hands on some Spell Qullers and simply swap the 3 Geists for them. Here is the list:

Bant Maverick, 2/27/17
Creature Spells (23) 4x Mother of Runes 4x Noble Hierarch 2x Stoneforge Mystic 2x Qasali Pridemage 2x Scavenging Ooze 1x Gaddock Teeg 1x Scryb Ranger 3x Spell Queller 4x Knight of the Reliquary	Noncreature Spells (14) 4x Green Sun's Zenith 4x Swords to Plowshares 2x Spell Pierce 1x Sylvan Library 1x Umezawa's Jitte 1x Sword of Fire and Ice 1x Sword of Light and Shadow
Lands (23) 4x Windswept Heath 4x Misty Rainforest 3x Savannah 2x Tropical Island 1x Tundra 1x Forest 1x Plains 1x Dryad Arbor 1x Gaea's Cradle 1x Karakas 4x Wasteland	SB: 2x Surgical Extraction SB: 1x Grafdigger's Cage SB: 1x Swan Song SB: 1x Negate SB: 1x Path to Exile SB: 1x Reclamation Sage SB: 1x Phyrexian Revoker SB: 1x Pithing Needle SB: 1x Ethersworn Canonist SB: 1x Gaddock Teeg SB: 1x Winter Orb SB: 1x Enlightened Tutor SB: 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant SB: 1x Council's Judgment

One way to look at this deck is as a stock GWb list with 3 Quellers and 2 Pierces replacing 4 Thalia and the 5th mana dork. A land in the manabase I miss a lot when playing Punishing Maverick is Gaea's Cradle-the card is insane in Maverick decks, and makes the 2nd Ooze and 2nd Sword very appealing. I'd also like to point out another card I used to play in Bant Maverick that got upgraded: Envelop. Invasive Surgery is now a strictly better option. However, I'm currently on the more versatile Swan Song in this slot. Very much looking forward to playing and refining this list more.