Hey all. Just got back from the first Legacy Power Series hosted by Pat's games in Austin Tx. I played lands (obv) to an 11th place finish, with 3rd best breaks of the x-2s. I feel like I should have top 8ed this one, but what can ya do. Sometimes they have it.
Also, as a side note, my project for this deck is to get it entirely pack regular german then have the whole thing altered. I need help getting a few of the cards in german, specifically dark depths, groves, and ports. Anyone help a brother out?
Decklist first
5c Lands
[deck]
4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond
4 Life from the loam
3 Intuition
3 Crop Rotation
3 Punishing Fire
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Smokestack
2 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
3 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Forest
3 Grove of the burnwillows
4 wasteland
4 rishadan port
1 ghost quarter
3 maze of ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrel Vale
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Tolaria West
2 Thespian's Stage
2 Dark Depths
Sideboard
3 Krosan Grip
3 Dark Confidant
2 Trinisphere
2 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Zuran Orb
[/deck]
There you have it, the sweet pile. I like this version quite a bit more over the R/G version, as it is much more flexible and able to handle more unique situations (like what tends to crop up in legacy). The main is pretty standard, except for smokestack. Not only is smokestack one of my favorite troll-y cards, but it gives you much more game against control decks like miracles as well as shardless bug. The miracles matchup for this deck is already good, so I don't know if it should be something else. If combo decks continue to rise, it might end up being an Ethersworn Canonist or even a Trinisphere. I have also been thinking about experimenting with codex shredder, as it allows you to infinitely recur enchantments (might be relevant with the new magma vortex, as well as exploration type enchantments) as well as removal spells such as abrupt decay. All in all, I really like this build because of engineered explosives. Against most decks, especially if you conceal it during your first few turns, they will attempt to flood the board to get around punishing fire and gamble on you not hitting tabernacle. EE blows that plan completely out of the water, as well as giving you outs game one to counterbalance and other difficult permanents. Its made all that much better in this version, as it can be set at 0-5.
Anyways, on with the show. The expected turnout for the tournament (based on pre-regs) was about 40. Final count: 86. This meant a 7 round tournament with cut to top8, paying down to 24th place.
Round 1. Thomas on Miracles 1-0 win, 1-0 overall
We exchange pleasantries, he hasn't played in a while apparently. I also recognize him from somewhere, meaning I should probably know who he is. My opener is fine; a waste, a port, loam, fetch, and other goodies. Fine against the field, not the greatest against miracles as Exploration swings this match really heavily in your favor. He leads island, top. Buckle up kids.
We make land drops for a while and I prioritize getting ports online as fast as possible. The farther I can get the game to drag on, the higher my chances. I notice he drew one plains already, and kill it with a freshly drawn ghost quarter. He obviously fetches the second one, but next turn when i GQ it again, there is only an Island found. Excellent. My joy is short lived, as he lands a counterbalance. Like an expert, I peel an EE and immediately cast it, sunburst 2 cmc 3. For those who don't know, EE doesn't need to be set at the sunburst you want. You can pump additional mana into it, which is extremely relevant for breaking out of counterbalance locks. Against miracles, early game I try to set on 3 (they tend to shuffle away entreat early, and most lists don't play clique main) and as the game goes on 4 (depending on how many jaces you see, usually the number is 2) and 5 (how many forces they have used so far). EE resolves, as my opponent couldn't find a 3. I take this opportunity to cast intuition, grabbing 3x exploration. Sadly, he endsteps a clique, taking my exploration. However, I draw a maze for his thing so we are fine. The clique gives me a nug, and a passing of the turn. At this point, I start to dredge loam more aggressivly, as my chances of naturally drawing an exploration are much lower with 2 already in the graveyard and 1 on the bottom. The dredge gives me a grove, and another loam. I loam back grove, ghost quarter and wasteland, play maze and pass. He endsteps vensor, targeting my maze. Well, beatdown plan it is huh? He untaps, cracks me, and plays jace. Things are not looking good. I endstep crack ee, and my dredged loam finds me a punishing fire. I play grove for the turn and start the fire lock, first killing the clique. Venser gives me some beats, then finally succumbs to the fire as well. Jace has now started to tick up, and is joined by another counterbalance. My dredge finds a tolaria west (finally) and tolaria west transmute for EE means I can now start aggressively finding lock pieces. EE strips the counterbalance, while jace continues to climb. At this point, he has used most of his fetches, and is almost out of potential instant speed white sources in the deck. Being this late, I have the natural combo in hand so I decide going for that is a better investment of resources than trying to contain jace with fire. The odds of him having another venser are much lower than the odds of swords hanging out in his hand. I assemble the pieces, and end of his second main port his fetch. He fetches tundra. Port the tundra, he floats white. Move to endstep, make 20/20. Wham.
Time is called while we sideboard, so no games 2 or 3
Round 2. Andy on RG lands. 2-1 win, 2-0 overall
G1. My opponent leads on mox diamond. I haven't done this match in a while, and I go over in my head the tricks. Hold up stage for his depths, bog the first loam or big graveyard you see, keep on parity with lands. None of this matters, as he goes mox exploration waste fetch manabond go. I haven't seen an EE, but now would be a good time. My draw yields exploration to go with the loam in my hand, so I might have a chance here. I fetch basic forest, cast exploration, play trop and pass. He wastes my trop, untaps and finds loam. He proceeds to loam into all 4 wastelands within the next 2 turns and I am just super dead. I play it out until he shows me how to make a 20/20, which I scoop to.
Sideboarding
Out- 1x Smokestack, 1x Tabernacle, 1x Glacial Chasm
In- 3x Krosan Grip
I dont feel like sphere effects are where either of us want to be, as the most important thing postboard is graveyard and board conrol. I considered bringing in Bob, but I don't want to expose my wasteland-able green sources too early if I don't have to. That, and he probably keeps in some number of punishing fires and maze so bob isn't as much a free win as he usually is.
G2 I have the nuts. Krosan grip, Intuition, Exploration, Loam, Fetch, Waste, Waste
T1 fetch forest, exploration, wasteland, go. He casts gamble t1 off of grove, discarding a mana producing land and passes. One of the reasons I don't like the RG version of lands is that its mana is super clunky, as a lot of your lands don't make mana at all (moreso than this version). I endstep waste, draw EE (just to rub in by killing his moxen), play the second wasteland and loam waste fetch. Second land for the turn is waste, and pass. It turns out it doesn't matter, as my opponent passes without playing anything. The game devolves from there, as my opponent misses land drops while I loam to my heart's content. He does end up discarding multiple copies of grip, so I wonder what he kept/gambled for. I mainphase making the 20/20 (something people need to do more against wasteland decks) to play around wasteland, and it gets bounced once by a played karakas. Wasteland, followed by round 2 20/20 gets him
Sideboard on the draw
No changes
G3. My opponent mulls, and I decide for a while on grip, loam, fetch, karakas, port, tolaria west, port. I end up shipping, since i technically don't have a real play for the first couple turns, and being on the draw against a deck like RG lands is dangerous without some form of interaction. He keeps a sketchy 6, while mine is good with exploration, crop rotation, waste, fetch, forest, trop. He leads turn 1 taiga go. I draw intuition, and go full ham like last game. Forest, exploration, wasteland, waste you. He crop rotates into a combo piece in response, which is fine for me as it cuts him off green. He then plays green, exploration (I guess freshly drawn) and port. He ports me on upkeep, but I have the second green source for any problems. He untaps and passes. I draw a land, but need to get the wasteland out of my yard so I don’t die to the 20/20. I intuition for 3x loam (rarely happens like this), loam the wasteland back and waste my opponents combo piece. The game falls apart from there, and I wastelock him.
Round 3. Matt with RUG delver. 2-0 win, 3-0 overall.
G1. Matchups like this are why I play this deck. Little in this game gives me such a thrill like my opponent scooping up 0 permanents after a game. Sorry Matt, you were a good guy. Matt leads on t1 Delver off a volcanic. My hand contains multiple wastelands, EE, forest, and multiple explorations. My t1 exploration off a forest gets dazed, sure. Delver flips to stifle, but my opponent missed the second land drop after pondering. I play a waste, the second exploration, and waste my opponent. Delver continues his forward march, until an EE at 0 blows him away. My opponent finds a goyf, which is then held up by a maze. Loam is eventually found, which finds tolaria west, which finds tabernacle. Wastelands + tabernacle are really hard for delver to beat, specifically this version. At the end of the game, I have blown up all 3 of his trops, and 2 volcanics, and am still at 9. Yea, good luck from here buddy.
Sideboarding
This matchup is very good for me, as most of their threats are graveyard reliant and die to punishing fire/held up by maze of ith. As long as you control their mongeese and keep your life total high enough, this match is cake. The worst sideboard card they can have is surgical extraction, which isn’t even that bad in the grand scheme of things. Next level down is relic of progenitus and pithing needle, both of which are handled by grip.
Out – 1x smokestack, 1x karakas, 1x savannah (If I don’t need the colors for ee or am boarding in the colored hate card, I take this/bayou out), 1x intuition
In- 3x Krosan Grip, 1x Zuran orb (transmutable via tolaria west, delver can’t beat it)
G2. He leads Delver off a volcanic. My hand of punishing fire, ee, exploration, wasteland, tropical, fetch is super good against this start. I don’t play exploration on turn 1 (daze is usually a card when they are on the play), and a quick delver flip off destructive revelry and bolt puts my life low starting out. Punishing fire puts an end to delver, and the goyf that follows is too late to stop my 20/20.
Round 4. Alfonso with Merfolk. 1-2 loss, 3-1 overall.
G1. I saw this guy playing next to me last round, so I knew he was on merfolk. I lost the roll like I usually do, and kept a sketchy one. Loam, Loam, Exploration ,Intuition, wasteland, stage, punishing fire. My thinking is that I have enough good things going on in this hand to give me a chance. However, being on the draw I think I should have thrown this one back since stumbling is really bad. Of course, that is exactly what happened. I hit land drops for a few turns, finally finding green. By the time I can get punishing fire online, he has multiple lords in play, so the only out is EE. A true name nemesis with a few lords gave me some beats, but maze of iths kept the damage under control. I find a glacial chasm at 6 life, with the capability to establish chasm lock if I untap. My opponent of course rips the wasteland off the top and that’s it.
Sideboard
Most merfolk decks these days are running back to basics, along with pithing needle and relic as graveyard hate.
Out- 1x Bojuka Bog, 1x Karakas, 1x Ghost Quarter, 1x Smokestack
In- 3x Krosan Grip, 1x Zuran Orb
G2. I keep a hand with both ee and pfire locks in it so I keep. Land go. He goes land, Cursecatcher. I play land, introduce it to the fire. His next play is silvergill adept, revealing silvergill adept. My land is grove, I return fire and grill the silvergill. This continues for a few turns, he finally drops multiple lords in a turn while I tapped out to get exploration and loam online. He dumped his hand of lords in hopes of putting pfire out of the game. This line ran right into the EE I had been sandbagging, and that was it. He did show me a back to basics, so I knew what I was up for in game 3.
Sideboard
No changes
G3. My opponent leads turn 1 vial off mutavault. I had to mull to 6, but my 6 is fine with fire/grove, exploration, and crop rotation. I play land and pass. My opponent ticks up vial, misses his land drop and passes. At this point, I take a really aggressive line by rotating for wasteland to put him back on 0, and trying to set up punishing fire. This was likely a mistake as one of the only reasons for him to keep that 7 was that it had back to basics in hand. If I hold the rotation for a basic and continue to hit land drops, I would be in a much better spot later in the game as he is still stuck with one creature a turn through vial. He vials in a cursecatcher after I waste him, and I fire it. This was also likely a mistake as he rips the land and pops his relic to exile my fire. I find tabernacle which keeps his board small, but true name gives me the beats. I finally find a chasm to stop it, but still am not making forward progress. At this point, I should have transmuted my freshly dredged tolaria west for the zuran orb rather than trying to set up chasm lock, as his reach is really bad. I wasted a turn durdling with glacial chasm, and my opponent found an island for his back to basics. I eventually cannot maintain the chasm lock with my lands not untapping and die to the tnn right before time is called.
Round 5. James with Burn. 2-1 win, 4-1 overall.
James and I know each other, and we know what we were playing as I helped him re-sleeve his deck before the tourney. I curse my luck, as anyone who plays lands knows burn (particularly price of progress) sucks to play against.
G1. On the draw, I keep a super sketchy one that was crop rotation, and 6 lands that included chasm, maze, and the natural combo. I kept thinking that if I can either survive till turn four or hit an exploration I can get a natural win without casting a spell. James leads on goblin guide, which draws me a land. The next two turns give up two more goblin guides, and my life total dwindles fast. However, each goblin guide trigger hits lands so I burn through my deck really fast. I end up with both thespian stages, and glacial chasm. James hits his third land and lands sulfuric vortex, which turns out to be a huge mistake. I take the hit during my upkeep to 3, play exploration, chasm and stage, pass. I untap, pay the first cumulative upkeep on the chasm finally draw loam. Jackpot. Now I can keep the glacial chasm lock going with just two thespian stages back and forth while James kills himself with his own vortex.
Sideboard
Treat burn like its storm, as it just tries to cast spells to kill. However, you cannot board out chasm or all maze of iths as they are still fairly creature reliant.
Out- 1x Bojuka Bog, 1x Karakas, 1x the tabernacle at pendrel vale, 1x smokestack, 1x maze of ith, 4x wasteland
In- 4x sphere of resistance, 2x trinisphere, 2x ethersworn canonist, 1x zuran orb
G2. Turn 1 lavamancer on his end turned out to be the death of me. I managed to land an early ethersworn canonist, which ate a lavamancer trigger. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any other hate pieces and burn does what burn does. I manage to get glacial chasm in play, but without exploration I couldn’t maintain it past a few turns and get lavamancered to death.
Sideboard
No changes
G3. On the play, I have a sweet hand. Turn one exploration off forest, port, go. Opponent suspends rift bolt. On my turn I play a land, trinisphere, pass. At this point, I have a few turns of reprieve to build up a board before the major burnspells happen. I manage to make a 20/20 to block his eidolon, and kill him on the swing back. He showed me a hand of fireblast, bolt to go along with his 4 lands. Whomp Whomp. There isn’t much to discuss about burn, as its mostly kill them before they kill you. After a certain point, you have to play around price of progress by not playing lands or by holding up wasteland to waste yourself.
Round 6. Jorge with infect. 0-2 loss, 4-2 overall.
I’ll be honest, this one stung a bit. Not only do I consider this match very winnable, I had fairly strong openers both games, only to be undone by horrific dredges.
G1. On the draw, keep exploration, loam, 2x maze, pfire, bog, trop. Not bad, but I need to hit a few lands in order to really start going off. My opponent plays t1 glistener elf off a trop. I draw another exploration, so I try jamming the exploration into a daze. Naturally, it gets dazed. I’m ok with this as it allows me to keep him a bit off balance. My opponent plays noble, and gets me for 2 poison. I draw a mox, discarding a maze, play the second exploration, and maze/bog. I opt not to maze the glistener elf in combat for fear of double pump spell, so my opponent just plays an inkmoth and passes. I finally get loam going, and cast fire on the glistener elf off the freshly drawn grove of the burnwillows. My opponent plays a second noble, and I take 3 to the chin from the inkmoth. Luckily, with no invigorate, I’m alive to untap with mazes plus punishing fire. However, the past 3 dredges have yielded only one land, a tabernacle, so my turns are mostly wasted. Also, I have not seen any wastelands so my opponent’s inkmoth poses a problem. I manage to stall him with maze of iths, but the only way for me to gain forward traction against his infect guys is punishing fire. However, because of my mana issues I can only fire every other turn. I manage to get multiple maze of iths in play, so I don’t have to worry too much about dying to vines unless he draws multiples or a card I don’t know. Well, he main phase activates inkmoth and goes to kick a vines on it. I respond by activating grove and triggering punishing fire, to which he responds by silencing me. Alrighty then.
Sideboard
This matchup is a creature based combo, so I really want to keep in all my anti-creature cards, but I don’t know if I want to bring in spell hate as well. I’ve toyed with ethersworn canonist in the past, but it never was really worth it.
Out- 1x Smokestack, 1x karakas, 1x bojuka bog
In- 3x Krosan grip
G2. On the play, I have a super spicy hand. Grip, mox, exploration, loam, trop, taiga, fetch. My opponent mulls to 5. This is looking better by the minute. T1 taiga, exploration, mox discard fetch, trop, cast loam, go. My opponent has a turn 1 glistener elf again. My dredge hits, you guessed it, 3 non-lands. I fetch, recast loam for the fetch, fetch again, and pass. My opponent turn 2 casts noble, crop rotations a land for pendlehaven, and hits me for 3 poison. My dredge hits another 3 nonlands, and I am so tilted. I can just cast loam for no targets and pass. My opponent casts become immense and I die. Whee.
Dredged 6 times. Hit 3 lands in total.
Round 7. Michael with Storm. 2-1 win, 5-2 overall.
I’ve played Michael before, and he is a super tight player who usually plays either storm or some blue deck. I pray it’s the later.
G1. I keep exploration, mox, loam, multiple lands including 2x maze. This hand is fine against everything that isn’t storm or omni. He leads turn 1 probe, ponder. I might be dead for this match, as well as prizes. Great. My turn I dump my hand and pass. He goes probe, brainstorm, petal, dark rit, dark rit, lion’s eye diamond, infernal tutor for past in flames. Yep, game 2.
Sideboard
Storm and other spell based decks where the mana denial plan isn’t very good tend to be super bad matchups. It consists of drawing as many pieces of hate as you can and hopefully getting them online before you die. However, against storm you keep tabernacle in to hedge against empty the warrens
Out- 3x maze of ith, 1x glacial chasm, 1x karakas, 2x engineered explosives, 2x punishing fire, 1x smokestack, 1x intuition, 1x wasteland
In- 4x sphere of resistance, 2x trinisphere, 3x dark confidant (it’s a body that draws more hate), 2x ethersworn canonist, 1x zuran orb (it’s lifegain might be relevant on the combo turn)
G2. I keep an ok hand with mox, bob, sphere, 3 sphere, and lands. I turn 1 bob, my 3 sphere gets discarded but bob draws me more sphere of resistances. I find my combo pieces while he floods and can’t get the infernal tutor out of his hand. It helped also that he tutored for cabal ritual with cabal ritual, and I ripped the bojuka bog like a master.
Sideboard
No changes
G3. On the draw, my chances of winning are much lower as his discard is much more effective versus my combo pieces. He mulls to 6, while I keep exploration, sphere of resistance, trinisphere, mox, waste, waste, port. I get probed then duressed off a swamp, losing my trinisphere. After the match, my opponent and I discussed how it probably should have been the mox since it was my only colored source and my way to ramp. My turn 1 was mox discarding waste, play exploration, play waste, port, sphere of resistance. I drew bob for my next turn, and bob draws me into multiple sphere effects and ethersworn canonist. I was always multiple sphere effects ahead, and my opponent never could get enough off the ground to combo through all my resistance. Time was called, and my turn 1 I managed to hit my natural combo. My opponent’s last turn, he had to spend all his mana to search up chain of vapor in order to bounce my marit lage and not die. However, I drew another bob to keep presenting lethal, along with the punishing fire in my hand. My opponents last draw was rebuild. You win some, you lose some.
Final record of 5-2, I beat the matchups I shouldn’t and lost the matchups I shouldn’t. I would really like to play the merfolk match again as a few of my lines were probably incorrect, but the infect game still really gets to me.
Moving forward, I want to move the smokestack out, as it really isn’t needed versus miracles I think. This deck is already favored game one versus them, so the extra percentage points could be better served versus other decks. Next stage I think is the canonist main. It plays well with the academy ruins, and gives you at least a shot against omnitell game 1. Also, in the board I really want to try subbing sphere of resistance for thalia. This deck doesn’t have a clock when the sphere effects are online, and a sphere with legs might be a good step.
Any comments or concerns (or if I got something wrong on the report) please let me know.
