morgan_coke
03-03-2017, 12:37 PM
So, I'll start off by saying that Eternal Witness Slide is dead. It has been ever since the rule changes took away damage on the stack. Once you lost the ability to obliterate aggro for "free", the deck needed too many cards to be playable against everything, and wasn't fast enough to steal any wins.
So what's changed?
Renegade Rallier got printed. And unlike Eternal Witness, it doesn't have GG in it's casting cost, which eases up the mana requirements of the deck a LOT, it's big enough to be a reasonable threat on it's own, and it doesn't return things to your hand, it returns them to the battlefield, which is a huge difference. The deck also builds differently, because you're not returning things to your hand all the time, and Slide itself is less the focus of the deck since you're not really trying to set up a huge cycling lock. Other cards, like Ash Barrens, were also printed, which do a lot for the deck in general. Other cycling cards, that were previously unplayable, like Lingering Mirage, begin to look slightly interesting when combined with Astral Slide and Renegade Rallier. Much, much more interesting and relevant are Sicken and the various Runes of Protection.
So what does the deck look like? At first stab I'd start with something like this:
3x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3x Tarmogoyf
4x Renegade Rallier
3x Thought-Knot Seer
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Life from the Loam
3x Astral Slide
3x Warping Wail
2x Gilded Light
3x Unearth
3x Edge of Autumn
3x Mox Diamond
4x Ash Barrens
4x Wasteland
3x Tranquil Thicket
4x Windswept Heath
2x Forest
2x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Island
2x Savannah
1x Tropical Island
That is an incredibly rough list that needs a LOT of refinement, but I think it's a solid starting point for the plan here. The best card to return with Rallier I can think of is Wasteland, so the deck starts with that. Edge of Autumn and Rallier go together with Slide like peanut butter and chocolate, so they're in. Ash Barrens and Wasteland make playing some Eldrazi cards basically "free" from a manabase perspective, so I threw in Warping Wail and TKS, but those might be misplaced.
The creatures right now are kind of filler to be honest. The main things we're looking for here are cmc 2 or less, great ETB effects, or some kind of self (or other) sacrifice effect.
Also, I cannot gush enough about how great Ash Barrens is. Seriously that card is dumb. One of the big issues with a cycling deck has always been that the best cyclers were usually lands, so you had to decide between playing lands or drawing cards. Barrens solves that, goes for the unbelievable price of 1, doesn't ETB tapped, and fixes your mana. Amazing card.
Crop rotation and maybe KotR should probably be in here too somewhere for free wins via the "mini garden" package of DD, TS, and BB. (Dark Depths+Thespian Stage, and Bojuka Bog, which at instant speed can randomly steal games.)
Feedback, criticism, and ideas are super welcome, this is very early days on development, and I haven't played Legacy in awhile, so I'm sure I'm out of date on some stuff.
So what's changed?
Renegade Rallier got printed. And unlike Eternal Witness, it doesn't have GG in it's casting cost, which eases up the mana requirements of the deck a LOT, it's big enough to be a reasonable threat on it's own, and it doesn't return things to your hand, it returns them to the battlefield, which is a huge difference. The deck also builds differently, because you're not returning things to your hand all the time, and Slide itself is less the focus of the deck since you're not really trying to set up a huge cycling lock. Other cards, like Ash Barrens, were also printed, which do a lot for the deck in general. Other cycling cards, that were previously unplayable, like Lingering Mirage, begin to look slightly interesting when combined with Astral Slide and Renegade Rallier. Much, much more interesting and relevant are Sicken and the various Runes of Protection.
So what does the deck look like? At first stab I'd start with something like this:
3x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3x Tarmogoyf
4x Renegade Rallier
3x Thought-Knot Seer
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Life from the Loam
3x Astral Slide
3x Warping Wail
2x Gilded Light
3x Unearth
3x Edge of Autumn
3x Mox Diamond
4x Ash Barrens
4x Wasteland
3x Tranquil Thicket
4x Windswept Heath
2x Forest
2x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Island
2x Savannah
1x Tropical Island
That is an incredibly rough list that needs a LOT of refinement, but I think it's a solid starting point for the plan here. The best card to return with Rallier I can think of is Wasteland, so the deck starts with that. Edge of Autumn and Rallier go together with Slide like peanut butter and chocolate, so they're in. Ash Barrens and Wasteland make playing some Eldrazi cards basically "free" from a manabase perspective, so I threw in Warping Wail and TKS, but those might be misplaced.
The creatures right now are kind of filler to be honest. The main things we're looking for here are cmc 2 or less, great ETB effects, or some kind of self (or other) sacrifice effect.
Also, I cannot gush enough about how great Ash Barrens is. Seriously that card is dumb. One of the big issues with a cycling deck has always been that the best cyclers were usually lands, so you had to decide between playing lands or drawing cards. Barrens solves that, goes for the unbelievable price of 1, doesn't ETB tapped, and fixes your mana. Amazing card.
Crop rotation and maybe KotR should probably be in here too somewhere for free wins via the "mini garden" package of DD, TS, and BB. (Dark Depths+Thespian Stage, and Bojuka Bog, which at instant speed can randomly steal games.)
Feedback, criticism, and ideas are super welcome, this is very early days on development, and I haven't played Legacy in awhile, so I'm sure I'm out of date on some stuff.