7-2-1 at the MKM series event near Frankfurt (410 players)

[Smea.gol.lum]

Hey,

first of all I want to say that I love brewing decks and that it's a pity that most people play standard decklists and keep netdecking.
In my opinion, there is still so much room for innovation in Legacy and the only reason that so few new decks pop up is the laziness of the people.

Having said that, here's the list that I played at the event:


4 Thought Lash
4 Laboratory Maniac

4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
4 Counterbalance

4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Impulse
2 Swords to Plowshares
3 Terminus

4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Island
1 Plains
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
2 Shelldock Isle
2 Ancient Tomb

SB:
2 Flusterstorm
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Misdirection
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Misthollow Griffin
2 Rest in Peace
2 Wear // Tear
1 Culling Scales
1 Blood Moon
1 Enlightened Tutor

Thought Lash is a great card that is totally underrated. Unchecked, it gains you 40 life and sets up the kill with Maniac. The good thing about the Thought Lash/Lab Man combo is that you don't have to have them in hand simultaneously. You can safely drop Lash first and dig for Maniac afterwards. With SDT in play, Thought Lash turns into a digging machine.
Sensei's Divining Top and Brainstorm (sometimes also Shelldock Isle with Ponder under it) provide instant speed protection for Maniac. I only lost one game because of not being able to protect Maniac.
The weakest link is Impulse and I will probably replace it, but don’t know yet with which card. One option is to cut the Impulses, 1 Maniac and go more into the direction of Miracles. If you do this, you should probably add an alternative win condition like Mentor. Otherwise, you will lose games due to not finding Maniac post-Lash.
Shelldock Isle was awesome all day long (2for1 land, how awesome is that?). I’m thinking about going up to 3.
The Griffins were an experiment and won me the only game I boarded them in. I’m still very unsure about them. I don’t want to lose to either discard+Extraction or Slaughter Games with Maniac as my only win con, but adding Mentor to the maindeck could solve this problem anyway.

Round 1: BURG Goodie Deck

I wasn't able to present my deck in time because I had to sleeve up my cards with perfect-sized sleeves (borrowed Tundras, FoWs and fetchlands in perfect-sized sleeves from a friend and didn't want to risk getting a game loss due to marked cards). It was the first tournament of my life that started punctually so that I got a warning due to slow play as a consequence. As a result, I tilted a bit and played very badly in the first round.

In the first game he was able to pull ahead with Painful Truths. I still landed a Thought Lash and nearly won. Due to an active Deathrite Shaman, I had to go for the kill at some point by exiling my library which he responded to with Decay on Maniac. (had FoW under Shelldock Isle which didn't help me).

In game 2 I refused to fetch for Volcanic Island and to play REB on his Delver because of his Wasteland in play. I wanted to get to four lands and deploy a Lash. In hindsight, it was a big mistake and I just should have dealt with his Delver asap.
When I went for Lash, I was low on life and surprised by a bolt (didn't expect him to play both Bolts and 4 Decays).

0-1

Round 2 vs Burn: Bye (drop Lash, win)

1-1

Round 3 vs Eldrazi:

In game 1 I dropped SDT turn 1 into Lash later on which bought me enough time to find Terminus whiping the board (Pierced a Warping Wail).
Some turns later, I dropped Maniac and won by tapping SDT.

In game 2 he played a Chalice on turn 1 which met a FoW letting me play SDT on my turn 1.
Turn 2 he played another Chalice and a Mimic while I just played a land.
Turn 3 he played Thought-Knot Seer but I only held StP and lands.
On my turn I layed Lash (that I had hidden on the top of my library) on the back of Ancient Tomb.
During the following turns, his Eldrazi team grew in the form of Oblivion Sower :D (giving him 2 islands that I had exiled with Lash) and Phyrexian Revoker which forced me to make a decision.
At that point, I had Lash, SDT and an active Shelldock Isle with a hidden Wear/Tear in play and Brainstorm in hand. If I hadn't done anything, he could have simply named Lash and beaten me to death with his Eldrazis next turn. So, in response to his Revoker I searched for Maniac via SDT+Lash, found it, tapped SDT drawing it, removed all but 4 cards of my library (2 counters on Lash) and played Tear on his Chalice on 1 via Shelldock Isle.
He named Lash, but it was irrelevant. On my turn, I payed the cumulative upkeep of Lash by exiling 3 cards, drew the last card of my library, played Maniac and Brainstorm ftw.

2-1

Round 4 vs Storm:

In game 1 I mulled into a five card hand consisting of 3 lands, Pierce and SDT. Pierced his Duress, played SDT and found CB with it. He scooped (and thought I was on Miracles).
In game two I flooded with lands and lost.
In game 3 he still didn't know that I played Lash, went for the Empty the Warrens route and shredded my hand with Therapy.
However, I had SDT in play which found Lash for me. I stabilized at 9 life and by the time he attempted to go off again with Dark Petition I had already found Flusterstorm after having seen over 15 cards with Lash+SDT.
On my next turn I dropped Maniac and tapped SDT ftw.

3-1

Round 5 vs Stoneblade:

He spent his time dropping Stoneforge Mystic into Batterskull and True-Name Nemesis while I dropped Lash and killed him with Maniac with SDT and Brainstorm as protection.
In the second game I exiled 2 Griffins with Thought Lash which barely raced his Deathrite Shaman. At one point I also had Maniac in play and could have gone for the win by exiling my library but decided against it for fear of Decay.

4-1

Round 6 vs Death n Taxes:

In the first game my opponent couldn't do anything against Lash and triple Maniac backed up by Brainstorm and SDT.
In game 2 Culling Scales killed his team 1 by 1 but I made a mistake by not getting rid of his Revoker with Wear/Tear. I was too greedy and wanted to have a 3 for 1 with Scales (Vial, Revoker, Flickerwisp), so that I was very low on life by the time it cleaned the board. I didn't find an SDT to complete the soft lock with Culling Scales and had to let it destroy itsself.
After that, it went downhill and I lost due to not being able to fetch (1 life).
Game 3 was very close and I won it after luckily drawing 2 (or even 3 lands) in a row against Thalia and Port (6 lands necessary for Lash).
When I went for it, he had only 2 mana available (ported 2 of my lands) in my upkeep making my Spell Pierce active against possible removal.

5-1

Round 7 vs RUG Delver:

In game 1 I got bluffed. With few life points left I went for Lash with 2 mana open. He played Spell Pierce and I thought he had a Daze for sure, because I had played around it for several turns and he hadn’t brainstormed except for in turn 2 to flip his delver, so shuffling it away wasn’t an option either. That’s why I played Brainstorm to find a FoW, but didn’t and lost. After the game he revealed his two hand cards and there was no Daze.
In game two he beat me to death with two flipped Delvers and countered Lash and Terminus with REB and Pierce.

5-2

Round 8 vs Storm:

I locked him out of the game with CB+Top in game 1.
Game 2 went very long: He decayed 2 Counterbalance and tried an Echoing Truth targetting my 3rd CB which I FoWed. He dug for an answer with SDT, while I eventually dropped Thought Lash. Lash was a sign for him to go for a last attempt but Flusterstorm ruined his plans. When I dropped Maniac, exiled my library and tapped SDT he fired off another Decay which surprised me a bit, but I had another Brainstorm ftw.

6-2

Round 9 vs Mono R Sneak Attack:

In game 1 I let him play a Chalice on 1 as my hand consisted of cards like FoW, Impulse, Maniac and Lash. I found another land with Impulse, played Maniac on turn 3, countered a Sneak Attack, played Lash on turn 4 and hoped that he wouldn’t kill me on his next turn with sth like Sneak Attack into Emrakul. He didn’t, so I won during my next draw step.
In game 2 I mulled into a hand with 1-drops that immediately got shut down by Chalice.
In game 3 I countered his most important spells, dropped Lash as my last card and topdecked Maniac on my next turn.

7-2

Round 10 vs Death n Taxes:

In the first game his T1 Vial pulled big weight. I got beaten to death very quickly despite a Terminus and StP, because he vialed in Flickerwisp to reset Batterskull that he had sneaked into play with Stoneforge Mystic. Another Flickerwisp doing the same sealed the deal.
Game 2 went very long. At one point I had Lash, SDT and Shelldock Isle with Brainstorm under it in play and Maniac in hand. When I played him, my opponent vialed in a Flickerwisp in response exiling my SDT, which was a mistake by him. In hindsight I knew that his last hand card at that point was another Flickerwisp and that he drew Swords to Plowshares on his next turn. In my next upkeep, he made another mistake by not porting my Shelldock Isle. With him having only 2 hand cards, the coast was clear. I exiled my library, he played Swords to Plowshares targetting Maniac, I responded with a hidden Brainstorm, he vialed in Flickerwisp and I responded by tapping SDT ftw.
After game 2 there were only 2 minutes left, so game 3 ended in a draw.

7-2-1

In the end I got 22nd out of 410 players and only got 30 euros for my troubles which was a bit disappointing.
Nevertheless, it was an awesome day of Magic and I met a lot of cool people.
Luck was rather on my side thoughout the day and I didn’t play optimally, but I think that this deck can put up good results.

I had only worked on the deck on my own, so there's still a lot of room for tweaking.
All in all, I think that Thought Lash is a very strong card that has a lot of synergy with SDT, CB, Maniac and Shelldock Isle. In contrast to Jace, it can also be dropped when you’re far behind and usually buys you enough time to find Maniac and win. Like I said above, I only lost a single game after resolving Thought Lash.

It would be a pleasure for me, if some of you guys visited the Skilled Maniac thread and worked with me on the deck.

Cheers,

Smea.gol.lum

[UseLess]

Awesome deck, looks really sweet. Have you considered predict instead of impulse? It is commonly played in Miracles nowadays and seems pretty good. Have you tested Jace in your list? I can imagine that 1-2 Jace might actually be good as it provides an alternative win condition and it is just a very powerful card. If you don't like the impulses, I would suggest -3 impulse, +2 predict, +1 Jace to start with testing.

[Whitefaces]

Fantastic deck, I love it! And well done on the result, for a brew this is quite an achievement. Can't wait to give this a spin at my LGS!

[Bobmans]

Congratz on your result. I witnessed you playing the deck. Everyone was like, wtf.. Golden. Keep it up.