Watergate (U/B)

[studentofthegame]

Watergate (aka Tricky Dick)

Basic Idea: Splash free countermagic in to a Gate-like shell that packs in disruption and anti-aggro black creatures to create a deck that is versatile, resilient, and above all fast.

I'm a new poster here (though I've been lurking for a while), so a brief intro: I've been playing Magic for about 9 years (entirely online via MTGO and then MWS), the last 3 of which have been exclusively focused on Legacy. I was a longtime member of MTGSalvation and MTGNews before that, and I enjoy deck design/innovation/hybridization far more than tuning/perfecting. ANYWAYS:

Decklist:

4x Thoughtseize
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Mental Misstep
4x Daze
3x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Ghastly Demise

4x Vampire Nighthawk
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Tombstalker
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4x Underground Sea
3x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Verdant Catacombs
4x Wasteland
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Badlands

SB:
4x Spell Pierce
4x Tormod's Crypt
4x Firespout
3x Null Rod


It's primarily a black deck, as only Jace actually requires U to to cast (though Daze at least needs an Underground Sea...). The gameplan is to wreck house with discard early and threats that double as removal late, using free counters to back everything up. SDT and Jace give the deck a strong mid/late-game as well.

I was a little unsure if the deck could keep up in a blazing fast format, but so far in limited testing it has. I'm mainly focusing on Zoo, Merfolk, Goblins and Affinity (D&T and Maverick a little as well) for the aggro gauntlet and ANT, Belcher, High Tide and Dredge for the combo gauntlet, as those are the decks I expect to face most often.

At this point I am pretty much sold on the maindeck, but I want to tune the sideboard. I want:
1) A slot for combo/control matchups where removal is dead (currently Spell Pierce)
2) A slot for GY hate to give me a fighting chance against Dredge (currently Crypt)
3) A slot for board sweeping (currently Firespout, but splashing 1 Badlands is awkward/vulnerable to getting Wasted)
4) A slot that provides strong, targeted hate against 2 or more popular decks (currently Null Rod for Affinity/artifact mana combo)

The deck is a lot of fun to play and easily the most frustrating for opponents of anything I have ever played. Experiencing the domination of playing Thoughtseize->MM your turn 1->Hymn->Daze your turn 2 is a rare but sweet joy that everyone should experience :-)

[Qweerios]

If you want to use Wastelands and Dazes, keep your curve low. I highly suggest using 4 bobs, cutting 2 Jaces for 2 Jittes, and reduce your stalker count to 2. Also, with the release of Mental Misstep, you might want to change ghastly demise for a mix of smother/go for the throat. Lose the Urborg, its not useful to you.

As for using a single land to splash firespout, not worth it. Perish/Deathmark will give equivalent results. Besides, EE is probably better than firespout if you are to splash.

[morgan_coke]

I really like the idea you're starting with here, but it seems to have some inefficiencies, and with all the damage you're doing to yourself via TS, MM, and fetches, aggro appears to be a definite problem. Perhaps you should think about taking a page from Caw Blade and touching white while including equipment?

Something like (w)watergate:

4x Thoughtseize
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Mental Misstep
4x Daze
4x Brainstorm (top just seems inefficient at what you really want it to do comparatively)

4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Squadron Hawk (or maybe this should be a split of tombstalkers and nighthawks? or shriekmaws/garza's assassins)
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor (an awesome card, but i don't know how well it really fits in this, the UU could be hard to get, especially with Daze bouncing islands)

1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sword of War and Peace (you need lifegain here pretty badly with MM and TS, though perhaps Light and Shadow would be a better option)
1x Umezawa's Jitte

4x Polluted Delta
4x Marsh Flats
4x Scrubland
4x Underground Sea
4x Bojuka Bog
3x Swamp

Sideboard
1x Batterskull
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Disenchant
3x Perish
2x Virtue's Ruin
2x Surgical Extraction

[Jabari]

People tried porting Caw-Blade into a legacy using Squadron Hawks and in that thread most came to the consensus that Thopter-Sword Combo is just straight up better. It's on color for the deck, so if you want to run a list similar to Morgan Coke, cut the Hawks for the Combo.

[studentofthegame]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Qweerios: A low curve is paramount, yes. Bob is one of the best black creatures ever printed, but it really comes down to a choice between him and Tombstalker. Tombstalker is far superior here IMO, as he provides beef in an otherwise small-fry offense. He routinely comes down on turn 3, since the deck is playing so many spells so quickly. Plus, the deck already incurs heavy lifeloss from TS, MM and fetches, and Bob will compound the problem. Jitte can help negate this, but with such a low threat count, it will be difficult to get one active (assuming you even find it). I chose Firespout over Perish because Perish does nothing against Goblins, Merfolk, Affinity, etc and those are the decks that I most frequently need to sweep against.

Morgan: First off, I remember playing with you back in the day on MTGO. We were even in the same clan (zerocool or something, I think). Good to see you again. Anyways... I don't really like the idea of splashing White or going an equipment route, since that completely changes the focus of the deck and dilutes the strategy in a major way. Playing a WBU aggro-control tempo deck based on equipment and the UB disruption package might be viable, but it's rather different from what I want. I actually have not found aggro to be much of a problem despite the lifeloss; TS and MM both save more damage than they cost you (and you can always pay U for MM), and the deck's ability to stop fast starts dead in their tracks makes up for the life you lose doing so. In fact, I've even beat burn in all 3 of the matches I played against it (2-1, 2-0, 2-1). I used to have Brainstorm in the SDT slot, but SDT is much better starting turn 4 or so and that is the phase of the game where I need to transition from disruption to removal/beats (avoiding dead discard, dazes, etc). I wish I could fit both BS and SDT, but there's really on space for 1 filtering slot.

I've been thinking about putting Propoganda in to the Firespout slot, figuring that slowing down swarm aggro may be almost as good as sweeping them (and it also helps against Dredge). I'll be testing it out more this week, but it really appeals to me.

If people want to use the UB disruption package along with Stoneforge, I might suggest something like this:

4x Thoughtseize
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Daze
4x Mental Misstep
4x Brainstorm

4x Dark confidant
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Vampire Nighthawk
3x Vendilion Clique

2x Umezawa's Jitte
1x SOFI
1s SOWP/SOLS

21x Fetches and Duals


However, it lacks nonequipment removal, has fragile threats, and does not have much of a mid/late-game engine.