As I get back into Legacy after many years away, I am conscious of how much skill and competitive knowledge I have lost - although the fact that our events are mid-week, evening affairs finishing up at around 23:00 after a long day at work probably doesn't help either! So, I've started making more detailed records of my competitive matches and then analyze them after the event. Because so few people play this deck, I'm posting my thoughts here, in case they are helpful to anyone else.
Tournament was a weekly event, four rounds of Swiss parings. I brought the following:
1
Ill-Gotten Gains2
Tendrils of Agony1
Dark Petition4
Infernal Tutor4
Infernal Contract4
Cruel Bargain1
Slithermuse1
Skullwinder1
Deathrite Shaman1
Wild Cantor2
Simian Spirit Guide4
Summoner's Pact4
Elvish Spirit Guide4
Lion's Eye Diamond4
Lotus Petal4
Chrome Mox4
Dark Ritual4
Cabal Ritual4
Culling the Weak4
Verdant Catacombs1
Swamp1
Dryad ArborSideboard3
Swamp4
Duress4
Cabal Therapy1
Past in Flames3
Nature's Claim
The only change since my last event was the sideboard. In theory, Swamps offer diminishing returns (lol) after the third one, since that's how many I need to hardcast a D4. So I thought I would try trimming one to see how it felt.
Having thought about it, the only cards I can't race are Chalice and Leyline. Claim deals with both of those.
Round 1 - Turbo D&T?
Game 1: He wins the roll and plays Lotus Petal > City of Traitors > Ancient Tomb > Thalia, Heretic Cathar. Huh.
This slows me down by a turn as I have to play my fetchland out tapped. He swings for 3 the following turn, but I untap the Verdant Catacomb and proceed to win by playing a D4 into an IGG loop.
Game 2: I expect Chalice, so -4 Pact, -2 SSG, +3 Swamp, +3 Claim. While we've been rubbishing PSI a little recently, it actually plays through Chalice better than the other builds because although we lose the utility of Pact, the Culling package still works.
My opponent mulls to four, but it's the
perfect four. T1 - Plains, Chalice (0). T2 - Plains, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Ouch!
We play draw-go for a few turns as I play out my lands. This allows me to hardcast a D4, which draws me into Nature's Claim and enough gas that I have a shot at going off through Thalia. He topdecks a second Chalice, which he plays for 1, and it's game over.
Game 3: I de-sideboard, as I can now attempt to race Chalice on the play. I manage to do just that, although it takes a convoluted Skullwinder chain to do so.
1-0
Round 2 - U/R Delver
Game 1: I've played this opponent before, so he knows what to expect. I win the dice roll, and he mulls to four looking for Force. He doesn't find it and I win on turn 1.
Game 2: -4 Pact, -4 CtW, -1 Cantor, -1 Skullwinder, -1 Slithermuse, +4 Therapy, +4 Duress, +3 Swamps.
My first hand was a tutor chain off Lotus Petal. With no perpetual resources, I would essentially be throwing my hand away if he had FoW. I mull, and draw two Swamps, acceleration, and discard. There is no business, but I have the scry, and I can be playing lands and discarding his cards for a turn or two while I look for business. I decide to keep.
That turns out to be a mistake, as half a dozen turns later I die to Delver beatdown without ever seeing a business spell.
Game 3: A solid hand with perpetual resources, acceleration, and business. I keep, and go off turn 1. However I draw into nothing but discard. Not ideal.
I use the discard to make sure he has nothing relevant, and then try again the following turn, having untapped and played a land. This time I draw into nothing but acceleration. He bolts me on his turn for the win.
U/R Delver is a difficult matchup, as they have both speed and disruption. The disruption forces us to slow down, and they are well positioned to take advantage of our life loss.
1-1
Round 3 - Stax variant?
Game 1: I win the dice roll and keep a decent hand. I play a turn 1 D4, drawing into a hand that will win next turn. He drops Trinisphere. Game over.
Game 2: Since I'm on the play, I intend to race the Chalice that I know he's mulling into. It's a good plan, and it works.
Game 3: -4 Pact, -2 SSG, +3 Swamp, +3 Claim. He mulls into a turn 1 Chalice (0). I play straight through it, chaining rituals and D4s until I use IGG to get Hellbent and Tutor for ToA.
2-1
Round 4: Elves
Game 1: I'm on the play, and we both mull to five. We each know the other is playing a combo deck, and there is a tension between going off first, and going off too early. I get the timing right, and he doesn't; he goes off when I expect him to, but he fizzles.
I go off the next turn, but discover the perils of Deathrite Shaman with Wirewood Symbiote. First, he targets the land that my own Deathrite was targeting for mana. Then, he used the mana gained to (later in the spell chain) deal two damage to me after my final D4.
This loss was entirely on me. Partly because I'm very rusty, and partly because his cards were all in Japanese, I did not appreciate the Wirewood, Deathrite, black mana floating interaction. If I had, all I would have needed to do was pass to my second mainphase to either drain that mana or force him to use it at a time when the damage would not have been relevant.
Game 2: I keep a turn 1 tutor chain hand that require me to dump a ToA into the graveyard when I crack LED. He has Surgical Extraction in hand, and removes my wincons. Game to him.
2-2
Afterthoughts
I felt there was a lot going on here, and a lot to think about. I had 5 T1 tournament kills in 11 games, or 45%. More importantly, I feel that there was really only one game (R2G3) where the deck let me down; I bricked on my D4 on two separate occasions, handing him a match that I had otherwise won, despite my poor keep the previous game. The rest of my losses were either due to good fortune on the part of my opponent (mulling to the perfect 4, ripping Trinisphere off the top) or my own play mistakes (see R4).
In other words,
I am currently the weak link, and in the hands of a better pilot (as I hope to become), the deck will perform better.
On to specifics, though.
Surgical in R4G2 took me completely by surprise. A strong indicator of how rusty I am, I didn't even consider this very common sideboard card when playing against a deck that plays black cards. Ugh!
On one hand, I could have dealt with the situation by simply mulling for a hand that did not expose ToA to Surgical. On the other hand, that same exposure could have happened anywhere along the D4 chain when I needed to crack LED. How would I handle that?
On one hand, adding a second win condition - EtW, which has some issues with Pact, or Charbelcher, which would require modifying my build - is an option. I suppose Brainfreeze and Grapeshot are technically wincons as well, and while I've never tried pushing the storm count up that high on purpose, Grapeshot doubles as removal. The idea does make me smile.
ANT plays only one wincon, though, but they have the card filtering to get it out of their hand. Still, dropping to one ToA against black would minimize the chances of exposing it to Surgical. I'll need to give this some more thought.
I can't say whether or not I felt that only being able to bring in 3 Swamps was useful against blue, as I didn't really get that many games against them this time around. Is that a meta shift? I can hope! However, it was
really nice to be able to board out Pacts against Chalice decks on the draw. Boarding to play
through Chalice, rather than try to answer Chalice, was not something that had occurred to me before the tournament. I do like the idea of a proactive solution, rather that a reactive solution. If I were to put EtW back into the sideboard (Pact comes out in that matchup anyway), then I also have my second wincon against black, and an out to Leyline.
And as a side note, Chalice counters your spells, so you can still play out all those Moxes and petals to generate storm.
