When I was asked if I wanted to be on a team for SCG Philly, I became very excited both because of the format I love to play and the people I love to see. It was a few days after the Gitaxian Probe plus DRS banning and SCG Worcester was about to conclude day 1. I had been working on finish up storm in legacy and Bryant Cook’s team went on to win the entire event. So I played his lists, read his articles, watched his tournament report, and sleeved up his updated list. I very quickly realized that I was not very good with storm because I had only owned it for a few months. I had borrowed ANT in a very different format many many years ago, but I just didn’t have the repetitions in on either storm deck to feel confident that I knew what I was doing. I brought this up to my team and told them I thought it was a better idea for me to play dredge. They came to the same conclusion that I did, and so I changed three cards out of the board (I took out three firestorms because DRS is gone and put in three leyline of the void, this ended up being very wrong). I finished making dinner, made sure my 75 was sleeved and in a box for the morning, and felt good about the decision.

dredge pre philly.jpg

This mainboard was something that I’ve been playing online since the beginning of 2018. This was the first time I was taking this decklist to a paper tournament, yet alone a major tournament. Most of my paper legacy games have been in classics or challenges and I had been experimenting with various decks such as storm, belcher, and probably a few other oddballs that I hadn’t done well enough to distinctly remember them. I was glad I was going back to my pet deck. (I had also added many foils to it since the last time I sleeved it up) In hindsight this is not the same 60 cards I will be bringing to future tournaments, but I will go over that after I briefly talk about the matches.


When the tournament began, I had eaten, my hangover had passed, and I was ready to make some zombies. Match one I played against a well known legacy player who was on 4 color DRS Leavold before the banning. He was playing grixis Delver with Death’s Shadow. Game one his counters and pressure were half a turn faster than I was and we moved to game two. Game two I won and game three his delvers were too fast. Whoever was on the play won the game because they had pressure sooner.

Match two I played against dredge. My opponent scooped game one to a cabal therapy without casting any spells. He did play a single gemstone mine which made me board as if this was a mirror match which ended up being correct. Game two he was very explosive, but I took game three very easily. I am now 1-1 and the team is 1-1.

Match three I played Death and Taxes. I won game 1, misplayed game 2 and lost, and game three I blind cabal therapy rest in peace out of his hand to see all lands. He takes a draw step and slams a containment priest into play on my upkeep. I tilted. 1-2 me, 1-2 team.

Match four I played against blue white counterbalance . I win game one, properly play around his hate game two and easily take the match. My team does not.

Match five I played against OOPS All Spells. I lose before I am able to do anything in both games. My team lost as well and I am becoming more interested in food and beer than magic.

Match six my opponent on Mono Red Prison easily locks me out of the game; when the team loses the match we drop from the tournament.

Looking back on the tournament, maybe I should have played storm just as more practice towards future tournaments. I was not upset with my archetype decision, but I am very upset with one card in particular. Putrid Imp. I want dread return in the main. The restrictions it puts on deck building are worth having when you can have a game one play of both aggro or combo. Flame-Kin Zealot doesn’t belong in the sideboard, but having one copy in the main is too broken to ignore. I hope to continue to fine tune my dredge list, but also want to practice with storm so I can feel confident next time I would like to play it in a major event. Firestorm is 100% going back in my sideboard because its a generic creature answer that I didn’t seem to have enough of.

dredge post philly.jpg

The fourth cut to fit the dread return package into the main was a City of Brass. That may get switched to play a two and two split with gemstone mine. I was toying around with different options for the board. I’m going to play around with dakmor salvage because there are many games when I’m rebuilding, or trying to find answer to the graveyard hate where an extra land makes sense. The fact that I can dredge it back to hard cast a stinkweed imp to either have an answer or get the larger dredge engines online after sacrificing the imp make me want to toy with the idea a bit. I’m not sure if it’s correct, or if I should just add two more dread return targets (elderscale wurm is a personal favorite, and blazing archon is always a good option).

The weekend is over, the magic was great, and the company of friends was even better. Thank you for taking the time to read my report and I always look forward to the next time I get to play some legacy.


Bobo_da_17th