[Article] New Tech for Legacy: Metal Force

[Nihil Credo]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/21146.html

Feldman is one of my favourite Magic writers of all-time, and it's a blast to see him back - and writing an article about an artifact deck, of all things!

The list looks quite solid. I'm not too hot on the full eight fetches in an Ancient Tomb deck (that doesn't even run Key and so needs to manually untap Monolith, to boot), though I suppose having access to four extra Wurmcoils/Platinums helps with that; some sideboard choices also look odd to me (Triskelion as weenie removal? Null Rod over anything else?). Other than that, though, I see lots of focus and good resilience, both pretty rare in the archetype family.

[Finn]

There certainly are a lot of decks breaking the mold of legacy decks these days. Expected mana curves are out the window.

So many Eldrazi decks, Wurmcoil Engine, Welders reappearing after so long out. I am excited to see where all this is headed.

[Mr. Safety]

Yeah, I was thinking about the obvious lack of mana-ramping decks in legacy (unless you count Elves Combo powering out Emrakul.)

I've been toying with Garruk Wildspeaker the same way this guy has been playing Grim Monolith. My usual use of GW is to dump a 3/3 on the table. I do that until he's at 1 loyalty (2 turns) and then ramp into something fierce in the other turn(Engineered Explosives and activate, Profane Command using Boseiju to power it out). Every 'yin' turn netted me big mana, every 'yang' turn netted me a 3/3 beast. Solid play.

This idea of a fast Wurmcoil Engine is nothing short of great. In legacy, if it costs more than 3 man, you'd better have a DAMN GOOD reason for playing the card. Maybe this will shake things up and give the format the fatties we all love a chance to play.

[Rico Suave]

I've been working on a deck that has at points been within 5 cards of this maindeck, and for starters I think it is a solid deck.

The biggest problem associated with this style of deck is already written about in the article. It is the "all in" nature of a deck that has cards like Grim Monolith, Crystal Vein, and City of Traitors. If you go for a first turn Trinisphere, and your opponent Wastelands, you are boned. If you invest 2-3 self-destructing mana cards into a threat and your opponent Forces it, you are also boned. It takes time to rebuild with this sort of deck and that is time the opponent is playing stuff and pulling way ahead.

The problem is how this deck approaches that rebuilding process. The hope is that Trinisphere and Chalice will slow the opponent down enough such that this deck can rebuild and play a 2nd threat to keep up. This doesn't really work that well. When your Ancient Tomb gets Wasted, you're more likely to lock yourself under Trinisphere than your opponent. And when your opponent plays a first turn Vial, what use is either card?

There are a variety of powerful cards like Welder, Top, and Key. These are cards that help the rebuilding process by allowing you to rebuild faster. They allow you to play a continuous stream of threats.

If your worry is the mana base, the problem card getting Wasted is not the colored mana. It is Ancient Tomb. It's difficult to justify no splash at all when you're playing 25 lands.

[SMR0079]

I picked up a set of Transmute's today and proceeded to win a Force of Will at our local weekly event. The deck is bonkers but has some consistency issues. The Jaces' felt out of place, and I sided them out often. For those of you who stick with blue I reccomend In the Eye of Chaos as another threat against control.

That being said, mono brown is much more consistent and allows you to run a more dedicated disruption sweet that includes Waste/Crucible whic greatly increases consistency.

[SpikeyMikey]

Yeah, I was thinking about the obvious lack of mana-ramping decks in legacy (unless you count Elves Combo powering out Emrakul.)

I've been toying with Garruk Wildspeaker the same way this guy has been playing Grim Monolith. My usual use of GW is to dump a 3/3 on the table. I do that until he's at 1 loyalty (2 turns) and then ramp into something fierce in the other turn(Engineered Explosives and activate, Profane Command using Boseiju to power it out). Every 'yin' turn netted me big mana, every 'yang' turn netted me a 3/3 beast. Solid play.

This idea of a fast Wurmcoil Engine is nothing short of great. In legacy, if it costs more than 3 man, you'd better have a DAMN GOOD reason for playing the card. Maybe this will shake things up and give the format the fatties we all love a chance to play.

The problem with ramp decks is two-fold. One, ramp spells take the place of business spells, meaning that whatever you're ramping to needs to do the job of what would otherwise be two spells. In Standard, where things like Primevial Titan are lightyears ahead of their cheaper counterparts (the difference in board impact between say Thrun or Glissa [good creatures in their own right] and Prime is night and day), it's acceptable to take a tempo loss and some card disadvantage for a massive swing in tempo and card advantage a little later on.

In Legacy, you can't take the early tempo loss, because you'll die before you recoup it. So you have to play early tempo cards to back up your late game ramped cards. And the power level difference between the lower cc threats and higher cc threats is negligible. Compare Wurmcoil to Tarmogoyf. Wurmcoil is more vulnerable to removal but slightly bigger than the average 'goyf (4/5 or 5/6). Pretty even until you remember that it costs THREE TIMES AS MUCH. If they were both 2 mana, Wurmcoil would be a no-brainer, but Wurmcoil costs you extra cards in the form of acceleration necessary to land it. Think of it like a bigger, badder, meaner Balduvian Horde (Minotaur Explorer, etc.).

The second problem is that because of the high power level of cards in Legacy, dead cards and dead turns are unacceptable. In Standard, it's perfectly ok not to play anything until turn 7 when you can drop your Jace TMS with Leak mana up. But their Creeping Tar Pit or Sea Gate Oracle isn't going to kill you by then either. In Legacy, a dead top deck can mean the difference between recovery and dying right now this very second. That's why people are so greedy with mana bases. Games are decided in archetypical pseudo-Wakefield fashion; the guy with the last fat effect wins. I have NO and you don't have Force? I win. You have a second Piledriver and I don't have Plow? You win. Land is really just a necessary evil in this format.

The point I'm trying to make is, in order to see the ramp spells consistently enough to rely on them, you have to run enough mana that you're going to consistently have extra mana sources. Drawing more mana sources means drawing less business, putting even more strain on the business spells you do have to perform.

Don't get me wrong, I like brown. I spent the last half of SCG Indy on Mike Bomholt's nuts because Kuldotha Forgemaster is more fun than a room full of titties and mai tais. But it's very difficult to pull off effectively and it's not going to be a new revolution in the way Legacy is played.