What determines whether a deck wins or loses? If winning were made into an equation with “W” being the dependent variable, what is on the other side of the equation? There are a number of obvious variables which determine whether a match is favorable and, more generally, whether a deck is good. Foremost among those are the power of the cards included in the deck, the effectiveness of the cards in the metagame, consistency, and strategic and tactical superiority/inferiority. However, some decks have a je ne sais quoi that favors them. This unknown quantity probably reflects the fact that Magic is a complicated game and insufficiently theorized. Nonetheless, I feel as though it is very real and quite important. It may have to do with interactivity (the idea being a deck that forces another deck to interact has an advantage) or it could be that these decks have an inherent synergy with the Magic: the Gathering itself. But there is a quality that wants some decks to win as much as it makes other decks lose that isn’t reducible to the variables currently identified in magical theory.
Illusions-Donate has this X factor in spades.
Though its true origins are shrouded in mystery, the little combo is known to have existed as early as 1999. In 2001, Kai Budde not only won a Pro Tour but also made Eric Taylor eat his hat with help from a two-card combo: Illusions of Grandeur + Donate. The full coverage of Pro Tour: New Orleans is available here.
Here is what Kai ran:
Illusions-Donate
14 Island
4 Shivan Reef
4 Volcanic Island
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Brainstorm
1 Capsize
4 Counterspell
4 Donate
3 Fire
4 Force of Will
4 Illusions of Grandeur
1 Impulse
3 Intuition
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Sapphire Medallion
Sideboard
1 Hibernation
2 Hydroblast
3 Morphling
4 Pyroblast
3 Pyroclasm
2 Stroke of Genius
Here is what Gary Wise said about the deck at the time:
“The base idea behind this deck is to combine the resolution of Illusions of Grandeur and Donate, the end result being the gaining of twenty life before Illusion gets donated to the player’s opponent, where it eventually becomes too costly to maintain and is sacrificed, dealing twenty points of damage and more often than not ending the game.
The reason the deck is able to do this so successfully comes down to an incredible search engine and card advantage. Using cards like Merchant Scroll, Brainstorm and Intuition to find missing pieces of the puzzle, the deck will often have both Illusions and Donate by turn five, but will often use that search to exploit the massive card drawing potential of Intuitioning for three Accumulated Knowledges, casting one of them for three cards before finding the fourth for a total of seven cards. The result is often the drawing of more search cards and countermagic, and when the mana efficiency of Sapphire Medallion is thrown into the mix, it becomes next to impossible to stop.”
Illusions-Donate is a combination that has been dismissed in Legacy by almost every player I talk with. Mostly, they just fear that the deck is weak.
I believe that the problem is that the vast majority of players I talk with never played Extended when Illusions-Donate was good. That makes sense. If the claim that Magic players cycle in and out of competitive Magic at a certain frequency is true, then today’s legacy players are not the same people who ran Illusions-Donate in the 2001 PTQ season. I tried to talk some of my teammates into looking at the deck and they all shot it down. One teammate tried to get me to run Black for Nightscape Familiar – an idea which made no sense to me.
In 2001, this deck could be beaten. It wasn’t that Illusions-Donate couldn’t lose. Illusions-Donate was to 2001 Extended what Control Slaver is to 2005 Vintage. Control Slaver is the most consistent, powerful, and relatively easy to pilot control deck. Illusions-Donate was the most powerful, consistent and relatively straightforward deck one could run in the environment at the time.
So why run Illusions-Donate now?
First of all, it is a combo deck. If you can get away with playing Combo, then a non-trivial proportion of your matches become byes. How exciting is it to sit down across from Red/Green Beats or a Survival of the Fittest deck with a combo deck? Very exciting. Second of all, it has the time-tested countermagic of four Force of Will and four Counterspell. That basic rack of eight countermagic has been used in Magic decks since Force of Will was printed and it works. You get to run a combo deck with a huge control component. Third, the draw engine is amazing.
I simply adore Intuition + Accumulated Knowledge in Vintage. Gary Wise explains how it works, but he doesn’t explain why it’s good. By the time you cast Intuition, there is a really good chance you will already have seen the first Accumulated Knowledge. That means that your Intuition for three Accumulated Knowledges will put another into your hand.
Your opponent should never be surprised or say “how lucky” when, after playing Accumulated Knowledge for three cards, you play another Accumulated Knowledge for four cards.
When you go:
Turn One:
Land, Brainstorm
Turn Two:
Fetchland, break it. Play Sapphire Medallion
Turn Three:
Land. Intuition for three AKs. Play AK for 3.
Turn Four:
AK for 4 and play Illusions of Grandeur
There is nothing “lucky” about that series of plays. That’s why you run those cards.
Updating Illusions-Donate
About that Brainstorm…. Kai Budde only had two Brainstorms. That is the first thing that needs to be changed. Brainstorm + Fetchland is one of the most powerful plays involving unrestricted cards in Vintage. The play is quite strong in this format as well. Kai only had two Brainstorms because without Fetchlands, the card simply isn’t as strong.
Here are the changes I have made to the deck:
Legacy Illusions-Donate
By Stephen Menendian
Lands (22)
Spells (38)
Sideboard:
4 Pyroclasm
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Open Slots
My changes were small:
– 1 Capsize
+1 Chain of Vapor
This change is just one of efficiency. The reason Kai included a bounce effect was so that you can seal the deal with Merchant Scroll + Bounce spell to return the Illusions to your hand once your opponent starts paying its upkeep.
Finding room for two more Brainstorms was necessary:
– 1 Fire/Ice
– 1 Impulse
+2 Brainstorm
I also changed the mana base to make Brainstorm powerful:
– 4 Island
– 4 Shivan Reef
+ 4 Polluted Delta
+ 4 Flooded Strand
With eight Fetchlands and four Volcanic Island, there is absolutely no need for crap like Shivan Reef or for any of the new, but much worse, dual lands from Ravnica.
The Crucial Decisions
This deck has a very powerful game plan, as I have already demonstrated. Most of the draw components are instant speed. The effect of this is that you do not have to make many strenuous mainphase decisions. You can hold up your countermagic at the same time you can leave mana open for Intuition.
The difficult decisions are as follows:
Turn Two: Sapphire Medallion or Counterspell?
Turn Three: Counterspell or Intuition?
Those are two fundamental decisions that will still need to be made in many games.
Let me make an example game to illustrate the difficulty of both choices:
You are playing against Goblins.
You are on the play:
Turn One:
You: Island. Pass
Goblins: Mountain, Goblin Lackey
In response, you Brainstorm. You then play Force of Will on the Lackey removing a Donate from game.
Turn Two:
You: Flooded Strand. You break it for Island.
Your hand has:
Polluted Delta
Intuition
Sapphire Medallion
Counterspell
What do you do?
If you play the Sapphire Medallion, next turn you can get your draw engine active and combo out sooner. However, if you keep up Counterspell you can slow their damage. The reason this is a difficult choice is because it is not clear which way is most likely to end up in your victory.
You end up deciding to play Sapphire Medallion.
Goblins: They play Mountain and Goblin Piledriver. It resolves.
Turn Three:
You play your fetchland and pass the turn.
Goblins:
Mountain. Tap all three lands for Goblin Warchief.
You now have a difficult choice. You can play Intuition and Accumulated Knowledge to draw three cards. You may even be able to draw into a Force of Will to counter the Warchief. Alternatively, you could just counter the Warchief and let your opponents swing at you for one damage.
In my opinion, the proper play is to counterspell the Warchief. However, this is not immediately apparent. Delaying your draw engine for one turn is worth it to stop Warchief. This is a difficult decision which requires experience. I am not even confident that my choice is the correct one.
The Matchups
Goblins
In my experience, Goblins will split with you game one. I know that sounds silly. It sounded silly to me as a Combo player that Goblins could steal so many games. And to the die-hard Legacy players it probably sounds absurd that Illusions can win that much.
I have done a lot of testing with teammates and non-teammates and that is what I have determined. Let me explain in as much detail as possible how this match plays out.
There is a frustrating amount of variance on the Goblins side of the table as well as your own. Goblins can open with turn 1Goblin Lackey which likely will spell your doom if you don’t have a God draw, a Force of Will, or unless they don’t have the cards to abuse it. Or, Goblins can open with something as terrible as turn 1 Mountain, Mogg Fanatic in which case it doesn’t matter what your hand looks like. The thing to remember is that you are not going to stop Goblins from swinging with men. Your goal is to use your disruption and the combo itself to stem the bleeding until you can seal the deal.
My testing has taught me something surprising. I don’t have a lot of experience with Goblins so I was surprised that Goblin Warchief is probably the most deadly card after Goblin Lackey. Goblin Warchief is the card that makes Goblin Piledriver so brutal. If you can try to stop the Warchief. Warchief is to Goblins what Sapphire Medallion is to you. Except that he also swings for damage and he makes their men hasty. He is a real beating.
Perhaps the biggest problem with Warchief isn’t that he can accelerate their plan ahead of your goldfish – but that once you combo out – once you play Illusions + Donate, there is still a chance that they can pay for it for a turn or two and use the damage that Warchief has already wrought plus a Piledriver or, God forbid, two Piledrivers to finish you off before the cumulative upkeep overcomes them.
I have seen Gobins swing at me for over twenty damage when I have already gained twenty from Illusions of Grandeur.
My advice for game one of the Goblins match is to test it. Learn when to use your Fire/Ice. Learn what to Force of Will and what to Counterspell. Learning the match is the first step toward winning.
Game two is a totally different animal. Goblins sideboards are not well unified at the moment. They could bring in lots of Red Elemental Blasts or their sideboard could be full of cards like Pyrostatic Pillar for High Tide with no cards for you. Whatever the case may be, you have plenty of bombs to bring in against Goblins. Few changes were even necessary to Kai’s list. He already had the key parts in place. Here is my sideboard plan:
Goblins Plan:
-4 Counterspell
+ 4 Blue Elemental Blast
– 2 Fire/Ice
– 1 Chain of Vapor
– 1 Merchant Scroll
+ 4 Pyroclasm
It is really important that you do not sideboard out an Illusions or a Donate because if you need to pitch one to Force of Will, you may need to tutor chain from Merchant Scroll to Intuition to find one.
After board, both decks should be slower. It makes a lot of sense to turn your Counterspell into Blue Elemental Blasts. The Pyroclasms are huge bombs. There is no really relevant card that it can’t take down. The only downside to Pyroclasm is that you will have to fetch out Volcanic Island and give them a Wasteland target.
The post board games will be much longer than game one. You may have been able to clear their board multiple times and still not yet ready to seal the deal. That is fine. You only need to win – it doesn’t matter how long it takes.
One other note: you must stop Umezawa’s Jitte. If they get the Jitte active, then they will be able to gain life and then you will have to combo out twice. The problem isn’t that you have to combo out twice so much as the time it takes to combo out twice will make their Jitte truly broken.
High Tide
One of the things I really like about Illusions-Donate is how strong your colors are. Being in Blue and Red with so much countermagic gives you a strong High Tide game. Game One, the smart play is often to use your Merchant Scrolls to find countermagic. You want to be playing mono-Blue. You want to maximize the amount of countermagic you can get into your hand so that you can counter the Reset and the like.
There is only one thing you need to watch out for. It may make a lot of sense to sit on your countermagic and let your opponent start going through the combo. The idea being that you want to hold your countermagic for the right card to counter. That plan can backfire if they have more than one Brain Freeze, since Brain Freeze is not counterable. Play intelligently and conservatively and you should have no trouble. Your draw engine will come online and then they will be unable to fight through your countermagic.
Post board, you can bring in four Red Elemental Blasts:
High Tide Plan
– 2 Fire/ice
– 1 Chain of Vapor
– 1 Donate
+ 4 Rebs
There are three open slots in the sideboard. Those slots could be dedicated to a card like Arcane Laboratory if you feel that you need it.
In game two and three do not hesitate to fetch out Volcanic Island first.
If you are sitting on:
Island and Volcanic Island – the second they play High Tide you could potentially have three countermagic up:
Force of Will
Red Elemental Blast
And Counterspell
And if you are sitting on:
Island, Island, Volcanic Island
You may well have a wall of countermagic in your hand. Isn’t it great?
One thing that it is important to remember is that Reset only works on your turn. Therefore, play your draw spells on their endstep. They can’t combo out in response that easily. Keep making your land drops and maximize the quality of the cards you see with Brainstorm + Fetchland. Tapping your mana poorly can be deadly, so pay attention.
Landstill
Perhaps the most compelling reason to play Illusions-Donate is that you have a really solid Landstill match. Not only do you have a full complement of countermagic, but you have a far more robust draw engine and a brutal kill. Take your time in this match. Post board, I would sideboard as follows:
Landstill
– 2 Fire/ice
– 1 Chain of Vapor
– 1 Medallion
+ 4 Red Elemental Blast
Your goal is to be the control deck. You are not the beatdown. Mis-assignment of Role equals game loss here. One of your advantages is that Landstill has a huge number of dead cards against you. Each Wrath of God is a dead draw.
They have the potential to force into play an early Standstill before you can stop it and try to use that card advantage to stay ahead. My advice is to play intelligently. If the game state warrants that you wait to bust it on their endstep with an instant speed spell such as Intuition, then do that. If the smart play is to break it immediately for Sapphire Medallion, then do that.
If they have Wastelands post board and you are afraid to fetch out a Volcanic Island, just sit on the fetchland until you want to actually put the Red Elemental Blast on the stack.
If you think that they are going to sideboard out their creature removal, then it might not be a bad idea to try the Morphling plan from 2001 (although I’m pretty sure that plan is bad). If you just want a little more “umph” in this match, one other sideboard option is Back to Basics or even Blood Moon (which turns their Fetchlands into mountains so they can find the Plains needed to Disenchant the card).
The reason you must play the control role is because there is a risk you can die to a Disenchant type spell if they time the spell properly with Illusions of Grandeur. They can put the life gain on the stack, disenchant Illusions, and the life loss would resolve first killing you.
Conclusion
This deck is clearly powerful. Some have expressed a high regard for the deck’s shell, but a distaste for the actual combo. The combo has strength in the format since gaining life is the same as taking extra turns against most decks. Sure, your Illusions is irrelevant if a Life combo deck can combo out first. But Illusions-Donate has a strategic advantage over almost every deck in the field. Since Landstill and Goblins are duking it out, there is not going to be any real sideboard hate aimed at you.
This deck still has a lot of room for improvement but you are starting from a high level. If you enjoy drawing lots cards, playing Force of Wills, and comboing out as much as I do, I think you’ll really like this deck. Good luck and have fun.