[Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze) [Archive]

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02-14-2020, 11:09 AM

A Cold Day in Hell: Underworld Breach Combo
AKA: BUB (Brainfreeze Underworld Breach), Breach Freeze

https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=476412&type=cardhttps://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=3255&type=cardhttps://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=47599&type=card

Old thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?33233-Escape-Brain-Freeze
Name credit:
EDIT: Regarding naming the deck, what about "Breach Freeze"? "A Cold Day in Hell"?

1. Introduction

Ever since Underworld Breach from Theros: Beyond Death was first spoiled, players have been brewing decks to break it. The card looks like Yawgmoth's Will for only 2 mana... as long as you have cards in graveyard to pay the escape cost. On its own it can do some cool things but is kept in check by the escape costs. But combined with Brain Freeze (which puts 3 cards in your GY for each spell cast) and a free reusable mana source like Lion's Eye Diamond or Lotus Petal, it creates a deterministic loop that puts your whole library into your graveyard and generates enough mana and storm to cast any of the spells you need to win!

As soon as this interaction was discovered, combo brewers went to work. Before the card's release, many early brewing discussions took place on multiple platforms: Discord, Reddit, CFB, MTGGoldfish, and here on TheSource. This primer covers hopefully most of the development that took place here on TheSource.

2. Why Play Breach Combo?

Always wanted to play Dredge & Storm at the same time?
Like winning with no library and no cards in hand?
Want a change from the usual storm decks?
Sick of passing the turn with 1/1 Goblin tokens?
Enjoy explosive combo decks and sequencing around subtle stack interactions?
Get off on going off at 5 life the turn before opponent would win?
Want to KNOW you can go off and not worry about fizzling after casting 9 spells and wasting 10 minutes?
This is the deck for you!

The main lines are deterministic storm kills. Unlike most storm decks (ANT, TES, High Tide, Spanish Inquisition), fizzling isn't a thing. You don't need to hope to chain into the right cards to win. Once you start going off, you go off (barring disruption).

Early criticisms of this deck focused on the fact that it's a 3-card combo and vulnerable to a lot of hate (grave hate, storm hate, artifact hate, enchantment kill, counters, anti-mill, hexproof). On paper, that looks too flimsy to put up consistent wins against tier decks, especially when the combo bar is set by decks like B/R Reanimator, ANT and TES. The Epic Storm blog said this deck was maybe cute for the Johnny player but not viable for Legacy (Haters Gonna Hate: https://www.theepicstorm.com/card-review-underworld-breach/)... then AnziD used Jeskai Breach to beat BryantCook's TES on the opening weekend's Legacy Showcase Challenge, steamrolling the Swiss with 1st seed and only losing in the top 8 to the MIRROR MATCH with MentalMisstep, who won the event. MentalMisstep proved this deck has chops going undefeated all weekend. Since then, Breach combo has consistently put up numbers online, showing it is a force to be reckoned with under a good pilot!

The deck can be hard to play, with subtle sequencing and deck construction choices making the difference between wins and losses. On top of that, opponents are smartening up on how to hate us out. YMMV. But the performance ceiling is very high! This deck is able to run the Xerox package, tutors, and a lot of answers to hate, giving it a lot of resilience to recover and go off out of nowhere! We can combo off as early as turn 1 with protection. After being disrupted, we can win with nothing but 2 mana and a topdecked Underworld Breach!

3. The Escape Mechanic

Underworld Breach lets you cast ANY spell in your graveyard as long as you pay both the mana cost and exile 3 cards to Escape. Unlike Yawgmoth's Will, the card goes back to the graveyard, so you can cast the same card over and over again. Escape is a very powerful mechanic as long as you have spare cards in the graveyard.

We can fill our graveyard using:
- fetchlands
- cantrips
- self-milling (pre-combo Brain Freeze @ self)
- cheap spells

Storm count accumulates on the opponent's turn too, counting the opponent's spells and any counter wars you have, so EOT Brain Freeze can often put 12 or more cards in your graveyard for 2 mana, letting you untap with enough gas to go off.

4. How the Basic Combo Works

You can go off with as little as 2 mana, as early as turn 1!

Cast Lion's Eye Diamond for 0
Cast Underworld Breach for 1R
Crack LED for UUU, discarding your hand (including Brain Freeze)
Escape Brain Freeze, paying UU and exiling 3 cards from graveyard. Mill yourself for 9+.
Escape LED, exiling 3 cards from GY
Crack LED for UUU
Escape Brain Freeze, paying UU and exiling 3 cards from graveyard. Mill yourself for 15+.
Escape LED, exiling 3 cards from GY
Crack LED for UUU
Escape Brain Freeze, paying UU and exiling 3 cards from graveyard. Mill yourself for 21+.
Escape LED, exiling 3 cards from GY

Now most of your library is your graveyard. You have at least storm 8 and UUU floating. At this point you can use any win condition:
1) Keep building storm and Brain Freeze opponent to death
2) Brain Freeze the rest of your library and cast Thassa's Oracle
3) Use LED to make RRR, escape Burning Wish for Grapeshot, cast it from hand, then escape Grapeshot.
4) Use LEDs to make 6-7 red mana and cast Lightning Bolt at the opponent over and over (this one is slow and resource-intensive)

5. The Deck: Core Shell

Breach combo has only been in Legacy since Jan 2020, so there are still a lot of variations seeing play. The core combo is in UR and only requires about 40 slots. The other 20-ish are open to customization. Jeskai (UWR), Temur (RUG), Grixis (RUB) and artifact-heavy versions have all put up results.

CORE 40-45
//Mana: 19-21
9-10 fetchlands
5-7 Island-heavy mix of basics & duals
4 Lotus Petal

//Combo: 12
4 Underworld Breach
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Brain Freeze

//Cantrips: 8
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

//Wincons: 1-4
0-1 Thassa's Oracle
0-3 Burning Wish
0-1 Grapeshot
0-2 Lightning Bolt

FLEX SLOTS 15-20
4-10 Card Selection
7-13 Protection
0-4 Fast Mana

Most of the builds that have emerged fit this general structure. This shell goes off turn 2-3 consistently. The choices for the flex slots will determine things like consistency-speed tradeoff and resilience to beat different answers from the opponent. There are no universal best choices. Different choices will perform better against different metagames and different hate. Magic is an interactive game. The flex slots and sideboard are where we get to choose our interaction.

FLEX SLOTS in UR MAIN COLORS
//Card selection: 4-10
0-4 Preordain
0-4 Thought Scour
0-4 Gamble
0-4 Intuition
0-4 Faithless Looting
0-2 Tome Scour

//Protection: 7-13
0-4 Force of Will
0-3 Spell Pierce / Flusterstorm / Pyroblast
0-2 Defense Grid
0-2 Pact of Negation
0-2 Force of Negation
0-3 Chain of Vapor
0-4 Daze

//Fast Mana: 0-4
0-4 Rite of Flame

//Sideboard (not including Wishboard or splashes): 7-15
0-3 Chain of Vapor
0-2 Spell Pierce
0-1 Flusterstorm
0-2 Pyroblast
0-2 Surgical Extraction
0-1 Burning Wish
0-2 Force of Negation
0-2 Brazen Borrower / Echoing Truth

//Burning Wish Wishboard: 4-8
1 Grapeshot
1 Tome Scour
0-1 Void Snare
0-1 Sevinne's Reclamation
0-1 Infernal Tutor
0-1 Shenanigans / Meltdown / Pulverize
0-1 Reverent Silence
0-1 Massacre
0-1 Pyroclasm
0-1 Empty the Warrens
0-1 Echo of Eons
0-1 Fragmentize

6. The Deck: Splashes

JESKAI (UWR)
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=3489&type=cardhttps://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=391883&type=cardhttps://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=15360&type=card

Reasons to play white:
-Enlightened Tutor package
-Silence effects
-Mentor plan B
-Serenity and other disenchants

Jeskai is the most prevalent version of the deck. MentalMisstep should be credited with popularizing it, though we had been developing a very similar Jeskai build here on TheSource before that. The Jeskai version uses the 1 cmc instant Enlightened Tutor to help assemble the combo and find answers to hate. There's a singleton Grinding Station, which can replace Brain Freeze in the combo chain and can be found with ETutor (Brain Freeze can't). Jeskai uses a protection suite of counterspells and Silence effects, which provide a sheild to go off without disruption. Monastery Mentor allows a postboard plan B of beatdown, once they board out their removal for combo hate.

The early Jeskai builds with ETutor used the following shell:

UR CORE 41
//Core Lands: 16
10 fetchlands
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island

//Core Spells: 24
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Underworld Breach
4 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

//Win Condition: 1
0-1 Thassa's Oracle
0-1 Grapeshot

JESKAI 14
//Card Selection: 7
4 Preordain
3 Enlightened Tutor

//Backup Combo Piece: 1
1 Grinding Station

//Protection: 6
4 Force of Will
2 Orim's Chant

FLEX 5
//Other Cards: 5
0-2 Silence
0-2 Spell Pierce
0-2 Pact of Negation
0-2 Force of Negation
0-1 Daze
0-1 Flusterstorm
0-1 Enlightened Tutor
0-1 Seal of Cleansing
0-1 Seal of Removal
0-1 Defense Grid
0-1 Teferi, Time Raveler
0-2 Sevinne's Reclamation
0-3 Burning Wish

//Sideboard: 15
2-3 Serenity
0-4 Monastery Mentor
0-4 Swords to Plowshares
0-2 Silence / Abeyance
0-2 Wear // Tear
0-3 Chain of Vapor
0-1 Force of Negation
0-2 Pyroblast
0-2 Spell Pierce
0-1 Pithing Needle
0-1 Silent Gravestone
0-1 Seal of Cleansing

JESKAI INTUITION (UWR Intuition)

By late Feburary the Jeskai Intuition builds gained popularity, cutting ETutor for an Intuition package and card advantage. The main advantages of this build are not having card disadvantage to ETutor, not having to run some suboptimal slots to have ETutor targets, more card advantage (Predict), and a stronger Mentor SB plan B. This strategy was created by Rodrigo Togores and popularized by AnziD.

It uses the following shell:

UR CORE 39
//Core Lands: 15
9 fetchlands
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island

//Core Spells: 23
3 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Underworld Breach
4 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

//Win Condition: 1
0-1 Lightning Bolt
0-1 Grapeshot

JESKAI INTUITION 15
//Card Selection: 8
4 Preordain
2 Predict
1 Intuition
1 Sevinne's Reclamation

//Protection: 7
4 Force of Will
2 Orim's Chant
1 Teferi, Time Raveler

FLEX 6
//Other Cards: 6
0-2 Spell Pierce
0-1 Orim's Chant
0-1 Silence
0-1 Flusterstorm
0-1 Lightning Bolt
0-1 Teferi, Time Raveler
0-1 Intuition
0-1 Predict
0-2 Thought Scour
0-1 Lotus Petal
0-1 fetch

//Sideboard: 15
3-4 Monastery Mentor
3-4 Swords to Plowshares
2-3 Serenity
2-3 Wear // Tear
0-2 Silence
0-2 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
0-2 Pyroblast
0-1 Flusterstorm
0-1 Vendilion Clique
0-1 Brazen Borrower
0-1 Chain of Vapor
0-1 Snow-Covered Plains

EOT Intuition for Sevinne's Reclamation, Underworld Breach and Lion's Eye Diamond is enough to go off no matter what card they give you (LED + Intuition can be used midcombo to grab Brain Freeze). This compactness frees up space to board in more cards in game 2/3 and improve draw quality instead of going all-in on the combo.

TEMUR (RUG)
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=466952&type=cardhttps://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=34403&type=cardhttps://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=22316&type=card

Reasons to play green:
-Veil of Summer
-Reverent Silence for Wishboard

The RUG version has seen the most success from Jbinder (clone103). It's primarily UR, splashing green for Veil of Summer. By staying in UR it has more stable mana than other multicolor versions, fetching basics Islands most games. This also makes it easier to support Force of Will (higher blue count) and Spell Pierce (basic Island open more often). RUG gets its tutoring power from Burning Wish. The Wishboard contains a win condition, a Brain Freeze replacement (Tome Scour), a way to find Underworld Breach (Infernal Tutor, Sevinne's Reclamation), and answers to hate. This lets Burning Wish function much like ETutor in the Jeskai build, without the card disadvantage but costing more mana.

//Maindeck:
3-4 Veil of Summer
3-4 Burning Wish

//Sideboard:
1 Reverent Silence

GRIXIS (RUB)
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=145969&type=cardhttps://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=107308&type=card

Reasons to play black:
-discard
-Infernal Tutor

The Grixis version has seen less discussion on TheSource. Discard gives perfect information and a powerful proactive way to interact with opponent's hate, though it can be too slow on the draw and can be bad in a metagame full of Veil of Summer. Infernal Tutor finds any card in the deck without card disadvantage, but forces you to go all-in by cracking LED. Grixis colors lack Veil/Silence effects or ways to remove enchantments, which is a liability in these colors and opens you up to more hate.

//Maindeck:
4 Thoughtseize
0-4 Infernal Tutor
0-4 Wishclaw Talisman
0-4 Duress / Inquisition of Kozilek
0-4 Dark Ritual
0-1 Memory Sluice

//Sideboard:
0-4 Dark Confidant
0-1 Massacre
0-2 Dystopia
0-2 Plague Engineer

4 COLOR (RUbg or RUbw)

Since Grixis lacks the same anti-hate options that green and white offer, some builds opt to go 4 colors to have the best of both. This allows you to play Thoughtseize with Enlightened Tutor and Silence effects and Serenity, or Thoughtseize and Infernal Tutor with Veil of Summer and Abrupt Decay. That gives you the best of all colors, with the drawback of having a more vulnerable manabase.

ECHO (Artifact-heavy)

//Maindeck:
3-4 Echo of Eons
3-4 Mox Opal
0-4 Gamble
0-4 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
0-4 Narset, Parter of Veils
0-3 Chrome Mox
0-4 Riddlesmith
0-4 Ovalchase Daredevil
0-4 Mishra's Bauble / Urza's Bauble

This build is a hybrid with the Echo of Eons storm combo decks, designed to be faster and more explosive. It has an alternate "win" through Echo of Eons + Narset, Parter of Veils drawing you 7 cards and removing the opponent's hand. The Riddlesmith + Ovalchase combo also lets you draw through the deck and generate storm just by casting 0 cmc artifacts. These builds have the advantages and drawbacks of other Echo of Eons decks. It can sometimes win explosively on turn 1, but other times you can mulligan the opponent into a better 7 while giving yourself a dud hand. This version maximizes the SPEED end of the speed-consistency tradeoff from the flex slots, while most other versions focus on consistency.

EMRY STOMPY (Artifact-heavy)

//Maindeck:
4 Emry, Lurker of the Loch
3-4 Mox Opal
4 Mishra's Bauble / Urza's Bauble
2-4 Sevinne's Reclamation
2-4 Teferi, Time Raveler
0-4 Chalice of the Void
0-4 Ancient Tomb

This build uses Emry and 0cc artifacts, playing more of a self-mill game to dig into key pieces instead of tutoring for them. Then it uses Emry and Sevinne's Reclamation to get combo pieces into play. These builds often run 0 cantrips and maindeck Chalice of the Void to disrupt the opponent. Chalice @ 1 stops a lot of problems like Spell Pierce, Surgical Extraction, Crop Rotation, Grafdigger's Cage, Relic of Progenitus...

7. Winning Decklists

Breach combo, especially the Jeskai build, has put up consistent tournament results online every week since Underworld Breach became Legacy legal!

Online

MentalMisstep (UWR) - 1st place MTGO Legacy Prelim, Jan 25th 2020: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24435&d=370763&f=LE
MentalMisstep (UWR) - 1st place MTGO Legacy Challenge, Jan 26th 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-01-27#mentalmisstep_st_place
AnziD (UWR) - Top 8 MTGO Legacy Challenge (7-2), Jan 26th 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-01-27#anzid_th_place
Ultimar (Echo) - 12th MTGO Legacy Challenge, Jan 26th 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-01-27#ultimar_th_place

Jbinder (RUG) - MTGO 5-0: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2705596#paper
Samu_27 (URwb) - MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2020-01-25#samu__-
AronGomu (URwb) - MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2020-01-25#arongomu_-
MmillanB (UWR) - MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2020-01-25#mmillanb_-
spellholdgames (UR) - MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2020-01-25#spellholdgames_-

AronGomu (UWR) - 5th place MTGO Legacy Challenge, Feb 2nd 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-03#arongomu_th_place
SoulStrong (UWR) - 7th place MTGO Legacy Challenge, Feb 2nd 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-03#soulstrong_th_place
MartinMedMitten (Echo / Riddlesmith) - Top 16 MTGO Legacy Challenge, Feb 2nd 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-03#martinmedmitten_th_place
Oddball (UWR) - Top 16 MTGO Legacy Challenge, Feb 2nd 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-03#oddball_th_place

AronGomu (UWR) - 6th place MTGO Legacy Challenge, Feb 9th 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-10#arongomu_th_place
AnziD (UWR) - Top 16 MTGO Legacy Challenge, Feb 9th 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-10#anzid_th_place
Todeshort (UWR) - Top 16 MTGO Legacy Challenge, Feb 9th 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-10#todeshorst_th_place

Jbinder (RUG) - MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2020-02-15#clone_-
Ultimar (Emry Stompy) - MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2020-02-15#ultimar_-
MM_17 (UWR) - MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2020-02-15#mm__-
Gul_Dukat (RUB) - MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2020-02-15#gul_dukat_-

WonderPreaux (4C ANT) - 3rd place MTGO Legacy Challenge, Feb 16th 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-17#wonderpreaux_rd_place
SoulStrong (UWR) - 10th place MTGO Legacy Challenge, Feb 16th 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-17#soulstrong_th_place

Gul_Dukat (RUB) - 1st MTGO Preliminary: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24685&d=372686&f=LE

Sarusta (UWR Intuition) - 4th place MTGO Legacy Challenge, Feb 23rd 2020: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-24#sarusta_th_place

AnziD (UWR Intuition) - MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2020-02-29#anzid_-
thinks (Grixis Delver) - MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2020-02-29#thinks_-

WhiteFaces (UWR Intuition) - 1st place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 1 2020 https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-03-02#whitefaces_st_place
Iwouldliketorespond (UWR Intuition) - 2nd place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 1 2020 https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-03-02#iwouldliketorespond_nd_place
ziofrancone (UWR Intuition) - 5th place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 1 2020 https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-03-02#ziofrancone_th_place
DankConfidant (UWR Intuition) - 11th place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 1 2020 https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-03-02#dankconfidant_th_place
The Atog Lord (RUG Snowko) - 12th place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 1 2020 https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-03-02#the_atog_lord_th_place
Maxtortion (UWR Intuition) - 15th place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 1 2020 https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-03-02#maxtortion_th_place

jtl005 (UWR Intuition) - 4th place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 8 2020 https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-03-09#islandsarestillrad_st_place
Sharkcaster Mage (UWR Intuition) - 5th place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 8 2020
ziofrancone (UWR Intuition) - 7th place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 8 2020
AnziD (UWR Intuition) - 11th place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 8 2020
Samu_27 (UWR Intuition) - 12th place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 8 2020
StormCount10 (UWR Intuition) - 15th place MTGO Legacy Showcase, Mar 8 2020

Paper

Claudio Bonanni (Grixis Echo) - 1st place (36 players), Feb 2nd 2020: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24596&d=372030&f=LE
Stephen Conway (UWR) - 2nd place (23 players), Feb 9th 2020: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24598&d=372052&f=LE
Mattias Anderson (UWR) - 1st place (16 players), Feb 9th 2020: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24597&d=372046&f=LE
Antoine Dambron (UWR) - Top 8 (154 players), Feb 9th 2020: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24584&d=371922&f=LE
Seth Yandrofski (Emry Stompy) - Top 8 (48 players), Feb 9th 2020: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24576&d=371864&f=LE
Hanlin X (UWR) - 1st place (11 players), Feb 11th 2020: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24704&d=372823&f=LE

Dennis Kampelmann (UWR Intuition) - 4th place (88 players), Feb 15th 2020: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24703&d=372819&f=LE
Nicola Guidi (URwb) - 3rd place (33 players), Feb 16th 2020: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24732&d=373040&f=LE
Dennis Aufermann (UWR Intuition) - Top 8 (43 players), Feb 16th 2020: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24667&d=372545&f=LE
Jay Carter (UWR Intuition) - 4th place (34 players), Feb 23rd 2020: https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24780&d=373416&f=LE
Anuraag Das (UWR Intuition) - 8th @ Dice City Games Open, Feb 24th 2020: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2794649#paper

ESG (UWR) - 1st place Leap Day 1K (6 rounds + Top8), Feb 29th 2020: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?33287-Breach-tournament-report-Leap-Day-Legacy-1K-in-Snohomish-WA
Michael Keller (4C) - Top 4 in Legacy 2K at From the Vault Syracuse NY, Feb 29th 2020:

8. Playing Around Hate

Once you get used to executing the basic line, it becomes autopilot. It's a deterministic line that will eventually win. Most of the decisions piloting this deck come down to assembling the combo and playing around hate. We can beat hate with a combination of deckbuilding choices and sequencing choices.

We are vulnerable to grave hate, storm hate, artifact/enchantment hate, and countermagic. This section covers some strategies and card choices to beat them.

Grave Hate

Leyline of the Void/Rest in Peace: We obviously cannot do anything with these cards in play, so we need to find bounce or enchantment removal before we can fill the graveyard or go off. Leyline is the reason why it's important to have tutorable enchantment kill (Burning Wish -> Reverent Silence, Enlightened Tutor -> Seal of Cleansing/Serenity).

Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus/Nihil Spellbomb: These cards can interrupt us mid-combo, but they only get one shot to blow. They have to play them at sorcery speed and leave them on the board, so we see them coming far in advance and can dig for an answer. We can try to force their hand by playing artifact kill, bounce, or Pithing Needle. That can force them to activate at a suboptimal time. Then we can Brain Freeze ourselves and win.

Crop Rotation into Bojuka Bog: This can blow us out at instant speed, like Crypt effects, except we can't stop it with Pithing Needle or artifact kill and we can't see it on the battlefield. As a rule, we should counter any Crop Rotations the opponent tries to resolve on our combo turn. Silence effects and Defense Grid prevent Crop Rotation, but Veil of Summer does not.

Knight of the Reliquary/Elvish Reclaimer into Bojuka Bog: Similar as above, except it's a permanent we can see on the battlefield. We can Pithing Needle, kill, or bounce the creature to force their hand before we have much in the graveyard.

Grafdigger's Cage: This card stops us from escaping cards, effectively turning off Underworld Breach. We can try to counter it or remove it with artifact kill or bounce.

Surgical Extraction/Faerie Macabre: They will try to exile LED or Brain Freeze in the graveyard to interrupt the combo. We can dodge some of this with sequencing!

Cast LED
Cast Breach
Crack LED for UUU
Escape LED (you never pass priority with LED in grave, so they can't target it)
Escape Brain Freeze (if they try to target BF while LED is on the stack, you already have UUU in pool and can respond by casting BF)
Crack LED for UUU
Escape LED
Escape Brain Freeze
etc...

By going off like that, we take away windows of interaction from the opponent. We should always sequence like that as long as there are enough cards in graveyard to escape LED first before Brain Freeze. This pattern also leaves U floating at all times to in case we need to escape Spell Pierce to counter Surgical or some other spell. Surgical can be countered (e.g. escape Pact of Negation for 0 mana) or stopped proactively with Silence effects or discard

We can also beat Surgical effects with redundancy. Lotus Petal can form a deterministic loop with Underworld Breach + Brain Freeze, so we can win even if they extract LED. If they extract Brain Freeze, some builds can win with a Grinding Station loop or a Tome Scour loop (found with Burning Wish). Just don't let them extract Underworld Breach! Avoid blind-milling yourself in games 2 and 3, in case you walk into a Surgical on Breach.

Storm Hate

Deafening Silence: This card turns off our combo. Like Leyline, this is a reason we need tutorable enchantment kill.

Chalice of the Void: Chalice @ 1, a common choice against most decks, will stop our cantrips but doesn't stop us from going off. We can combo off completely ignoring Chalice @ 1. But Chalice @ 0 or Chalice @ 2 stop the combo. We need artifact kill for this. If you're tutoring for artifact kill, think about what number Chalice might be on before deciding on the tutor and the kill card for your deck. Both have to resolve.

Trinisphere/Thorn of Amethyst/Damping Sphere: Resistors slow us down but don't outright nullify our spells like Chalice does. Against decks with multiple resistors and Chalices, cards that kill multiple artifacts are very strong (Serenity, Pulverize)

Mindbreak Trap: This card doesn't see much play lately but can interrupt our combo through a Veil of Summer! We can beat it with counterspells or Silence effects. Escaping Pact of Negation (0 mana) is useful to interact with cards like Mindbreak Trap that would be cast midway through our combo chain.

Silence: The Jeskai mirror can interrupt you with Silence, awkwardly stopping you from going off. We can try to counter Silence or cast our own Silence effect first.

AntiFreeze Effects

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn: Any deck running this can't be killed with Brain Freeze. That's OK. We can win with Thassa's Oracle or Grapeshot. All builds should have a win condition other than Brain Freeze.

Veil of Summer: Veil gives hexproof from Blue and Black, meaning we can't target them with Brain Freeze. Grapeshot and Thassa's Oracle get through this. Tendrils of Agony does not.

Leyline of Sanctity/Solitary Confinement: These cards see little play but would stop both Brain Freeze and Grapeshot. Thassa's Oracle can still win. Burning Wish builds can win by searching for enchantment kill first.

Hatebears

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben: This card increases the costs just enough that our loop is painful but not impossible. We can still win through Thalia, but it consumes more resources (cards in GY, mana from lands). It's much better to remove Thalia either before going off or early in the chain. Grapeshot, Swords to Plowshares or Burning Wish -> Massacre/Pyroclasm are answers. EOT bounce works too.

Collector Ouphe: Ooph. This card stops both LED and Lotus Petal. We can't win or even make much mana with this out. It needs to die or be countered. Expect every GSZ X=2 to be an Ouphe. Counter it.

Sanctum Prelate: Prelate @ 0 or Prelate @ 2 stop us from going off. We need a 1 cmc answer like Swords to Plowshares, Chain of Vapor or Lightning Bolt. Unfortunately Prelate @ 2 shuts off Wish into Massacre.

Phyrexian Revoker: They can revoke either LED or Lotus Petal, but we can still deterministically win with the other one. Revoker is an annoyance but doesn't stop us from going off.

Meddling Mage: If you happen to face a 5c Humans deck running this, Mage on Breach demands an answer but any other choice (LED, BF, Wish) could be played around by redundancy.

Scavenging Ooze: This gravehatebear can attack our graveyard but is limited by their available green mana. They will try to exile LED or Brain Freeze or a wincon, or just cut down escape fuel. If we can't kill it, we can try to go off before they have many activations available. We can somewhat play around it with stack control, the same way we play around Faerie Macabre and Surgical, but it's better to not let them get too many cracks at us.

Eidolon of the Great Revel: The damage from this adds up fast, especially if opponent has already dealt us damage or might have Fireblast in hand. However we can still start to go off through this and tutor for an answer partway through. Eidolon can be answered with bounce, StP, Grapeshot, or Pyroclasm. Just be careful about life totals. Play around Bolts and Fireblasts.

Marit Lage: He is effectively a hatebear with T: target opponent can't win the game. More specifically, loses the game. Immediately. 1-shot threat demands an answer. Bounce and StP both work.

Nonbasic Hate

Wasteland: We can play around Wasteland by fetching basics first or by not cracking fetches until we need the mana. Most builds are run 3-4 basics. The 4 color builds are most vulnerable to Wasteland.

Back to Basics: Same thing. Fetching basics dodges this. B2B is very slow, we can race it, so it may not even stay in postboard.

Blood Moon: We depend on a lot of fetchlands (manafixing, graveyard fodder). But if we can a basic Island in play first, we can probably just win around Moons. Our combo doesn't need our lands to produce any nonred mana! The red mana also casts Burning Wish into answers. Lotus Petal fixes colored mana.

Enchantment and Artifact Hate

Null Rod: If anyone plays this, it shuts down both LED and Petal and demands an answer before we can win. We can answer it with counters or artifact kill.

Force of Vigor/Wear // Tear/Disenchant: Opponent may try to directly kill Underworld Breach to stop the combo. Breach needs to be in play, otherwise you lose the Escape ability. We can beat this with countermagic or Silence effects, but not Veil of Summer.

Abrupt Decay: Abrupt Decay can kill Breach and we can't counter it. We can proactively prevent it with Silence effects, Veil of Summer (hexproof from black) or Defense Grid. We can also play around it by casting a 2nd Breach (from hand or graveyard) immediately after the first one resolves, without passing priority to the opponent, before they can Decay the 1st one.

Counterspells

Force of Will/Spell Pierce: Opponent will try to counter Breach. We can try to counter them back, cast Veil of Summer, or proactively prevent it with Silence effects, discard, Defense Grid, or Teferi. If they do counter Breach (or Silence), we haven't committed resources to going off yet and can try to go off again another turn.

Force of Negation: This one is a bit more dangerous because it exiles the card. Beat this the same way you beat FoW.

Daze: If you're facing a deck that usually runs Daze (e.g. RUG Delver), play smart and don't walk into Daze unless you absolutely have to due to a clock.

Veil of Summer: Veil acts as a counterspell against our counterspells, winning counter wars. But it can't interact with Silence effects! Orim's Chant leaves Veil looking awkward. Veil also doesn't stop us from going off on its own, they can only use it to get a leg up in a counter war or to stop our discard.

Flusterstorm: We walk into this one. We generate too much storm to deal with all the copies of an enemy Flusterstorm. Luckily it can't counter Breach or LED. It can only help them win counterwars or stop a Brain Freeze. If they counter Brain Freeze, we can cast it again... Defense Grid, Silence effects, or our own Flusterstorm are other possible answers.

9. Card Choices

I put this after the "Playing Around Hate" section, lower than in most primers, because the choices are driven by beating the hate we expect to face.

Combo Pieces
Underworld Breach: The deck's namesake. Essential to go off. Automatic 4-of.

Lion's Eye Diamond: Another core combo piece. 4-of

Brain Freeze: The 3rd piece. Fills your graveyard with escape fuel. Pre-combo it can be useful to fill the graveyard after a few spells have been cast. 4-of

Lotus Petal: Mana rock but also backup LED. Breach + Petal + Brain Freeze is a deterministic win (Petal -> Petal -> BF -> Petal -> Petal -> BF). 4-of

Grinding Station: Backup Brain Freeze in ETutor builds. It forms a combo chain by escaping LED/Lotus Petal and then sacrificing it to mill yourself for 3. Repeat until you find Brain Freeze or generate enough storm.

Tome Scour: Backup Brain Freeze in Wishboards. It forms a combo chain with LED. Every 3 Tome Scours nets you +3 cards in the graveyard, either digging you to Brain Freeze or generating enough storm and fuel to cast a win condition.

Memory Sluice: Backup Brain Freeze in Infernal Tutor builds. It forms a combo chain with LED, netting +0 cards per 3 Sluices, but generating storm and digging you into Brain Freeze. The advantage over Tome Scour is the ability to cast it for B, which is convenient when cracking LED for BBB to escape Infernal Tutor.

Cantrips
Brainstorm: One of the best cards in the format. Helps sculpt our hand. Fills the graveyard. Hides combo pieces from discard. Not running 4 is crazy.

Ponder: Helps sculpt. Fills the yard. Good card is good.

Preordain: Cantrips 9-12. Doesn't dig as well as Brainstorm or Ponder, but sometimes you just want more cantrips.

Thought Scour: Both cantrips and mills you a bit, but without card selection. Instant speed enables leaving mana open for tricks.

Tutors
Enlightened Tutor: Finds any combo piece: Underworld Breach, LED/Petal, or Grinding Station (replacement for BF). Also finds answers: Seal of Cleansing, Serenity, Pithing Needle, Silent Gravestone, Defense Grid. 1 cmc instant tutors are good! The main drawback is putting the card on top of your library, so you usually want to cast this EOT, Upkeep, or with a cantrip to draw the card.

Burning Wish: Enables a Wishboard for alternate win conditions (Grapeshot, Empty the Warrens), ways to find Breach (Infernal Tutor, Sevinne's Reclamation), Brain Freeze replacements (Tome Scour, Memory Sluice), answers (Void Snare, Reverent Silence, Massacre, Pulverize, etc..), and a hail mary (Echo of Eons). Wish can find a lot of answers. The drawbacks are it takes up SB space and the 2 mana can be slow in some matches.

Infernal Tutor: Finds any card, but you have to crack LED first, leaving yourself without a hand and exposed to gravehate. Infernal Tutor + LED is enough to go off on its own, which is the real power. You can float mana with LED, tutor for Breach, cast Breach, then escape LED and escape Tutor for Brain Freeze or Memory Sluice to go off (Sluice can be cast off BBB from LED used for the 2nd IT).

Gamble: Finds any card, but you have a random discard. Many cards are OK to have in the graveyard, but losing Breach, mana or protection can hurt.

Intuition: On its own it can choose 3x any card to tutor the card to hand for 2U at instant speed. The drawback is it costs mana and tempo, leaving you open to mana denial and blowouts from Surgical Extraction. Sometimes that's still good enough to get the win. Where it really shines is in combination with Sevinne's Reclamation or Underworld Breach, making your graveyard live, which allows you to generate 3-card piles of singletons and tutor up multiple cards at once for value.

Win Conditions
Grapeshot: This card wins in most scenarios where Brain Freeze can't (e.g. anti-mill cards, hexproof from blue due to Veil of Summer). It can be played maindeck or found with Burning Wish. Achieving high enough storm count is not an issue because you can escape Grapeshot and play it again! Storm 9 is usually enough for the first one. It even wins in scenarios that Tendrils of Agony can't (e.g. hexproof from black due to Veil of Summer, Gaddock Teeg, too few mana/cards in GY to make Tendrils mana). Pre-combo Grapeshot has other utility killing hatebears and weenies.

Thassa's Oracle: This card wins the game in almost any scenario, even in obscure ones that Brain Freeze and Grapeshot cannot (e.g. Solitary Confinement lock, Glacial Chasm with Emrakul in deck, infinite life). The "win the game" trigger still works even if Oracle is killed in response, as long as your library is empty. If Oracle gets Stifled then you lose the trigger, you can't recast it (not in the GY), and you might just lose the game. However there's a good chance you can beat a Stifle if you've already comboed off that far. The main drawback of Oracle is that it does nothing until you've completely gone off and milled your library. It's a terrible topdeck.

Lightning Bolt: This was suggested in the early builds as a win condition. Bolt is a good card pre-combo, killing threats and hatebears. Once you go off, you can make 7 red mana and escape Bolt 7 times at the opponent's face to win. It works, but it involves exiling 30 cards just to use the win condition, very resource-intensive and slow to execute. If you faced disruption and are in any way constrained on resources, you might reach a point where it's impossible to win with Bolt because you just don't have enough cards left. That risk outweights the benefit of Bolt doing more than Grapeshot precombo.

Protection
Force of Will: Catch-all solution to counters, hatebears, permanent hate, just about anything. Very common choice due to its flexibility. However the card disadvantage and strain on the blue count can hurt.

Orim's Chant/Silence: Stops opponent from playing spells. Prevents a wide range of problems like countermagic, enchantment kill, Crop Rotation, Surgical... It can also be used to Time Walk the opponent's turn to buy tempo, or to interrupt an opposing combo deck and stop them from going off (even if they cast Veil!).

Veil of Summer: Beats counterspells and discard. Also lets you win through Chalice @ 0 or Chalice @ 2. Doesn't stop Crop Rotation, Surgical, Disenchants or enemy Silences in the mirror.

Defense Grid: Pseudo-Silence, but opponent can potentially leave FoW + 3 lands open to still disrupt you. Grid is also slow to deploy, costing you tempo.

Teferi, Time Raveler: The static ability acts as a better Defense Grid while the minus ability bounces problematic permanents to let you go off. The abilities are great. Costing 3 mana is the only problem. Some builds will consider this too slow.

Spell Pierce: Answers problems before the combo turn (discard, Chalice, etc) but requires leaving mana open, which is not always easy for all builds.

Pact of Negation: 0 cmc answer for anything on the combo turn. Can be escaped for 0 mana. If you sequence correctly, Pact is always live (either from hand or GY) at any point of interaction during the combo chain, ready to counter things like Surgicals, Crop Rotations, disenchants and other disruption. The only drawback is that little "lose the game" clause. It's dangerous to cast outside the combo turn, though you can pay the upkeep with LED if you need to.

Force of Negation: This can't protect you on the combo turn but acts as FoW #5-6 to help stop turn 1 problems like Chalice of the Void, Deafening Silence, Grafdigger's Cage, Blood Moon, Trinisphere, etc. It's good in a metagame running a lot of early permanent-based hate (but not hatebears)

Chain of Vapor: Answers hatebears, Chalice @ 0 or Chalice @ 2, Leylines, and other problems. Pitches to FoW. Interacts with only 1 mana open. Cast it EOT and go off. In a pinch, you can Chain your mana rocks first before Chaining the opponent to build storm count for Brain Freeze. Good in a meta with a lot of permanent-based hate including a mix of Chalices and hatebears.

Thoughtseize: Discard lets you proactively remove many problems from their hand (counters, Surgical, Crop Rotation, enchantment kill, Thalia) or even just slow them down enough to go off. On the play it can answer permanents like Chalice, Deafening Silence and Grafdigger's Cage, but on the draw these cards will come down before you can discard them. Thoughtseize's main drawback is that it can't help stop permanent-based hate on the draw. The life loss is not an issue because our engine doesn't care about the life total the way Ad Nauseam does.

Duress: Thoughtseize #5. Gives perfect information. Hits Force of Will but misses hatebears. Sometimes blanks against some decks.

Inquisition of Kozilek: Thoughtseize #5. Gives perfect information. Hits hatebears but misses FoW. Personally I think this is more useful than Duress given the cards we worry about.

Pyroblast: This card 1-for-1s with countermagic, Braistorms and Delvers. The ability to trade 1-for-1 is a big advantage over FoW when you just need to grind out more protection than the opponent has answers, but it only hits blue cards (still 70% of the format) so it may be better in the SB than main.

Flusterstorm: Another 1-for-1 counter war answer. Performs better than Spell Pierce in the lategame, but can't stop permanent-based hate early like Pierce can.

FTW

02-14-2020, 11:10 AM

10. Gameplay and Strategy Tips

A collection of tips from the other thread (credits: Lemon, Jblinder)

Crack LED in response to cantrips when searching for BF in a "go off now or lose" state.
Escape LED before casting BF to protect from surgical extraction
Cast Silence before casting UB. Even if they don't have countermagic it could protect you from permanent hate.
When fighting with a UB on the field remember that you can escape counterspells, but not for alternative costs.
Always exile lands to escape first, you may need those spells later.
Reusing ETutor is powerful, but remember that it goes to top of library. You need a way to draw if you're looking to escape Etutor.
Grinding station triggers to untap on it's own entry. Responding to this can be the difference between having enough cards in the yard to escape and losing.
Vs potential abrupt decay (suppose you’re too tight on mana to cast double breach or otherwise have a breach in graveyard). Cast underworld breach. Crack led, cast underworld breach from graveyard. You’re now insulated against removal.
Chain of vapor trick: you go for combo early to try to go under a knight of the reliquary they just played (which represents bog once active). You end up fizzling. You can chain of vapor your own underworld breach, sacrifice a land and also hit their knight to go off again next turn.
If missing LED or Petal, EOT Brain Freeze can get a lot of cards in the yard (counts opponent's storm), especially if you had a counter war or played any instants on their turn.
Against decks that might have Chalice, 3sphere, Thalias or discard play out Lotus Petals and LEDs early to make sure they resolve.
An early Petal enables tricks on the opponent's turn, even if you used all your lands to cantrip.
If you mess up and can't go off, you can pay for Pact of Negation with LED mana. Brainstorm/ETutor can hide Breach on top of your library to go off again.
Teferi's second ability can bounce hate or recycle Breach
1RR + Burning Wish + LED (BBB) is enough to get Underworld Breach in play via Infernal Tutor without any swamps
Playing around decks with a lot of artifact and enchantment hate, try to get Serenity in play the turn before you want to go off. That way it blows up on your upkeep and you go off that same main phase, not letting them cast any more hate.
ETutor can be cast on upkeep to get Breach, draw it, and go off that turn by surprise and dodging discard. Just needs 2 lands in play (with 1 more source in hand).
Against storm, Silence/Chant in response to their Wish/Tutor cracking LED should be GG. They might go off with Veil and not expect to get Silence slapped.
Against slow control decks with too much hate to fight through but no clock (e.g. Lands, Miracles, Karn), Double Brain Freeze @ opponent can win lategame without the graveyard. If you sandbag a few mana rocks or have a counter war, that could be 11-15 copies of Brain Freeze.
If you need to build storm without Breach, you can Chain your own Petals/LEDs (sacrificing the Island you used to cast it) and something of the opponent's, then replay the Petal/LEDs. You can bounce multiples. Just float mana for Brain Freeze first.

While going off, leave blue mana floating when possible. I try to leave at least U (e.g. crack LED for UUU, escape LED, escape Brain Freeze with U floating, crack for UUU, escape LED, escape Brain Freeze, crack for UUU, escape LED, escape Brain Freeze, etc..). That does a couple things. You avoid passing priority with LED in the GY to dodge hate. Whenever LED is on the stack you also have mana to cast Brain Freeze in response (to Surgical, Faerie Macabre, Bog, Abrupt Decay). The extra mana floating also leaves up Spell Pierce and Chain of Vapor for tricks. I've seen some players go LED -> BF -> LED -> BF -> BF again (using up the last UU). There's no reason to deplete your mana like that if you don't need to, especially if you would need to cast and resolve an LED/Petal before you can get more mana.

Facing Bojuka Bog when you have an answer in the graveyard (e.g. Pithing Needle for Knight or Reclaimer, Silence for Crop Rotation), they will probably Bog you with Breach on the stack before you can escape the answer. You can beat that by digging for another Brain Freeze in hand before trying to go off. Let their Bog hit, lose your initial graveyard, Brain Freeze yourself for more cards, then go off. They might have multiple Crop Rotations and Knight untaps, but they only have 1 Bog!

11. Alternate Combo Lines

Credit: Cire

Breach + LED + BF = Win (1R, at least 3 other cards in grave/hand to start)
Breach + Petal + BF = Win (2R to start. Petal for U -> Breach -> BF for 9+ cards -> Escape Petal -> Escape Petal -> Escape BF -> win)
Breach + LED + TomeScour = Win (1R, at least 3 other cards in grave/hand to start. Loop Tomescour and LEDs till you get BF and then just win)
Breach + Petal + TomeScour = 75%-99% Win (1UR, at least 1 other card in grave for 75% and X additional cards in exile for each about additional 4%s to start. Petal -> Tomescour -> Breach -> Escape Petal -> Escape Tomescour, loop till you get LED then loop LED and tomescour till you get BF)
Breach + LED + Gamble = Win (1R, an average of 9.6 other cards in hand/grave to start (or 1RU an average of 6.6 other cards in hand/grave to start (or 1RR and 3 other cards in hand/grave to start), Breach -> LED -> Escape Gamble -> BF -> escape LED -> Escape BF, Win)
Breach + Petal + Gamble = Win (1R, an average of 9.6 other cards in hand/grave to start (or 1RU an average of 6.6 other cards in hand/grave to start). Breach -> Gamble for LED -> cast or escape LED -> escape Gamble for BF -> escape LED -> escape BF, win)
Breach + Gamble = Win (1RR, an average of 9.6 other cards in hand/grave to start. Breach -> Gamble for LED -> cast or escape LED -> escape Gamble for BF -> escape LED -> escape BF, win)
Gamble + Petal = Win% equal to (Amount of cards in hand prior to casting Gamble-1)/(Amount of cards in hand prior to casting Gamble) (1RR, and about 9-12 cards (haven't figured out average) in grave to start Gamble for Breach -> Breach -> Petal -> Escape Gamble for BF -> Escape Petal -> Escape Petal -> Escape BF, win)
Gamble + LED = Win% equal to (Amount of cards in hand prior to casting Gamble-1)/(Amount of cards in hand prior to casting Gamble) (1RR, and about 6-9 cards (haven't figured out average) in hand/grave to start Gamble for Breach -> Breach -> LED -> Escape Gamble for BF -> Escape LED -> Escape BF, win)
Breach + LED + 2 Emrys (3 cards other cards in hand or grave and need 2 artifacts in play but you can use this to cycle through Emrys similar to tomescour to find BF to win).
Echo + LED (together they draw 7 hoping you float enough mana and repeat or have enough mana to use other line of play if possible).
Wish+LED (1B+9 cards in hand or grave, 1BU+6 cards in grave, or 1RR +9 cards in grave. Cast LED ->1B - Cast IT to search for Breach ->Crack LED in response for RRR ->Cast Breach (R floating) ->Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast and Crack LED for BBB (BBBR floating) ->Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast IT for BF (BB floating) ->Hopefully have one mana still open for U or 3 more cards in graveyard for another LED crack for UUU - Cast BF win. OR Cast LED1RR -> Cast Wish->Crack LED in response for BBB->Wish gets IT->Cast IT for Breach (RB floating)->Cast Breach->Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast and Crack LED for BBB (BBB floating)->Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast IT for BF (B floating)->Exile 3 cards in graveyard - Cast and Crack LED for UUU - Cast BF win.

12. Matchup Analysis

To be continued...

13. UGH, Why isn't this card banned already???

Good, we have done our job.

Edit: Ban accomplished! Mar 9th 2020.
Underworld Breach lasted in Legacy barely longer than a month, after critics initially thought the 3-card combo had too many moving parts to even be Legacy-viable. We showed 'em!

Major credits to everyone who grinded this deck on MTGO and showed what a force it can be.

FTW

02-14-2020, 12:40 PM

Reserving another spot as backup

Lemon

02-14-2020, 01:37 PM

Fantastic primer. I love the deck and am excited to see which of the builds ends up being the best.

(I still don't like that name)

Cire

02-14-2020, 02:42 PM

Great primer! :eek:

Ronald Deuce

02-14-2020, 06:18 PM

*chomps on ceegar*

Well, it looks like we did it.

ESG

02-15-2020, 12:50 AM

Thanks for writing the primer! I'm eager to see where the deck goes from this point. People are definitely coming prepared to beat it.

mistercakes

02-15-2020, 07:43 AM

Really nice primer, it's effort like this that keeps me on this forum.

FTW

02-15-2020, 05:21 PM

Thanks everyone! Glad to do it.

Did anyone here play Breach this weekend and have any results to post? I didn't have a chance. I'm curious how the meta's adapting and how the deck performs through that.

ESG

02-15-2020, 10:45 PM

FTW

02-15-2020, 11:09 PM

Couldn't quite convert today at the Mox Boarding House/Card Kingdom 1K. Both of my losses were to Bant/4c Miracles. What are people's opinions on sideboarding for that matchup? I know we have to bring in bounce or removal for Deafening Silence and Rest in Peace, but I'm also running into Counterbalance.

Which build are you playing? Counters, bounce and removal all seem good postboard.

In Jeskai cards like Spell Pierce, Pyroblast, Chain of Vapor, Serenity are good. Bringing in more 1-for-1 counters helps win the counterwars. Try not to let CB resolve. ETutor into Serenity is the best answer for all of those cards (Deafening Silence, RiP, Counterbalance) and also kills their Astrolabe. If you're digging for Seal of Cleansing or relying on bounce, I can see that running into problems if they have multiple enchantments to answer. I wouldn't cut Seal, but Serenity seems like the 1st choice tutor target here. If they have no clock, take the time to sculpt a hand to fight counter wars. You need to resolve your removal and your combo.

In RUG, if you can resolve Burning Wish, Reverent Silence clears all those enchantments and is 95% not getting stopped by their CB. Veil of Summer can turn off Counterbalance for a turn to let you Chain something else and go off. Countermagic is important in this match.

aedemiel

02-16-2020, 08:42 AM

Thanks everyone! Glad to do it.

I probably will never play this deck, but this is a great primer.

Michael Keller

02-16-2020, 12:33 PM

Played four-color Breach at Bearded Dragon yesterday (2K). Lost my win and in to an insane turn by my opponent. Deck felt really powerful.

Amon Amarth

02-16-2020, 03:27 PM

Wow, this is a great primer. Good job!

DKK

02-16-2020, 04:36 PM

Played four-color Breach at Bearded Dragon yesterday (2K). Lost my win and in to an insane turn by my opponent. Deck felt really powerful.
List of the 4c deck?

meffeo

02-17-2020, 01:10 PM

In RUG, if you can resolve Burning Wish, Reverent Silence clears all those enchantments and is 95% not getting stopped by their CB. Veil of Summer can turn off Counterbalance for a turn to let you Chain something else and go off. Countermagic is important in this match.

No one mentioned Xantid Swarm. The comeback of one of the top three green creature card?

ESG

02-17-2020, 03:09 PM

Which build are you playing? Counters, bounce and removal all seem good postboard.

In Jeskai cards like Spell Pierce, Pyroblast, Chain of Vapor, Serenity are good. Bringing in more 1-for-1 counters helps win the counterwars. Try not to let CB resolve. ETutor into Serenity is the best answer for all of those cards (Deafening Silence, RiP, Counterbalance) and also kills their Astrolabe. If you're digging for Seal of Cleansing or relying on bounce, I can see that running into problems if they have multiple enchantments to answer. I wouldn't cut Seal, but Serenity seems like the 1st choice tutor target here. If they have no clock, take the time to sculpt a hand to fight counter wars. You need to resolve your removal and your combo.

In RUG, if you can resolve Burning Wish, Reverent Silence clears all those enchantments and is 95% not getting stopped by their CB. Veil of Summer can turn off Counterbalance for a turn to let you Chain something else and go off. Countermagic is important in this match.

Jeskai. I was on two Chain of Vapor, two Fragmentize, one Teferi, and one Detention Sphere, along with my Forces. Fragmentize was there instead of Wear/Tear because it comes online faster against resistors. I expected resistors in the field (which there were). Fragmentize won me a game that I would've lost with Wear/Tear, and it lost me a different game I would've won with Wear/Tear. I had been on three Teferis before this, and that's a strong card vs. Miracles, but Counterbalance is quite good against Breach, and I faced a lot of copies of that card on the day. You can't really sculpt when they have a Counterbalance on the battlefield. I'm going to switch my board up tonight.

FTW

02-17-2020, 08:44 PM

Jeskai. I was on two Chain of Vapor, two Fragmentize, one Teferi, and one Detention Sphere, along with my Forces. Fragmentize was there instead of Wear/Tear because it comes online faster against resistors. I expected resistors in the field (which there were). Fragmentize won me a game that I would've lost with Wear/Tear, and it lost me a different game I would've won with Wear/Tear. I had been on three Teferis before this, and that's a strong card vs. Miracles, but Counterbalance is quite good against Breach, and I faced a lot of copies of that card on the day. You can't really sculpt when they have a Counterbalance on the battlefield. I'm going to switch my board up tonight.

Did you find the 3 Teferis too slow in other matchups? I like that card for control, but in other games (especially Delver and D&T) 3 mana is a big deal.

Some of the other threats (e.g. resistors) you can let resolve and then try to remove. CB is much easier to manage if you don't let it resolve in the first place. So your build had 0 Spell Pierce, 0 FoN, 0 Pyroblast, 0 Flusterstorm? Winning the stack might be the better answer. I like having those 1-for-1 counters postboard in the UWx matches. If you watch AnziD's streams, counters seemed good for him too vs control.

ESG

02-18-2020, 03:22 AM

Did you find the 3 Teferis too slow in other matchups? I like that card for control, but in other games (especially Delver and D&T) 3 mana is a big deal.

Some of the other threats (e.g. resistors) you can let resolve and then try to remove. CB is much easier to manage if you don't let it resolve in the first place. So your build had 0 Spell Pierce, 0 FoN, 0 Pyroblast, 0 Flusterstorm? Winning the stack might be the better answer. I like having those 1-for-1 counters postboard in the UWx matches. If you watch AnziD's streams, counters seemed good for him too vs control.

At least for me, Teferi has been fine vs. Delver, but I needed more space in the deck to fit Silences in the main. I was expecting to play against the mirror, and the field ended up being different than I had anticipated, with only two of us playing Breach (49 players in the event). I went with two Silence and one Teferi in the main, which felt OK, but at this point, I don't think either is mandatory. I think Teferi is the better card overall. Force of Negation was a card I had run in other events in the main, but I didn't have it in the 75 this time. I was aiming to be more proactive. Overall, the deck felt very smooth on the day. It was only the Miracles matchup that felt less favorable than before, but that ended up mattering a lot. I will continue to tinker with the numbers as I win and lose.

shojeel

02-18-2020, 03:59 PM

I am very curious about the 4 color decks. One thing I have noticed about the Breach builds is that there is a lot of card disadvantage, and it always feels bad....always. I have been cutting FoW, silence, e-tutor, etc etc. It left me with "all of the best cards" and in my opinion streamlined what we are actually trying to do, which is get Breach into play and chain together a win with Brain Freeze etc. I went back to the old thread and saw a post from @Lemon (i think) about using Infernal Tutor and Memory Sluice. I tested it out in a previous build and I think it works well, at least well enough to deserve a singleton slot.

Another issue I have run into is that our mana fixing is not that great. In the traditional builds we require R, U, and W usually with access to maybe 3 lands on the turn we try to go off. Our only "fast mana" is really Lotus Petal and gives us access to some explosive starts but I think we could use more fast mana; enter Dark Ritual...which also works well with the Infernal Tutor -> Memory Sluice plan when you go all in on B mana. To fix the color issues I have added Astrolabe back to the deck along with making the 3 basic lands into Snow lands (2 Island and 1 Swamp). This fixes our mana so well and allows us to run 4 or possibly even 5 colors, which I am toying with now. The AA's are not card disadvantage which is huge IMHO.

Since I have settled back on the Infernal Tutor plan we may as well play Ad Nauseam. AN is a real card advantage engine as you all know if you followed TES or ANT over the years and it works for us in the same way.

Here is what the MD looks like right now:

4 Lotus Petal
4 LED
4 Dark Ritual

4 Underworld Breach
3 Brain Freeze
1 Memory Sluice
1 Grapeshot

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam

4 Thoughtseize
3 Veil of Summer

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Arcum’s Astrolabe

4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 tropical Island
2 Island
1 Swamp

In thinking about a 5 color build I can see silence/chant or T3feri being the only inclusion from White, with maybe StP in the SB. It would also be possible to drop the Sluice and GS for a couple of B-Wish. A lot more testing with AA needs to be done before I cut in a 5th color though. Just saying that out loud sounds crazy but that is what AA let's decks do, play the best spells in a "splash" color to maximize their chances of winning against any scenario.

Cire

02-18-2020, 04:45 PM

Some thoughts:

In non-goldfish testing we are most afraid of getting our hand picked apart by discard spells - that's why it almost seems like there are two stages to the playing the deck. Stage 1 is cantripping into as many Silence/Chant/Veil/Fow's that you can get and Stage 2 is assembling the combo. Since Stage 1 is such a big part of the deck's strength it's hard to justify cutting out protection spots. This makes sense when you look at the successful lists which all run about 10 to 11 protection slots. Especially as the meta turns to answering this deck it seems improper to answer that meta by cutting protection spots - if anything you need to fine tune the protection spots.

In regards to 4C versions we need to look at what each color brings to the table and why we would play that color:

White - Enlightened Tutor and Silence Effects. Tutor provides card selection and silence is a big card in combo-wars or fighting against control. It also simply acts like a time skip against decks early on which is just so useful to this deck.

Green - Veil and Burning Wish into Reverent Silence. Veil doubles as a better Silence compared to white, but the real difference between the two colors is that you have better wish targets. Now that the meta is advancing to answer breach decks the maneuverability of the wish board becomes more important.

Black - Infernal Tutor, Discard, creature kill. ITutor can function like Etutor in some scenarios and with some work arounds, and discard also fufills the general role of silence/veil to varying degrees. Due to this black seems like a worst White redux since every tool of black that you would want white has a spell that fufills that roll either cheaper or better. Even creature kill, that is becoming more important due to GSZ -> Ouphe can be solved by white (STP) or even Dismember, which doesn't require black.

Looking at the above I would think that if you want to build a 4C deck instead of URwb or URgb you should go URwg.

I think this is a novel concept since the only 4C builds that I have seen thus far have been URwb or URgb. But such builds confuse me since the cards you would get from black seem like worse cards that you can get from white.

So I'm thinking of something like the following:

10 fetchlands
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island

4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Underworld Breach
4 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Preordain
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Burning Wish

4 Force of Will
4 Veil of Summer
2 Orim's Chant

//Sideboard:
1 Consign // Oblivion
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shenanigans
1 Tome Scour
1 Serenity
1 Defense Grid
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Dismember

Edit - RE the above I think to justify the 4C build you have to argue what it is doing better than 3C builds. I think with URgw the argument would go that it has access to Veil and Silence, that while they fulfill similar roles, this version runs around 6 of that effect and runs 4 of the best version (veil) of that effect. Moreover this build gets to run the wish board with Reverent Silence and also have the flexibility of Etutor.

FTW

02-18-2020, 08:40 PM

Why have the 4 color builds been URwb and URgb but not URgw? I think it's because green and white both offer similar tools (Veil / Silence and enchantment kill) while black offers different tools (discard, Infernal Tutor, Massacre).

4C is a significant hit to the manabase consistency. Is it worth that risk just to have more maindeck Veils over Chants? Keep in mind that for Veil to do anything you need green mana open, otherwise it does nothing. On the combo turn, Silence is better than Veil of Summer (Silence prevents more threats). Veil only shines pre-combo (discard, counters, cantripping). But you still need green mana open for it to do that. If they Thoughtseize you when you don't have green mana untapped, you're still vulnerable to discard. If they counter some pre-combo spell (e.g. tutor, cantrip, answer for hate) before you have green mana ready, Veil can't help you. That means you need to fetch a basic Forest or Tropical early, when you otherwise wouldn't need that land for anything else. That's a strain on the manabase. Is that a good enough reason to splash a 4th color?

The RUG build lets you play Veil and less card disadvantage without the hit to the manabase. Anyone worried about card disadvantage or mana-fixing consistency should try out Jbinder's RUG version first.

Michael Keller

02-19-2020, 12:54 AM

Went 4-1 in the Legacy Preliminary with this list:

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
1 Badlands
4 Duress
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
2 Prismatic Vista
3 Preordain
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
1 Thassa's Oracle
4 Underworld Breach
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Daze
4 Brain Freeze
1 Merchant Scroll
3 Dark Confidant
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Pact of Negation

3 Pyroblast
1 Plague Engineer
2 Echoing Truth
2 Dystopia
2 Fatal Push
2 Shenanigans
3 Faerie Macabre

Cire

02-19-2020, 09:44 AM

Why have the 4 color builds been URwb and URgb but not URgw? I think it's because green and white both offer similar tools (Veil / Silence and enchantment kill) while black offers different tools (discard, Infernal Tutor, Massacre).

See my argument is that tools black gives you aren't all that different from the tools white gives you. Etutor vs. Infernal, Discard vs. Silence, STP vs. Massacre. They look and feel different but they fill the same roles Tutor, Protection, Creature Kill. The most important difference is how Discard protects you vs. how Silence protects you. Discard you usually cast on turns you are not going off, while Silence you cast to protect you turn going off. The idea behind the GW 4C list was to maximize silence/veil effects to prevent/scare off discard as I find discard the most painful "hate" that we face, and then have additional protection to go off.

Lemon

02-19-2020, 10:13 AM

Cire

02-19-2020, 10:31 AM

Potential solution is Sylvan Library? Provides Card Selection and Card Advantage? Another option in my proposed URgw version. A green enchantment that you can tutor for if need be.

shojeel

02-19-2020, 01:12 PM

I am still a fan of the 4c builds. In chatting with a buddy about W vs G he mentioned the SB options that W offers. Mentor and StP being the biggest reasons. I had to agree with their assessment and have decided to cut G. My current list is:

"Yawgwill" (4)
4 Underworld Breach

Win Con (5)
4 Brain Freeze
1 Grapeshot

Tutor (3)
3 Infernal Tutor

Fast Mana and Fixing (11)
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Arcum's Astrolabe

Selection (12)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain

Protection (10)
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation
2 Thoughtseize
2 Silence

Lands (15)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
3 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

I think this list hits most of the points we need to hit for protection, with the downside of not running many maindeck answers for things that hit the board (no bounce or disenchant effects), which I think is ok for most G1's. I am still working out the SB, but 2-3 Mentor and 3-4 StP will certainly be there. Some number of bounce/disenchant spells, 2-3 silence effects, maybe another W producing Land, 1-2 discard spells, and maybe some general targeted GY hate.

I think this list feels incredibly strong and flexible. Give it a go and let me know what you think. I am going to try and get some leagues in later with it.

Also, @Cire, Library is an interesting thought. Being able to ponder every turn "for free" may be something we can take advantage of. I will think more about this and see what a list would look like. Thanks.

FTW

02-19-2020, 01:39 PM

See my argument is that tools black gives you aren't all that different from the tools white gives you. Etutor vs. Infernal, Discard vs. Silence, STP vs. Massacre. They look and feel different but they fill the same roles Tutor, Protection, Creature Kill. The most important difference is how Discard protects you vs. how Silence protects you. Discard you usually cast on turns you are not going off, while Silence you cast to protect you turn going off. The idea behind the GW 4C list was to maximize silence/veil effects to prevent/scare off discard as I find discard the most painful "hate" that we face, and then have additional protection to go off.

Veil and Silence fill a similar role. Discard is "protection" but interacts differently and stops different problems. It's proactive, live as early as turn 1, protecting us under a different axis than Veil and Silence do. That's why the URwb and URgb builds splash black for Thoughtseize. It's something unique green and white can't do.

IT and ETutor function very differently. ETutor is cheap and instant but can only find some card types, is card disadvantage, and only goes to top of library. IT puts the card in hand immediately but is slower to use and requires an enabler (LED or play out hand). ETutor forces some suboptimal card choices so that they're tutorable, while IT doesn't restrict the rest of your deck design.

While both are "tutors" and "protection", the way they accomplish that has very different impacts on how the deck plays out vs an opponent. IT is more replaceable because all of the tutors have some drawback, but Thoughtseize is something no other color can do.

Silence doesn't scare off discard. If you want to maximize Veil to scare off discard, why not just play RUG with 4 Veils?

I think that discard is only the most painful hate we face because we have so few good ways to get ahead on card advantage, Our white suite is inherently bad at this, and none of our blue cards help. Both FoW and Etutor are both 2:1s, and we have no way to get those back. I don't know what the answer to this problem is though. I know some people were playing around with running Predict, but I'm not sure about that one.

Discard hurts because we have to sculpt an A+B+C combo with protection. We can't cast Breach until the combo turn, so we need to keep Breach and protection in hand. Discard disrupts that. Discard hurts Jeskai even more because it lacks card advantage and has multiple sources of card disadvantage (FoW, ETutor, Silence).

How to answer this? The RUG build has less card disadvantage and has Veil, so it isn't hurt by discard as much. Jeskai has advantages in other matchups (especially storm mirrors) but RUG does better in attrition games.

Another option is Michael Keller's list above playing Dark Confidant to get back card advantage. Bob is smart. Our curve is low and, unlike ANT, we don't care about life total. I wonder if Bob is better in transformational SB (after they board out removal) instead of maindeck in game 1, when it will eat 100% of removal.

Cire

02-19-2020, 02:13 PM

Silence doesn't scare off discard. If you want to maximize Veil to scare off discard, why not just play RUG with 4 Veils?

The reason I proposed URgw is because (1) I recognize veil as the best card for discard, currently the best hate against us, and (2) crave the consistency of Etutor. I've played the RUG version and found it less consistent (personally) than the ease of just running Etutor. Essentially, I'm wondering about splashing white for tutor and green for veil. All other cards in the list (Orim's Chant/Rev Silence) are bonus.

Another option is Michael Keller's list above playing Dark Confidant to get back card advantage. Bob is smart. Our curve is low and, unlike ANT, we don't care about life total. I wonder if Bob is better in transformational SB (after they board out removal) instead of maindeck in game 1, when it will eat 100% of removal.

I really like the inclusion of Bob in the black lists - which goes back to my earlier hypo of running library in the proposed URgw list. 2 Library's MD with Etutor seems like a good way to get card advantage. Something like -1 Chant, -1 Preordain, +2 Library

shojeel

02-19-2020, 02:28 PM

Veil and Silence fill a similar role. Discard is "protection" but interacts differently and stops different problems. It's proactive, live as early as turn 1, protecting us under a different axis than Veil and Silence do. That's why the URwb and URgb builds splash black for Thoughtseize. It's something unique green and white can't do.

IT and ETutor function very differently. ETutor is cheap and instant but can only find some card types, is card disadvantage, and only goes to top of library. IT puts the card in hand immediately but is slower to use and requires an enabler (LED or play out hand). ETutor forces some suboptimal card choices so that they're tutorable, while IT doesn't restrict the rest of your deck design.

While both are "tutors" and "protection", the way they accomplish that has very different impacts on how the deck plays out vs an opponent. IT is more replaceable because all of the tutors have some drawback, but Thoughtseize is something no other color can do.

Silence doesn't scare off discard. If you want to maximize Veil to scare off discard, why not just play RUG with 4 Veils?

Discard hurts because we have to sculpt an A+B+C combo with protection. We can't cast Breach until the combo turn, so we need to keep Breach and protection in hand. Discard disrupts that. Discard hurts Jeskai even more because it lacks card advantage and has multiple sources of card disadvantage (FoW, ETutor, Silence).

How to answer this? The RUG build has less card disadvantage and has Veil, so it isn't hurt by discard as much. Jeskai has advantages in other matchups (especially storm mirrors) but RUG does better in attrition games.

Another option is Michael Keller's list above playing Dark Confidant to get back card advantage. Bob is smart. Our curve is low and, unlike ANT, we don't care about life total. I wonder if Bob is better in transformational SB (after they board out removal) instead of maindeck in game 1, when it will eat 100% of removal.

I think you are looking at IT as an all-in card only. It can also turn itself into any other card in your hand. Need another Cantrip, how about another silence or Veil? Those cards all give us lines to play to win....effectively stopping our opponent. You are correct in power level assessment though, it can get any card in the right circumstance (IT + no hand). In most cases it is a backup Breach if the first one gets countered. I think with the non-G builds we want to use our mana every turn, including T1 (unless saving for a BS and fetch for T2), but in most cases I want to cast ponder, preordain, astrolabe, or thoughtseize on T1.

I am still toying with the G vs W, and Veil may just be a better card for us...but it requires some different deck building decisions. The G builds probably want 4x Thoughtscour, and may also lean towards B-Wish (though I think IT is just better for us). I'll get some games in with the UBrg list tonight. My gut tells me that UBRw is correct though....at least for 4c.

Is there a 5c list we should try? What are the best cards in each color?

Blue:
BF
BS/Preordain/Ponder/Thoughtscour
FoW/FoN/Daze

Black:
IT
TS/IoK/Duress
D-Rit

White:
Silence/Chant

Red:
UB
Grapeshot
B-wish
RoF

Green:
Veil

Artifacts:
Petal
LED
Astrolabe

I don't think we could run FoW/FoN in a 5c build. Would that be a huge loss? Does 5c offer us anything that 4c wouldn't?

5c Astro-Breach:
3 BF
4 UB
4 LED
4 LP
4 Astro

12 Ponder/Preordain/BS/ Thoughtscour

3 Veil
3 Silence
3 TS

3 IT/B-wish

2 Remaining slots

Looks interesting! In any case, let's keep exploring!

Bob is an interesting card but I do not like turning on an opponents removal spells, pre or post board. S-Library may be a new card that Cire mentioned that we have not really explored in depth yet.

Lemon

02-19-2020, 03:21 PM

I don't think we could run FoW/FoN in a 5c build. Would that be a huge loss? Does 5c offer us anything that 4c wouldn't?

It is my opinion that Thoughtseize et al. fill the same role as FoW and FoN, and thus shouldn't be played together unless you really need those extra copies.

shojeel

02-19-2020, 03:33 PM

It is my opinion that Thoughtseize et al. fill the same role as FoW and FoN, and thus shouldn't be played together unless you really need those extra copies.

I disagree a little. FoW and FoN fill a role that TS etc will never be able to fill....that is being a "free" answer. It answers cards on your opponents first turn when they are on the play. Stopping a sphere, chalice, combo, or anything else that matters is a big advantage. What I dislike about is that it is card disadvantage which may or may not matter depending on what you "have to" pitch.

Cire

02-19-2020, 03:45 PM

shojeel

02-19-2020, 04:08 PM

I tried fooling around with with 5C but it seems too crowded. For example:

The core w/o Burning wish is:

16 Lands
4 Petal
12 Combo (Breakthrough/BF/LED)
1 Win

You're probably increasing the lands by at least 1 and adding in 4 Astrolab's just to deal with the color commitments. Then with 4 BS and 4 Ponders, which are essentially mandatory you already have 45 cards set. That leaves you with 15 cards. With those cards you'll probably run at least 3 Etutors, because otherwise why play white, you'll run probably at least 3 Veils, because why run green otherwise, and at least 3 discard and some number of Infernal Tutor (and maybe sluice), because why run black otherwise. That's at least 11-12 cards leaving you only 3-4 other cards which should all be protection related due to the fact you're running only 3 veils + 3 discards thus far. That protection can't be FOW simply because you're not running enough blue cards, so you'll probably up that to 4 veil and 4 discard, leaving you about 2 cards extra for protection. That could probably be Defense Grid and Silence, and the 5C deck looks a bit like a mess and doesn't look like it can do anything that the 4C build can't do?

@Lemon: FYI you misquoted me as saying "I don't think we could run FoW/FoN in a 5c build. Would that be a huge loss? Does 5c offer us anything that 4c wouldn't?" when it was shojeel. That said I completely agree with him.

I don't think that E-Tutor is a must in a 5c build. The only cards I see being needed from white is some number of chant effects (2-3). If the deck plays B-Wish then I could see Savinne's Rec in the SB. 4 Veil and 4 Discard would be crucial. I think the question in 5c is what color do you play as your second most played color? I think it has to be B or R, but I guess a case could be made for W for E-Tutor (I just don't like the card). Maybe something like this:

4 Underworld Breach

Win Con (5)
3 Brain Freeze
3 Burning Wish

Fast Mana and Fixing (11)
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Arcum's Astrolabe

Selection (12)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Thoughtscour

Protection (10)
3/4 Veil of Summer
4 Thoughtseize
2/3 Silence

Lands (16)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
3 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp

Cire

02-19-2020, 04:32 PM

I don't think you would play white just for 2 silence effects? White's draw is Etutor. Your deck will probably improve if you cut white go down to a 4C mana base and replace the 2 silence's with Veil + discard/draw. If you don't like Etutor, you don't play white and you make due with Infernal tutor or just more draw spells (or Bob, a suggestion I like, and Library, my own suggestion which I'm itching to try once I get out of work).

FTW

02-19-2020, 06:08 PM

I think you are looking at IT as an all-in card only. It can also turn itself into any other card in your hand.

It can. But because we're an A+B+C+protection deck, most of the time we want to find a card that's not already in hand, unlike ANT where finding extra rituals is enough to go off. Finding a 2nd Breach or 2nd Silence is useful in some scenarios, but probably less often than in other IT decks. Finding a cantrip for 2 mana at sorcery speed (huge tempo cost) is pretty bad. Unless it can find exactly what your hand needs most times, would IT be better as some other card?

One of the Grixis builds linked in the primer uses Wishclaw Talisman instead of IT for its flexibility without LED. TES has started doing the same. Wishclaw may deserve a look. It also turns on Mox Opal to improve fixing for 4c.

I think with the non-G builds we want to use our mana every turn, including T1 (unless saving for a BS and fetch for T2), but in most cases I want to cast ponder, preordain, astrolabe, or thoughtseize on T1.

Mana optimization seems important. Thoughtseize does help that, by allowing you to spend protection mana on any turn instead of on the combo turn.

Have you tested Astrolabe in real games? I ran it many iterations ago and cut it, finding it too slow. If you do run it, it makes Mox Opal better.

I'll get some games in with the UBrg list tonight. My gut tells me that UBRw is correct though....at least for 4c.

Check out the the 4c 5-0 lists linked in the primer. They may be a good starting point.

Is there a 5c list we should try?

5C is a big hit to the manabase. There has to be a really good reason for each color. Otherwise 4c seems better.

Before Breach was printed, I goldfished 300+ games across many different iterations of the deck in different color combinations and different manabases. Even 4C started causing mana consistency issues. 5C has mana problems. Astrolabe and Opal could help. Test it out. I think unless you can really justify each color, fewer colors is better in a meta where Delver and D&T are tier 1. Fair blue decks are currently favorable matchups for the Jeskai build. That could change with a switch to 5C.

FTW

02-19-2020, 06:16 PM

I tried fooling around with with 5C but it seems too crowded. For example:

... you'll probably run at least 3 Etutors, because otherwise why play white, you'll run probably at least 3 Veils, because why run green otherwise, and at least 3 discard and some number of Infernal Tutor (and maybe sluice), because why run black otherwise. That's at least 11-12 cards leaving you only 3-4 other cards .... so you'll probably up that to 4 veil and 4 discard, leaving you about 2 cards extra for protection.

I agree. We don't have a lot of flex slots, and you have to devote more space to fixing. It seems crowded. Does the benefit justify the cost?

ETutor also gets worse when you don't run the ETutor package (Grinding Station main, Seal main or SB, etc). If you don't run the package and have another maindeck tutor (IT or Burning Wish), maybe you don't want ETutor at all. At that point, do you even need white just for Silence? Veil + Defense Grid could be good enough. Sevinne's can be in the Wishboard without any white sources main. LED/Petal/Astrolabe makes white.

shojeel

02-19-2020, 08:06 PM

I have been playing real games with the 4c. 5c will happen tonight or tomorrow. And I’ll play in at least a league tomorrow. I think you are underestimating silence, but maybe I am wrong and tutor is better. I will try it out but I have had plenty of goldfishing to turn 2-5 where silence with backup Veil is really good. Astrolabe enables a lot of “off color” interaction. I don’t like E-tutor but I do like Chants and Mentor plus StP in the side. Chants are also really good in the mirror or TES and most other combo decks.

For additional fixing I can see Mox Opal. Maybe cutting preordain? Switch B-wish to Wishclaws? I like have answers in the side, mostly because we have no more “free” interaction due to FoW getting cut. E-tutor in that slot almost forces us to run a Seal and a G-Station.

In any case, I think it comes down to me realizing that we don’t need to go faster. We need to interact and stop our opponent when and if we need to. This makes me miss FoW but I digress. We don’t need to be fast, we need to set ourselves up so our opponents can’t stop us.

I look forward to some real 5c games.

Michael Keller

02-20-2020, 07:30 AM

Pact of Negation is often overlooked as one of the best cards in the deck when going off. The fact that it’s free after an initial use helps because you don’t need a mana investment when it’s in your graveyard - just three cards. But that’s been critical every time I’ve won games having a “free” counter.

FTW

02-20-2020, 09:50 AM

I like your Grixis build. How useful was Bob? What was your loss to in the Legacy Prelim?

Dystopia and Plague Engineer are interesting. I'm guessing you chose 3cc answers on purpose (Chalice, Prelate)? How did they perform? Did Dystopia ever kill an Oko?

Pact of Negation is often overlooked as one of the best cards in the deck when going off. The fact that it’s free after an initial use helps because you don’t need a mana investment when it’s in your graveyard - just three cards. But that’s been critical every time I’ve won games having a “free” counter.

I agree. Pact is very strong. Most good Jeskai lists run 1-2 copies. Jbinder's RUG build runs 2 copies.

There was a lot of discussion about it in the old thread. If you carefully manage your graveyard size, Pact is active at all windows of interaction!

Cast Breach (Pact is in your hand to counter their spell)
Breach resolves
Crack LED for UUU (Pact goes to graveyard before opponent has priority and can be immediately escaped)
combo off (Pact is in graveyard to escape)
etc..

shojeel

02-20-2020, 11:44 AM

I just watched some AnziD streams on Twitch. He has cut E-Tutor as well. It looks like he is favoring Intuition, Predict, Cantrips and running 15 lands. I am still not the biggest fan of FoW but I see why it is needed in the 3c builds. I do like the direction the UWr list is going though:

4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
1 Teferi, Time Raveler
3 Orim's Chant

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
2 Predict
2 Intuition

4 Underworld Breach
4 Brain Freeze
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Lotus Petal

2 Lightning Bolt
1 Sevinne's Reclamation

2 Prismatic Vista
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tundra
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Mountain

SIDEBOARD
2 Serenity
3 Wear
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
3 Monastery Mentor
2 Silence

FTW

02-20-2020, 02:48 PM

The Intuition tech is smart. AnziD got the list from Rodrigo. It's linked in the primer under paper lists. (made a top 8 this weekend)

EOT Intuition for: Sevinne's Reclamation, Underworld Breach, Lion's Eye Diamond.
If they give you Sevinne, you can cast it for Breach and go off.
If they give you Breach, you can go off.
If they give you LED, you can crack it for WWW and flashback Sevinne for LED + Breach to go off.

Other piles work too. If you already have an LED or Breach, you can replace one with Brain Freeze.
It's a clean tutor for 2 pieces at once. EOT, instant speed, no card disadvantage. That's why those lists cut ETutor. Without that trick, I think ETutor is still needed in Jeskai. I don't know if 15 lands is optimal. AnziD just copied the other guy's list.

Bryant Cook posted this recent interview with Stefan (MentalMisstep) on Jeskai Breach:
https://www.theepicstorm.com/through-the-looking-glass-jeskai-breach-with-stefan-schutz/

Stefan's still on ETutor, though he mentions the Intuition+Sevinne tech.

Cire

02-20-2020, 03:08 PM

I thought of it as an expensive trick especially with 15 lands, but actually running some loose numbers it's pretty reliable! Let's assume that each turn other than the first you can brainstorm and fetch, thus "see" an additional 3 cards. That means by turn 3 you will have "seen" about 15 cards - then, lets assume you're counting petals as "lands" (can't count LEDs since we're talking about the mana used to cast Intuition) then the chance to pull this off consistently around turn 3 is about (for when you have Intuition in hand) is about 93%. Assume, that by turn 3 you've only "seen" about 11 cards (i.e., you got a couple cantrips off or one good brainstorm) the percentage is actually still decent at 75.4%. However, I think the issue is that you can't really count Petal as a land since if they give you Sevinne you still need 3 mana to go off. So the percentages under the same assumptions (but assuming one more card draw (for the 3rd land to cast Sevinne, since you can petal to cast intuition) for you since you're casting it EOOT) are 84.4% and 63.1%, which is still pretty solid.

FTW

02-20-2020, 03:31 PM

I am very curious about the 4 color decks. One thing I have noticed about the Breach builds is that there is a lot of card disadvantage, and it always feels bad....always.

Since I have settled back on the Infernal Tutor plan we may as well play Ad Nauseam. AN is a real card advantage engine as you all know if you followed TES or ANT over the years and it works for us in the same way.

Here is what the MD looks like right now:

4 Lotus Petal
4 LED
4 Dark Ritual

4 Underworld Breach
3 Brain Freeze
1 Memory Sluice
1 Grapeshot

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ad Nauseam

4 Thoughtseize
3 Veil of Summer

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

4 Arcum’s Astrolabe

4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 tropical Island
2 Island
1 Swamp

You might be interested in this list, that came 3rd in last weekend's MTGO Legacy Challenge.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-17#wonderpreaux_rd_place

It's a hybrid TES-4C Breach deck.

//Sorcery (17)
3 Burning Wish
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
3 Thoughtseize

//Instant (15)
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
1 Rain of Filth
4 Veil of Summer

//Artifact (11)
1 Defense Grid
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
2 Wishclaw Talisman

//Enchantment (1)
1 Underworld Breach

//Land (16)
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

//Sideboard (15)
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Echo of Eons
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Flusterstorm
1 Grapeshot
1 Hull Breach
1 Massacre
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Tormod's Crypt

It maxes out on the overlap cards (cantrips, discard, Wish, Veil, fast mana, Grid). Then it runs 1-ofs: Breach, Brain Freeze, Ad Nauseam. Once you get a tutor online, you can go off with either engine. Looks like their plan is to dodge hate. If life total is pressured, go to Breach combo. If graveyard is pressured, use ANT or Wish for Echo/EtW.

It surprised the meta and did well. SoulStrong still placed 10th in that event with ETutor Jeskai though, so Jeskai is still a contender.

shojeel

02-20-2020, 04:22 PM

You might be interested in this list, that came 3rd in last weekend's MTGO Legacy Challenge.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-17#wonderpreaux_rd_place

.........

It's a hybrid TES-4C Breach deck.

It maxes out on the overlap cards (cantrips, discard, Wish, Veil, fast mana, Grid). Then it runs 1-ofs: Breach, Brain Freeze, Ad Nauseam. Once you get a tutor online, you can go off with either engine. Looks like their plan is to dodge hate. If life total is pressured, go to Breach combo. If graveyard is pressured, use ANT or Wish for Echo/EtW.

It surprised the meta and did well. SoulStrong still placed 10th in that event with ETutor Jeskai though, so Jeskai is still a contender.

I am still on 5c as I do see benefits from running Astrolabe and all of the good 1 drop "protection" spells. I am trying out Intuition as it actually seems smart, but I may go back to B-Wish/IT/Wishclaw depending on further testing. I played about 10 matches last night and didn't drop a single game with the 5c B-wish build. More to come.

Mainboard

//Selection (12)
4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
4 Ponder

//Combo and Wincons (16)
4 Underworld Breach
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Lotus Petal
3 Brain Freeze
2 Lightning Bolt

//Protection (9)
3 Veil of Summer
3 Orim's Chant
3 Thoughtseize

//Other (3)
2 Intuition
1 Sevinne's Reclamation

//Color Fix (4)
4 Arcum's Astrolabe

//Lands (16)
1 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
1 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Underground Sea

//Sideboard
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Serenity
3 Wear
3 Monastery Mentor
1 Thoughtseize
1 Veil of Summer
2 Silence

Michael Keller

02-20-2020, 11:31 PM

I like your Grixis build. How useful was Bob? What was your loss to in the Legacy Prelim?

Dystopia and Plague Engineer are interesting. I'm guessing you chose 3cc answers on purpose (Chalice, Prelate)? How did they perform? Did Dystopia ever kill an Oko?

I agree. Pact is very strong. Most good Jeskai lists run 1-2 copies. Jbinder's RUG build runs 2 copies.

There was a lot of discussion about it in the old thread. If you carefully manage your graveyard size, Pact is active at all windows of interaction!

Cast Breach (Pact is in your hand to counter their spell)
Breach resolves
Crack LED for UUU (Pact goes to graveyard before opponent has priority and can be immediately escaped)
combo off (Pact is in graveyard to escape)
etc..

Went 4-1 again with the same list tweaked a bit in a League tonight. It feels really strong.

FYI: Dystopia is incredible, especially against Deafening Silence, Taxes, Oko, Ouphe, etc. And yes, it did kill one Oko. I Pushed a Thalia end step, untapped and played Dystopia. That was that. In a pinch, buying back Pushes as a de facto Wrath is pretty funny.

nevilshute

02-21-2020, 12:57 AM

FTW

02-21-2020, 01:54 AM

Playing intuition without access to sol lands feels like a risky proposition as it makes soft countermagic a lot better against us. E-tutor is card disadvantage, yes, but much easier to resolve and can get each piece of the combo.

How do people feel about that point?

Daze/Wasteland/Thalia was the original reason we dismissed Intuition when it came up in the old thread a month ago. It's a valid concern. But back then we only thought of it as getting 3 copies of 1 card. Sevinne tech opens up a lot more piles. Paying 3 mana to get 1 combo piece is not that good (vs 1 mana and -1 draw step), but paying 3 mana EOT to get 2 pieces is quite strong.

If you have Brain Freeze in hand
Pile: Sevinne, Breach, LED. With 3 lands in play and some cards in the GY, this is enough to win.

If you have Breach in hand
Pile: LED, Petal, Brain Freeze

If you have LED in hand/play
Pile: Sevinne, Breach, Brain Freeze.

Postboard
Aggro pile: 3x Monastery Mentor

Intuition also allows you to board out some copies of LED and Brain Freeze, to have better draws vs disruption, because you can still tutor them when you need them. Intuition also wins around Chalice @ 1 while ETutor gets stuck with all your cantrips.

That said, watching AnziD's streams with Rodrigo Togores' build, he doesn't cast Intuition that often. The cost does seem prohibitive. I also think the SB is also suboptimal without ETutor or Wishes to grab silver bullets, forcing multiple copies of a few cards instead of diverse interaction.

nevilshute

02-21-2020, 06:11 AM

Yeah it’s definitely nice to be able to tutor up all 3 pieces with Intuition with Sevinne’s in the deck. Have yet to try it and so I don’t want to be too dismissive, but yeah, I worry about Intution.

Other than that I’m currently having a lot of fun and some decent results with the deck. I’m a bit rusty as I’ve been away from magic more or less through all of 2019.

One thing I’ve noticed playing the deck is that I rarely mulligan compared to other decks. But when I do mulligan it seems to be because of the manabase and in particular the basic mountain and to a lesser extent the basic plains. But it’s a weakness in one game and a strength in the next so it’s not something I feel comfortable experimenting on quite yet.

I’m on 16 lands (4 basics, 2 duals 10 fetches) for reference.

Mr Miagi

02-21-2020, 07:32 AM

shojeel

02-21-2020, 08:38 AM

Lemon

02-21-2020, 08:57 AM

I've been following this thread and deck for a while now and it's been putting up some strong results lately. Before I sink time and energy into learning deck and graveyard piles how likely do you think it is that Breach gets banned? Is this deck too consitant and degenerate and the same time even for legacy?

I would personally be very disappointed if they banned it. Beyond sinking money and time into the deck, I don't feel like it's any more or less powerful than other legacy cards. It's the new kid on the block and people haven't figured out the best way to attack it. It's unacceptable to most hate (I've had people board in all 15 sideboard cards against me because they were all good). The only thing that doesn't hit it is creature removal. Artifact hate stops LED\Petal, Enchantment hate stops Breach, Graveyard Hate stops escape, Hand hate (discard) tears apart our combo and slows us down, mana denial is great against our fairly flimsy mana base, Storm Hate is a must remove. The problem people are running into is that they feel like any one of these should just win them the game, and are upset when an opening Leyline and Null Rod doesn't do it.

I honestly think that in 3-4 months this deck will just be another tier two one-trick-pony deck like Belcher.

shojeel

02-21-2020, 09:20 AM

........I honestly think that in 3-4 months this deck will just be another tier two one-trick-pony deck like Belcher.

I do not agree here. While I agree with the rest of what you said I do not think this deck is going to be tier 2. This thing is still evolving and is putting up results in the meantime. That is some good staying power and power level. The deck is very real and I will put my neck on the line and say that in the event that this does not get a ban it will be a Tier 1 deck. I have been having some great success (in my best Borat voice) with most of the builds and the 5c build is where I am focusing now. Out of 20 matches I have lost 2 (although be it in the MTGO Practice room), one to a Grixis Breach build running Sentinel Tower, and a jund build with triple hate in g2 and g3 that I couldn't get all answered.

This deck is not a flash in the pan and I for one hope it stays out from under the ban hammer.

Michael Keller

02-21-2020, 09:27 AM

FTW

02-21-2020, 09:33 AM

I've been following this thread and deck for a while now and it's been putting up some strong results lately. Before I sink time and energy into learning deck and graveyard piles how likely do you think it is that Breach gets banned? Is this deck too consitant and degenerate and the same time even for legacy?

I don't see it getting banned yet:
-Not taking over a huge part of the meta
-No faster than other tier 1 combos (BR Reanimator, TES, Turbo Depths)
-Many many ways for opponent to interact
-Format is adapting. Players are learning how to beat it or board against it.

Bryant Cook is getting a ton of wins with TES right now too. It may just be that combo is well-positioned due to a few factors like London mulligan, Veil of Summer, less discard seeing play (due to Veil), and Oko not being able to Elk spells. Seriously, why would anyone pass the turn with nonland permanents in a format with Oko backed by FoW? Oko/Astrolabe seem at much higher risk of banning.

I was thinking even RUG Breach could run 1-2 Oko as a way to kill hate pieces (Elk them). At 3cc it cleanly gets around any choices for Chalice or Prelate, it pitches to FoW, it can double as a backup win condition. It could be the SB Mentor in RUG.

Michael Keller

02-21-2020, 09:53 AM

I don't see it getting banned yet:
-Not taking over a huge part of the meta
-No faster than other tier 1 combos (BR Reanimator, TES, Turbo Depths)
-Many many ways for opponent to interact
-Format is adapting. Players are learning how to beat it or board against it.

Bryant Cook is getting a ton of wins with TES right now too. It may just be that combo is well-positioned due to a few factors like London mulligan, Veil of Summer, less discard seeing play (due to Veil), and Oko not being able to Elk spells. Seriously, why would anyone pass the turn with nonland permanents in a format with Oko backed by FoW? Oko/Astrolabe seem at much higher risk of banning.

I was thinking even RUG Breach could run 1-2 Oko as a way to kill hate pieces (Elk them). At 3cc it cleanly gets around any choices for Chalice or Prelate, it pitches to FoW, it can double as a backup win condition. It could be the SB Mentor in RUG.

Underworld Breach is not getting banned. It requires a ton of setup and is much more susceptible to graveyard hate than traditional storm decks.

As an aside, playing a Grixis or non-white version feels great when your opponent E-Tutors and you Freeze them after the fact.

FTW

02-21-2020, 10:04 AM

Intuition seems inherently dangerous to play in a world with ubiquitous Surgical Extraction - especially when the deck is overly reliant on Underworld Breach.

The Intuition builds have put up a decent win %. Togores did well at MKM. AnziD's at about 80% wins (> 50 matches) with the Intuition version.

Surgical doesn't see play game 1. G2/G3 Intuition can be boarded out vs Surgical decks, or there are other ways to manoever around it (counter Surgical, cast Chant first).

much more susceptible to graveyard hate than traditional storm decks

More susceptible, don't know about "much more". Cabal Rit & PiF engines are shut down pretty hard by grave hate.

Surgical and Faerie Macabre are very weak against us, can almost be ignored (as long as Breach doesn't get extracted). Cards like Crypt and Bog are bigger problems, but we can still go off through those effects with a little help and win that turn. Leyline is a big deal but we pack a lot of answers for it. If there is a lot of GY hate, Jeskai's Mentor plan B is very strong. Of the top hate cards I worry about and see other Jeskai players struggle with, I don't think any are grave hate ironically.

shojeel

02-21-2020, 03:43 PM

Is there a Discord for this deck yet? Have a link?

Cire

02-21-2020, 06:15 PM

Small test notes on Sylvan Library. Note - I tested it as a 2 of in a URgw list with 3 Etutors. Outside combo pieces only other Tutor Targets were post board Defense Grid and Serenity. Out of 7 paper matches (17 games total) found myself tutoring for Library in 3 games. Each time I tutored for it, Library was quickly able to give me Card Quality and Card Advantage enough to win (moreover, it "payed" for the loss in advantage from Etutor). Games I didn't tutor for it, I either tutored to complete the combo or get Serenity. Did not find myself tutoring for Defense Grid. There is also obvious dis-synergy between Serenity and Library but found that I usually kept Library active until it crafted a good hand and then got Serenity to allow me to actually win. Drawing the Library was also good, it pays for itself in card quality fairly well, and provides card advantage fairly well as well. This deck has lately been playing slow so the life loss was a factor in 2 of the games I played leading to a loss. That could probably change with more exp. For skeptical I just suggest playing it as a 2 of in a RUG list before experimenting with URgw lists. Also testing with Library made me appreciate the suggestion of Bob for black as well. Would be curious to see how a list running both of them would work?

shojeel

02-21-2020, 09:39 PM

Small test notes on Sylvan Library.....................Drawing the Library was also good, it pays for itself in card quality fairly well, and provides card advantage fairly well as well. This deck has lately been playing slow so the life loss was a factor in 2 of the games I played leading to a loss. That could probably change with more exp. For skeptical I just suggest playing it as a 2 of in a RUG list before experimenting with URgw lists. Also testing with Library made me appreciate the suggestion of Bob for black as well. Would be curious to see how a list running both of them would work?

Some questions, @Cire

How often were you drawing extra cards?

Did you find yourself getting lands to shuffle more?

Were you playing preordain or thought scour?

I am very interested in the card. The 5c version I am experimenting with now could use something like that. I currently play preordain but with SL I could definitely see playing Thought Scour! It almost becomes an ancestral recall in some situations. I am not sold on the Intuition and am still looking for raw card advantage/selection. This deck can play the long game. SL may also allow us to play cards like Force of Vigor if we run more green (Veils, Naturalize?, Tinder Wall?...just spit-ballin'). If you think that the life loss is too much but the selection is amazing we could always look at Miri's Guile. I feel like the ability to Diving Top every upkeep for one G mana could be really cool.

I look forward to discussing this.

Lemon

02-21-2020, 10:12 PM

Is there a Discord for this deck yet? Have a link?
It's a subsection of the storm discord.
https://discord.gg/Eq36TEM

FTW

02-22-2020, 10:15 AM

Both Sylvan Library and Dark Confidant seem like strong sources of card draw.

The Jeskai Intuition deck uses 2 Predict for card advantage. After watching a bunch of AnziD's streams, Predict looks pretty good. With 12 cantrips you can usually set it up so you cantrip the turn before and leave a card you want to get rid of (or LED or Freeze) either 1st or 2nd from the top (depending on whether you want to Predict this turn, EOT, upkeep, or next turn). Then you get 1 controlled mill + draw 2, which is quite strong. It's similar to the Thought Scour trick except 2 cards go to hand instead. Effectively 2.5 cards for 1U.

FTW

02-22-2020, 05:44 PM

Just noticed we're already the 2nd biggest deck in the online metagame now, according to MTG Goldfish.

AnziD got 4-1 in the preliminaries both Thursday and Friday, using the Jeskai Intuition build. I still prefer the ETutor build but he's getting good results.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2789438#online

ziofrancone also got 4-1 in Friday's preliminary with Jeskai Intuition (2 of the 4 decks at 4-1 or higher were Jeskai Breach):
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2789437#online

His build cuts down to 1 Intuition, runs 2 Thought Scour over Predicts, has Grapeshot as a wincon, and runs the traditional 16 lands and 4 Lotus Petals (AnziD's on 15 lands and 3 Petals, less mana).

Lemon

02-22-2020, 11:04 PM

I think the current record for a deck to go from N&D to DTB is Dark Depth-Hogaak, but let's see if we can beat that record from the time Underworld Break actually becomes legal :laugh:

Just noticed we're already the 2nd biggest deck in the online metagame now, according to MTG Goldfish.

I'm pretty sure we beat Gaak's record. We did have 2 top 8's before the card was event legal in paper :laugh:

FTW

02-23-2020, 06:15 PM

I'm pretty sure we beat Gaak's record. We did have 2 top 8's before the card was event legal in paper :laugh:

https://www.mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=893&f=LE&meta=34

Even including paper events (this deck sees less play in paper), in the last 2 weeks Breach represents 10% of top 8s, the #1 combo spot, matched only by UR Delver and Bant Snoko.

Cire

02-24-2020, 09:27 AM

How often were you drawing extra cards?
After Etutor into Library, pretty much all the time to make up for the lost card advanatage. Otherwise about a third of the time, the digging is usually enough to help get the combo. Almost always draw after discard to recover.

Did you find yourself getting lands to shuffle more?
Tried to, but we're pretty land light.

Were you playing preordain or thought scour?

Ended up only having space for two preordain but was not happy with it. Might replace it with Scour.

Both Sylvan Library and Dark Confidant seem like strong sources of card draw.
Wonder if there is a URgb version that runs both? Bob seems really strong because while it does activate their Creature Kill they have to choose to keep their creature kill game 2 just for Bob and its dead against the rest of the deck.

Looking at Michael Keller's Confidant list (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?33269-Deck-A-Cold-Day-in-Hell-(Breach-Freeze)&p=1081249&viewfull=1#post1081249), if you want to jam in 3 Veil and 2 Libraries you could maybe do: -1 Merchant Scroll, -1 Daze, -1 Pact of negation, -1 Chain of Vapor (the singletons sort of makes sense with Scroll), -1 Preordain. But then you're sort of running low of Blue count for FOW, but still seems doable and strong with lots of tweaking.

Ronald Deuce

02-24-2020, 12:32 PM

Lemon

02-24-2020, 12:50 PM

So I finally bit the bullet and decided to buy some white cards. (Ugh. And just in time to start eyeing Intuitions.) I've got a few questions for America pilots:

—How are people optimizing the use of Grinding Station? It's definitely our riskiest engine piece, but I'm primarily concerned about running into problems with Surgical Extraction on Brain Freeze. It feels like it needs a lot of setup, though, and because it doesn't net us graveyard size, I'm not sure it's something I'd want in the maindeck. I took a quick look back at the threads but didn't see a walkthrough of how best to use it.
—I might just be obtuse, but what's the reasoning behind a split between Silence and Orim's Chant? Is it only for Surgical Extraction? Why would one want to play a double of one and a singleton/double of the other?
—As has been discussed, it seems people are cutting the Enlightened Tutor package back a fair bit. I fully support their reasoning, but what's the current thinking about anti-permanent cards in the mainboard?
—Win-cons are rising and falling, presumably because this deck's so new. Is it worth it to keep a Thassa's Oracle in the 75 to deal with Leylines and such, or would it be better to just run removal?
—No love for Plateau? I've been finding myself wanting it on occasion.

I'm trying something a bit odd at the moment. I've got two Burning Wishes in the main in place of other win conditions. My reasoning was that with Wishes, we can dig ourselves out of something like a Chalice on 1 or maindeck shenanigans from people playing RiP–Helm and stuff. That brings me to a final question: What do you guys prioritize in your sideboard suites?

I hope this doesn't come across as too needy a post, but I'm sort of all over the place right now. I got the cards just before I had to move over the weekend, so I've not had the time to read much or work with the deck in its newest (to me) incarnation.

1) Grinding station is a 'must go off this turn' card that acts as a tutorable tutor for Brain Freeze. It's untap trigger triggers with it's own entry, so always respond to that by eating your petal\LED. That way when you finally find BF, you can tap to eat itself and have +6 cards to escape both LED\Petal and BF.

2) Orim's Chant targets, and can't be cast against a Leyline of Sanctity

3) I am still fully on the Etutor package and am running 3 MD Chain of Vapors to deal with troublesome permanents. I would be hard pressed to cut even one.

4) I don't think Thassa's Oracle is worth running. You can always run a utility card like Chain of Vapor that you can escape to bounce it. I'm also on Burning Wish though and my main plan is Wish -> Grapeshot instead of BF, which has a ton of incidental problems. (Just yesterday someone revealed a Second Sunrise and said they were planning on then sacing everything to a ravager and moving it to a balista for the kill.)

5) It's one of those cards that phases into and out of the deck. I personally don't own one, but can understand why some people want it and others don't. It's an awful top deck land, but sometimes very very nice to fetch.

6) I have about 50:50 wishboard:sideboard split. Wishboards I think need a minimum of Infernal Tutor, Tome Scour, and Grapeshot. I'm also running Meltdown, Eye of Nowhere, Pyroclasm, and Sivinne's Reclamation. The rest of the board is mostly tutorables. Link is in my signature to my current list.

FTW

02-24-2020, 01:43 PM

—How are people optimizing the use of Grinding Station? It's definitely our riskiest engine piece, but I'm primarily concerned about running into problems with Surgical Extraction on Brain Freeze. It feels like it needs a lot of setup, though, and because it doesn't net us graveyard size, I'm not sure it's something I'd want in the maindeck. I took a quick look back at the threads but didn't see a walkthrough of how best to use it.

Grinding Station is a 1-of in the ETutor lists to have a tutorable copy of Brain Freeze. The other pieces (Breach, LED, Petal) are tutorable but Brain Freeze isn't. It's much worse than the main line, but if you already have Breach and a mana rock it beats passing the turn a bunch of times until you draw Brain Freeze. It's not playable without ETutor.

You generally don't blind self-mill with it until the combo turn, so it doesn't open up any new Surgical vulnerabilities. Casting Chant before you go off helps. You can watch some of AnziD's earlier streams (January) to see him use it in MentalMisstep's ETutor build.

It doesn't need much setup. It helps to cast Grinding Station on a precombo turn. With Grinding Station + LED/Petal + Breach in play it can go off with as little as 0 cards in the graveyard (as long as you sequenced so your last spell was an artifact). More cards in GY is always better to enable more lines, but that's the bare minimum.

Last artifact spell resolves (Station, LED or Petal)
Station triggers
In response, T: sacrifice LED/Petal to mill 3 (GY size = 4)
Station untaps

If Brain Freeze is not in those cards:
Exile 3 cards to escape LED if you've found it, otherwise Petal (GY size=0, storm +1)
Station triggers
In response, T: sacrifice LED/Petal to mill 3 (GY size = 4)
Station untaps

Keep repeating until you're able to escape LED (not Lotus Petal) and find Brain Freeze in the 3 cards milled.

If Brain Freeze is in those cards:
T: sacrifice Grinding Station to mill 3 (GY size = 8)
Exile Grinding Station + 2 filler to escape LED (GY size = 4, storm +1)
Crack LED for UUU (GY size = 5)
Exile 3 other cards, not LED or BF, to escape Brain Freeze (GY size = 1)

Then you have Brain Freeze + LED and a large graveyard.
This line is nondeterministic but will hit Brain Freeze most of the time with enough storm and cards to win.

With a higher initial graveyard size and/or more lands in play there are many more lines:
Grinding Station + Lotus Petal can get you a BF win without LED (e.g. LED was extracted). You just need more cards and/or mana to make that 1U.

You can play around Surgical/Faerie Macabre on BF by floating 1U before Grinding (e.g. escape LED one more time, escape Petal twice, tap lands). When you hit BF you have the mana to cast it immediately in response to any targets on it so they cannot Surgical it.

Grinding Station or Petal/LED can start in graveyard. Again, you just need the extra cards and/or mana to escape them first.

You can escape a Silence effect or Pact to handle tricks like Surgical.

You can Grind through your whole library and directly escape Burning Wish/Grapeshot/Thassa's Oracle without ever casting Brain Freeze. (e.g. BF extracted). You just need to make sure you'll have enough resources to both escape and generate the mana.

Once you know the requirements of the main loop, it just takes some math to figure out how many extra cards you need for the alternate lines given your game state. Extra lands save you cards, because you won't have to escape mana rocks as often. e.g. on a Lotus Petal line, each mana costs either 1 land or 3 cards, and each extra spell cast cost 4 cards (3 to escape, plus 1 to save room for that card).

—I might just be obtuse, but what's the reasoning behind a split between Silence and Orim's Chant? Is it only for Surgical Extraction? Why would one want to play a double of one and a singleton/double of the other?

Subtle differences between Orim's Chant and Silence. One targets. Name diversity dodges Surgical, Therapy, Meddling Mage. Kicking Chant is very rarely relevant. If you do kick Chant, it works even if opponent is hexproof (target yourself).

—As has been discussed, it seems people are cutting the Enlightened Tutor package back a fair bit. I fully support their reasoning, but what's the current thinking about anti-permanent cards in the mainboard?

The Intuition build lacks the same ability to answer permanents in game 1. You could run a few singleton answers but won't see them reliably. Even G2/G3, a lot of sideboard space is wasted running multiple copies of important answers, which limits answer diversity. It can answer some cards very well and has 0 answers for some other cards (e.g. Karn).

—Win-cons are rising and falling, presumably because this deck's so new. Is it worth it to keep a Thassa's Oracle in the 75 to deal with Leylines and such, or would it be better to just run removal?

The difference in win % is very marginal, so it's hard to tell. The deck is new and mostly played in 5-round events.
You need access to enchantment removal either way, so Leylines are not really a problem.

—No love for Plateau? I've been finding myself wanting it on occasion.

It would probably take the spot of a basic Mountain or Plains or a spell. The deck can support very few nonblue lands to get good use out of cantrips and have keepable opening hands. If you think you could do without that other card, try it out.

I'm trying something a bit odd at the moment. I've got two Burning Wishes in the main in place of other win conditions.

Personally I prefer that option too, better than Intuition. Burning Wish taxes SB space, but it also allows you to be more efficient with space in other ways, so there's a tradeoff. Wish builds don't need 3x Wear // Tear SB or a "win con" spot main.

The primer has some example of Wishboard cards. You can also see Jbinder's lists (linked). They're RUG instead of Jeskai, but he runs a very similar Wishboard.

FTW

02-24-2020, 04:25 PM

Sarusta made 4th in this weekend's Legacy Challenge, barely squeezing into top 8 at 5-2:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2020-02-24#sarusta_th_place

2 other Jeskai Breach decks at 5-2 but missed the top cut on tiebreakers:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/legacy-challenge-12094313#paper

Look at the rest of the top 4... Eldrazi Post, Eldrazi Post, BR Reanimator. Also 2 4C Loam in the top decks. These are tough matchups for Jeskai Breach. Lots of permanent-based hate. The meta is adapting to beat us.

This could be a good reason to favor the Burning Wish builds over the Intuition build. Intuition enables some powerful G1 piles and lets you swap a high number of cards postboard, but it's the worst at finding SB answers. ETutor and BWish lists can run niche singletons.

Chain of Vapor or Burning Wish->Void Snare are among Jeskai's few outs to a resolved Karn. The Intuition build has 0 outs in the 75. Eldrazi Post runs 4 Karn backed by 4 Chalice + X Trini + 4 ThoughtseizeSeer. I don't see those Intuition Breach decks doing any better against those Post decks.

FTW

02-24-2020, 08:13 PM

Anuraag made 8th in the Dice City Games Open with the Intuition build:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/dice-city-games-legacy-revised-open-2020-02-24#paper

3 other Jeskai Breach decks in the top 16!!
Jesse Hatfield made 9th with the ETutor build proving it still has legs too:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2794650#paper

I'd credit the popularity of the Intuition build to Anuraag's stream, not that it's necessarily better. The ETutor build has put up great results over the last 5 weeks.

shojeel

02-24-2020, 09:42 PM

We should talk about our problem matchups. Karn Decks are not easy, and neither are Reanimator or Loam. What cards help us beat them from each color? We can't just rely on B-Wish to Voidsnare.

FTW

02-24-2020, 10:16 PM

We should talk about our problem matchups. Karn Decks are not easy, and neither are Reanimator or Loam. What cards help us beat them from each color? We can't just rely on B-Wish to Voidsnare.

Karn is a must-counter. I won't Force a Chalice @ 0 or 3sphere if my hand has a reasonable chance at finding an answer, but Karn demands a counter. If it resolves then we're in trouble. Void Snare is far from optimal, it's just one of the few ways we can buy a turn to go off when we otherwise just lose. I don't know if that's worth a sideboard slot. Bounce is just one of the very few outs. ETutor for Detention Sphere would also work.

ETutor is MVP for me these matchups.

Against Karn decks and Moon decks I ETutor for Serenity. It's significantly better than Seal of Cleansing or Wear // Tear due to the high number of artifacts they play plus Leylines postboard. Serenity can 4-for-1 their board and also Time Walk (they won't play any more artifacts until it blows). This is insane value for 2 mana. I try to time it so Serenity blows the upkeep I'm about to go off. Since their deck plays at sorcery speed, that's hard for them to play around. Instant ETutor putting the card on top of library also dodges TKS.

With a Karn out, Serenity is also Time Walk if they're telegraphing Lattice and you have nothing better. If you play Serenity, Lattice turns into a game reset for both players (destroy all permanents). We recover faster than them so we probably win this game of chicken, buying a free turn to try to go off. The other out to Lattice is to float mana, let Lattice resolve, then Wear // Tear @ Karn.

Against Reanimator, we have to play the control role. We can't race. Counters are strong. AnziD aggressively Forces every Entomb. If they T1 Dark Ritual OTD and you don't have a counter, respond with Chant. ETutor finds a 1-of Silent Gravestone in my SB. Gravestone plays double duty. It protects us from GY hate and also acts as Meddling Mage on Reanimate and Animate Dead, cutting them down to only Exhume.

As you can see, postboard I often use ETutor to shutdown multiple cards from their deck at once, which makes up for the card disadvantage. A card I want to test more against hatebear decks is 1-of Porphyry Nodes, which will kill ALL the Collector Ouphes and Thalias and Prelate @ 2 when a single StP falls flat. 1-of Engineered Explosives probably also belongs in the 75.

Against Loam I haven't figured out a good strategy yet. Silence effects stop Crop Rotation into Bojuka Bog, but we also need artifact/enchantment kill to deal with cards like Chalice and Spheres. AnziD seemed to struggle against Loam without a cohesive plan.

What are your strategies for these decks?

shojeel

02-25-2020, 09:31 AM

@FTW I just started a FB group and I am wondering if I can use your primer there, either link or copy/paste? Obviously I would include you as the author :)

FTW

02-26-2020, 12:06 AM

@FTW I just started a FB group and I am wondering if I can use your primer there, either link or copy/paste? Obviously I would include you as the author :)

Yeah sure, feel free to link the primer. Linking is probably easier than copy/pasting. It's long, and it will be edited over time.

What are your thoughts on those tough matchups? Interested to hear your strategies.

EDIT: The 6-1 4C Loam deck from the Challenge even had a 1-of Kunoros, Hound of Athreos SB. In a Loam deck. This has 0 synergy with the engine, it's just hate for decks like Breach.
Look at all the hate this deck packs for Breach!

//Maindeck: 10
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Blast Zone

//Sideboard: 9
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Kunoros, Hound of Athreos

Ironically they have KotR but no Bojuka Bogs. Knight bluff??
Anyway, how do we beat all these axes of hate? Hatebears, Chalice, Decay, Leylines.

JackaBo

02-26-2020, 08:03 AM

Isnt that the thing with combodecks. That they can be hated on to the point where it’s unplayable. I don’t think you can expect to beat that kind of hate. I think that’s a good thing as it prevent combo winter and might lead to that Ub mustn’t be banned.
Of course using so many slots to breach means other matchups are sacrificed. So i guess you wont see that much hate forever.

I much rather see that Legacy adopts vintage deckbuilding norm, with serious hate in the board and possibly maindeck, than that people don’t try to fight the best deck and instead call for a ban.

shojeel

02-26-2020, 08:41 AM

Yeah sure, feel free to link the primer. Linking is probably easier than copy/pasting. It's long, and it will be edited over time.

What are your thoughts on those tough matchups? Interested to hear your strategies.

EDIT: The 6-1 4C Loam deck from the Challenge even had a 1-of Kunoros, Hound of Athreos SB. In a Loam deck. This has 0 synergy with the engine, it's just hate for decks like Breach.
Look at all the hate this deck packs for Breach!

//Maindeck: 10
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Blast Zone

//Sideboard: 9
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Kunoros, Hound of Athreos

Ironically they have KotR but no Bojuka Bogs. Knight bluff??
Anyway, how do we beat all these axes of hate? Hatebears, Chalice, Decay, Leylines.

Thanks! I’ll link it later today.

My findings on the tough matchups are:
1. Karn
2. Taxes (death&, Eldrazi.....and maybe moon lock)
3. 4-5c Loam

....with an honorable mention to any discard heavy builds. Everything else is pretty well matched for us. Of course I am playing a different build than most, being 5 color. I have moved back to 3 B wish in the main to deal with “bad stuff” (By force, Reverent Silence) and to find out missing pieces through Tome Scour and Infernal Tutor. I am running Grapeshot in the SB as an alt win-con. I may add a massacre. None of that shuts off Karn, which is a real problem for us, so I am running a 2/2 split of CoV and Echoing Truth along with 4 FoW. 3 slots are still flexible in the SB and I have 2-3 flex spots in my main. Right now the main is 2 Bolts and 1 Inution. The 3 SB cards are changing all the time as I have not found anything that makes me happy yet.

Michael Keller

02-26-2020, 09:15 AM

Thanks! I’ll link it later today.

My findings on the tough matchups are:
1. Karn
2. Taxes (death&, Eldrazi.....and maybe moon lock)
3. 4-5c Loam

....with an honorable mention to any discard heavy builds. Everything else is pretty well matched for us. Of course I am playing a different build than most, being 5 color. I have moved back to 3 B wish in the main to deal with “bad stuff” (By force, Reverent Silence) and to find out missing pieces through Tome Scour and Infernal Tutor. I am running Grapeshot in the SB as an alt win-con. I may add a massacre. None of that shuts off Karn, which is a real problem for us, so I am running a 2/2 split of CoV and Echoing Truth along with 4 FoW. 3 slots are still flexible in the SB and I have 2-3 flex spots in my main. Right now the main is 2 Bolts and 1 Inution. The 3 SB cards are changing all the time as I have not found anything that makes me happy yet.

The key to making the deck really shine in post-board games is to make Breach an incidental value engine - not necessarily the primary win condition of the deck. This is why I think having a combination of Dark Confidant, Monastery Mentor and some other aggressive strategy really helps the deck in those games. To that end, Breach becomes just a good card to draw for added value where you can buy back a few cantrips or removal spells.

One has to wonder if Pyroclasm is a good sideboard option, in addition to some number of Blood Moon or Ensnaring Bridge for those other decks. Another card I've been using out of my board is Meltdown as a one-of, possibly two. I know Wear // Tear operates on the same axis, and will always have a place in the sideboard. That being said, Meltdown can gain huge value against Tomb decks in post-board games looking to aggressively mulligan for Chalice or some other combination of problematic artifacts. And it certainly has blowout value against other artifact decks.

thefringthing

02-26-2020, 10:33 AM

Sweepers and Mentors are a bit of a nonbo.

Mr. Safety

02-26-2020, 11:03 AM

Sweepers and Mentors are a bit of a nonbo.

I think it's pretty easy to chain a few spells, some of them free artifacts, and get all but one monk out of Pyroclasm range. It does however clear problematic creatures like Containment Priest, Ethersworn Canonist, Meddling Mage etc, while providing an out to Empty the Warrens or other problematic board situations involving small creatures. Pyroclasm also basically says 'kill target Death and Taxes player's chances of winning"..

Ronald Deuce

02-29-2020, 10:47 AM

Still haven't had much time for testing, but here's what I'm working on right now. Still trying Burning Wish and Enlightened Tutor, but I'm also running a bit of green out of the sideboard for Veils and Reverent Silence. The sideboard's crowded, and maybe kinda bad, but I like boarding minimally while keeping access to both tutorable and wishable haymaker removal/a fifth Brain Freeze/utility singletons. It's lukewarm garbage, and I'll readily admit this deck is trying to do too many things at once, but here goes. Roast me like a—uh, a soon-to-be-roasted thing:

4x Flooded Strand
3x Scalding Tarn
1x Arid Mesa
1x Volcanic Island
1x Tundra
1x Plateau
1x Tropical Island
1x Taiga
1x Snow-covered Island
1x Snowy Mountain
1x Snowy Plains

4x Brain Freeze
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Force of Will
3x Preordain
1x Spell Pierce (or a fourth Preordain. I kind of hate both cards.)
1x Seal of Removal

4x Underworld Breach
3x Burning Wish

3x Enlightened Tutor
2x Orim's Chant
1x Silence
1x Seal of Cleansing

4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Grinding Station

SB:

3x Veil of Summer
Reverent Silence
Stream of Thought
Sevinne's Reclamation
Grapeshot
Pulverize
Infernal Tutor
Serenity
Porphyry Nodes
Silent Gravestone
Defense Grid
Chain of Vapor
Wear'n'Tear

Against control, Force and Seal of Removal come out for Defense Grid, Veils, and something else depending on what hate cards I'm up against. Against Chalices and Leylines and such, Chant effects come out for artifact/enchantment removal. I probably need more answers to Chalice. Against hatey-hate-hate people, bring on the Nodes and Chain of Vapor and cut Chant effects. (I might need more removal, too.) Against combo, depending on the combo, Veils, Chain, and Silent Gravestone for one or both Seals and a couple of Wishes.

I'd give my brewing skillz a B-minus/C-plus. I'm new to the whole Legacy brewing thing. What to cut? What's missing? How overcrowded is this monstrosity? When can I actually get my ass to a tournament again?

EDIT: I know, I know; I forgot Pyroclasm.

FTW

02-29-2020, 03:37 PM

Sweepers and Mentors are a bit of a nonbo.

Even in games where Mentor is boarded in, it's only on the battlefield maybe 20% of turns. You have to actually draw into Mentor and control what the opponent's doing first. Once Mentor is out, if it's unanswered, you win in 1-2 turns. It's not out long. If you need removal, you often prioritize removal first. AnziD has a recent stream where he punted a win by going for Mentor instead of just removing the threats on board. Afterwards, he and the whole chat agreed removal first was the better line.

In the rare case you may have to use a sweeper after casting Mentor, Pyroclasm doesn't kill Monastery Mentor. With any other spell (e.g. Burning Wish -> Pyroclasm, cantrip, Petal), it doesn't kill the Monks either. You could even Pyroclasm to clear the blockers and then attack for the win.

FTW

02-29-2020, 03:55 PM

It's lukewarm garbage, and I'll readily admit this deck is trying to do too many things at once, but here goes. Roast me like a—uh, a soon-to-be-roasted thing:

Wouldn't call it garbage, but it is trying to do a lot.

The first thing I notice is you have fewer blue sources than most (12 vs 14) and only have 8 ways to get basic Island (vs 11-12 in most Jeskai lists). Basic Island is very strong with the cantrip shell. 1-landers with cantrips are normally keepable (AnziD keeps many 1-landers, and sometimes even bottoms his 2nd land on a mull to 6), but that's only a sfe keep with basic Island. Otherwise you could get blown out by Wasteland. With fewer ways to get basic Island I think you'll need more than 16 lands. More lands both to have fewer 1-landers than other lists, to have more blue sources, and to make up for the fact that you're on average losing more lands to Wasteland.

With the weaker manabase, I have to wonder if all the colors are worth it. How much value is Veil adding vs how bad a topdeck Taiga is? I wonder if those slots would be better as Mentors. With both the ETutor package and the Wishboard you don't have much SB space.

Michael Keller

02-29-2020, 08:32 PM

Top 4ed a Legacy 2K at From the Vault in Syracuse, NY. Played 4C Breach, splash black for Bob, Leyline and Plague Engineer.

ESG

03-01-2020, 12:45 AM

Top 4ed a Legacy 2K at From the Vault in Syracuse, NY. Played 4C Breach, splash black for Bob, Leyline and Plague Engineer.

Nice! Well done! Today was good for me as well. I won a 1K in Snohomish, WA. I was on a UWr list with Intution + Sevinne's Reclamation, no E. Tutors, no Bolts, no Swords, and a pretty different sideboard. I'll try to post a report in the next day or two. Will be interesting to compare reports and insights. This deck is really powerful and is viable in numerous shells. There didn't seem to be much Breach at this event, but there was another Breach player in the Top 8. I think he was on the Togores list.

FTW

03-01-2020, 09:02 AM

Top 4ed a Legacy 2K at From the Vault in Syracuse, NY. Played 4C Breach, splash black for Bob, Leyline and Plague Engineer.

Congrats! Is your list online somewhere?

Where did Plague Engineer help most? I thought most of the problem hatebears are X/2.

Michael Keller

03-01-2020, 01:29 PM

Congrats! Is your list online somewhere?

Where did Plague Engineer help most? I thought most of the problem hatebears are X/2.

Not yet, I'll get it posted soon. Plague Engineer was an additional method to limit tribal decks from getting out of hand, buying time, and doing work against D&T and Delver decks.

Ronald Deuce

03-01-2020, 06:26 PM

Wouldn't call it garbage, but it is trying to do a lot.

Thanks for the input! This might come out as a bit of a garble, but I'll try to address everything you wrote—most of which I believe to be right on—and some other things. (I should also mention that I've changed up the build somewhat, going deeper on Silence effects and removing Veils for now.)

You're definitely right about Wasteland, but I've found that there are a lot of situations in which getting a basic doesn't do enough. I agree that one-landers with a basic Island or a way to find it are pretty strong in this deck, but a) I keep finding that I'm running out of gas later on with only 16 lands, and b) all our answers to hate cost mana except Force of Will. (More on Force later.) An important play is ETutor into Breach, which is really helped by having a Plateau. I also find that topdecked basics often don't line up with our plan, though I absolutely agree that one of each core color is essential. As a result, I advocate for 17 lands. Sure, I'm only on three basics (and a "bad basic" Tropical for Reverent Silence), but that's more land than I ever ran in Storm, which uses the same cantrip suite, and (at locals) I rarely found Wasteland to be a blowout when I wasn't fishtailing already. FYI, Taiga's out.

Another thing: I really don't feel comfy running so many fetches with so few things to find. Blood Moon is a beating, Leonin Arbiter/Suppression Field are perhaps worse, and when we thin our deck out too much, we stop finding anything. And as I've said, we should be prepared to expend additional resources to protect the combo.

My major attraction to Veil is/was that I find this deck is weak to discards, especially post-board. Reactive Chant effects do nothing, Force is actively bad, I personally think Spell Pierce is generally bad regardless of context, and things get worse if we're facing Surgical Extraction. I'm not running Veils at the moment, but I'm definitely interested in finding a way to do so in the future. Anybody who's been working with 4c/5c lists, your input would be appreciated greatly!

So now I come to Force of Will. I should qualify what I'm about to say by pointing out that I've been pushing the limits of the possible intentionally in my tinkering with this deck. We're working with a new combo, and this is the first time I've had all/most of the pieces to put together something that's really new to Legacy since BReanimator. That explains some card choices (the triple-Scalding Tarn instead of a quad, the Burning Wishes, etc.): I could just stick with a modified AnT, but I want to try things out and see where they lead.

I think Force of Will is one of the America-colors deck's worst mainboard cards. I've 'boarded them out pretty much every game against anything that isn't combo or Chalice. It regularly does nothing, it requires us to run mediocre/bad cards to round out our blue count, and it only shines against decks with "silver bullet" spells. Against hard control, we have better options in every color except red. Against hatebears, we have better answers in white, black, red, and blue. Against grave-hate, probably 75% of suggested sideboard cards work. Against Chaliceplusfifty-sixblankcards.dec, Force is only good if we have a way to follow up with something that actually changes the game state, and feeding Force a cantrip is counterproductive when we need to find three combo pieces to win. When Force is good, it's great; when it isn't, see above. In light of all that, has anyone tried moving Force to the sideboard? One avenue I began exploring today was to go heavier into other colors in the main deck and put Forces and similar cards like Flusterstorm in the sideboard for rough combo matchups like S&T or Reanimator.

Thank you all for any and all advice, input, criticism (it's deserved), and discussion.

ESG

03-01-2020, 06:28 PM

Report is up now: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?33287-Breach-tournament-report-Leap-Day-Legacy-1K-in-Snohomish-WA

Michael Keller

03-01-2020, 11:23 PM

Unlif3

03-02-2020, 05:42 AM

Yeah, I seem to be in the “no ban” camp for the card. It just requires a lot of setup and is more skill intensive than people give it credit for. It’s such a fun card to play. Honestly, I think it’s fine in Legacy.

At this point, we’ve got a handful of “mistake” cards that exist that were basically just printed. Breach to me is just a cool new card that pushes the boundaries. And I’m personally okay with that - especially in a format where you can die from a 20/20 on turn three or watch someone drop a flying Yawgmoth’s Bargain into play turn one.

Not that I advocate for a ban, but there are here a few things that made me want to react.

I may be nitpicking, but the "skill-intensivity" required to play a card has not in the past been a factor in WotC's decision to axe it - see Summer Bloom in Modern - at best does it give the card a small grace period.
Literally any combo deck (in Legacy at least) can be hated to the point where it's an unplayable pile of trash - Breach is no exception, especially given the fact it can be attacked on a lot of axis - but the ban decision tends to happen not only based on the possibility to hate an archetype, but on the need to do so (especially, a strong surge in maindecked graveyard or artifact hate in the weeks to come would send a signal).
Just because more powerful cards exist doesn't mean a card isn't ban-worthy - and WotC's ban policy, even in Legacy, has shown this before. Brainstorm is arguably way better than a whole lot of the cards currently banned - and yet Brainstorm is free and they're not for different reasons.

As I said before, this doesn't mean to me that the card should be banned, neither would I be especially relieved to see it go - having a deck that can legitimately pack LED and Force of Will used to be every Johnny's wet dream :laugh:

FTW

03-02-2020, 09:35 AM

I agree with Hollywood. Breach is very powerful but no more degenerate than other tier 1 combos and skill-intensive enough that it shouldn't take over the meta. The skill-intensive part means many Breach players will play it suboptimally, so it doesn't risk dominating the meta.

I may be nitpicking, but the "skill-intensivity" required to play a card has not in the past been a factor in WotC's decision to axe it - see Summer Bloom in Modern - at best does it give the card a small grace period.

I wouldn't compare a format where they banned Wild Nacatl to a format with turn 1 Griselbrand, Goblin Charbelcher, or turn 2 Marit Lage or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Modern is banhammer.format. Legacy rarely gets bans unless a card is oppressive or metagame-warping. They've shown they're OK with unfair cards in Legacy as long as the format has tools to police them and as long as players still get to cast their Brainstorms.

Cire

03-02-2020, 09:36 AM

Not yet, I'll get it posted soon. Plague Engineer was an additional method to limit tribal decks from getting out of hand, buying time, and doing work against D&T and Delver decks.

One thing I noticed about your list other than Bob is the Merchant Scroll toolbox. How is that working out for you?

03-02-2020, 09:51 AM

Cire

03-02-2020, 12:25 PM

I think Force of Will is one of the America-colors deck's worst mainboard cards. I've 'boarded them out pretty much every game against anything that isn't combo or Chalice. It regularly does nothing, it requires us to run mediocre/bad cards to round out our blue count, and it only shines against decks with "silver bullet" spells. Against hard control, we have better options in every color except red. Against hatebears, we have better answers in white, black, red, and blue. Against grave-hate, probably 75% of suggested sideboard cards work. Against Chaliceplusfifty-sixblankcards.dec, Force is only good if we have a way to follow up with something that actually changes the game state, and feeding Force a cantrip is counterproductive when we need to find three combo pieces to win. When Force is good, it's great; when it isn't, see above. In light of all that, has anyone tried moving Force to the sideboard? One avenue I began exploring today was to go heavier into other colors in the main deck and put Forces and similar cards like Flusterstorm in the sideboard for rough combo matchups like S&T or Reanimator.

The issue with FOW is that even if its not the "best answer" against Discard or Hate Bears or Silver Bullets or Gravehate is that it is an answer to each of the above AND is an answer for 0 mana. It's just impossible for other cards to replace it unless you are gearing for a specific meta.

03-02-2020, 12:40 PM

Legacy Showcase results (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-03-02)

First, second and fifth in the Showcase.

Whitefaces wins with:
Planeswalker (1)
1 Teferi, Time Raveler

Sorcery (9)
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
1 Sevinne's Reclamation

Instant (22)
4 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Intuition
1 Lightning Bolt
3 Orim's Chant
3 Predict
2 Spell Pierce

Artifact (8)
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

Enchantment (4)
4 Underworld Breach

Land (16)
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
60 Cards

Sideboard (15)
1 Flusterstorm
1 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
3 Monastery Mentor
1 Pyroblast
2 Serenity
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Wear // Tear

Cire

03-02-2020, 12:57 PM

Legacy Showcase results (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-03-02)

All three were very similar. Intuition URW Builds with T3feri.

FTW

03-02-2020, 03:22 PM

Cire

03-02-2020, 03:43 PM

FTW

03-02-2020, 03:49 PM

To me, it seems the one under discussed advantage of Intuition Builds over Enlightened Tutor builds is that they run more blue cards to support FOW. Yes E-Tutor is flexible and cheaper, and yes Intuition sometimes acts as a one card combo, but the real difference, to me, is the blue count.

The real difference is the ability to do this postboard:
-3 LED
-3 Brain Freeze
+3-4 Mentor
+2 answers

Or:
-2 LED
-2 Brain Freeze
-2 Breach
+ Mentors
+ answers

The Intuition + Sevinne trick lets him tutor the whole combo once the game is under control, which enables a sneaky space-saving trick. Postboard they can board out combo pieces and play like a UW control deck, prioritizing taking control of the game and stopping the opponent's interaction. Once they take control, then they can tutor the whole combo up with 1 card and win. That means they have more interactive cards and fewer "combo" slots, improving draw quality in grindy games and reducing vulnerability to hate.

EOT Intuition: LED, Breach, Sevinne
Your turn: Get Breach into play. LED. Escape Intuition for Brain Freeze, crack LED for UUU in response.

In racing matches, they can opt to keep the whole combo in and board out the slow engine (Intuition, Predict) for more protection. They get to straddle the line between combo and control, adjusting to beat the opponent. It's this flexibility to dodge traditional Breach hate and the strong plan B that's winning them matches.

FTW

03-02-2020, 05:23 PM

I updated the primer to include the latest Showcase results and a section on the Jeskai Intuition builds.

There were 6 Breach decks in the Showcase's Top 16, including this piece of spice (RUG Snowko Breach):
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-showcase-challenge-2020-03-02#the_atog_lord_th_place

He couldn't decide which was more oppressive in this meta, Underworld Breach or Snowko, so he just played both!
It's RUG Breach adding Astrolabe, Ice-Fang, Oko and Uro. Uro is great "backup value" when you've generated escape fuel but can't combo. Meanwhile those cards all cantrip so they don't really set you behind in the combo plan.

He also runs this amazing tech: Teferi's Realm. It's blue Serenity that hits hatebears and dodges Chalice/Prelate @ 2!

Michael Keller

03-02-2020, 09:46 PM

I've pulled three straight 4-1s with this list:

1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Prismatic Vista
1 Island
1 Mountain
4 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Spell Pierce
3 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Orim's Chant
4 Underworld Breach
4 Force of Will
3 Dark Confidant
2 Underground Sea
1 Pact of Negation
3 Vision Charm

1 Chain of Vapor
2 Wear/Tear
3 Monastery Mentor
2 Serenity
1 Teferi's Realm
2 Plague Engineer
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Silence

FTW

03-02-2020, 10:15 PM

I've pulled three straight 4-1s with this list:

Great list!

So you added white for all the best stuff, went hard on the Lightning Bolt plan (more MD removal to beat hatebears), and have Vision Charm as a Tome Scour with other utility (phases out Chalice, Crypts and Cages lol). There's a lot of redundancy in place of Preordain (the weakest cantrip), plus the card advantage from Bob.

Do you find a clash between the Bolt plan and the Vision Charm line? Bolt is a very resource-intensive kill (30 cards to exile: 3 LEDs + 7 Bolts, 24 cards if they're at 18 or lower from fetches). Vision Charm nets 0 cards as you dig into Brain Freeze, so you exile a chunk of your library without growing the graveyard. Does that ever get to a point where Bolt is unusable? Have you just gotten lucky that you never needed Bolt when you did Vision Charm lines?

I love this Teferi's Realm tech that's showing up lately. Were you ever in a position to go off by naming lands? (e.g. land in hand + Petal)

What happened to Dystopia? Not good enough with Serenity and Realm available?

No more Pyroblast?

Michael Keller

03-03-2020, 08:28 AM

Great list!

So you added white for all the best stuff, went hard on the Lightning Bolt plan (more MD removal to beat hatebears), and have Vision Charm as a Tome Scour with other utility (phases out Chalice, Crypts and Cages lol). There's a lot of redundancy in place of Preordain (the weakest cantrip), plus the card advantage from Bob.

Do you find a clash between the Bolt plan and the Vision Charm line? Bolt is a very resource-intensive kill (30 cards to exile: 3 LEDs + 7 Bolts, 24 cards if they're at 18 or lower from fetches). Vision Charm nets 0 cards as you dig into Brain Freeze, so you exile a chunk of your library without growing the graveyard. Does that ever get to a point where Bolt is unusable? Have you just gotten lucky that you never needed Bolt when you did Vision Charm lines?

I love this Teferi's Realm tech that's showing up lately. Were you ever in a position to go off by naming lands? (e.g. land in hand + Petal)

What happened to Dystopia? Not good enough with Serenity and Realm available?

No more Pyroblast?

Yeah, I've done it once. Artifacts I've done a few times.

Dystopia was too slow and hard on the mana. I run two Seas because I don't like leaving my Bobs stranded, in addition to being able to hardcast Leyline. I shaved Pyroblast out for now. Dystopia, while good, was just really what I wanted Serenity to be. Sure, it hits creatures like Ouphe and Thalia. That's why I'm heavier on Bolts.

Don't forget: Vision Charm is also like a Chant effect, too. In their upkeep, you just change one type of land to another. I've honestly gone off several times with Vision Charm and LED.

Michael Keller

03-03-2020, 09:15 AM

I don’t like floating air on top of my deck - I want the business.

Lemon

03-03-2020, 09:15 AM

I ran this mess at the proxy weekly last night to go 3-1. Overall it felt kind of clunky, but I think with a few changes it could become a playable build. Lots of people were very confused, which I think helped me out quite a bit.

4 Arclight Phoenix
3 Delver of Secrets
3 Young Pyromancer
2 Brazen Borrower
4 Manamorphose
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Brain Freeze
2 Lotus Petal
2 Underworld Breach
3 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
4 Faithless Looting
4 Prismatic Vista
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Mountain

SB
3 Gut Shot
1 Force of Will
1 Search for Azcanta
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Blood Moon
1 Abrade
1 Shenanigans

Round 1: UR Delver 2-0
Game 1 I drew all 3 Young Pyromancers and proceeded to beat him to death with a million little fire guys.
Game 2 We both drew more removal than the threats and I wiffed big on both my brain freezes on searching for Phoenixes. I topdecked a manamorphose that drew me into a brainstorm that found me a phoenix and a breach. I jammed the breach and proceeded to escape bolt 4 times for the win.

Round 2: Snoko 2-1
Dropped a game by not drawing a second land game 2. This list really need at least 2 more lands in it. Otherwise I had all the time in the world to kill him.

Round 3: Turbo Depths 0-2
I didn't prepare for this matchup at all and got killed turn 3 by a flying 20/20. I made questionable sideboarding and got killed turn 2 the next game.

Round 4: UR Delver 2-0
He also had no idea what was going on (somehow word hadn't gotten around to him) and was very surprised by both the phoenixes and the value breach.

Cire

03-03-2020, 09:27 AM

Michael Keller: I love Vision Charm tech! I am wondering, for afar it looks like you run too little lands (14 and only 3 petals) but obviously you had some great results. Kinda just wondering how you get away with it :tongue:

Ronald Deuce

03-03-2020, 09:52 AM

3 Vision Charm

I . . . didn't know that card existed.

I like it.

@ Cyre and FTW re: my earlier point about Force, yes, blue count is a big part of it, but I think that issue is magnified when a) we have a three-card combo (vs. 2 for something like Show and Tell) and b) we don't have a lot of stuff in the deck to pitch because we have to find all three cards somehow. I'm still testing and tinkering heavily, but that's largely where I was coming from.

Whitefaces

03-03-2020, 10:32 AM

Not only did they finish 1st, 2nd and 5th, but all three finished the Swiss at 7-1!

The only other deck to match or beat that record was the 3rd place Moon Stompy list (8-0 in Swiss, lost 1-2 in the Semis to the 1st place guy). Moon Stompy is the heavy favorite (Chalice, 3sphere, Leyline, 7 Moons, Karn, plus bullets like Crypt and Spyglass) so that loss in 3 is just variance.

It's the Togores build that AnziD has been streaming every day for the last 2 weeks and played at the Dice City Games Open.

I would chalk that up to the popularity of AnziD's stream. He streams Breach daily and has converted a lot of the regular online players to that build, +/- a few small differences. They've also had a lot of time to analyze and discuss SB strategy for different matchups for that specific list, through the stream, and written up a SB strategy guide that players can load up during online tournaments. Because of that, it's a low-cost-of-entry build for other MTGO players to pick up, and their gameplay is more finely-tuned than players experimenting with other builds.

Michael Keller's Grixis list looks strong too. There's less streaming and crowdsourcing for analysis/tuning of Grixis and 4C builds, but they may be as or more viable.

@ those who don't like FoW and prefer Veil to Silence:
Keep in mind AnziD's a long-time Miracles stalwart who recently tried to brew Scepter-Chant in UW. He pilots Jeskai Breach like a Miracles deck more than a Storm deck and loves casting Orim's Chant. They're basically UW control with a better wincon, and their SB strategy is to turn even more into Miracles (cut LEDs and Brain Freezes, bring in Mentors and StPs/answers) with an "oops I win!" if they draw Breach. That adds some context to his card choices and SB. It isn't the only way to win with Breach, but it fits his UW control-oriented playstyle well, and others are netdecking off him.

I didn't have a lot of reps with the deck before the event so take what I say with a grain of salt (I basically copied Iwouldliketoresponds list and then he changed a couple of things), but I had played against the deck a lot to learn how it works prior.

I don't believe the Stompy matchup is unfavoured as you imagine, I also played and beat it in the swiss. Serenity goes a long way, as does Mentor not to mention threatening a fast combo etc. They need to have their hate cards line up right basically, postboard you are able to ignore Leyline and Chalice on 0 for the most part if you sideboard in a specific way (Mentor focused basically).

Anuraag has definitely influenced a lot of people to build and play it like him, but he is also doing incredibly well with it so I don't know if it's fair to say people are then playing it like that based on playstyle. I was between a couple of decks for the showcase and landed on this because I liked what Predict brings to the deck. It's now combo control, I dislike the more combo focused variants as they're currently built. As you mention it's certainly not the only way to win with breach, more combo focused variants can be incredibly powerful too, but being able to switch between a control role not just between sideboarding but also in game has felt like one of the most powerful angles of the deck.

I didn't have any guide or content loaded up while playing, but you're right that having this ease of access for a majority of online grinders will make them lean towards a list with resources than one without.

The real difference is the ability to do this postboard:
-3 LED
-3 Brain Freeze
+3-4 Mentor
+2 answers

Or:
-2 LED
-2 Brain Freeze
-2 Breach
+ Mentors
+ answers

The Intuition + Sevinne trick lets him tutor the whole combo once the game is under control, which enables a sneaky space-saving trick. Postboard they can board out combo pieces and play like a UW control deck, prioritizing taking control of the game and stopping the opponent's interaction. Once they take control, then they can tutor the whole combo up with 1 card and win. That means they have more interactive cards and fewer "combo" slots, improving draw quality in grindy games and reducing vulnerability to hate.

EOT Intuition: LED, Breach, Sevinne
Your turn: Get Breach into play. LED. Escape Intuition for Brain Freeze, crack LED for UUU in response.

In racing matches, they can opt to keep the whole combo in and board out the slow engine (Intuition, Predict) for more protection. They get to straddle the line between combo and control, adjusting to beat the opponent. It's this flexibility to dodge traditional Breach hate and the strong plan B that's winning them matches.

This is spot on, I'd play a 2nd Intuition when I play the deck again. Being able to board down on combo pieces so heavily gives the deck further pivoting options making it really hard to fight.

FTW

03-03-2020, 03:10 PM

Whitefaces, congrats on your win!

Anuraag has definitely influenced a lot of people to build and play it like him, but he is also doing incredibly well with it so I don't know if it's fair to say people are then playing it like that based on playstyle. I was between a couple of decks for the showcase and landed on this because I liked what Predict brings to the deck. It's now combo control, I dislike the more combo focused variants as they're currently built. As you mention it's certainly not the only way to win with breach, more combo focused variants can be incredibly powerful too, but being able to switch between a control role not just between sideboarding but also in game has felt like one of the most powerful angles of the deck.

I didn't mean it as a negative. The build is strong and the control plan is strong. I just mentioned it to add context to the metagame representation of each build. There were 5 Togores builds in the Top 16 (including you and Iwouldliketorespond in the top 2) and 1 RUG build. That doesn't mean that build is 5 times better than the others or the only viable one. The higher number of recent Jeskai Intuition finishes is heavily influenced by Anuraag's stream... because of his stream there are a lot more people playing that build. He took Togores' list, which he liked because of the control aspect, kept all the initial cards and SB guide, and grinded >100 games with it, generating a lot of tuning and discussion for it. I doubt any of the other brews has seen that much development, and most of that credit goes to Anuraag for all the hours and passion he's put in dedicatedly grinding with it, and then spreading it to his stream followers.

Anuraag's doing very well with that build, though he also had an 80% win rate with the Jeskai ETutor build before, Jbinder had a bunch of 5-0s with RUG, and Hollywood has a high win rate with his Grixis/URbw build. The overall combo is very powerful and any kind of ability to switch roles or generate card advantage gives it a big boost.

I don't believe the Stompy matchup is unfavoured as you imagine, I also played and beat it in the swiss. Serenity goes a long way, as does Mentor not to mention threatening a fast combo etc. They need to have their hate cards line up right basically, postboard you are able to ignore Leyline and Chalice on 0 for the most part if you sideboard in a specific way (Mentor focused basically).

For me, the scariest card in this matchup is Karn, the Great Creator. The static ability shuts off Petal and LED, stopping the combo and also stalling mana. The minus ability gets hate cards like Tormod's Crypt or just wins the game with Lattice. Jeskai Breach has very few ways to answer a resolved Karn... basically bounce or attack with Mentor.

With that in mind, where I find Chalice/Sphere/Moons/Leyline a problem is that they slow you down or force you to answer them, delaying you or draining resources enough for them to stick a Karn. You can eventually clear the hate with Serenity or beatdown with Mentor, given a lot of time, but Karn is what puts us on a clock.

Aside from Karn, Serenity is MVP in this matchup, but I also found it easier with the ETutor build where I could reliably find Serenity each game. With the Intuition build, aren't you more at the mercy of topdecks and lucky cantrips?

Did you face any Karns in your games against Stompy? What did you do in those games?

Michael Keller

03-03-2020, 05:35 PM

The big question is: Will this deck even survive past the 9th?

FTW

03-03-2020, 06:05 PM

The big question is: Will this deck even survive past the 9th?

What are you talking about? Underworld Breach is a weak card.

Time to delete half the primer... See barely any top 8s!

Edit: Anyone want to take bets that at least one of the cards in Atog Lord's 12th place RUG list will get banned?

//Planeswalker (2)
2 Oko, Thief of Crowns

//Creature (5)
3 Ice-Fang Coatl
2 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

//Sorcery (4)
4 Ponder

//Instant (18)
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Veil of Summer
2 Thought Scour
1 Lightning Bolt
4 Brain Freeze

//Artifact (10)
4 Lotus Petal
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Arcum's Astrolabe

//Enchantment (4)
4 Underworld Breach

//Land (17)
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Prismatic Vista
2 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island

Fair cards.dec

Whitefaces

03-04-2020, 05:16 AM

Whitefaces, congrats on your win!

Thanks!

I didn't mean it as a negative. The build is strong and the control plan is strong. I just mentioned it to add context to the metagame representation of each build. There were 5 Togores builds in the Top 16 (including you and Iwouldliketorespond in the top 2) and 1 RUG build. That doesn't mean that build is 5 times better than the others or the only viable one. The higher number of recent Jeskai Intuition finishes is heavily influenced by Anuraag's stream... because of his stream there are a lot more people playing that build. He took Togores' list, which he liked because of the control aspect, kept all the initial cards and SB guide, and grinded >100 games with it, generating a lot of tuning and discussion for it. I doubt any of the other brews has seen that much development, and most of that credit goes to Anuraag for all the hours and passion he's put in dedicatedly grinding with it, and then spreading it to his stream followers.

Anuraag's doing very well with that build, though he also had an 80% win rate with the Jeskai ETutor build before, Jbinder had a bunch of 5-0s with RUG, and Hollywood has a high win rate with his Grixis/URbw build. The overall combo is very powerful and any kind of ability to switch roles or generate card advantage gives it a big boost.

My bad, I didn’t read your tone as negative at all, it was just laying things out with more context. Reading it back what I said came across more scathing than I intended!

You’re totally right about Anuraag influencing what people play. I will say though that now the deck is (arguably) the deck to beat and has a huge target on its head I think the controlling variants will do better than combo focussed, whereas the latter would have been better when the archetype was new. I felt like my opponents on Sunday were pretty prepared for the matchup, I faced Chalice decks six times too as well as many Leylines, Trinispheres, you name it. But I was able to remove and grind through them all largely on the back of Predict and being able to side out a lot of the combo into Mentor control. This is just theory though, I could be wrong as my sample size with the deck is still pretty small.

For me, the scariest card in this matchup is Karn, the Great Creator. The static ability shuts off Petal and LED, stopping the combo and also stalling mana. The minus ability gets hate cards like Tormod's Crypt or just wins the game with Lattice. Jeskai Breach has very few ways to answer a resolved Karn... basically bounce or attack with Mentor.

With that in mind, where I find Chalice/Sphere/Moons/Leyline a problem is that they slow you down or force you to answer them, delaying you or draining resources enough for them to stick a Karn. You can eventually clear the hate with Serenity or beatdown with Mentor, given a lot of time, but Karn is what puts us on a clock.

Aside from Karn, Serenity is MVP in this matchup, but I also found it easier with the ETutor build where I could reliably find Serenity each game. With the Intuition build, aren't you more at the mercy of topdecks and lucky cantrips?

Did you face any Karns in your games against Stompy? What did you do in those games?

Karn is terrifying indeed, probably the best card vs Breach. Vs Stompy you kind of have to hope you have a Force of Will lined up for it if they draw it G1, I was rarely forcing other lock pieces unless it was a T1 play that shut off all my cantrips to find removal or something. Post board Leyline, Chalice on 0 and sometimes Blood Moon are just annoyances and things that get swept up in a Serenity later. I had two Karns played vs me in the Challenge, one was Forced and one won a game (though it was tight, I had a Mentor but they had Winter Orb and Trinisphere which slowed me down enough to keep it around until they drew a Chandra to kill Mentor).

Marcus (Iwouldliketorespond) added a Brazen Borrower to his sb over the third Wear//Tear which could be decent, he said it was a nod to Karn. A friend is currently also playing a md Chain of Vapor which I can get behind.

Ronald Deuce

03-09-2020, 10:34 AM

They blew it all up.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/march-9-2020-banned-and-restricted-announcement?j

Lemon

03-09-2020, 10:36 AM

Welp, it was fun while it lasted folks. Underworld Breach just got banned in the 9 March 2020 announcement, just 46 days after it was released. Special thanks to all the folks who helped make this deck as awesome as it is.

Cire

03-09-2020, 10:43 AM

Glad to have been a part of this. Amazing effort on everybody involved. :frown:

Ronald Deuce

03-09-2020, 10:48 AM

Yeah, thank you to everyone who put the reps in and built the primer, the tips, the archetypes, everything. This was my first attempt at actually brewing something new, and I only wish we'd had the chance to kick it around more. The times, they are a'changin'.

Cire

03-09-2020, 10:53 AM

Really wish they banned LED instead and maybe then we could brew with Breach more, but definitely the more surgical strike.

Fox

03-09-2020, 11:02 AM

Really wish they banned LED instead and maybe then we could brew with Breach more, but definitely the more surgical strike.

Of the 4 ways to play legacy (Fetchlands vs Cavern/Vial vs Sol Land/Chalice vs Loam/Mox, blending acceptable), LED creates diversity. It is played both by Fetchlands and Sol Land and does not create a strictly better underlying (i.e. mana engine) way to play the game.

Breach was always the right target - just like Oath, you can get stomped out of a game and reverse everything from hellbent by topdecking just one card. The only positive thing about cards like Oath, Breach/Yawg. Will, etc is that they one of the only ways to dumpster people hiding behind PWs and ETB-value scum.

Cire

03-09-2020, 11:04 AM

Of the 4 ways to play legacy (Fetchlands vs Cavern/Vial vs Sol Land/Chalice vs Loam/Mox, blending acceptable), LED creates diversity. It is played both by Fetchlands and Sol Land and does not create a strictly better underlying (i.e. mana engine) way to play the game.

Breach was always the right target - just like Oath, you can get stomped out of a game and reverse everything from hellbent by topdecking just one card. The only positive thing about cards like Oath, Breach/Yawg. Will, etc is that they one of the only ways to dumpster people hiding behind PWs and ETB-value scum.

It was the definitely the right target if you wanted to kill this combo - just wish they banned the other card instead because I still wanted to play with Breach in Legacy :laugh:

FTW

03-09-2020, 11:07 AM

If they were going to ban anything in the deck, Breach makes the most sense. It enables the most degeneracy. LED is a pillar of Legacy, enabling too many other beatable decks, they can't ban it. The secondary market would be furious too.

It was great brewing this while it lasted!

Thanks all for the great discussions and thread activity, some of the best new deck development discussion we've had on this forum in a while. Maybe the fastest transition from New Deck to DTB to banned! Breach got banned before H could even update the DTBs.

Ronald Deuce

03-09-2020, 01:19 PM

Maybe the fastest transition from New Deck to DTB to banned! Breach got banned before H could even update the DTBs.

Kicked in the teeth again / Sometimes you lose; sometimes you win.

Rood

03-09-2020, 11:09 PM

The big question is: Will this deck even survive past the 9th?

The deck should be renamed RIP Breach 2020-2020.

FTW

03-09-2020, 11:45 PM

The deck should be renamed RIP Breach 2020-2020.

Ironically enough, I was working on a brew for that in the other thread to troll people loading up on grave hate.

RIP Breach.dec

//Lands: 15
3 Prismatic Vista
3 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tundra

//Artifacts: 8
4 Lotus Petal
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Grinding Station

//Enchantments: 5
4 Underworld Breach
1 Seal of Cleansing

//Spells: 31
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Orim's Chant
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Spell Pierce
4 Brain Freeze
2 Predict

//Planeswalker: 1
1 Teferi, Time Raveler

//Sideboard: 15
3 Rest in Peace
2 Helm of Obedience

2 Serenity
1 Detention Sphere
1 Porphyry Nodes
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Counterbalance
1 Pyroblast
1 Flusterstorm
1 Terminus

Literally a RIP Breach deck

Ronald Deuce

03-10-2020, 11:03 AM

The deck should be renamed RIP Breach 2020-2020.

Never forget.

thefreakaccident

03-30-2020, 12:43 PM

Rip