Eternal Extravaganza 3: 4th place with Bant Midrange

[maharis]

Background (feel free to skip down to "The Deck" if you're not interested in how I got here, I won't be offended)

I am a lapsed player from the mid-90s, and in 2011, when a new store opened up in Brooklyn, I got hooked again a few years after selling my collection before moving to New York. So I started from scratch.

I have been playing legacy "seriously" since 2013, when I decided to get out of standard due to lack of time (my son was getting older, and now I have two young kids, so Magic time is relatively light). I started out playing the Zombie Bombardment deck, because I had most of the pieces from Standard, and the rest of the deck was relatively cheap. At my first SCG open in July 2013, I went 3-3 with the deck. But then in the fall, Deathrite Shaman and Rest in Peace were released, and I began the slow climb into more traditional black-based midrange decks, starting with The Gate and adding white for Deadguy Ale by my next open, May of the following year.

But that didn't go so well (0-2 drop), so back to the drawing board I went. I added red for bolts and stuff and played Dega for a summer, but found it lacking in the miracles matchup. Eventually, I decided to bite the bullet and go into green, and felt junk Rock decks were the best positioned non-blue deck in the format because of their strength vs. Miracles. I never ended up buying the big guy (Tarmogoyf) though, because by the first tournament I would play on Rock, Treasure Cruise was released. That tournament was 2014 Eternal Champs, and I was playing a Knight of the Reliquary build that was fine... as long as I didn't lose every die roll. I went 0-3-1 in that tournament, losing every game 1, winning every game 2, and drawing or losing every game 3. It was demoralizing.

So I looked for another angle and ended up at Nic Fit. I threw together a deck the night I busted out of champs and ended up taking it to a 3-3 finish at a GPT for New Jersey the next day in Delaware while my group played Vintage. I liked the deck, tweaked it, played it to 3-3 again at a second GP in Brooklyn and then 4-3 at the actual GP.

Though I was generally pleased with finishing .500 after my dismal results with DGA and Rock, I was still a little frustrated at the difficulty of being truly competitive with the non-blue lists I was playing. At the beginning of this year, I took advantage of a unique financial situation and cut some chaff from my collection to get the blue duals and Forces I needed to play more tier 1 decks. (It's notable that I had Zen fetches from my re-entry into the game, and picked up the Khans Onslaught reprints at what now appears to be their lowest point. Some serendipity there.)

I played a few different blue decks this year, most notably BUG Delver with borrowed Goyfs at the first EE, which went nowhere; Esper Thopters; and finally Grixis variants. In August, I finished 12th at the SCG Charlotte Legacy PIQ with Grixis Control. With Dig Through Time banned, though, the deck clearly needed a refresh. In addition, I wasn't sure how much I liked its chances against a field that I expected to have more BUG variants. Shardless stomped me at the IQ even with Dig Through Time; I shuddered to think of facing it without. So it was time to find a new deck.

The deck

4 Noble Hierarch
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 True-Name Nemesis
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Daze
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Ponder
1 Sylvan Library
1 Spell Snare
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Karakas

2 Meddling Mage
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
1 Envelop
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Krosan Grip
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Pithing Needle
1 Council's Judgment

I’ll answer any questions you have, but here are some FAQs:

Why Bant? Some of my friends and I have an e-mail list where we talk MTG and, after DTT was banned, a contributor linked to the “exclusive look at the new meta” which was just the GPDC 2013 results. Sam Black’s deck caught my eye because it played Brainstorm and Force, which I feel is table stakes for competitive Legacy, but also Green Sun’s Zenith and Qasali Pridemage, which are pet cards of mine. I also wanted to take a break from registering Deathrite Shaman and Cabal Therapy, which I had in every event I had ever played with registration with only one exception.

Why not Deathblade/some other Stoneblade deck/Maverick? See above with regards to DRS. I also didn’t want to lose to the card Blood Moon and I felt the Bant deck was better at that (Consider this foreshadowing for the report). And of course Maverick doesn’t play the blue cards that you need to have a real shot.

Why didn’t you play more Knights/War Monk/other fun Bant cards? I only played this deck "out" once at a local before this tournament and at both events I learned that people love Bant, and they want to know why you’re not playing even more awesome Bant cards. My answer was always the same: Legacy is a streamlined format with lots of “fun police” decks. Leading the fun police, I anticipated, would be Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay, and their bodyguard, Tarmogoyf. Despite the fact that I looked back on the 2013 lists and thought “hey, they did OK in the ‘old’ meta,” I found the deck to be somewhat lacking against the BUG decks I was initially looking to fight by switching from Grixis. But it was too late for me to try to learn anything else (I learned my lesson when I went to the Die Hard Games Lotus tournament last month with a UR deck I built in my head in the car on the drive up. This is the exception I talked about earlier.) That led to inclusions like MB Spell Snare to fight Goyf, and eventually Golgari Charm, as well as Envelop to snap off Toxic Deluge, and Obstinate Baloth as undecayable Liliana defense. As much as I would’ve loved to play cool cards like War Monk or main Teeg, I felt I had to stick to my plan of sticking a TNN and boosting it with Exalted or equipment without fear of chump blocks or removal as closely as possible.

I had 3-1’d the local I played beating Miracles, Storm and Dragon Stompy and losing to Reanimator, so I felt the deck had some play, but still was nervous of the BGx boogeyman as I sat down for Eternal Extravaganza.

The tournament

Round 1: Joseph on RG Combo Lands. Lose die roll. My opponent starts out Taiga-Gamble and I bristle a bit. Not looking forward to facing down Punishing Fire. Marit Lage showed up in game 1 and we sideboarded. I didn’t take great sideboard notes but I know I brought in Meddling Mage, Ooze, Crypt, Needle and CJ. I probably took out counters. In game 2 I had a nice opener of basic forest, Hierarch and Crypt. He got an early Loam, but only returned fetchlands before I cleared the loam from his GY with Crypt. Then I cast Meddling Mage. I obviously brought it in thinking I would name Loam, but at the last second realized that without one in his GY, he’d have to find it the old fashioned way, and I could pressure him as long as he couldn’t remove my stuff. Sure enough, Exalted Mage did work a couple turns before I found Knight of the Reliquary, which is a good card both with and against Wasteland. In game 3, I was able to get ahead with Hierarch ramp. My opponent, at one point, deliberated for some time before playing a Choke. I only had one island in play, however, and multiple Hierarchs. I think he knew the card was dead but he didn’t have anything else to do anyway. Time was short, but I won on turn 5 of turns with a Clique and Pridemage. 1-0 matches, 2-1 games.

Round 2: Michael Keller on Imperial Painter. I obviously recognized Michael as a prolific poster on this site, and so of course that means that I showed up to our match somehow having my carabiner caught on my backpack and pants in my rush to get up from my previous round. After embarrassingly fumbling with myself for a minute we sat down to play – only to have a good Samaritan whisper in my ear that I was about to get Crackgated if I didn’t make further adjustments. (Thanks, mysterious stranger.)

Lose die roll. I knew Michael was on Painter and made Hierarch and Pridemage priorities. Eventually I got out exalted TNN and won. Sideboarded in removal and Needle effects, and game 2 went much the same way. I did fumble embarrassingly a bit with Blood Moon; I had basic Island in my hand and Tundra, Forest, Hierarch in play when he played it. So I let it resolve and decided I would play Island-TNN. But I drew wasteland and thought “here’s a perfect chance to kill his Ancient Tomb!” Tried it, Mike pointed to Blood Moon. Sheepishly I tapped Wasteland, Tundra, Hierarch for TNN. He pointed to Blood Moon again. Magic is hard. I got out the TNN the following turn, was not Monkeyblasted, and won from there. Michael, it was a pleasure to meet you and talk about Magic and fatherhood. 2-0 matches, 4-1 games.

Round 3: Martin on TES. I have never been 2-0 at a big tournament before. Lose die roll, mull to 6, and I start thinking this is where the dreams get crushed. Opponent plays Tarn and passes, I play Misty and crack it, he responds by cracking his own for Volcanic. Oh no, I think, I’m about to just lose to a Delver god hand. But he doesn’t do anything and makes a remark about how he did it because I could be Delver. Hooray. I play Noble Hierarch. Next turn I play Stoneforge, but he makes a dozen Goblins and I go to 10 and then 0 without finding an exit strategy. Sideboard in the standard combo stuff: more counters, Gaddock Teeg, Meddling Mage, EE because Goblins. Kept a couple STPs just in case of Xantid Swarm. In game 2 Wasteland was a factor as he started on Swamp-Volc and I was able to kill his Volc and strand his hand before Batterskull put the game out of reach. Game 3 was interesting and tense. I pondered early and found what I thought was Gaddock Teeg – but it was a Pridemage I had left in case it was relevant vs. Chrome Mox and also as a body. We each cantripped while I got in with QPM, but I was flooding kind of badly. Eventually he cast Cabal Therapy. My hand: Flusterstorm, Daze, lands. He had seen Envelop the previous game. I thought for a while. Could he read Flusterstorm on me? (If so I would simply counter the therapy with it, because he would not be able to resolve it and I could disguise that I was thin on other protection). But I thought that was way less likely than him simply naming Force, so I let it resolve. He did, then played a land and cast Burning Wish, which I flusterstormed. After that, I was able to 3 him for a while and my draws got better. He was all the way down to 3 when I passed with a hand of Brainstorm, Force, Daze, Daze, and two lands. He played his fourth land, a fetch, and cast Cabal Therapy again.

This is where things get interesting. I choose to respond with Brainstorm and find Batterskull, land, Green Sun’s Zenith. I felt my only chance, knowing he would name Force, was to tax him and hope he didn’t get there. I was at 18, and I know this builds storm count, but the chances that I am not dead from here are very low anyway since he will probably lead on a Ritual and if I wait to Daze that there’s no chance. Daze, he pays. Daze, he pays. Storm is 4 and he names force. I discard. He plays Lotus Petal, LED, cracks fetch, Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor. Storm is 8 and I am dead to Tendrils of Agony. But he has 4 mana in his mana pool and as he picks up his deck he looks dismayed. He had boarded out all win cons and didn’t have enough mana to Burning Wish and cast a win. He grabbed a Probe and probed me for life, killing him from 2. I exhale.
I am sure there will be lots of opinions on how this sequence went. Later I lamented not Brainstorming the previous turn, finding GSZ, and getting Gaddock Teeg, but thought it felt wrong to not pass with force + blue and double daze. Someone told me that the right answer was to think: What do I have that I can do at sorcery speed that just wins the game? The answer, of course, was to find one of 6 cards that were GSZ or Teeg, or Meddling Mage, or just another blue card to hold. Put another way, I had way more outs casting mainphase Brainstorm there than holding it for value. 3-0 matches, 6-2 games.

Round 4: Jeff on Sneak & Show. I win my first die roll, and we both mull to 6. I don’t really remember what he did but it looks like I got out batterskull somewhat quickly and the final notation is 26-8. Sideboard in counters, needles, Meddling Mage, Grip. In game 2, he mulled to 6 and I went to 5, and I never took a turn. Game 3 was interesting. We both went to 6 again. He played an Ancient Tomb and passed. I fetched and played Noble Hierarch. Next turn he played Lotus Petal and tapped Tomb, and I gripped the side of my seat, but it was Blood Moon. Hm. My next turn was nice as I was about to get a Pithing Needle out on Sneak Attack and GSZ for a second Hierarch. He never drew a blue source and died with 2 Ancient Tombs, 2 fetches, and 2 Sneak Attacks in play. 4-0 matches, 8-3 games.

Round 5: Shawn on Miracles. I win die roll and do something, he plays a basic and a Top, and we know what’s up. In game 1 he is down as far as 3 before several Angels are Entreated. In: Teeg, counters, Grip, needles, EE, CJ. I think I trim some STPs, but I can’t remember what else exactly. Probably some mix of SFM, TNN, Ponder. I go down to 5 and he goes to 6, but he can’t get basics online so Wasteland takes him from Plains-Volc to just Plains, and Terminus can’t melt Gaddock Teeg, who shows up to the party relatively early. In game 3, we fight over Sylvan Library, which I win, and draw 3 cards the next turn. He tries to play Back to Basics, which I Daze, despite having 2 Hierarchs in play and a Pridemage in hand, because I can untap and play Jace, who takes over from there. 5-0 matches, 10-4 games.

Round 6: Ryan on Esper Stoneblade. Now things are getting really serious – I am on my longest career winning streak (I won 4 matches in a row after starting 1-2 at the Charlotte PIQ). Win die roll. Ryan gets me with Thoughtseize, Swords on Stoneforge and germ token, and manages to counteract all of my plays despite me drawing 4 cards off a Sylvan Library before dying to Lingering Souls. Grip, Needles, Scooze and CJ come in. I don’t remember game 2 but it looks pretty fast because my last life notation is me 19, him 2. I think this was triple-exalted TNN. Game 3 is a real thriller from the get-go. We have some STP fights. I remember countering a Perish. I kill his Jace with an Exalted Dryad Arbor before establishing my own. He plays a Tar Pit; I needle it. I am able to establish a board of Jace, Batterskull, two Exalted creatures, and fateseal him—but he rips disenchant for my Skull and plays multiple Lingering Souls. Eventually his hand is empty. I play a Knight, he starts chumping, but my life is diminishing. I play TNN and attack with a 9/9 Knight that is chumped. It’s him 10, me 3 and he has 4 Lingering Souls. STP in my hand, I peek at the top of his library. Thoughtseize. He draws it and plays it. I STP my Knight, which is 7/7 after Exalted wears off, in response. It’s now 10 me, 8 him, and I have TNN + double Exalted in play. Top of his library is nothing and I win. 6-0 matches, 12-5 games.

Round 7: Hank on Reanimator. We are at table 1, and there is one other match of undefeateds – so this is for the ability to double-draw in. I know Hank as a Show & Tell player, so I’m not feeling great. But I win die roll, he goes to 6, and is stuck on only Swamp – he is on reanimator this time – and I’m able to daze Entomb a couple times and win with an exalted batterskull. Crypt, Scooze, counters, CJ come in. Maybe a needle, I can’t remember for sure. This isn’t a great matchup. In game 2, he gets Griselbrand, but I’m able to STP it through one draw-7. He is as low as 4 before he just has too many zombies for me to deal with off Grave Titan. In game 3, I have a pretty nice start of Tormod’s Crypt and Scavenging Ooze. I play a Clique and things look OK – I bottom Entomb leaving him with double exhume, reanimate, Ponder. But he finds Massacre, and it certainly is – I lose Scooze, Dryad Arbor, and Clique. Then he reanimates my Scooze. Sure, I can clear my GY – but then I have no defense if he draws an Entomb or even careful study. I can deal with my own Scooze, I think, and he takes it, eats my other two creatures with his Bayou, and I brick for the rest of the game. Come on Jace, where were you? 6-1 matches, 14-6 games.

Round 8: Ben on RG Combo Lands. I know what Ben’s on, and I don’t feel great about my chances. Lands is pretty good against me, I think, and I had eked a win out earlier which probably used up my luck. I start to get a little down, but then realize, I have been pretty lucky, and pretty good, to not have played against the cards Delver of Secrets or Deathrite Shaman so far today, and I will definitely get a prize of some sort, so just need to make the most of it. Win die roll. Get basic-Hierarch online, Ben Gambles for Manabond---and discards it. He tries to Crop Rotate, I daze it and kill him with exalted true-name. Phew. Game 2 he locks me out. I do end up in a situation where I have an island, Hierarch, SFM, and Batterskull in hand and he has a Tabernacle. I put the Tabernacle triggers on the stack, and respond by activating SFM and putting Skull down. We call a judge to confirm that yes, though Germ token has the tabernacle ability, the triggering event has already happened, so I have to destroy SFM and Hierarch but my living weapon will live. It doesn’t matter though because he Krosan Grips it on his turn and though I have a pithing needle on thespian’s stage, he has more than enough time to manually make Marit Lage. In game 3, he mulls to 6 and has a strange opener of Port, Mox Diamond, Exploration, pass. I am able to get forest-Hierarch into island-Meddling Mage on Punishing Fire, and nuke a Loam with Scavenging Ooze. A little tension as I draw lots of cards off Sylvan Library, play SFM for Skull instead of QPM to kill his Mox Diamond, then realize there’s a possibility he can waste/port my Karakas and then make Marit Lage if he draws a land… which he doesn’t. 7-1 matches, 16-7 games.

Round 9 is my first ever intentional draw. I eat baked ziti and pray I didn’t screw up my decklist, entering the top 8 as the 5 seed.

Quarterfinals: Jonathan on Strawberry Shortcake (RW Painter). It’s a good matchup for me already and Jon comes in down a game from a deck registration error. I win our game by having more answers to his combo than he can handle, as well as some sort of exalted creature. 8-1 matches, 17-7 games.

Semifinals: Brian on Elves. I thought we would chop for sure since we all would get 20 duals if so… but it’s not to be. I keep an OK hand not knowing what he’s playing, but he has the option and goes forest-Dryad Arbor and I know it’s over because this ain’t the mirror. His second land drop is Gaea’s Cradle. Hoof shows up before I have anything. For the first time that day, I bring in Obstinate Baloth, not that I think he’ll Therapy it, but it can buy me time. Also counters, EE, Teeg… I don’t really remember. It didn’t matter. I clear his board at some point, but he just builds a new one with Glimpse, Chokes me, brings Hoof and wins at 1 life when I scoop. It’s possible I could’ve made it to game 3, as Michael Keller pointed out, since I had an STP for his Hoof, a TNN, Hierarch and a Sylvan Library in play, but I ratholed my next three cards and it wouldn’t have happened anyway. 8-2 matches, 17-9 games, 10 “new” Revised duals in my palm.

In closing
This report is already near 4,000 words so I’ll keep the wrapup short. I don’t think this is the best deck by any means, and I feel like I was quite lucky, both in matchups and in opponents’ circumstances, to do this well (though I do not apologize for that). However I am glad that I was rewarded for playing a deck I enjoyed AND was competitive. I liked the Grixis deck fine, but it was so popular, I felt like a heel. And when I played labors of love like DGA, I just could never get them off the ground in longer tournaments (shoutout to Wilkin and Megadeus for doing great with that deck in an ever more hostile format). This fell right in the middle of the two extremes, and on top of that, my opponents were generally friendly, interested in the deck and the matchup, and the tournament was exceedingly well run. Tales of Adventure does a great job with this series and I hope it continues.

Couple quick general gameplay observations: I thought it was interesting that four of my first five opponents played enchantments designed to constrain my mana into one or more Hierarchs. I know that in many cases, that is just the plan (like with Painter), but it does demonstrate how swingy those cards can be. Yeah, Elves guy got me with it, but he got me by picking his deck as well, haha.

I also was very surprised to not see BGx in top 8 or even pretty far down the line. We don't have lists yet, but I'm pretty sure elves was the only deck that played DRS and Decay -- and obviously that's not the story with that deck. Shardless put a lot of players in Day 2 of the open the same weekend, so clearly it is strong. I saw a decent amount of people registering it -- I am surprised it didn't have a breakthrough. Wonder what pressured it. Show and Tell?

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, I hope it was helpful. With limited time due to kids, work, and general life stuff, I personally get a lot of mileage out of detailed reports, podcasts, videos and more for Legacy, so I tried to write something I would find useful. Good luck to all.

[Whitefaces]

Congrats! Really nice report, I appreciated the honesty in it and it flowed nicely. I love this kind of Bant deck so might give your list a spin some time

[iamajellydonut]

Kick ass finish, man.

[maharis]

thanks guys. I did notice a couple embarrassing errors:

-DRS and RIP were already out at the time that I played Zombies at an SCG open. I had DRS in my sideboard (lol). It was TNN that really, truly killed the deck.

-I neglected to say what I Meddling Maged in my first Lands match. It was Punishing Fire. That might have been clear from context, but in case it wasn't... yeah.

-I got off by one in my games count by reversing my 1-2 finish in Round 7. I finished with 16 game wins and 10 game losses. 4th place? What a lucksack!

[Stevestamopz]

I eat baked ziti and pray I didn’t screw up my decklist, entering the top 8 as the 5 seed.

Jokes aside, a really enjoyable and heartwarming read. Congrats!

[jrsthethird]

Congrats! I can totally relate to your introduction. Where do you play locally? I just moved to Brooklyn and I'm getting back into Legacy after selling everything 4 years ago.

[Michael Keller]

Well done - you did great!