To say that I was looking forward to the StarCityGames.com Invitational in Indianapolis would be an understatement. I love everything about the SCG Invitational. Great Magic. Great friends. Great prize money. Great tiebreakers! However, this article isn’t about the fantastic times that were had, but rather two of the decks that I played during the weekend.
My preparation for tournaments is a little bit different than most. I prepare for tournaments by playing in other tournaments. I rarely play games of Magic without something on the line. This meant that I prepared for Standard quite a bit more than I did for Legacy. I fired up Magic Online and played quite a bit of Standard with a variety of decks. However, I encountered a fairly serious problem. I was losing. All of the time. I don’t record results, but I can’t imagine my win rate in the week leading up to the SCG Invitational was much higher than 20%. To make matters worse, I couldn’t really figure out why I was losing so much. On the surface, it seemed that I just suffered through the downside of variance, but I knew better. Most of what I was playing was based around the list I ended up playing in the SCG Invitational.
Creatures (17)
Lands (24)
Spells (19)
The major improvements I made right before the SCG Invitational was adding Cavern of Souls and rearranging the counterspell suite (I had four Mana Leak main, one Negate board leading up to the SCG Invitational). One of the important things that I realized was that without Cavern of Souls, Mana Leak was too good against me, as Sun Titan into Phantasmal Image was my primary weapon against Delver decks of all flavors. In addition, my Mana Leaks were often stranded in my hand as my deck was built to play catch-up. When you’re willing to trade Mana Leak for any card at any time, you know Mana Leak isn’t right for your deck. With stranded Sun Titans and dead Mana Leaks, I finally figured out why I was losing.
While Mana Leaks are still an important part of the Snapcaster + Mana Leak / Restoration Angel dilemma, I no longer feel that Mana Leak is an important part of maximizing Snapcaster Mage. Cantrips, removal spells, and reasons to want a 2/1 are enough for me. With the changes I made, I felt like all my cards were generally worth at least one of their cards. When you have fantastic synergies like this deck does, it’s important that the rest of your cards can at least trade for one of theirs, as you need to disrupt their synergies until you can get yours online.
Let’s talk about some synergy!
Nearly any two creatures in the deck create an excellent two-card combo that is often worth more than the sum of their parts.
Blade Splicer + Restoration Angel, Sun Titan + Phantasmal Image, and Snapcaster Mage + Ponder / Thought Scour are the obvious synergies that this deck exploits very well, but there is quite a bit of overlap. For example, Restoration Angel can allow a Sun Titan to attack without dying in combat the same way it does with Geist of Saint Traft. If you really need a flier, you can Phantasmal Image a Restoration Angel instead of a Sun Titan after the Titan attacks. Thought Scour is excellent at fueling Sun Titan in addition to Snapcaster Mage. Returning Snapcaster Mage with Sun Titan is a frequent play when the Titan (or a copy of it) gets around to attacking. Generally, Phantasmal Image provides another layer of any synergies you may already be able to exploit.
I’m not a huge fan of Lingering Souls in this deck primarily because it really only has synergy with Thought Scour and Forbidden Alchemy, and it doesn’t really disrupt your opponent in the same way that the removal spells do. I hate drawing Lingering Souls and can’t rely on just putting it in the graveyard. Chris Andersen has also been championing Esper Midrange, and he swears by Lingering Souls while disliking Forbidden Alchemy. I simply prefer Alchemy for setting up your best plays.
As for the removal spells, I feel that they’re worth worsening the mana base from straight U/W. When you’re trying to overwhelm people with card advantage via your synergies, you can’t afford to burn cards for tempo purposes only. This means Vapor Snag won’t do the trick. I tried overloading on Gut Shots and Dismembers and only playing U/W, but I found that this was one of the few places you couldn’t afford the life loss considering you were going long and didn’t have any life gain.
While we’re on the subject of life gain, it was an absolute mistake for me to omit Vault of the Archangel from my SCG Invitational deck. When I added Cavern of Souls, I simply added the 24th land (something I wanted to do anyway) and cut the Vault. In hindsight, I should have cut an Island. Vault closes quite a few games and is absolutely worth the extra colorless land in your deck.
I highly recommend this deck, but there are a few glaring weaknesses. First is Sword of War and Peace, which was responsible for nearly all of my losses during the SCG Invitational. It’s very, very, difficult to beat this card when it is in play, especially if Moorland Haunt is preventing you from simply killing all of their creatures. Gideon Jura is a possibility for non-dedicated answers, but I feel that Gideon is otherwise far weaker than Sun Titan due to the lack of any synergy. The second is Geist of Saint Traft. It is imperative that you match each of their Geists with a Phantasmal Image or else your Delver opponent will often shred your defenses and you cannot hope to race. This is my current configuration:
Creatures (17)
Lands (24)
Spells (19)
While Oblivion Ring is generally poor against Delver, it’s an out to Sword and War and Peace in addition to being fantastic against most of the other decks. I’ve also upped the Steel Sabotage count—a pair is enough, as it’s tough to play too many narrow answers to a card they probably don’t have a ton of copies of.
I can’t really give a good playing/sideboarding guide; it truly depends on the texture of your individual match. How much burn does your Zombies opponent have? Do they think that Mortarpod is a realistic way to get the last few points? Are they blue or red? These things can change the way you play and the way you sideboard. For example, sometimes I don’t like Blade Splicer and/or Restoration Angel against Delver (if they value their removal highly). Other times, they are invaluable.
While many of the cards in this deck are overpowered to the point where other strategies seem foolish, one cannot deny that these types of decks create fantastically interesting games. There are many angles from which to attack and defend, and your tactical decisions are equally as important as your development decisions. It’s really a fun deck to play, in my opinion.
Speaking of fun decks, I played Dredge at the SCG Invitational.
Oh, Dredge isn’t fun? I agree, but it’s what I knew. I played RUG Delver at the StarCityGames.com Legacy Open in Columbus, and all three of my losses were to comboish decks. Why would I want to play RUG if I’m not rock solid against combo decks? The only other real Legacy deck I’ve played this year is Dredge. For the SCG Invitational, I knew that it would be best to play something I knew.
The SCG Legacy Open on Sunday, however, was a different story. I wanted to play something sweet. Someone mentioned that a Tezzeret deck had placed well at the previous SCG Legacy Open and showed me the list. I was intrigued, but I wanted to build the deck from the ground up. First, I wanted four Force of Will and four Thoughtseize. I think that’s the starting point for attacking the various broken decks of the format. In the past, it wasn’t exactly feasible to play both Force of Will and enough artifacts for Tezzeret, but a new addition from Planechase changes what we have to work with.
Baleful Strix is the real deal.
By simply being a playable blue artifact, Baleful Strix opens up the ability to realistically play both Force of Will and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and have some overlap. On top of that, Baleful Strix does a reasonable job protecting planeswalkers. Also, when Force of Will is at its worst, Baleful Strix is at its best. Not to namedrop Chris Andersen at all opportunities, but he’s shown us the power of Elvish Visionary in Legacy. Baleful Strix is our Elvish Visionary.
After that, you are functionally an Ensnaring Bridge + planeswalker deck. Jace, the Mind Sculptor is there to serve primarily as additional Tezzerets—a board dominating planeswalker that is protected by the Bridge. Speaking of Ensnaring Bridge, you get quite a few free wins simply by having the card in your deck. Sneak and Show decks are basically drawing dead to it, and even better, they can’t afford to play some maindeck hate due to the huge diversity of Legacy. It can be awkward to get your hand size down due to having counterspells and card drawing, but Ensnaring Bridge is one of your best cards.
Another "nombo" feature of this deck that you don’t often see is the combination of Ancient Tomb / Chrome Mox and Brainstorm. This deck isn’t all about exploding right out of the gate, but instead about setting up explosive sequences. The deck can often play like an Ad Nauseam deck with more business but no Rituals, where sometimes you get an absurd draw that features a turn 2 planeswalker but most of the time you develop for a little bit and let your draw develop for a bit before doing something powerful. Granted, planeswalkers aren’t on the power level of Ad Nauseam in their respective decks, but you don’t have to go all in on playing a Jace, the Mind Sculptor very often.
Creatures (10)
Planeswalkers (6)
Lands (22)
Spells (22)
I will admit, this deck was relatively unfocused, and I hardly knew what I wanted. It showed in the rounds, especially against Maverick. I really didn’t have the tools to slog through their fantastic utility. I earned a draw versus Evan Wagstaff (who is an impressive player that I’ve played against quite a bit recently) and a loss versus Drew Levin, both of whom were playing Maverick. My other loss was against a Mono-Red Burn deck that I don’t believe I could beat in a million years.
After the SCG Legacy Open in Indianapolis, I had the opportunity to play the deck in a local event, and I’ve made a few changes that I’m happy with.
Creatures (7)
Planeswalkers (7)
Lands (22)
Spells (24)
More artifact lands. The actual artifact count is relatively low, and it’s not unreasonable that you might miss with a +1 activation. Considering that you need to ultimate with a planeswalker after you’ve played an Ensnaring Bridge, the actual artifact count is important. The Darksteel Citadel is particularly cool, as an indestructible 5/5 is very strong against some decks. I know that I would’ve Trinket Maged for one more than once during the SCG Legacy Open.
Temporal Mastery. One thing that I love about this deck is that you have some explosive draws via Ancient Tomb and Chrome Mox, but you are still relatively stable due to Brainstorm and Sensei’s Divining Top. Temporal Mastery fits into the explosive part of the deck without making it much more unstable. I tried a pair of Mastery at the local tournament, and I was fairly impressed. Chrome Mox, Force of Will, Jace, and Brainstorm all let you profitably use a Temporal Mastery in hand, while Sensei’s Divining Top and Tezzeret allow you to take additional advantage from the card. I’ve added a second Top partially to help with the Mastery, but Top is just a card I wanted more often than not anyway. You can’t afford to use Top to help you develop, but it’s an excellent mid- to late-game card.
A retooled sideboard. Cursed Totem is obviously for the Maverick matchup, but Engineered Plague actually does quite a bit of work there as well. It has a role similar to Sulfur Elemental in that it kills Thalia and Mother of Runes, but it also kills Noble Hierarch for free. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but Noble Hierarch can often get through an Ensnaring Bridge, which you’ll need to establish at some point. The fact that tribal decks are on the rise for some strange reason further cements the Plague’s place in the sideboard. Cursed Scroll had to do too much work for me in many creature matchups, and the Plagues will help keep some of the creature decks in check.
This deck is absolutely still a work in progress, and it’s a shame that I don’t have the opportunity to play in Legacy tournaments on a regular basis. I highly recommend looking into this deck to see if you want to play it at an SCG Open Series or any other Legacy tournament you have in the near future. There are more explosive, disruptive, stable, or unconventional decks, but few decks are all of them at the same time.