The Hawkcestral 2.0

[kiblast]

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/li/li103_hawk.jpg


I've had a soft spot for Squadron Hawk -based card advantage strategy since I first saw it implemented in legacy in Carsten Kotter's articles (here (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21842-Eternal-Europe-Something-For-Standard-And-Hawkcestraling-In-Legacy.html) you can have a look at an early incarnation of the deck ).
For those of you who don't know how it works, let me fist introduce you:


The Hawkcestral.


Casting Hawk into Brainstorm is just the sweetest, turning your cantrip into a full-blown Ancestral Recall.
-C. Kotter

Brainstorm is probably one of the -if not the single- most powerful spells we are allowed to play in legacy both for its raw power, its flexibility and its cheap cost. The possibility of hiding cards from targeted discard spells, the possibility of digging our deck for answers/clock/ combo pieces, the possibility of clearing our hand from unnecessary spells clogging it, make this cantrip the spell you need to start as a 4of if you plan to sleeve islands (with very few exceptions).
But there's a way to make it even better. By casting Squadron Hawk prior to Brainstorming, you'll net yourself 3 Hawks. When you Brainstorm, putting back the Hawks, you transform those 3 Hawks in spells. Then you play an Hawk, digging for the 2 Hawks you put back before. Then you play another Brainstorm, or Jacestorm, or Snap a Brainstorm: more card quality, turning these 2 Hawks in 2 other spells. +5 cards in your hand (and two flying chumpblockers on the battlefield) just by sleeving a playset of pidgeons and playing a couple of Brainstorms. Not bad if you ask me.

In this deck Brainstorm is exploited to its full potential. It becomes even more broken. Don't waste it, understand the timing of brainstorming.As general advices,try to play it only when you can safely Hawkcestral -preferably in your own turn or when you have a shuffle effect ready- or when you need specific cards immediately.


Colours.

Blue and white are the staple colours of this archetype. The deck operates on very few lands, as 4 brainstorms are mandatory, and a certain number of other cantrips to assemble the Hawkcestral (and to make sure you hit land drops reliably)are mandatory as well. A couple of Sensei's divining top have been used since Miracles were spoiled, replacing some of the cantrips.
Normally this deck operates on 20-21 lands, and it works surprisingly well with so little mana sources thanks to the amount of manipulation it packs maindeck. No Wastelands and lots of basics, in order to minimize the impact of Tempo strategies on your game, and to be more resilient against the wide variety of things that in legacy happen (Price of Progress and Blood Moon mainly). However, splash are worth considering since the metagame evolved since the initial inception of the deck and you need additional tools to fight -mainly- BUG Cascade strategies, Elves, Death and Taxes, Show and Tell strategies and RUG.

Red splash offers:

Pyroclasm and its better version Rough//Tumble which doesn't hit our beloved Hawks.
Red Elemental Blast it can't be misdirected on non blue permanents or spells so preferable over Pyroblast.
Sulfur Elemental it's not an option sadly, kills our Hawks.
Wear//Tear Dope! By playing it for its fuse cost it dodges Counterbalance (its cc becomes 3)
Grim Lavamancer is too slow most of the times. Still worth considering though.
Electrickery Nice cool tech vs Elves, DnT, Goblins and URx Young Pyromancer decks.

Black splash offers

Zealous Persecution this card is NUT HIGH in dozens of matchups. From Goblins to Elves to Lingering Souls to Death and Taxes to Young Pyromancer URx lists. Combat tricks, one sided Wrath of Gods, Increase your race, this card does everything. Probably the best reason to play esper right now. Electrickery on steroids.
Cabal Therapy We play Hawks, and when we play one we have plenty of bodies ready. Gitaxian Probe is an option- remember we want to play plenty of cantrips.
Vindicate the swiss army knife if something makes it to the board and we don't want it to stay on it.
Lingering Souls combats planeswalkers, sinergistyc with opponent's Liliana, very good in case we decide to play Cabal Therapies.
Engineered Plague Destroys Elves until they find Abrupt Decay, mediocre to decent vs Goblins, very good vs Death and Taxes.
Thoughtseize and Duress Combo, control.
Perish and its cousins Nature's Ruin and Virtue's Ruin because combat step is overrated.
Gerrard's Verdict friendly-costed hymn to tourch with a nice upside of the life gain and the downside of non random discard.
Sorin, Lord of Innistrad Interesting planeswalker for creature heavier list, for example if you are running a decent amount of Lingering Souls.

Green splash doesn't really offer much, apart from:

Life from the Loam for additional recursion in case you opt for some Wastelands maindeck.
Horizon Canopy useful with Loam if you want to ruin our beautiful stable manabase with randomic card advantage engines.
Krosan Grip and Nature's Claim Uh, finally a good suggestion. Deals with Batterskull and other stuff like CB or Top.

So far I'm more prone to splash black. I'm a huge fan of the red splash in most (if not all )control decks in legacy, but here the impossibility of playing Sulfur Elemental, which honestly is the main reason alongside REB to play Red as a support colour, makes me want black as a support colour.


Going Esper.

Here's the more up to date list (as 2/10/2013).

Deck: The Hawkcestral 2.1 (http://deckstats.net/deck-2909417-0f6654499bafb0b84226774138b3751e-en.html) http://deckstats.net/mana/m/w.gif http://deckstats.net/mana/m/u.gif

//Lands
1 Academy Ruins (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Academy+Ruins)
4 Flooded Strand (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Flooded+Strand)
1 Glacial Fortress (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Glacial+Fortress)
3 Island (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Island)
1 Marsh Flats (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Marsh+Flats)
1 Moorland Haunt (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Moorland+Haunt)
1 Plains (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Plains)
3 Polluted Delta (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Polluted+Delta)
3 Tundra (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tundra)
2 Underground Sea (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Underground+Sea)

//Spells
1 Batterskull (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Batterskull)
4 Brainstorm (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Brainstorm)
1 Counterspell (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Counterspell)
1 Engineered Explosives (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Engineered+Explosives)
3 Force of Will (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Force+of+Will)
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Jace%2C+the+Mind+Sculptor)
4 Ponder (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Ponder)
3 Spell Pierce (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Spell+Pierce)
2 Spell Snare (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Spell+Snare)
1 Sword of Fire and Ice (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Sword+of+Fire+and+Ice)
4 Swords to Plowshares (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Swords+to+Plowshares)
1 Umezawa's Jitte (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Umezawa%27s+Jitte)

//Creatures
2 Snapcaster Mage (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Snapcaster+Mage)
4 Squadron Hawk (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Squadron+Hawk)
4 Stoneforge Mystic (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Stoneforge+Mystic)
1 Vendilion Clique (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Vendilion+Clique)

//Sideboard
2 Perish (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Perish)
3 Thoughtseize (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Thoughtseize)
2 Engineered Plague (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Engineered+Plague)
3 Rest in Peace (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Rest+in+Peace)
1 Vendilion Clique (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Vendilion+Clique)
2 Flusterstorm (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Flusterstorm)
2 Zealous Persecution (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Zealous+Persecution)

http://i.hbtronix.de/chart_pie.png Display deck statistics (http://deckstats.net/deck-2909417-0f6654499bafb0b84226774138b3751e.html)

The deck is fun to play and it has plenty of room for improvement. This is just a rough draft. Please bear with my english and my poor phrasal structure. Have fun testing this deck.
Big props to Carsten Kotter and his legacy wisdom for tracing the initial path.

[kiblast]

Reserved for future matchup analysis.

[MGB]

The problem with using Squadron Hawk as "card advantage" is that it is quite possibly the weakest form of card advantage imaginable. A 1/1 body is the lowest rung on the ladder of card advantage.

And if you want to talk about Hawk into Brainstorm, then you're talking about a two-card combo that doesn't win the game or impact the board in any way, and a combo in which one piece (Squadron Hawk) is a highly suboptimal card on its own. I'd rather just play Standstill or Ancestral Vision to draw-3, or find other ways to generate card advantage.

Paying 1W for Hawks is just a waste of time in Legacy. It's a strategy good enough for Standard but not for Legacy. Instead of 4 Hawks you could just put in more powerful stuff like um, more Tops and Counterbalances or Terminus, and just make UW Miracles. The card advantage they give you also keeps you alive. The card advantage provided by Hawk is significantly weaker.

Brainstorm is good enough on its own and doesn't need Squadron Hawk.

[klaus]

Hey kiblast,

completely agree: doing a Hawkcestral* feels like bathing in awesome sauce (* heh - sounds like a skateboard trick)!

Here are some thoughts on your list:
I see you've used UW Miracles as a base to build on, which seems legit - however: I'm not sure replacing Terminus and CBs with Hawks and Therapies is an upgrade. Being able to clear the board every now and then is key to actually incorporate Jace, or achieve real control for that matter.
I have fooled around with Hawks for a while and the best approach I came up with was weaving them in a ControlBlade list, with equipment turning those 1/1 fliers into serious threats, beyond just being a draw engine.

Probe & Therapy have an obvious synergy, but I guess there's a reason you find that strategy almost exclusively in tempo-based archetypes. Also I don't think you have enough creatures to support Therapies - more often than not you won't have both in your opening 7. Bitterblossom alongside Jitte (+SFM?) could be worth considering.

Here's a sample list off the top of my head:

4 Hawks
4 SFM
3 Bitterblossom
1 SCMage

4 STP
2 EE

4 BS
3 Ponder

4 FOW
2 CS
2 Therapy

1 Jitte
1 Batterskull

2 Jace
2 Supreme Verdict
(39)

8 Fetch
4 Tundra
1 Scrub
2 Sea
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Academy Ruins

SB:
3 Z. Persecution
1 SoFI
4 Thoughtseize
3 RiP
2 Disenchant
2 Jace

[kiblast]

And if you want to talk about Hawk into Brainstorm, then you're talking about a two-card combo that doesn't win the game or impact the board in any way, and a combo in which one piece (Squadron Hawk) is a highly suboptimal card on its own. I'd rather just play Standstill or Ancestral Vision to draw-3, or find other ways to generate card advantage.

Well, Hawk Brainstorm is a 2 card combo, but Hawk works well with Jace, Snapcaster and Sensei's divining top as well.
Standstill requires a much longer setup process compared to the one needed to build a 2 card combo in a deck packing 10 cantrips + tops. Standsill requires your whole deck to be built around it so it's like a 56 cards combo deck from a certain point of view. I played Standstill for roughly 1.5 year back in 2008 and I can tell you that Standstill is nowhere as resilient as Hawk +Brainstorm effect.

Ancestral Vision takes 4 turns to resolve, unless you cascade into it, which is, guess what, a 2 card combo, which has a longer time to setup since BUG cascade only plays 4 cantrips whereas we play 10 +tops.
Also, Shardless is 3cc with double coloured mana. Hawk is 2cc and easier to cast.

@Klaus I skateboarded when I was younger.... I was doing Pop Shove it and Flips and Impossibles... but yeah Hawkcestral seems like some kind of aerial that Tony Hawk could have invented! XD

Thanks for your insight, and thanks for sharing a list. Lots of food for thought. I have a certain feeling that Terminus should be played also because it puts on the bottom the Hawks we have on board.
Your Blade approach seems interesting enough, gonna try to work around it a bit later. Thanks.

[alastair]

I’ve tested a similar UWb list for a few months now.

Baleful Strix & S-Hawks
Jace
Moat
Jitte
X Counters
X Thoughseize
X Removal

S-Hawk has gone. Whilst equally cute and amazing to tutor up 3x 1/1 and brainstorm them back, you are still left with a 1/1 flyer in play. This does not face of well against 7/7 lifelink flyers, 3/3 shrouds, or 5/6 lurgoyfs. The S-Hawk have been cut.

Equipment proved a dismal option, as your creature count is so low, and no one is dumb enough to let you put counters on Jitte. Maybe with Bitterblossom + equipment, but you are putting yourself on a clock, and are not really aggressive enough to support that clock.

I have stuck with Strix as they are card neutral and kill Goyf. In place for S-Hawk I have:

3 Clique (who can actually win a game inside of 45 minutes)
Helm / RIP to expand with Enlightened Tutor

[klaus]

I have a certain feeling that Terminus should be played also because it puts on the bottom the Hawks we have on board.

Cool find!

[alphastryk]

The decks you referenced evolved into Miracles because the Hawks were the worst part of the deck and got dropped, just FYI. There's a reason for that - your brainstorms get overloaded, and you actually can't abuse hawk nearly as much as you think you can.

[Mhenlo]

IMO This will never be a tier 1 deck or even competitive deck that you be considered a part of the Metagame, but i'll still help with a list. you have no real way of taking advantage of Hawks other than Brainstorm and Cabal Therapy. You need to run something else like Stoneforge. Also Hawks are 2 mana which is a decent amount in this format when people are winning the game on turn 2, playing a Goyf, Hymning you etc. you can't just keep wasting your tempo playing 2 mana 1/1s that don't really do anything but "draw cards", i would consider running Mox Diamond to allow turn 1 Hawks and speed up the deck it also allows you to find the full 3 when sometimes you would have to discard.


What I would run:
3 Pyrexian Tower
2 Sunken Ruins
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
1 Scrubland
4 Wasteland

4 Mox Diamond
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of FaF
1 Jitte
1 Crucible of Worlds

4 Squadron Hawk
4 Stoneforge Mystic

4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Hymn
4 STP
1 Verdic
4 Force of Will

3 JtMS

[kiblast]

The thing is that you almost never want a turn two hawk (uness you mulliganed to 4 or 5). You normally play it turn 4 to get the full potential from them. The whole point behind Hawks is to run 4 ancestral recalls instead of 4 Brainstorm and make your jace look like: +0= draw 3 cards.

I know the Hawkcestral is not super easy to set up, but once you pull it turn 3-4 it gives you an insane amount of card advantage. I would like to understand in wich shell it works better. I was thinking about a side engine in a Miracle shell (a là Scroll + Tax).

In my testing (sadly only on cockatrice) I played vs BUG and UR Pyromancer Tempo and the deck was not bad at all. I think it has potential. I just need to understand the correct shell.

[kiblast]

After some testing Ifound that indeed the Hawks work better with Stoneforge. I quitted the miracles shell for a more focused Caw Blade one. You can find my more up to date list in the opening post. I still think the black splash is superior here because splashing red and not laying Sulfur Elemental it's not worth it.

Recently an italian player featured his UWr Caw Blade list on tipo1.it (clicky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0LZn-c82oyY#t=816) )

I tested mainly versus Shardless BUG today on cockatrice going 2-0 and 2-1. The black splash proved to be far superior here (Perish). Squadron Hawk provided the card advantage you need to keep it up with his Ancestral Vision, chumped Goyfs to earn more activations from Jace and carried any equipment like a champ.

[SpeedOfDark]

Hey man, cool deck.

Have you considered what mox diamond or chrome mox accelerated builds might look like (not necessarily 4-ofs)?

I think that this kind of acceleration might have strong synergy with the hawkcestral game plan in general. I figure some drawbacks of hawkcestraling (sweet verb) are the initial hump of tempo loss to cast hawk and the potential game state of having a hand full of fresh cards and not enough mana to dish them out at a reasonable pace (or the tension of casting versus equiping). Acceleration would be a good way to counteract both of these things with minor loss. Not to mention turn 3 jace is always fun :p

Thoughts?