Hello everyone,
I got the cards to build this deck last year, but I had trouble finding a reliable store to play. Since then, I’ve been reading your reports to get to know this archetype better. I finally found a tournament this Sunday, so here it goes my first report:
Current list:
Mainboard
26 Lands
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Ifnir Deadlands
1 Inventors' Fair
1 Maze of Ith
4 Mishra's Factory
10 Swamp
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
6 Artifacts
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Cursed Scroll
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Phyrexian Totem
1 Trinisphere
1 Enchantment
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
7 Planeswalkers
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
15 Sorceries
2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Infernal Tutor
3 Innocent Blood
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Smallpox
1 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
5 Instants
4 Dark Ritual
1 Fatal Push
Sideboard
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience
2 Bitterblossom
2 Pithing Needle
2 Collective Brutality
3 Dark Confidant
1 Engineered Plague
1 Contamination
Odd Inclusions
• Inventors' Fair: Currently replacing a swamp. Provides life gain and tutoring when there are enough artifacts in play. Works nicely with Crucible of Worlds and Karn’s construct tokens.
• Infernal Tutor: Currently replacing Beseech the Queen. Costs one less but can be a little awkward sometimes.
The tournament only had 7 players, so only 3 rounds. I finished 1 – 2:
Highlights:
• Won a match at 3 life by swinging with 6 zombie tokens and 3 Faerie Rogues under my own Ensnaring Bridge.
• Casted a Liliana, the Last Hope on turn one.
Round 1 – Sneak and Show
Game 1: Opponent started with Polluted Delta, pass. I went with an Inquisition of Kozilek and saw: Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, 2x Sneak Attack, Omniscience, Force of Will and City of Traitors ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I had a couple of Wastelands in hand, but my opponent played well and only fetched before comboing. The turn 1 Inquisition made me realized I should have listed Thoughseizes instead. It also showed that my sideboard was not good enough.
Sideboarding: I did not have any hate, so I opted for a rush (Confidants and Bitterblossom) or lockdown strategy (Needle and Contamination).
In (8): 2 Pithing Needle; 2 Bitterblossom; 3 Dark Confidant; 1 Contamination
Out (8): 2 Karn, Scion of Urza; 1 Liliana, the Last Hope; 1 Inquisition of Kozilek; 1 Fatal Push; 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal; 1 Toxic Deluge; 1 Infernal Tutor.
Game 2: My opponent mulled down to six to find a Leyline of Sanctity. I ended up keeping a mediocre hand and could not interact very well. Bitterblossom did show up to generate blockers and bought me an extra turn, but it still wasn’t enough.
Score: Games: 0 - 1; Matches: 0 – 2.
Round 2 – RW Eldrazi?
Game 1: Opponent started with a Snow-Covered Plains. I went with a turn one Inquisition of Kozilek again and saw: Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Chalice of the Void, Eldrazi Displacer, Rishadan Port, Wasteland and a Thought-Knot Seer. I don’t really remember my hand, but I had a way to deal with Thalia and I had a couple 1cmc cards, so I took the Chalice. I took a few hits of the Thalia, but after she was killed I landed a Karn which quickly took over the game.
Sideboarding: I had never seen this deck before, but it look like Bitterblossom would be a good card here.
In (3): 2 Bitterblossom; 1 Engineered Plague.
Out (3): 1 Inquisition of Kozilek; 1 Dark Ritual; 1 Engineered Plague.
Game 2: This game was a nice pox experience. It started with Thalia beats, backed by a Karakas. I casted a fatal push on end of turn to force a Karakas activation and, on my turn, landed an Engineered Plague for human. My opponent went with Recruiter of the Guard to get a Pia and Kiran Nalaar, but I took it with a topdecked Thoughtseize. Karn lands on an empty board and starts doing its thing, followed by a Liliana of the Veil on the next turns, which started ticking up. My opponent finds a Stoneforge Mystic, which grabs a Batterskull but, on my turn, Liliana of the Veil takes care of the Stoneforge and an Ensnaring Bridge keeps the Batterskull in check. The lock is tight at this point, but my opponent casts a second Recruiter to find a Phyrexian Revoker to shut down my Liliana of the Veil. Then I cast a Bitterblossom at 12 life to win the game under my Ensnaring Bridge, but my opponent topdecks a Hazoret the Fervent to keep up the race. The game is finally decided by a hellbent Infernal Tutor searching for a Liliana, the Last Hope, which kills the revoker and gets to ultimate. At 3 life, I draw for the turn, draw again with karn to get get 2 cards in hand and swing with 6 zombie tokens and 3 faerie rogues for the win.
Score: Games: 1 - 1; Matches: 2 – 2.
Round 2 – Monored goblins
Game 1: My opponent took a mulligan to 6 cards but had a nice start with a Mountain and a Chrome Mox to summon a Warren Instigator. On my turn I started with a basic swamp and a Dark Ritual to land a Liliana, the Last Hope which killed the Warren Instigator and took over the game on the spot. She killed a couple more goblins and a timely Karn joined the field to create a construct token, which protect Liliana until the ultimate.
Sideboarding: I figured that I wanted some creature hate on this match to replace the bad topdecks.
In (3): 2 Collective Brutality; 1 Engineered Plague
Out (3): 2 Hymn to Tourach; 1 Karn, Scion of Urza
Game 2: I mulled to 6 cards on this game, while my opponent had to mulligan to 5 cards. It started well for me with an early Night of Souls’ Betrayal which really put my opponent behind. His board only had an Aether Vial which kept ticking up until it had 4 counters. I did land a planeswalker to close the game (can’t remember which one) but a Goblin Ringleader finding a bunch of goblins, including another Goblin Ringleader was too much for me to handle.
Sideboarding: Seeing that my opponent relied so much on his Aether Vial I decided to change my deck again.
In (2): 2 Pithing Needle
Out (3): 1 Thougthseize; 1 Trinisphere
Game 3: I’m on the play and I kept this hand: Smallpox, Smallpox, Fatal Push, Innocent Blood, Cursed Scroll, Swamp, Inventor’s Fair. I can’t remember all the turns in this game, but my opponent started with a Vial and we kept trading resources, with forced me to use all my removal. He then lands a Warren Instigator on my end step, which attacks on his turn putting another Warren Instigator into play and a Tuktuk Scrapper to blow up my Cursed Scroll. I managed to land a Karn into play, which bought me a couple turns, but he has a Goblin Ringleader that finds multiples Goblin Chieftains to win the game.
Score: Games: 1 - 2; Matches: 3 – 4.
MVP – Liliana, the Last Hope: She was always relevant this weekend because she had so many targets. The only time she could not kill anything was because the board was already empty. She also won two matches with her -7.
Top Performers
• Dark Ritual: this card enabled a lot of degenerated stuff this weekend. Liliana on turn 1, Karn and Night of Souls’ Betrayal with only 2 lands on the table. On a few occasions it also felt like a horrible topdeck, so maybe 4 copies are too much.
• Karn, Scion of Urza: never felt bad casting this guy. On an empty board he basically closes the game, when you are a behind he can buy you a few turns.
Underperformers
• Inquisition of Kozilek: I missed so many times with this discard that I felt that, at least in my meta, Thoughtseize is the better option.
• Phyrexian Totem: I’m kind of unimpressed with this card. I casted it a few times, but it only worked as a target for sideboard hate.
Closing Thoughts
I really enjoyed playing Legacy for the first time, I'll be definitely playing this Sunday again.
I think I need to tweak my list a bit by replacing the Inquisitions for Thoughtseizes and maybe finding a replacement for the Phyrexian Totem. I will also need to work a lot on my sideboard, I need something to fight combo better and I need to read more on what to side in\out versus the most common matchups.
Thanks for reading!
