Top 8 @ Legacy Championship / GP Vienna with 4C Control

[Philipp2293]

Hi all,

since I failed at the Standard mainevent @ GP Vienna due to being hungover and not preparing much at all, going only 6-2-1 with UW Control, I was free to play Legacy @ the championship on Sunday. Not exactly unhappy, since I prefer Legacy by miles, and I had a spicy brew ready for a real life debut.

4C Grovegifts:

2 Island
1 Plains
4 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Academy Ruins

4 Force of Will
3 Flusterstorm
2 Counterspell
1 Forbid


4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Punishing Fire
3 Engineered Explosives

4 Brainstorm
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

2 Gifts Ungiven
1 Regrowth
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek

SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Wear // Tear
SB: 2 Supreme Verdict
SB: 2 Swan Song
SB: 2 Pyroclasm
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Pyroblast


This is basically the result of me trying to get some of my favourite cards/engines into one deck, with a little ITF and CAB Jace mixed into it. The Thopter combo was the last thing to be included, the night before, I discussed with some other local players the possible slots there, and the other serious configuration which we came up was with was Unburial Rites/Inkwell Leviathan, which I dismissed for several reasons.

Also discussed were Painter/Grindstone/Argivian Find and for maximum troll value Unburial Rites/Auriok Salvagers/LED/Pyrite Spellbomb.

Anyway, for the tournament, we had 65 Players, which meant 7 rounds of Swiss, with no top 8 and prices distributed according to standings after swiss.

Round 1 Japanese Business Guy:

G1: I force a second turn Stoneforge Mystic, at which point I put him on Esperblade. Turns out he's on UWr Delver as he drops a Delver. I draw into the Fire Combo, kill the Delver and a follow up Delver too. As he doesn't do much afterwards, I just make land drops and then a protected Gifts for the Thopter Combo.

He conceedes after this game as he has to leave. Still I think this MU is very favourable, at least the stifle-less builds like Owen's one.

1-0

Round 2 Guy from Belgium:

G1: Turns out he is on UR Delver after some turns. I kill everything he plays, he bolts me twice, I naturally draw into the combo and win.

G2: Pretty much the same as game one, at one point I would loose the Price of Progress + Counter Backup + Bolt, but as it doesn't happen I first resolve a Jace for value, which gets to brainstorm twice before getting bolted and then win via Gifts into Thopter Combo. I remember trying to play around Extraction as much as possible, but nothing happenend anyway. Afterwards I ask him if he runs PoP and as he declines I mention that I consider it a good MU then. He says he doesn't think so and shows me 1 Shattering Spree, 1 Surgical Extraction, 1 Rough/Tumble and 1 Echoing Truth. I smile a little, but he probably put me on full on Thopters, considering how our matches went.

2-0

Round 3 Mono U Omnishow, Austrian player I know:

G1: I mull to 6 and since I know what he's playing I'm ok with keeping 3 Lands, 2 Flusterstorms and 1 Force. Turns out he had tripple Force. After some serious counterwars he was left with a lone Dream Halls in play and an empty hand. I follow up with Jace and then the Crucible next turn, while he doesn't draw much relevant. I ride the CA home with Snapcaster beatdown. I think in this Game I cast 4 Forces, 4 Counterspells and 3 Flusterstorms.

G2: I keep a hand with REB, Counterspell, Fore + Pitch. He tries to go off turn 3 with a know Pact of Negation in hand. He show and tells with one blue mana open, I REB, he flusters back. I let Show and Tell resolve, he drops Omniscience, I another land to have Counterspell active. He goes for Enter the Infinite, I counterspell, he pacts with the Pact I know about and has one last card in hand. I let the pact resolve and Force the Enter. Turns out his last card in hand was a second Pact. Jesus.

G3: I keep a pretty solid hand while he just durdles and doesn't do anything. I resolve an EOT Gifts for Counterspell, REB, Pyroblast and Snapcaster while already holding some counters in hand. At one point I have to EOT discard because I have 8 Counters/Snapcasters in hand, while already beating down with a single Snapcaster. I easily win the counterwar over his one big attempt to go off and kill him with Snapcaster beats.

3-0

Round 4 Esperblade with True-Name Nemesis, Friend

G1: Is a really long, drawn out grindy affair, he rips my hand with Thoughtseize, Snapcaster-Thoughtseize, Snapcaster-same Thoughtseize (we forgot to exile Thoughtseize, Judge ruled that the situation can't be rewinded and the Thoughseize can be flashbacked again, my oponent appeals, since he is a Lvl 2 Judge himsself, but and the end the ruling stood).

Meanwhile I have some Fires to kill everything he drops. He plays Jace, I draw a Grove. He runs out guy after guy, which I all kill with Fire (not that concerned about Jace, since I can Fire him later, and I'm sure that he's running out of guys sooner or later). He gets Nemesis + Jitte active. I resolve a mainphase Gifts. Turns out a resolved Gifts beats active Jace and Nemesis + Jitte.

Since this Game took really long, I'm aware I possibly can't win G2, so I side out the whole Gifts package, where I would normally cut Forces and Swords, but my plan is just to survive for those few minutes.

G2: I'm never really close to dying, and would have probably even won a long game, since I had Fires + Grove and EE + Ruins active by the time the game ended. Shortly before the end my poor oponent dropped Meddling Mage and he to decide to have it killed by Fires or EE, knowing about both engines already started. I show a short smile, to which bystanding Sourcer Catmint replies "He's clearly enjoying it now" at which I nearly burst out in laughter. I think even the Judge watching chuckled.

4-0

Round 5 RUG Delver, german guy, eventual winner

G1: He has some serious pressure with double Delver, Goyf and Mungo. I swords the one Goyf, and then I'm facing a tough situation. I have the Snapcaster in hand, do I wait till he attacks with the mongoose too, so that I can sword one Delver and trade my Snapcaster for his Mongoose, leaving him with just one Delver, with I have tons of outs for, or do I snapcaster in upkeep so he doesn't get another drawstep for Force (I can pay for Pierce and still have mana open for Flusterstorm)? I decide to let him have his drawstep in order to get more value out of combat. He forces my Snapcaster and afterwards tells me he drew the Force in this exact drawstep.

G2: He drops a True-Name Nemesis, my EE for 3 gets dazed, and as third lands gets wastesd and he follows up with a mongoose, I'm not able to reach Verdict mana in time.

4-1

Round 6 UR Painter, friend

G1: I have to spent too much removal (he Forces one Swords to Plowshares) on his early Goblin Welder, so when he comboes, I'm already out of solutions. Really short game.
G2: Again he tries to combo, but this time I win the counterwar over the removal in response to his combo. I counter 2 follow up Blood Moons and he conceedes.
G3: He misplays, as I have an EE on 1, and he plays out the combo with an uncracked fetchland he needed to combo. As he cracks it I blow up EE. He drops a second Painter. We have a fight over a Transmute Artifact, which I win with REB and Flusterstorm, one Painter gets sworded in the process to drive up storm for Flusterstorm. I drop a Jace which gets hit only for 1 a turn. I first find a Swords to Plowshares for the second Painter,a needle for Grindstone and then enough counter for everything relevant. Snapcaster beatdown gets the work done.

5-1

Round 7 UWr Miracles, friend

First we agreed to draw, but didn't fill out the slip yet.

We play some fun games, in which he both smashes me due to have an early Jace and Balance + Top every game. His assesment though is that this matchup is rather in my favour, since I have so many troublesome recurring enginees, and quite some stuff to bring in, and I don't really disagree.

I then conceede anyway, even though we agreed to a draw before, so that he gets up to 2nd place, and I'm not off worse too much, since payout from place 5-8 is basically the same.

5-2

Deck is a huge blast to play, felt pretty solid, but exhausting. I'm open to any suggestions, as I'm still in the brew phase, and the first real life test went surprisingly well. What I basically enjoyed most was people watching and wondering what I'm playing all the time, and coming up to ask about the deck afterwards.

Please forgive me any spelling/grammatical errors, since English is not my native language.

Hope you enjoyed the report.

[Philipp2293]

I've also tinkered with Intuition for a long time, but you can't set up the Thopter combo just with Intuition. I might be playing Intuition if the printed a creature that is as robust as Inkwell Leviathan and better than the Thopter combo so that I'm back to the Intuition plan, because then I can Rites one turn earlier.

Also, you can build some wicked CA piles like Jace/BS/Snapcaster/Regrowth with Gifts, which you can't with with Intuition. Also, there is a Forbid lock pile with Gifts, but not with Intuition. The added versatility and CA outweighs the one mana more, since I either cast Gifts in midgame to get ahead or lategame to close out the game. As for the tutoring restrictions: It might be relevant in some cases, but it never came up yesterday, also the flexible mix of removal/solutions and running Snapcaster on top of that definitely helps with it.

[Einherjer]

I've Top8ed this very event too with UWr Miracles. So let's start with my list:

4 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
5 Island
2 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
2 Arid Mesa
3 Counterbalance
1 Counterspell
3 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Terminus
1 Supreme Verdict
3 Entreat the Angels
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Ponder
1 Karakas
3 Scalding Tarn
SB: 3 Rest in Peace
SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Wear // Tear
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Supreme Verdict
SB: 1 Mountain

This list was built in anticipation of quite some Nemesis-Decks = both, Tempo and Control. I am confident with every single slot.

Round 1: My opponent didn't show up. So the judges put me and another guy without opponent together and said we gotta play. He was a friend of mine and we played at serveral occasions at different tournaments somewhere against each other - Slovenia, Vienna and Strasbourg - for example. Well, no need to say that we were both pissed to play against each other again. He was on Ub Show and Tell. I win the first cause I counter everything but his Pact, which kills him. G2 he has 3 Discard and I die. Then the judge comes and tells us we both got a Bye for the first round. Greeat... we still play the third and I concede to his Show and Tell.

1-0

Round 2: Miracle Control (U/B Control - that's his Avatar-name- not a description for his deck :D)
He asked me "Are you on TheSource" as I put out my TheSource-playmat. And I was like yeah, sure - I am named Einherjer there (probably wasn't too clever) - and he was like "Ohhh nooo! But atleast I know your list *grin*" - haha fair enough. Was a pleasure meeting and playing against you :)
In G1 he gets a Counterbalance-lock while I have only Balance. I sandbagg a Jace for two turns in order to find protection but I don't. So I just cast it, it resolves and my Angels kill him. G2 his RIP shuts down my Snapcasters but I still counter his Helm, after I got Jace+Balance and cast Angels he concedes.

2-0

Round 3: TES
Game one I keep a very very questionable hand out of Terminus, Terminus, Entreat the Angels, Entreat the Angels, Counterbalance, Brainstorm, Island on the play. He starts with Gemstone Mine, Duress - taking Brainstorm. I draw Snapcaster Mage and pass. He goes Brainstorm, Ponder, pass. I rip a Strand, get a Tundra and cast Balance. He cantrips, my Balance whiffs, but I draw a third land to cast Snappy into Brainstorm for his first comboattempt while Setting up T4 jace in order to win this game.
In the second game he goes Silence, which I pierce, next turn Silence again, which I force, then LED, Ritual, Ritual, ADN - which I Flusterstorm. The turn after I cast Top and Balance.

3-0

Round 4: Esperblade
In the first game he gets a Mystic, which I swords. Then I cast Clique which gets countered. So I slam Jace, Terminus away his first Nemesis, Verdict his second and finish him with Angels.
The second game starts with double Thoughtseize plus Snapcaster Thoughtseize on his side. No problem Bro, I got Top. I REB his Jace, slam my own, protecting it with REB against eventual Cliques/Snapcasters - he has nothing and dies to Counterbalancelock with 2 and 3 on top and 2 SDTs in play.

4-0

Round 5: Ub OmniTell
Same guy as in round 1. In the first game he has T2 protected kill which I fold to. Game 2 he rips my hand apart and leaves me with nothing but a blind Counterbalance. I screw something up here - but in the end it turned out it didn't matter and I die.

4-1

Round 6: Jund
We both talk about GP Strasbourg and stuff and I put him on RUG Delver as he told me he didn't change any single card. Well, he was on Jund. T1 Shaman, T2 Goyf and Thoughtseize, T3 Lilly do the job. In games two and three I cast consecutive Entreat the Angels for x>3. His deck just can't beat this.

5-1

Round 7: UWrg Control
As stated above we first wanted to draw and played it out for funsies, which I won 2-0. Then we came to the conclusion that it might be better if he concedet, which he did. Thanks again.

6-1

Leaving me with the 2nd place, sadly there were no singleelimination-rounds. The first place was RUG Delver (with Nemesis), piloted by a nice guy from the Switzerland. I challenge him to a duel! He accepted, so here we go...

Special Duel Round: RUG Delver
He starts the game with a Nimble Mongoose, while I kept a hand of Swords, Pierce, Top and 4 Lands. I go Island go. He does a little cantripping and attacks. I just get my second land out and play the Top, which resolves. I let his Mongoose hit me down to 11 before I annihilate him. End of his turn I cast Entreat dazeproof, enabled by a Brainstorm, he Pierces. I untap and cast my second Entreat dazeproof. It resolves and he concedes. In the second game I swords his Delvers, REB his Stifles, Verdict his Gooses and RIP his Goyfs before Entreat the Angels deals lethal out of nowhere.

*7-1

It was a great tournament, list played very smoothly, havn't had any problems with any cards my opponents played, sideboarding worked out well, but not perfect yet. Nemesis is no threat to this deck. As the format turns even more blue more REBs are mandatory. As of now I stand by every choice.

Greetings

[blablub]

maybe I#m too stupid, but which piles can you use? Especially Thopther Combo, u using Factory, sword, regrowth and? :)

nice report :)

regards

[Philipp2293]

The default Thopter-Pile (if you have nothing) is Foundry, Sword, Regrowth and Snapcaster. Can be altered if you already have access to one or more of the before named cards and also if you have Crucible/Academy Ruins in play.

The Forbid-Pile is Forbid/Regrowth/Snapcaster/x (usually Fire, but most flexible in this pile)

EE-Lock Pile is EE/Crucible/Ruins/Regrowth.

Fire-Grove Pile is Fire/Grove/Regrowth/Snapcaster, but since you run 3 of both main Pile pieces it's normally not needed. For example if you have Grove you usually include 1 Fire in a value pile. If you already have Fire and no Grove, you can go Grove/Crucible/Snapcaster/Regrowth, which is also a value-pile, cause you will often end up with Snapcaster/Regrowth in hand.

Standard value pile as mentioned before is Jace/Brainstorm/Snapcaster/Regrowth.

Of course this all dependes on the circumstances, like in my report the Pile for REB/Pyroblast/Counterspell/Snapcaster or, if you have already pieces in hand/play, like with Crucible in play you can go for Fire/Grove/EE/Academy ruins, which, in a grindy Matchup, fair decks really struggle to beat.

For example, my pile vs Esperblade to deal with Jace and Nemesi with Jitte was Forbid/Regrowth/Snapcaster/EE with Grove + Fires active and Academy Ruins in play. I think I ended up with Snapcaster and Regrowth in hand. This way I could handle hi first the nemesis with EE, then Jace with Fires, then Regrowth Forbid (had enough Fires to buyback forever). Result: Had him both EE and Fire-locked, had control over the stack and still Snapcaster - Gifts for the Thopter combo as finish.

[Sigar]

Why isn't this deck playing 1-of Life from the Loam? Then you can Gifts for Loam, Ruins, Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek.

[Philipp2293]

Loam is defintely tempting, but I want to keep my reliance on the green splash as small is possible, only for Regrowth and EE @4.

So far I like how Crucible plays, for basically a one time investment you accrue CA over time. Maybe Loam is superior, and if I find time I have to investigate more.

[Sasan]

Congrats on your awesome finishes!


@Einherjer: Do you know the rough creature configuration of the RUG Delver player who won that event?

[Philipp2293]

I've played him and saw Delvers, Mongeese, Goyfs and TNN. Didn't ask him tough. He said he was new to the deck and surprised how powerful it is.

[UB Control]

I played this list on the tournament:

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Back to Basics
2 Rest in Peace
1 Energy Fiel
1 Detention Sphere
3 Counterbalance
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Helm of Obedience
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Brainstorm
1 Counterspell
3 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Supreme Verdict
3 Terminus
1 Entreat the Angels
1 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
6 Island
3 Plains
1 Karakas
1 Mystic Gate

Sideboard (15)
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Entreat the Angels
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
1 Divert
1 Rest in Peace
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Humility

This was the first time I tried the RIP-Helm version on a tournament. The other version was just too slow after 3 draws in a raw on our local tournament a few weeks ago. Energy Field is broken and I like the chance of the instant kill.

I missed splash red in the mirror. It was great to chat live with Einherjer! I think I should just copy his list (and practice more).

Back to Basics was good against BGW. I sided out and he fetched for basics!

Divert did not do anything, a second Misdirection would have been much better.

The frame of mind of the event was good, I had much better time than during the T2 main event.

It is great to play Legacy!
Greetings!

[mith]

Very interesting list!

Do you worry about your susceptibility to RIP?

[Philipp2293]

Thank you!

Yes, RIP definitely hurts the deck, but you have 3 MD explosives for it, and you usually bring in the Wear/Tear against the decks that pack RIP (Esper, Miracles, Death and Taxes, UWr Delver...)

[HammafistRoob]

I'm not sure if I like the Forbid plan. If I'm understanding correctly, you need grove and 2 Pfires along with it for the complete soft lock. Loam would make this lock a lot easier to set up. Nice job on the tourney and the list, it's good to know that people still can brew to success.

[GoblinSettler]

Such a sweet deck. Congrats!

[Chainer, Dementia Master]

Afterwards I ask him if he runs PoP and as he declines I mention that I consider it a good MU then. He says he doesn't think so and shows me 1 Shattering Spree, 1 Surgical Extraction, 1 Rough/Tumble and 1 Echoing Truth. I smile a little, but he probably put me on full on Thopters, considering how our matches went.

Did he plan on casting tumble? Because rough seems pretty bad against a full on thopter list.

[Fuzzy]

Instead of Thopters, you could run Intuition and Loam + Thespian's Stage + Dark Depths. Works better with Rites AND with PFires.