Malkolm89
05-29-2013, 03:09 AM
4 COLOR CASCADE
As magic players one of the first things we ever learn about the game is that spells are good, once we come to that realization we learn that free spells are even better, this deck tries to abuse one of the ways to get free cards: Cascade.
One of the problems with cascade spells it's their randomness, this deck tries to eliminate that randomness, it tries to set up powerfull cascade chains, without going all in on that, even if you never see one single cascade card or a way to get it during the game you still have gameplan against much of the field. Previously one of the ways we have seen to setup cascade chains was Brainstorm, while that's a powerfull interaction, what if you don't have the correct spells in your hand to setup the chain? If only there was an easy way to setup your top cards with a nice strong cascade chain... wait... Actually there's: Congregation at Dawn.
But isn't Congregation card disavantage? Well it is, and card disavantage is not something players usually like, but in fact in this deck it's usually a 2 for 1 or a 3 for 1, which for 3 mana is quite a nice deal.
Without further ado, I present you:
CONGREGATION CASCADE:
Creatures:
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Shardless Agent
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Waterfront Bouncer
1 Scavenging Ooze
Equipment:
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
Instants:
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Congregation at Dawn
Enchantments:
1 Sylvan Library
Lands:
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Wasteland
2 Savannah
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Tropical Island
1 Plateau
1 Taiga
1 Tundra
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
Sideboard:
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Choke
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Path to Exile
The Gameplan:
This a maverick like deck, and takes inspiration from that deck having many similarities with it, but unlike maverick it can just setup stupid amounts of card advantage. Your goal with this deck is to disrupt t your opponents with your hate-bears while generating card advantage with Shardless Agent, Bloodbraid Elf, Congregation at Dawn. Hopefully that's enough to go over the top of what they have going on.
The Toolbox:
In this deck you have 3 Toolbox engines going on Congregation at Dawn, Knight of the Reliquary, Stoneforge Mystic. So lets analyse them:
Congregation at Dawn: Your usual chain with it is Bloodbraid Elf-> Shardless Agent -> 2 Drop of your choice, the options we have are:
Tarmogoyf: One of the best 2 drops ever it's just a beatstick not much to see here.
Gaddock Teeg: An all star vs some of the deck of the format, against miracles for example stopping Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Entreat the Angels, Terminus. Also nice vs Storm stopping Tendrils of Agony, Ad Nauseum and so on. Over all a solid card, in some matchups it's going to be just a bear so feel free to side it out when needed.
Qasali Pridemage: Having a main deck naturalize effect that acts as a 2/2 or 3/3 it's quite nice.
Stoneforge Mystic: One of the most powerfull cards of the format, lets you get a 3 for 1 from Congregation at Dawn, which is really powerfull when you're not in need of any particular hate bear.
Scavenging Ooze: Trumps Tarmogoyf and it's really good versus graveyard decks, while also providing usefull life gain, great card over all.
Voice of Resurgence: This one of the cards I'm most unsure of, so far has been ok, disrupting their counterspell is a nice ability since you have some high impact cards such Congregation at Dawn or Knight of Reliquary, also note that the token is quite a bit deal on the deck, since your Congregation at Dawn puts 3 guys on the battlefield making it at least a 4/4.
Waterfront Bouncer: This card is an answer to Sneak and Show decks, perhaps it's too slow but it's an idea, also serves the double duty of bouncing back your Bloodbraid Elf for further cascade shennanigans.
The next toolbox is:
KNIGHT OF RELIQUARY: This toolbox isn't super powerfull since this is a 4 color deck so, much of our manabase is dedicated to color fixing, Knight actually helps in that regard often fetching your much needed blue or red source while also serving as a mana accelerator. So as targets we have:
Wasteland: Always good, I don't feel like this deck can support 4, due to it's color requirements, 3 is still fine.
Karakas: Your anti Sneak and Show card.
Horizon Canopy: we all love to draw cards and acts as a mana fixer since green and white are the main colors.
Gaea's Cradle: Probably the most unsual of the deck's lands, but with Knight of the Reliquary to fetch it can become really powerfull, with this deck you will often find yourself with 3-4 creatures, so it's usually +3 mana, which quite good, also when you have Knight of the Reliquary in play you will often go really low on lands since your searching for wasteland, Gaea's Cradle lets you still be able to cast your 3-4 mana spells even when you're low on actual lands.
The last toolbox is quite standard with Batterskull and Umezawa's Jitte as Stoneforge Mystic targets, a case could be made for other equipments but so far I satisfied with these two pieces of equipment.
The Sideboard:
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben: The matchup against storm is quite hard, this is one of the few cards that actually matters there, it's odd to play 4 off a legend but I fell it's necessary on that matchup. It's also nice versus Canadian Threshold.
Oblivion Ring: Your catch all, usefull in several matchs, an absolute powerhouse, 3 is a high number but you're never unhappy to see it on the matchups where it's good.
Choke: This kind of hate is just obscene, really good versus Stoneblade or the miracles deck, we can probably agree that blue is the best color in Legacy so having something that gives blue deck an hard time while barelly harming you it's a joy. Really good card.
Surgical Extraction: This deck isn't exactly super resilent to a Life from the Loam + [card]Wasteland[/cards] lock, Surgical Extraction is capable of destroying that gameplan, while having a purpose on other matches like Tin Fins, reanimator or dredge.
Bojuka Bog: Other form of graveyard hate, it's fetchable with Knight of the Reliquary and adding further utility to your knight, it's possible this card could be something else to help you on your bad matchups, still not 100% on this one.
Path to Exile: Just another form of removal, against creature centric decks it's quite good, I considered running 1 off in the main but I found it not really necessary, having one in the board is fine.
Conclusion:
Personally I really enjoy this deck, it's really fun to play, going Congregation at Dawn-> Bloodbraid Elf-> Shardless Agent->Stoneforge Mystic-> Batterskull makes me fell fuzy inside. I made this deck to try to abuse that interaction and it didn't disapointed :D I could go into further details about matchups, but I've not played the deck enough to able to tell how every single matchup goes, so far from the matchups I have played I can tell that it's a really good deck against fair decks and unfavorable against unfair decks, against some of the combo deck draws you will have no chance, you can't interact with them before turn 2 at all, that gives them sometime to go off with disruption. If you can survive the first 2 turns of the game you will probably do ok against unfair decks.
Lastly don't see this list as set in stone, I still has much room to improve, and many changes could be made, it's still a sketch, and could use refinement. Overall I believe that the Idea behind the deck is quite solid and it's powerlevel is quite high and able to match up well against some of the things that are going on in Legacy, and it's such a fun deck to play that you guys should probably give it a try even if just for funzies.
Thank You for the time spent reading this and I welcome any feedback, have a good time.
Malkolm
As magic players one of the first things we ever learn about the game is that spells are good, once we come to that realization we learn that free spells are even better, this deck tries to abuse one of the ways to get free cards: Cascade.
One of the problems with cascade spells it's their randomness, this deck tries to eliminate that randomness, it tries to set up powerfull cascade chains, without going all in on that, even if you never see one single cascade card or a way to get it during the game you still have gameplan against much of the field. Previously one of the ways we have seen to setup cascade chains was Brainstorm, while that's a powerfull interaction, what if you don't have the correct spells in your hand to setup the chain? If only there was an easy way to setup your top cards with a nice strong cascade chain... wait... Actually there's: Congregation at Dawn.
But isn't Congregation card disavantage? Well it is, and card disavantage is not something players usually like, but in fact in this deck it's usually a 2 for 1 or a 3 for 1, which for 3 mana is quite a nice deal.
Without further ado, I present you:
CONGREGATION CASCADE:
Creatures:
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Shardless Agent
2 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Waterfront Bouncer
1 Scavenging Ooze
Equipment:
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
Instants:
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Congregation at Dawn
Enchantments:
1 Sylvan Library
Lands:
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Wasteland
2 Savannah
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Tropical Island
1 Plateau
1 Taiga
1 Tundra
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
Sideboard:
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Choke
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Path to Exile
The Gameplan:
This a maverick like deck, and takes inspiration from that deck having many similarities with it, but unlike maverick it can just setup stupid amounts of card advantage. Your goal with this deck is to disrupt t your opponents with your hate-bears while generating card advantage with Shardless Agent, Bloodbraid Elf, Congregation at Dawn. Hopefully that's enough to go over the top of what they have going on.
The Toolbox:
In this deck you have 3 Toolbox engines going on Congregation at Dawn, Knight of the Reliquary, Stoneforge Mystic. So lets analyse them:
Congregation at Dawn: Your usual chain with it is Bloodbraid Elf-> Shardless Agent -> 2 Drop of your choice, the options we have are:
Tarmogoyf: One of the best 2 drops ever it's just a beatstick not much to see here.
Gaddock Teeg: An all star vs some of the deck of the format, against miracles for example stopping Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Entreat the Angels, Terminus. Also nice vs Storm stopping Tendrils of Agony, Ad Nauseum and so on. Over all a solid card, in some matchups it's going to be just a bear so feel free to side it out when needed.
Qasali Pridemage: Having a main deck naturalize effect that acts as a 2/2 or 3/3 it's quite nice.
Stoneforge Mystic: One of the most powerfull cards of the format, lets you get a 3 for 1 from Congregation at Dawn, which is really powerfull when you're not in need of any particular hate bear.
Scavenging Ooze: Trumps Tarmogoyf and it's really good versus graveyard decks, while also providing usefull life gain, great card over all.
Voice of Resurgence: This one of the cards I'm most unsure of, so far has been ok, disrupting their counterspell is a nice ability since you have some high impact cards such Congregation at Dawn or Knight of Reliquary, also note that the token is quite a bit deal on the deck, since your Congregation at Dawn puts 3 guys on the battlefield making it at least a 4/4.
Waterfront Bouncer: This card is an answer to Sneak and Show decks, perhaps it's too slow but it's an idea, also serves the double duty of bouncing back your Bloodbraid Elf for further cascade shennanigans.
The next toolbox is:
KNIGHT OF RELIQUARY: This toolbox isn't super powerfull since this is a 4 color deck so, much of our manabase is dedicated to color fixing, Knight actually helps in that regard often fetching your much needed blue or red source while also serving as a mana accelerator. So as targets we have:
Wasteland: Always good, I don't feel like this deck can support 4, due to it's color requirements, 3 is still fine.
Karakas: Your anti Sneak and Show card.
Horizon Canopy: we all love to draw cards and acts as a mana fixer since green and white are the main colors.
Gaea's Cradle: Probably the most unsual of the deck's lands, but with Knight of the Reliquary to fetch it can become really powerfull, with this deck you will often find yourself with 3-4 creatures, so it's usually +3 mana, which quite good, also when you have Knight of the Reliquary in play you will often go really low on lands since your searching for wasteland, Gaea's Cradle lets you still be able to cast your 3-4 mana spells even when you're low on actual lands.
The last toolbox is quite standard with Batterskull and Umezawa's Jitte as Stoneforge Mystic targets, a case could be made for other equipments but so far I satisfied with these two pieces of equipment.
The Sideboard:
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben: The matchup against storm is quite hard, this is one of the few cards that actually matters there, it's odd to play 4 off a legend but I fell it's necessary on that matchup. It's also nice versus Canadian Threshold.
Oblivion Ring: Your catch all, usefull in several matchs, an absolute powerhouse, 3 is a high number but you're never unhappy to see it on the matchups where it's good.
Choke: This kind of hate is just obscene, really good versus Stoneblade or the miracles deck, we can probably agree that blue is the best color in Legacy so having something that gives blue deck an hard time while barelly harming you it's a joy. Really good card.
Surgical Extraction: This deck isn't exactly super resilent to a Life from the Loam + [card]Wasteland[/cards] lock, Surgical Extraction is capable of destroying that gameplan, while having a purpose on other matches like Tin Fins, reanimator or dredge.
Bojuka Bog: Other form of graveyard hate, it's fetchable with Knight of the Reliquary and adding further utility to your knight, it's possible this card could be something else to help you on your bad matchups, still not 100% on this one.
Path to Exile: Just another form of removal, against creature centric decks it's quite good, I considered running 1 off in the main but I found it not really necessary, having one in the board is fine.
Conclusion:
Personally I really enjoy this deck, it's really fun to play, going Congregation at Dawn-> Bloodbraid Elf-> Shardless Agent->Stoneforge Mystic-> Batterskull makes me fell fuzy inside. I made this deck to try to abuse that interaction and it didn't disapointed :D I could go into further details about matchups, but I've not played the deck enough to able to tell how every single matchup goes, so far from the matchups I have played I can tell that it's a really good deck against fair decks and unfavorable against unfair decks, against some of the combo deck draws you will have no chance, you can't interact with them before turn 2 at all, that gives them sometime to go off with disruption. If you can survive the first 2 turns of the game you will probably do ok against unfair decks.
Lastly don't see this list as set in stone, I still has much room to improve, and many changes could be made, it's still a sketch, and could use refinement. Overall I believe that the Idea behind the deck is quite solid and it's powerlevel is quite high and able to match up well against some of the things that are going on in Legacy, and it's such a fun deck to play that you guys should probably give it a try even if just for funzies.
Thank You for the time spent reading this and I welcome any feedback, have a good time.
Malkolm