Originally Posted by
Vindicate
I'm guessing a lot of you saw me lose my win and in on camera in Round 11, but this is everything I did in order to get there. The deck list is as follows (as I recently added to the reddit thread about this event):
Creatures (10):
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Mirran Crusader
Spells (28):
4 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Gerrard's Verdict
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Lingering Souls
4 Vindicate
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Kaya, Ghost Assassin
1 Batterskull
Lands (22):
4 Wasteland
1 Karakas
4 Marsh Flats
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Scrubland
1 Bayou
4 Swamp
1 Plains
Sideboard (15):
1 Duress
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Containment Priest
1 Gerrard's Verdict
1 Rest in Peace
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Council's Judgment
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Damnation
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Going forward, there will be an additional Rest in Peace in place of one of the Containment Priests, but for now, my match log:
Round 1: Grixis Delver (1-0)
Game 1: I win the die roll, play a deathrite on turn one, and get to go wasteland plus hymn on turn two, game ends shortly after I apply pressure.
Game 2: He's on the play, but mulligans to 5. You know what good against a mull to 5? Hymn into Liliana of the Veil.
Round 2: Moon Stompy (2-0)
Game 1: I'm on the draw as he plays an ancient tomb and says go. I fetch for a basic and play a deathrite. He looks at his hand with multiple moon effects in it and i laugh as i fetch another basic next turn and vindicate the Chandra, Torch of Defiance he powered out on turn 2.
Game 2: He mulligans to 5 and i keep a hand with 2 basics in it, he tries to go for a Bridge plan, but lingering souls are pretty small and annoying when you dont have a red source to get cards out of your hand with. Game ends when i flicker a Magus of the Moon with Kaya and cast things with real mana instead of fake mountains.
Post-match: My opponent asks to see the deck and I lay it out in front of us and discuss card choices with him. Wish I had gotten his name.
Round 3: Czech Pile (3-0)
Game 1: My opponent and I both do our fair yet powerful things and he dies to a Liliana of the Veil discarding Lingering Souls to prove that all you need to win games of legacy are fair modern cards.
Game 2: I mulligan to 5 and he leads deathrite into True Name. I envy how much skill he has as he points at me and then forces my liliana down the line.
Game 3: We both mulligan to 6 and I lead on a deathrite he doesn't kill. The deathrite adds 4 mana and does 8 damage to him over the course of the game. Pretty good turn one play.
Round 4: BUG Leovold (AKA the Reid Duke "Mono 3 Drops" Special) (4-0)
Game 1: I get to go thoughtseize into hymn into Lili, just like some pox guy drew it up. I cast True Name Nemesis with double strike (AKA Mirran Crusader) and he loses.
Game 2: He sticks a turn 2 Leovold off of Noble Heirarch and I yet again stabilize with Mirran Crusader, this time adding a Sword of Fire and Ice to the party (For those of you who can't count, that's 8 plus two sword triggers plus protection from him).
Round 5: Grixis Delver (5-0)
Game 1: We both try to do fair things at a completely unfair ONE WHOLE TURN EARLY off of death rite, but I'm on the play and swords his death rite and hymn him turn 2 and grind him out.
Game 2: I mulligan to 3. End of story.
Game 3: I keep a hand with thought seize, death rite, a couple fetches, and 3 Vindicates. He keeps a hand with a cantrip and only 2 lands. The two lands he did have abruptly found their way to the graveyard via vindicate and I rode deathrite and Jitte the rest of the way.
Round 6: Burning Wish Lands (5-0-1)
Game 1: Game 1 drags on for 30 minutes after a burning wish for Devastating Dreams fails to work as he only had 2 red mana not 3, so i hymned it away after he wished for it, but couldn't find a way to pressure him hard enough through a tabernacle and online Grove/Punishing Fire, eventually he draws the 3rd depths and kills me.
Game 2: He mulligans once, and i lead a death rite on the play. This was very close to enough, as i proceed to thought seize out and eat a Life from the Loam, then wasteland him twice.
Game 3: Obviously we don't finish game 3, this time he gets to wish for and cast Devastating Dreams for 4. We continue on without realizing how little time we had left, and then when the judge sits down and asks what turn we're on we realize we must've missed the announcement. Neither of us is in a position to win, so we move into the draw bracket undefeated. We talk for a while after the match, both of us asking about each other's interesting sideboard cards (his in the wish package, mine in the fact that there are 10 one of's in my board)
Round 7: Esper Mentor (5-1-1)
Game 1: He mulligans to 6 and keeps a one lander. I waste him and he brainstorms, missing. When he finally does find a land, I have a Mirran Crusader on board and then Vindicate his land drop. I have at this point seen cabal therapy, probe, trop, underground sea.
Game 2: I mis-board a little bit just due to that i haven't seen a white card or land from him. I get shredded apart by a blind therapy that hit 3x thoughtseize, then later flashbacked to take my damnation, sacrificing a monk and making a monk with mentor.
Game 3: During side boarding, I get very close to calling a judge to check his cards as i realize that every time he has to think about a play, he bends the upper left corner of his lands in play, making the lands even more curved and beat than the others, and thus discernible in his deck. I choose not to, trying to win what i believe to be a favorable matchup. I proceed to mull to 5, and get beat by a triple mentor draw.
Round 8: Grixis Delver, for the third time (6-1-1)
At this point, I'm just surprised at all the fair decks I'm seeing. But it's not just across from me, every match it feels like theres fair deck mirrors going on on both sides of me, sitting next to Ondrej for the 3rd or 4th round in a row (Czech Pile).
Game 1: I play a deathrite, then thoughtseize and hymn him on turn two, then wasteland and play liliana and edict his deathrite. He now has no permanents in play, and 3 cards in hand.
Game 2: I keep a decent 7 while he mulligans to 6, he probes me and sees my pair of vindicates, visibly tilting at invocations in legacy. Those vindicates then both get pointed at lands and he loses.
Round 9: Czech Pile (7-1-1)
Game 1: He does better fair things than me, snap casting a kolaghan's command shattering my batterskull and killing my liliana of the veil.
Game 2: I have a death rite that survives and I get to fire off an early vindicate on a land, keeping me 2 mana ahead the rest of the game.
Game 3: I mulligan to five, keeping the most awkward hand I've ever kept with this deck. Plains, Karakas, Wasteland, Stoneforge Mystic, Mirran Crusader. I bottom Wasteland #2. I play the Stoneforge on 2, getting Sword of Fire and Ice as he spends his first couple turns cantripping. He plays True Name on 3, I play Mirran Crusader. He tries to cantrip his way into a shatter effect and fails I draw a Wasteland for the full rub ins as I activate stone forge and suit up the Crusader. 12 you. I draw 2. Still no black source this game. He untaps and finds nothing, dying the next turn. Man this is a good D&T deck.
Round 10: ANT (8-1-1)
I'm going to go into full detail of how I win this match because I believe it is honestly the best sequence of plays and mind games I've ever made.
Game 1: Fetch to play a death rite turn one. He plays an underground sea and says go. I cast my one copy of inquisition of kozilek (very importantly not thoughtseize). I see Volcanic Island, Dark Ritual, Rain of Filth, Ad Nauseam, Cabal Ritual, and Infernal Tutor. I run the lines quickly in my head of how much mana he can generate depending on which ritual effect i take. I make my choice mentally (Dark Ritual) but pretend to go into the tank. I then start to discuss out loud, talking to myself, about what happens if i take each card, pulling the card off to the side if I'm talking about what happens if i take it. I start with the Cabal Ritual. "If I take cabal ritual, you get to go volc, dark it up to 4, rain of filth up to 5, ad nauseam, i lose." I then move onto the Rain of Filth. "If I take Rain of Filth, you go volc, dark it up to 4, cabal up to five, ad nauseam and i lose." I then jokingly talk about the infernal tutor, then moving on to the dark ritual. I say, "If I take the dark ritual, you go and for turn tap for two, sac them both to Rain of filth getting up to 4, cabal ritual up to five, and still ad nauseam killing me." You'll notice that I intentionally leave out the payment of a black mana for the rain of filth in this count. I then say, a little dejectedly, "I guess you get to ad nauseam no matter what, this really sucks. I'll take the Dark Ritual I guess," and then toss his cards back on to the table in front of him, putting the dark ritual in his graveyard. He smiles a bit, untaps, casts rain of filth paying a black, plays volc, floats a blue, sacs both his lands and casts cabal ritual, then starts to stutter a little bit as he realizes he can't actually cast his ad nauseam. I successfully strip mine him twice, as well as hymning rain of filth and cabal ritual out of his hand, leaving him with an ad nauseam, infernal tutor, and whatever he drew for the turn, I eat something end of turn and proceed to kill him via stone forge mystic over the next couple turns.
Game 2, He's clearly on the play. He plays a fetch and says go, and i untap and play a swamp and thoughtseize him this time. He respond by fetching and brainstorms. He draws his cards and hides two on top of his library, clearly the plan against someone with thoughtseize and Inquisition in his deck. He then show me a hand of three fetch lands and duals, a cabal ritual, a ponder and a gitaxian probe. I take the Cabal Ritual as its the most relevant card, and then Surgically Extract the Ritual, shuffling away the Infernal Tutor and Lion's Eye Diamond he hid on top of his library to kill me next turn. I play a hymn to tourach into liliana of the veil, then a rest in peace which he concedes to.
Round 11 Grixis Delver piloted by Brian Coval (Feature Match, 8-2-1)
If you'd like to see this one play out, you can find it in CardTitan's Twitch video log. Brian draws well game one, and game two I make the decision to go for Ensnaring Bridge to play around Spell Pierce and Snapcaster Mage instead of Sorin, Solemn Visitor which played around a shatter effect not name Kolaghan's Command (dead to that with both lines). He had the Ancient Grudge, 2-0 Coval.
Overall place: 24th, at 8-2-1. Happy with my result. Would've loved to top 8 and keep playing Sunday, but I'll take what I got. I'd be glad to talk to any and all of you about developing this list even further than I already have over the last year and a half at GP's and other various legacy events in the southeast part of the US. (Other notable "finish" with this deck: 3-0-1'ed 7 different legacy side events over the course of 1 weekend at GP Louisville).
Thanks for reading everybody!
