Eternal Europe: Legacy Experience

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Interested in sharpening your Legacy playskills? Enjoy figuring out rather complex situations? Take a look at my latest article:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...xperience.html

Let me know what you think and what you would have done!

[PanderAlexander]

I've read all your prior articles and they were decent, but I thought this one was really great. I especially liked your first example with the Daze bait. I believe a lot of players play with what they just see in their hand and on the board only, instead of additionally thinking what's in their opponents hand and planning their next few turns. Your article was detailed and to the point in each scenario, once again great job.

[Nihil Credo]

An excellent piece, I had lots of fun reading it.

The only thing I didn't like was the second example - as you yourself point out, it's pretty contrived: even a tiny change to almost any part of the game state makes those clever land tricks useless. Working on perfect information like that is much less interesting, and infinitely more rare, than having to swim through a cloud of potentials.

(Also, the fourth puzzle was completely ruined by the picture guy forgetting a land, but that's hardly your fault.)

[Michael Keller]

I don't believe the play letting the Vial resolve is correct, and I'll explain why:

Playing around Daze or not playing around Daze, you have to remember Merfolk is a deck that predominantly uses Vial to gain an absurd amount of acceleration into active threats, which is exactly what would happen if you let Vial resolve.

There are (at most) only four Vials in any given Merfolk deck. You run anywhere between twenty-four and twenty-six land, as you're obviously running a Stoneforge (with Control) variant here. You have a much better chance plucking into a land on the second and third turn than they do running into another Vial - a much better chance. Now, you're at three land and no issue worrying about Wasteland (as you have a fetch for Plains and the third land becomes moot). On their turn two (remember, you're on the play and have the second land), you can just Swords whatever threat they play and dodge Daze.

Now, let's assume for the sake of argument you don't draw another land, but a Blue card. You'll still have the mana to dodge Daze with Swords and you'll have the Force with backup to protect Mystic.

Now, here's what you've done in retrospect:

1. You've eliminated their primary uncounterable production engine in Vial and stunted the opponent by slowing the game down.
2. You've played the odds in your favor.
3. You've eliminated their turn two threat.
4. You're Waste-proof.
5. You've dodged Daze on two accounts.
6. You've resolved Mystic.

I think this makes a bit more sense, as you should *not* let Vial resolve in that instance as it is really the only card you should care about anyway. I believe this to be the correct line of play.

*Note, we also do not know what is in the opponent's hand, but rest-assured most of it is probably gas.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Nice article. I was actually surprised that I saw the Knight -> Arbor -> Stronghold play, lol.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Thanks for the props!

Last example: Yes, there's a Bayou missing. Entirely my own fault though, as I botched the image after rearranging stuff to often. Should be fixed now.

@Nihil: Yeah, the second example is the most contrived of them all, but I think it does a rather good job of showing off all the weird little interactions that can come up in a Legacy game. I also feel like it's the easiest one exactly because there is only a single line of play available to you.

@Hollywood: Note that you aren't necessarily letting the Vial resolve. You only make it easier for the opponent to resolve Vial IF he has a Daze. If he has that Daze, I'd much rather be able to slam a turn two Mystic (which is incredibly risky if I haven't fished for Daze beforehand) than make sure my Misstep resolves. Turn two Mystic is infinitely better than turn three Mystic (with or without Vial, the Voltron of Lords is much more likely to get out of hand to the point that Batterskull isn't enough any more if it comes down turn four instead of three). Stopping Vial doesn't mean you stop the Lords - they'll start coming out turn two and after either way. By making sure you can Mystic on two you just reduce their impact massively while turn 1 Misstep, turn two Sword (without the ability to drop Mystic) turn 3 Mystic, turn four Batterskull is as likely to render Batterskull moot as being effective. Taking the control-role against Fish is much weaker in my experience than starting to clobber them with a Baneslayer as soon as possible.
All that is without counting that you're relying on topdecking a land while my plan works perfectly fine independent of what the drawstep delivers.

As to your list:
1. You've eliminated their primary uncounterable production engine in Vial and stunted the opponent by slowing the game down. - Sure, that's pretty sweet. Trying to play the control-game against Fish isn't the greatest in my experience, though. Note that early Batterskull also largely negates the anti-counter effect of Vial because Vialing alone will never be enough to race the 'skull.

2. You've played the odds in your favor. - with my play, you're simply not playing any odds. Seems like an edge.

3. You've eliminated their turn two threat. - The StP doesn't suddenly vanish from your hand if you cast Stoneforge. It just comes a little later and the damage you've taken will easily be recouped by Batterskull lifelink.

4. You're Waste-proof. - that's true either way.

5. You've dodged Daze on two accounts. - Dodging Daze isn't value in itself. Daze has done more to screw up my gameplan following your line of play than following mine. Even more importantly, against you Daze has disrupted you even if the opponent didn't draw one.

6. You've resolved Mystic. - that's the whole point of baiting the Daze in the first place, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

[Michael Keller]

As to your list:
1. You've eliminated their primary uncounterable production engine in Vial and stunted the opponent by slowing the game down. - Sure, that's pretty sweet. Trying to play the control-game against Fish isn't the greatest in my experience, though. Note that early Batterskull also largely negates the anti-counter effect of Vial because Vialing alone will never be enough to race the 'skull.

2. You've played the odds in your favor. - with my play, you're simply not playing any odds. Seems like an edge.

3. You've eliminated their turn two threat. - The StP doesn't suddenly vanish from your hand if you cast Stoneforge. It just comes a little later and the damage you've taken will easily be recouped by Batterskull lifelink.

4. You're Waste-proof. - that's true either way.

5. You've dodged Daze on two accounts. - Dodging Daze isn't value in itself. Daze has done more to screw up my gameplan following your line of play than following mine. Even more importantly, against you Daze has disrupted you even if the opponent didn't draw one.

6. You've resolved Mystic. - that's the whole point of baiting the Daze in the first place, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

Your responses have basically answered everything I was going to respond to. If you take that line of play as we've both elaborated on, you wind up in a dominating position with all of the pieces in place as you have wanted them to be since the puzzle's inception.

My point is simple: there are invariables involved in this line of play that ultimately require a desired outcome, so I'm under the impression these outcomes are undisputed in my line of play:

- You have stopped their Vial.
- You have dodged all conditional counter-magic.
- You maintain your lands.
- You removed their first resolved threat.
- You resolved your primary threat.

Everything else from what I can gather is relatively situational, as we have no idea what is in the Merfolk player's hand. You're talking about playing the "Control" role against Merfolk; almost every card in the Mystic player's hand is defensive. You have a boatload of protection...and then Mystic; obviously you're going to be running on defense to slow the Merfolk player down enough to a threat a turn as opposed to two or three Lords completely nullifying your Batterskull (which I might add comes down in at least two more turns, or a turn sooner unless you opt to play defense against an impending attack. In that instance, you'd be tapped out or left with a single mana open and now you're extremely vulnerable to Daze).

You're not playing to the strength of your hand, which is predicated largely on the Control factor. Your hand necessitates slowing the game down enough to where you can stick a Mystic and nullify their threats predating his casting. What sense does it make to allow Merfolk to stick its best play when you have the answer for it? How do we know as the audience what the Merfolk player has in hand? I mean, if they're holding more land, it won't be exponentially more devastating, but it will still slow the game down. If, however, they are stuck on one land, well you've just blown them out.

About Daze: You've predicated the workings of the entire first turn on working around Daze, so obviously it bears some weight in this discussion; that part I think you underestimate or just aren't paying attention to.

As I said, this one is the warm-up. Clearly, we want to Misstep that Vial and there's only one choice to make: do we cast it using life or mana. Now most people that are at all familiar with Legacy will automatically put their opponent on Merfolk when they see Island into Vial, conclude the opponent has Daze and pay two life to play around it. After all, if they have the Daze, they'll get their Vial down and we're screwed, right?

Or are we? If they Daze here, they set themselves back to zero lands and a Vial, meaning they'll be slow coming out of the gates, Vial or no. If Daze is out of the picture because it was (or would likely have been) used on the Misstep, our Stoneforge Mystic backed by Force of Will is almost definitely going to resolve, and they won't hit a two-drop of off either Vial or their lands before Batterskull is already swinging in. With Swords to Plowshares for backup, the chance of them making a comeback in that situation is rather slim, even with an effect as powerful as Vial's at their disposal.

As you can see, it would sure be nice to stop that Vial, but drawing out the possible Daze here is actually much more valuable in the context of how we want this game to go. I wrote an article about playing around Daze and friends before—this would be one of the situations I described as “baiting Daze.”

Another thing of note is that the necessity to bait that Daze here is reinforced by the fact that we don't have a third land to play yet, meaning there is a reasonable chance we won't be able to slowroll our Stoneforge Mystic for a turn to play around it anyway. Even with the third land available, trying to set up the turn 2 Mystic is much stronger than waiting for turn 3. Every turn that goes by before Batterskull hits play makes it more likely for them to Voltron up an army of lords that trumps the mini-Baneslayer. It's time to proudly “misplay” into the Daze.

You've used Daze as the primary source of argument here, and the fact is Phyrexian mana can be used to pay for Vial so that in itself doesn't matter on the first turn as far as the opponent gaining tempo off the line of play itself, as their first turn is exponentially more important than yours. Again, we have no clue as to what the Merfolk player has in hand, so we are playing the cards as we see them.

You as the Stoneforge player are relegated into playing the Control role or else your only reliable threat will get blown out. You have to play the Control player here. If that means succumbing to an opponent's potential using conditional counter-magic, I challenge you to argue why it would be right to simply walk your only threat into a Daze. Because the fact is, you need two turns for Batterskull to hit the table and you've already got a Vial ticking up at you, with the forgotten potential of the power of a Turn Two Cursecatcher (assuming they Dazed) with the Vial on board. You are in fact playing the odds, because you're making a conscious decision whether or not you want to let something as dangerous as Aether Vial resolve, knowing full-well that your opponent could have the answer for your Mystic with a less threat-dense hand).

Merfolk runs too many Lords to worry about something like Batterskull (I'd also like to add that assuming the Merfolk player's Vial gets countered, a Lord of Atlantis costs UU. It is conceivable - and I've seen it a thousand times - that he or she will have a Mutavault or Wasteland to back that Island up turn two, making Misstep that more relevant). You need several turns to get that online and I think the situation in itself is a failure to understand the potential of not simply playing around Daze, but playing to the strength of your hand. I understand that Force is in your hand, but it feels like too much of a liability to let something like Aether Vial tick away and force you into top-decking Swords just to break even. If you're going to be blocking and returning Batterskull to your hand, that creates an even more mana-intensive situation we haven't even talked about. How do we know (if we're playing devil's advocate) that the Merfolk player isn't running more removal or splash 'X' to deal with Batterskull?

I think this argument comes down to who wins a basic counter-war once Mystic is applied to the stack, with Daze being only marginally relevant. I could be wrong.

[the_ob3lisk]

Enjoyed the article!

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I think the discrepancy between our lines comes from how we want the game to play out/how much we consider Batterskull's value to vary depending on when it comes down.

Let's go through both scenarios (life/mana-cast) step by step. I'll ignore non-Daze answers to Misstep as there is no way to play around them by using either kind of mana.

Line 1: Assuming you cast Misstep for life:
Opponent can't Daze back, Vial will be countered. You're now forced to continue playing around Daze or lose something much better than that Misstep later, meaning you will Brainstorm/Fetch on turn 2 if your top card wasn't a land. If it was, you can StP, provided they give you a Lord to target (I wouldn't want to StP a non-LoA Merfolk if my plan is Batterskull).
If you miss on lands, you're essentially forced to play into Daze the following turn without having provided a juicy target before AND have expended your last blue card (though you're admittedly likely to find either a blue card or a land with Brainstorm) meaning your turn 3 Mystic is less likely to resolve than it would have been had you baited on turn one.
If you don't miss on lands, you can now resolve a turn 3 Mystic without fearing Daze, which means Batterskull is online turn four and starts hitting on turn five. You can conditionally cast StP on turn two assuming he provides a viable target (LoA, though Silvergill would be much more likely to hit play if he has it and I'd rather hold back the Swords in that case). The earliest you can cast StP without exposing that to Daze if you don't have a turn 2 target or don't draw a land during your next drawstep is turn four IF you draw two lands, otherwise it's turn five.
To make this line of play viable at all, you need to draw lands and would very much like to see another blue card.

Line 2: Assuming you bait Daze as I suggest:
Your Misstep either resolves and you're reasonably sure they don't have Daze (Misstep on Vial is something I'd want to Daze just about all the time exactly because it is so powerful) or they Daze the Misstep and get a Vial. Either way you can be pretty sure that a turn 2 Mystic with Force-backup is going to resolve and will put Batterskull into play on turn 3 so that it can start swinging on turn 4. You can also play StP around Daze by turn four no matter what and are reasonably safe playing it on turn three if you have drawn an additional land considering you already baited Daze.
You don't need to draw anything to make this happen, no lands, no blue cards, nothing.

Other than the lower topdeck requirements, the decision now comes down to two things: How much better is turn three Batterskull than the same on turn four and how important is Vial in the ~40% of games it actually will be forced through with Daze.

Importance of Batterskull:
Turn 3 Batterskull will be able to attack once on turn 4 no matter what (even assuming cast Lords on turn 2 and 3, as well as a vialed in one turn 3) and will stop turn 3 attacks as longs as there is no turn 3 LoA involved. Even if the Merfolks hit 4/4 by turn 4, you'll be able to set up mid-combat blowouts with StP should they block.
As a result the opponents attacks are costrained earlier by the 4/4 blocker, the lifelink will provide an additional 4 life and (assuming he doesn't blow himself out by blocking) the opponents life-total will start dwindling - that might seem unimportant but sets up the lategame better because at some point the Merfolk-player will be forced to start chump-blocking while trying to race with evasion if he can't just bum rush you.

Turn 4 Batterskull on the other hand allows turn 3 attacks to go through, doesn't attack before 'folks might already be 5/x (turn 4 double Lord) and forces you to either swords on turn 2 or wait until you have hit four lands/turn five (because you still need to play around Daze).

Adding in Vial:
Assuming they Daze, an optimal draw will allow them to have four Lords/Silvergils and a Cursecatcher in play by turn 4 (assuming that they have at least two 2-drops as otherwise they either don't get to cast or don't get to vial one on turn 3). At the same point, Batterskull will have attacked twice, having gained 8 life. You're also ready to StP right now and might already have done so on turn 3 (assuming you drew a land and they applied enough pressure to make playing around a topdecked Daze impractical).

Assuming you Misstep Vial through Daze successfully by paying life: They will have four Merfolks in play by turn four if they have three 2-drops (one on turn 2, one on turn 3, two on turn 4). You will have taken damage on turn 3, paid 2 life for Misstep and only have gained 4 from Batterskull.
You're only ready to StP if they dropped a viable target turn two or if you drew at least two lands.

In summary:

Essentially Phy-Misstepping the Vial ends up costing them the moment to cast a cursecatcher and makes it necessary for them to have three two-drops&the fourth land instead of two 2-drops and three land to curve out perfectly.
To profit from the play, you need to hit at least one landdrop by turn three or at least one land and a blue card if you have to Brainstorm.

Mana-casting Misstep on the other hand leaves you up quite a bit of life (2 from Misstep, 4 from Lifelink and whatever you might have prevented turn 3), puts them under more pressure, allows you to safely use StP earlier. It also means you don't depend on what comes off the top of your deck at all.

In all honesty, I don't see any reason NOT to open my Misstep up to be Dazed here and be aggressive with SFM.

[wilson]

wow gr8 article, thanks.