Tournament Report - Win a Mox Pearl in Fanboy3

By Wagz

Hi all! I come fresh from another foray into Lejacy Magic at the always-fun Fanboy3 in Manchester. 37 players came with their favourite deck sleeved up, resulting in 6 rounds before top 8. The prizes? A very good looking Mox Pearl to the winner, with store credit to the top 4 and 5 boosters for each of the losing quarter finalists. Legacy has undergone a lot of changes recently with the StarCityGames Open Series forcing people to make better decks than the classic Team America Control, Goblins and so on. The buzz was that the format would be Zoo, Merfolk, Goblins and New Horizons this weekend, so I picked a deck which would be good against those 4 and forsaked my usual protection against silly combo decks, since with a 9 round tournament I might only have to face it once or twice and I can afford one loss in the swiss easily. I brewed up the following, borrowing many cards from the always-excellent Rik Powell:


4 Goblin Guide
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Lightning Helix
4 Price of Progress
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Mountain
3 Plateau
2 Taiga
1 Savannah
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Raging Ravine
1 Karakas
3 Arid Mesa
4 Wooded Foothills
Sideboard:
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Baneslayer Angel
1 Stirring Wildwood
3 Krosan Grip

Which is similar to my Madrid deck but has subbed the Mindbreak Traps for the mirror tech of Baneslayers :D. The Karakas was a last-minute addition I borrowed from Matt Light in lieu of the presence of many Emrakuls in the room.

Round 1 vs Phil Smith with Bridge-Naught

His deck is one of the new Emrakul ones. It is based on the old Stifle-Naught decks which used Stifle to cheat Phyrexian Dreadnaught into play. Using Mosswort Bridge they can hide away a good card and with the Dreadnaught in play and trigger on the stack can activate the Bridge to cast something good. They also have Show and Tell to directly cheat stuff into play. I have only a few answers for this sort of deck but I have a lot of aggression so it might not be too terrible. Game 1 he chose to not counter my Knight of the Reliquary as he wasn't sure if Zoo was playing Karakas still (most don't) so when he Show and Telled Emrakul into play I was able to tutor up my land to bounce the Spaghetti Monster. Game 2 he countered my Knight but I'd already drawn the Karakas. In any event his countering my Knight put enough card types into graveyards to power up my Goyfs for a lethal attack so it was Catch 22 really.

1-0

Round 2 vs Tomas Sukaitis with Bant

Tom brought Bant but had given up on Counterbalance-Top for a straightforward aggro-control version of the deck. My Baneslayers came in for this creature mirror and it was mostly back and forth with life totals only he has War Monks. Game 1 I played around Stifle (quite common in current Bant Decks) only to get blown out by Wasteland (far less common). Game 3 had an unusual situation: on 4 life with a Jitte versus War Monk and Qasali Pridemage I rip a Baneslayer Angel. He rips Noble Hierarch and the Exalted means I actually have to chump block :o.

1-1

Round 3 vs Thomas Robinson with Goblins

I may be mixing up rounds 3 and 4 here as I don't have any notes to go on but I definitely played these 2 matches. Goblins is a good matchup for Zoo as they lean fairly heavily on turn 1 Goblin Lackey (how lackey!) or Aether Vial, but Lackey is a 1/1 versus my 21 1 mana answers and Vial doesn't affect the board very quickly. I draw a bit of gash while he nuts off a Ringleader but his deck is set up to do that so fair enough. Game 2 I establish control of the board but only draw 3 creatures the entire game, 2 Guides and a Nacatl - Jitte helps a lot with this. Game 3 he didn't have a very explosive start and played out 2 Vials in the first two turns before Edicting me when I had a Nacatl and a Pridemage in play. I sacced the Nacatl as I was fairly sure his hand had something like Goblin Warchief, Ringleader, Siege-Gang so I kept the Pridemage to kill his 2 counter vial in his next upkeep with the trigger on the stack. This turned out to Time Walk him just enough for my guys and burn to get in before he could develope a board presence.

2-1

Round 4 vs Jason Christie with Enchantress

Another good matchup for Zoo. I was lucky enough to know what my opponents were playing every round today - having good friends at tournaments has a lot of benefits and you should always help out the people you know if you can because they often return the favour. I kept my hand despite being slow because it had a Qasali Pridemage in. I got some damage in and kept him off the right cards until he raw-dogged a Moat when he was going to tutor for it with the Sterling Grove he had in play. I'd rather he'd tutored for it as I'd been sandbagging my Pridemage in hand. I ran it out to kill the Grove as he had a card which prevented players from casting spells and activating abilities in opponents turns and had to hope to draw another Pridemage to win. Luckily I did and was able to attack in in time. My hand for game 2 had no 1 drop or 2 drop again but 2 Krosan Grips so I kept. My draws were Wild Nacatl, Gaddock Teeg, Qasali Pridemage, Qasali Pridemage; proving that it is, in fact, very nice being me.

3-1

Round 5 vs Alex Shoemark with Iggy-Pop

This is not a good matchup for me as I have to have one of my Teegs or Canonists to win, but at least if he's leaning on Ill-Gotten Gains rather than Ad Nauseam my sideboard graveyard hate has room to do something. Game 1 I mull a hand without Teeg into another one without Teeg but some aggression. I cast 2 spells before I lose (Goblin Guide and Lightning Helix) and start sideboarding. Games 2 and 3 I get a hate bear and some aggression plus a Tormod's Crypt so I am able to put him under pressure. Luckily for me his draws are terrible and I sneak the victory. Game 3 his keep was because he had Lotus Petal, Crystal Vein and Dark Confidant, which seems fair but he failed to draw any more lands. I'm not convinced Bob comes in against Zoo because he just gives me extra Lightning Bolts on my opponent but perhaps his testing revealed that he wanted more cards more than he wanted his life total - I think Bob is more for mirror matches. Ah well, no complaints as I can ID into the top 8 with Matt Light in round 6.

4-1-1, 4th after the Swiss

Quarterfinals vs Matt Light with Hypergenesis

Matt is playing another one of those Emrakul decks, only using Hypergenesis alongside Show and Tell to put Kul and the gang into play. I literally have only my main deck Karakas and my sideboard Ethersworn Canonist to interact and sure enough Matt kills me with gigantic monsters. 1 at a time, a la Reanimator I can deal with but 5 or 6 at once is too much. He kept a dog of a hand game 2, with 1 land, a cascade spell and 5 monsters on the draw, but he only needs 2 mana sources to plain win the game, against a deck with Goblin Guide, up a game and in a match where he is the heavy favourite so I think it's defensible.

Lose in the Quarters

I pack wars my 5 M11 boosters and manage to get a Fauna Shaman and am fairly happy with top 8 when I hadn't played Legacy in a while and couldn't list peoples' decklists by heart any more. I've got a new version of Zoo brewed up with a bit more metagaming involved but I'm saving it for Rik or myself to run in the Legacy event at Nats in a few weeks time - probably not me, I'll be busy being National Champion obv.

Grand Prix Madrid - *30th place* Part II

By Wagz

Part I of this report can be found here

When we left off at the end of part I, I had gone 7-2 in matches and 12-7 in games in the biggest Grand Prix of all time (even bigger than Beyonce's). This is obviously a good thing ™ and I was very happy. I got to bed quite late and had to get up at 7 to get to the venue in time for the player meeting. Some of the other players I was with came along too for the Vintage and PTQ side events but my eyes were on the main event. During the player meeting I looked through my sleeves and noticed a few of them had developed small splits so I changed those while listening to some Germans mocking their previous day's opponents.

Match 10: Steewen Boettger with Zoo

He had a more traditional build which meant his first turn Nacatl made my double Goblin Guide hand less good than it would be in most matchups. After removing each others guys and getting down to topdecks I am on 8 and he is on 27, not optimal. However, my topdeck is Elspeth which matches whatever he draws each turn and allows me to draw more cards. When on 12 counters I Ultimate her and I'm in a winning position. My opponent tries to burn me out but I have a Lightning Helix to 'counter' one of his and we're off to game 2. I mull to 5 which is kinda bad for me because when we're done trading 1-for-1 he'll still be 2 cards up which will be creatures on the board. Surely enough he beats me down and we move to game 3. Being on the play is also nice in the mirror because you get to cast your guys first, which tends to mean they get bigger first. My Nacatl is matched by his but mine is a 3/3 to swing in. My turn 2 Lavamancer stops his coming down and he leaves his Nacatl back on defence. Turn 3 I Helix his Nacatl and swing, Pathing his Knight of the Reliquary then dropping my turn 4 Elspeth which draws the concession, yay.

8-2, 14-8

Match 11: Enrique Garcia-baquero Rivas with Merfolk

During the last round and subsequent wander-round I found out that Rik had lost his wallet the previous night which is never fun :(. He missed the first round of the Vintage tournament too, poor guy. My luck seemed to be improving though as I drew Merfolk, aka Bye. Game 1 he got a couple of Silvergill Adepts down but I was easily able to play around Daze as he was on the play. I landed a Tarmogoyf and killed his lords to easily take the game. Game 2 was much of the same only I went down to 7 life. Only 5 of that damage was dealt by my opponent as I had to lean reasonably hard on a Horizon Canopy but I got to kill all his lords, then his mutavaults and then watch as he drew nothing, getting a cheeky peek along the way with trips Goblin Guide, GG indeed! In this game he used Mind Harness on my Wild Nacatl and immediately called a judge. I figured he was wondering if he got a 3/3, no dice my friend - you really want to save those for the Tarmogoyfs.

9-2, 16-8

Match 12: Rafael Truchado with Bant

A strange deck, some counterbalance+top deck but with Trinket Mage, Engineered Explosives, Jace and Goyfs. Game 1 goes on a while as he keeps removing all my creatures (I hate it when they do that). Eventually he is on 11 and I am on 30. I Price of Progress twice while I still have time so he is on 3 and I am on 13. My Grim Lavamancer gets him to 1 but he kills it with an Explosives. He has a Trinket Mage and a Goyf from his draws while I have nothing in play now. He has one card in hand, Counterbalance but no Top, is tapped out and has just attacked me to 6. Facing lethal on board and having no cards in hand I untap my 3 duals, 1 mountain and Horizon Canopy and draw.. Qasali Pridemage. He shows me a Force of Will on top of his library and I take my opportunity for greatness. I crack the canopy to draw a card, leaving Plateau untapped - it's a Lightning Bolt. Sick topdeck to take the victory, thank-you very much. Game 2 would be similar except he couldn't deal with the steady stream of cheap efficient beaters and Gaddock Teeg plus 2 Cats knock him to dead.

10-2, 18-8

Match 13: Angelo Cadei with ANT

The bogeyman. Not Angelo, ANT. I mull in game 1 and beat him down a little bit and then he waves his hands around a little bit, draws half his deck and kills me. I consider calling a judge but I've seen people do this before and apparently it's alright. I sideboard in my Mindbreak Traps, Teegs and the Canonist, taking out my Paths, Swords and Jitte because cards which are super-relevant are much better than cards which do absolutely nothing (I should write more strategy articles). Game 2 I make Wild Nacatl, Ethersworn Canonist, Goblin Guide + Lightning Bolt with Mindbreak backup and he can't do anything, nice draws. Game 3 I bash him down a lot and Lightning Helix myself up to 22. He's not drawn all that well and starts tanking a lot after I've attacked him 4 times. He uses Angel's grace in response to my lethal Lightning Bolt but can't combo off next turn from 1 life because Ad Nauseum just doesn't work that way.

11-2, 20-8

Match 14: Amaiur Gonzalez Monreal with Merfolk

Another Merfolk matchup where I mull to less than optimal. My 5 is facing his 5 with me on the play but he gets some lords quickly and even my Grim Lavamancer can't save me because I can't power him up enough. Game 2 I do the usual Daze dance and get 2 Wild Nacatls and a Tarmogoyf in play, taking damage only off a fetch and a Horizon Canopy. Game 3 he has sideboarded a lot of cards in and out and mulls once. Unless he knows something I don't I'm pretty sure Merfolk has a lot of cheap counters in its board which are actually quite ineffective against me. I get a quick Tarmogoyf down and he counters my other stuff with Spellstutter Sprites, cute. Basically he was hoping to get and protect a quick clock but I had cheap fatties so he didn't really stand a chance.

12-2, 22-9

Match 15: Jan Sudmann with Dredge

I was now up to table 16 but we'd been called for a (fake) feature match. This was my first ever feature match so I was a little nervous until I sat down and realised it was just a game like any other. I keep my decent hand but he mulls down to 5. He has an elaborate shuffling technique and a stack of empty sleeves so I figure he's probably dredge. Sure enough he turn 1 Unmasks himself to get a Dredge card in the bin and the race is on. My turn 1 Nacatl is joined by a turn 2 Tarmogoyf but he hits 3 Narcomoebas pretty quickly. With his two Ichorids he is able to start flashing back his spells and making guys to his 2 Bridges - nice draw. I am stuck on 2 land and probably punt by not pathing his last guy end of turn in the hope of drawing a burn spell. I did it so that I could always path the next thing that comes along. Sure enough I draw a Lightning Helix and proceed to get Iona locked with Zombie blockers, damn. Game 2 he mulls to 5 again but I keep a 2-hate hand with some aggression and I swing him to zero before he can do anything serious. I wish him luck in mulling 4 more times but he only manages to do it 3 times. He plays a City of Brass, casts Breakthrough for 0, draws 4 and discards his 6 cards. I Ravenous Trap him and he extends the hand, nice match. I got to lean over and thank LSV for the Tezz deck I won the PTQ with recently which is nice because I can be a little fanboyish sometimes.

13-2, 24-10

Match 16: David Do Anh with ANT

After my previous match I was chatting with Rich Hagon and he informs me that I wasn't actually at table 16 because tables 1-10 had been removed. The standings go up and I'm in 8th place with 2 rounds to go. It looks like the winner of this round will be able to ID but the loser will have to get lucky in the next one with tie-breaks and winning. I play against David Do Anh who I met for the first time in the morning at the tube station with Gavin Goh. He seems a nice guy and I wasn't sure knowing what he was playing was going to be any kind of advantage. I get turn 1 Grim Lavamancer, turn 2 Qasali Pridemage but on his turn 3 he starts going off and there's nothing I can do when he finds everything while still on 8 life. I tried to tilt him when he announced a second Lion's Eye Diamond by saccing my Pridemage to kill the first but he had enough mana to put Ad Nauseum on the stack and sac the targetted LED. Wasn't sure if his lack of rules knowledge would confuse him into not going off correctly but it's worth a try at this level. Game 2 I keep a few guys, Canonist and Mindbreak Trap. He thoughtseizes away the Canonist and later duresses the Trap but doesn't have enough gas to go off. I beat him down to 6 and EOT Price of Progress him for 2 when I have another Price in hand and 2 Pridemages in play. I untap and attack with my two guys for lethal. He tries to Mystical Tutor for a Slaughter Pact, Brainstorm into the Pact and kill a guy but I drew the Mindbreak Trap to counter it ;).

Game 3 I mulligan and have a hand with no answers but some aggression. I really really need both in this matchup but it's unlikely that a random 5 will be any better so I keep it in the vain hope that it'll be enough. End of my turn 2 he cracks a Scalding Tarn and announces that he'll use the blue mana he's fetching to cast a Mystical Tutor. He finds an Ad Nauseum and puts it on top, untaps draws and casts 2 Lotus Petals. At this point I notice that he didn't actually find a land with the Tarn. I figure it hasn't made any different to any decisions because he was always going to draw the same card but I called a Judge anyway to resolve the situation - mise get free wins? Martin Juza, who was watching, called me a cheat because I had noticed straight away apparently, and wouldn't accept my insistence that I really hadn't noticed until just then. If he'd noticed then perhaps he should have called a judge maybe? I think it's a bit off to call someone a cheat when you're not following the rules yourself. The judge undoes the sequence of plays so my opponent finds a land, gives my opponent a Warning for Game Rule Violation and gives me one for "being a bit slow". I didn't bother to appeal the ludicrous Warning because it wouldn't matter anyway, but I don't like that judge much now. My opponent untapped and went off but there was a slightly bitter taste in my mouth. I wished him luck in the top 8 anyway and headed off to my friends. I was actually a bit gutted that I'd not made top 8 despite having been extremely happy to just make Day 2 but I tried to shrug it off quickly because I was still exceeding my expectations.

13-3, 25-12

Match 17: Rafael Del Riego with UGRW control

We were potentially playing for top 8 but with the 4 tables above us playing Feature Matches it was far more likely we were playing for 9th place. He seemed to be playing a slightly janky UGRW deck with Jaces, Vendilion Cliques, Bolts, Swords and Goyfs. Plenty of good cards but a bit Rock-ish with a bad manabase - 4 colours _and_ Wasteland? Needless to say he always had the counterspells and removal spells for my stuff and I couldn't fight through so I lost the match.

13-4, 25-14

My last opponent finished 9th but had better tie-breaks than I would have. I ended up in 30th place which is perfectly respectible but slightly lower than it could have been. I won myself a tidy $400 which more than paid for the trip and I'd had an excellent weekend. I'd had an on-off friendly rivalry with Matt Light the whole weekend and having been streaks ahead of him the whole way he pipped me by 1 place on tie-breaks right at the very end, curse you Matt :p!

Seb and I joined up with Matt Light and his mates for an 8-man random boosters draft then took a train back into town (chatting with Sam Black along the way) before Cube Drafting which I took down with a solid WG monsters+equipment+anthems deck after everyone was extolling the power of the blue cards in the cube. Overall it had been a very good weekend and I'd recommend my deck heavily to anyone looking to play Legacy Zoo. Maybe I'll win the next Grand Prix I go to, but I've Day 2'd 2 of the 3 so far and top 32'd one now, on with the Pro Tour :D

Props:

• Rik for lending me cards
• Rik, Colin and Seb for being good friends and travel buddies
• Richard Bland for making top 4
• Matt Light & crew for providing draft entertainment
• All the British players for being there for Legacy
• The judges who structured the weekend after being overloaded with players

Slops:

• The judges who didn't expect 2000+ players and got overloaded with players
• Luton Airport for being a bit faily
• Madrid Airport for being really expensive
• Whoever stole Rik's Wallet
• Martin Juza for calling me a cheat + the judge who agreed
• Me for not top-8ing :p

Grand Prix Madrid - *30th Place* Part I

By Wagz

I am calling this Part I with the vague ambition of writing Part II but it was a very long weekend. It started on Thursday evening when I travelled down to Stevenage to get picked up by Rik Powell and Colin Ward to stay the night and get a bit of testing in. Not for my deck, mind, because I was pretty happy with mine, but we had a Dark Depths list which needed a bit of tuning. The next day we headed to Luton Airport where we went inside and met up with our flight partner Seb Parker. Having done so the fire alarm immediately went off and we all had to evacuate the building

Airport fail #1.

We were eventually let back in and headed through the gates before settling down for a beer before the flight because we're English. En route to the bar, we noticed on the screen that the flight had been cancelled

Airport fail #2.

We went to the information kiosk and they were as surprised as we were since they are usually informed about this sort of thing. They phoned someone up and apparently it was just a little typo or something, weird. We went and had our beer but with all the delays we had to drink it relatively quickly before going through to the plane. We get in the plane and are taken through the pre-flight monotony. We get onto the runway and start speeding up. Then we didn't really take off. Then we slowed down a bit and turned off the runway. An announcement comes over the tannoy to the tune of "As many of you may have realised we did not just take off. We noticed another plane attempting to land on the runway so we got off as quickly as possible. We apologise for the delay but please don't panic, we'll try again in a few minutes"

Airport fail #3.

We did eventually take off and have a safe flight. I tested my deck against Seb's ANT list and it didn't seem too bad. Oh yeah, I'm playing Zoo. ANT isn't a great matchup but I removed the sideboard cards against the decks I beat anyway to make room for the combo-beating cards and it didn't seem too bad in the end. We land and meet some of Rik's London-Legacy friends so head off the tubes towards our hostels. We meet up with Fu in town and have some dinner before going to bed. Fu had some cool tech from the trader's stalls so I amended my sideboard a little bit to include one of Mick Edwards' 3 favourite cards. Here's what I played:

4 Goblin Guide

4 Grim Lavamancer

4 Wild Nacatl

4 Qasali Pridemage

4 Tarmogoyf

1 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Path to Exile

2 Swords to Plowshares

3 Lightning Helix

1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Price of Progress

1 Elspeth, Knight Errant

3 Basic Lands

3 RW, 2 GR, 1 GW Duals

8 Fetchlands

3 Horizon Canopies

Sideboard:

2 Gaddock Teeg

1 Ethersworn Canonist

4 Mindbreak Trap

2 Ravenous Trap

2 Tormod's Crypt

1 Umezawa's Jitte

2 Krosan Grip

1 Elspeth, Knight Errant

Having got to bed at 1 we get up at 6:30 to get ready and head off for registration. Turns out they weren't expecting anything like the numbers of players at the event, despite everyone's predictions of 2000-odd. You can read about this in articles by good players which you have to pay for but there were 2227 players in total (according to thedci.com) and they must have been expecting half that many. The player meeting was delayed by a long time and I wasn't handed my Umezawa's Free-tte until I requested it at the judge station. After a bite for lunch and my two byes I returned to the venue to begin my first round at about 2pm, more than 7 hours after I woke up.

Round 3: Vampires with Dark Depths

You will have to excuse me throughout these reports about lack of detail because it was 2 long days with little sleep and many rounds. I played against this deck in my first round, presumably still in the 'noobs with bad decks and wins' section of the tournament. I make a few guys and he has a couple of Gatekeeper of Malakirs which are exceedingly annoying for a Zoo deck. He eventually draws the Dark Depths combo off his Dark Confidant but his guys are more than enough for me to scoop anyway. Game 2 and 3 I pretty much just make some guys and swing a bit. He stumbled on stuff but I got a quick beatdown and had the removals for his guys. Always nice to win the first one because it puts you in a good mental place for the rest of it.

3-0 matches, 2-1 games

Round 4: Counter-Top

I get a quick couple of guys down but I think he gets a blocker because I didn't gain Swords life and he didn't lose attack life. I must have eventually got rid of his stuff because my Wild Nacatl got in for the winz after a bit. Game 2 He swords' my first couple of guys and lands a couple of his own. Qasali Pridemage was a bit too much for me to deal with and I was forced into bad trades after I couldn't land any bigger creatures. Game 3 he swords my first Goyf but I get a couple of Grim Lavamancers down for some slow damage before eventually getting a Qasali Pridemage and then an Elspeth to make my guys fly over and he can't deal with a 4 mana Planeswalker - cheers Fu!

4-0, 4-2

Round 5: Combo Elves

Not the Standard version I lost to the last time I played Legacy, this guy had Natural Order + Progenitus which pretty much beat me up in games 2 and 3 after I crushed his 3 mulls in game 1. Go me! I used my Lightning Helices wisely to Time Walk against Progenitus beats but it's not quite enough when they can also make loads of chump blockers and are immune to Price of Progress. My one hope game 3 was for him to forget to pay for his Pact after he didn't put a counter on top, but during his upkeep he tapped and I conceded.

4-1, 5-4 :(

Round 6: Dutch? Stax

I don't know the names of the different Staxes but he was trying to beat me with Baneslayers. He had Armageddons, Trinispheres, Tabernacle and Crucibles but no Smokestack or Tangle Wire. Game 1 he goes for a Magus of the Tabernacle and Armageddony stuff but I have a Swords for his guy. My Qasali Pridemages go the distance. During this game I think he played a Karakas but it was an Italian one so I had to ask LSV on the table next to me if I could please read his (he was playing Enchantress) and after reading it confirmed that the oracle text said it could bounce only Legendary Creatures. Woo judge skills! Game 2 my opening hand was a little awkward because I had double Horizon Canopy which I needed to take a bunch of damage from to cast my spells. This isn't so bad against Stax though because they don't actually kill you until you're really dead anyway. His is a bit worse though as he takes 10 damage off an Ancient Tomb. He slowly locks me down while assembling Trinisphere, Crucible + Wasteland, double Ghostly Prison and stuff. He Oblivion Rings my Grim Lavamancer before making 2 Baneslayers which I send to the Exile zone. I don't know a stock list but I don't expect any more than 1 more Angel from him so I have some time to take his last 5 life. I have to keep the lands I draw in hand because I have 3 basics in play but really want 4 mana to either pay for 2 Prisons or play a Pridemage + Activate it. I did eventually get the Pridemage and killed the Ring on my Lavamancer so I could untap, 2 him with the guy and 3 him with a Lightning Bolt for good ole' exactsies.

5-1, 7-4

Round 7: Merfolk

Game 1 we shuffle up and I enjoy the shuffling so much that I mull 7 spells, 6 spells, 5 lands, 4 spells into 2 Lavamancers and a Lightning Bolt. If I draw a Mountain then this has a chance against creature decks so I keep it. Having won the dice roll I just pass the turn. He makes Island and Aether Vial. I draw another Lavamancer and when he starts making guys I just scoop to save time because this match is unwinnable without the ability to cast spells. I get to sideboard for game 2 and he doesn't, which is only a small advantage because Zoo smashes Merfolk all day every day anyway. Game 2 I get a Lavamancer down and that's pretty much game because he can't land enough lords if I get double use out of Lightning Bolts. Game 3 I have 2 Lavamancers in my opening hand and simply play around Daze to start my onslaught. He has a cute techy Spellstutter Sprite but I don't think it's that good against me because even if it gets value out of countering a Wild Nacatl it's a 1/1 that's not going anywhere. So yeah I get down a couple of Wild Nacatls and a Goblin Guide and there's not much he can do, so I get to win-and-in.

6-1, 9-5

Round 8: Staxless Stax I think

This was against Irish judge+player Mark McGovern. He won a PTQ for San Juan as well so we chatted about looking forward to it briefly. Just before this round Seb and I were chatting with the Orsini-Jones' and Dan Gardner and they were playing a game which involved finding Stelios Kargotis, ever-present greek/english judge. He moves pretty quickly and is quite small so is quite hard to find in a room of 2000 people. As we're shuffling up Stelios walks past our game so I pat him on the shoulder (easy to do while sat down) and say hi, turn to Matteo 2 seats away and announce my having won the game. Matteo ignored me a little bit I think, but maybe that was just game face. Mark doesn't really have a great start game 1. He gets down a Chalice for 1 and a Tabernacle but my Qasali Pridemage allows me to cast 2 Goblin Guides and a Price of Progress is more than enough to get him. Game 2 he uses Ancient Tomb to make a turn 1 Chalice for 1, essentially making me discard 4 cards. I make a land and he makes turn 2 Elspeth off a Mox Diamond. Does not suck to be him. Unlucky for Mark though it doesn't suck to be me either. I cast a Tarmogoyf off my basic plains and forest (crucible + wasteland makes non-basics risky business). He flies a soldier over for 4 looking to race me but lucky for me I know about Chalice so I cast 1-mana spells into it to Battlegrowth my Goyf. After a couple of swings the Elspeth is dead and another Goyf really puts the hurt on. He has another Elspeth but I aggro in and eventually a Price of Progress is enough for the win. I am in Day 2, feeling pretty happy :D

7-1, 11-5

Round 9: Steppe Lynx Zoo

My deck isn't really built as well for the mirror in some sense because Goblin Guide just doesn't block anything and it dies to Lavamancer. I knew this in advance because the GG is GG against the slower decks so hopefully my Elspeths would get there because she owns the mirror. I don't remember the match too well as I was very tired but he got a board presence together and destroyed mine in games 2 and 3 after I did the same to him in game 1. That's pretty much how the mirror match goes though.

7-2, 12-7

Very tired Seb and I set off back to the hostel for a sleep. We soon bumped into the usual English Legacy crowd so Seb got some dinner with them while I went to sleep. It was an awesome day and I was happy to make Day 2, my second from 3 Grand Prixs. Joining me were Richard Bland, Matt Light, Jason Christie and a few more (hard to keep track of so many people) and I know Rich Hagon was impressed at the quantity of British players getting so far in the tournament. I guess this concludes Part I of my report because if I write the rest now then this will be a very long report indeed. Thanks for sticking with me and reading all this (or slops if you skipped ahead to this sentence) and big Props to all the British players at the tournament who were all very friendly and good fun.

Guest Column: Trials of Legacy

By Sebastian Parker

Having played my first GP in 2009 in Brighton, frustrated that I couldn’t build a deck from my sealed pool to beat all of my opponent’s Masters of the Wild Hunt (4 of my 8 opponents had them…isn’t it supposed to be Mythic?!) and missing out on Top8 at Nationals on tiebreakers I am determined to break through and prove to myself that I can compete with the best. As such, I’ve decided to go to as many Pro level events as I can reasonably get to in 2010, starting with GP:Madrid. The format is legacy, so I did a bit of reading and made the decision to play Bant Pro and the GP Madrid Trial on the 19^th December here’s the list:

Main Deck

4 Noble Hierarch

4 Tarmogoyf

3 Quasali Pridemage

3 Rhox War Monk

1 Trygon Predator

1 Progenitus

4 Force of Will

4 Daze

4 Counterbalance

4 Brainstorm

4 Sensei’s Divining Top

3 Natural Order

3 Swords to Plowshares

4 Misty Rainforest

2 Flooded Strand

1 Windswept Heath

3 Tropical Island

2 Tundra

1 Savannah

2 Island

2 Forest

1 Plains

Sideboard

4 Ravenous Trap

2 Tormod’s Crypt

1 Relic of Progenitus

2 Krosan Grip

3 Kitchen Finks

2 Umezawa’s Jitte

I borrowed all the really old (read old-bordered) cards from Peter and Darren in Cambridge except for 1 Tundra. So I ended up playing 1 tundra and 1 hallowed fountain, but fortunately it never cost me any life or tempo so it didn’t matter.

Round 1: White Stax, Lian Pizzey

Game 1

I win the die roll. I keep, he mulls. I play Tundra followed by Sensei’s Divining Top. He plays Ancient Tomb then Chalice of the Void for x=1, which I Daze. On my turn I replay the Tundra and spin the top. He plays Flagstones of Trokair and passes. I play windswept heath and pass, he plays plains and Crucible of Worlds. (Threatening wasteland every turn is not much of a concern to my deck since I play 5 basic lands and 4 noble hierarch.) I play island, Trygon Predator and he frowns – most of his deck is artifacts and enchantments so predator can lock him out of the game. He plays mishra’s factory and Oblivion Ring and so I Force of Will the O-Ring removing Daze. I spin the top at the end of Lian’s Turn. On my turn I attack and destroy the Crucible. He races for a while with the factory but can’t play any of the cards in his hand since they would just get destroyed. When I play a second creature (qasali pridemage) he scoops them up.

Sideboarding: +2 krosan grip, -2 rhox war monk. I would consider taking out swords to plowshares, but I reckon that he may well be playing Baneslayer or Exalted Angel and I don’t want to sideboard out my outs.

Game 2

He double mulligans, I keep my 7. He starts with wasteland. I start with Plains, Sensei’s Divining Top. He plays plains and passes. I play Tropical Island into Noble Hierarch. He just continues to play land. I play a Tarmogoyf and a Misty Rainforest, I have the opportunity to play turn 3 Natural Order but without knowing the format well enough he might have a Wrath or Mana Tithe and my hand is good enough (Brainstorm, Daze, Tarmogoyf, Fetches, Natural Order) that I can shuffle away the natural order and still have a plenty of action. He plays lots of mana and a Magus of the Tabernacle and I play another Tarmogoyf. I Swords to Plowshares the Magus, but he gets The Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale down. I only have a few land in play so my mana is tight, but I think my pair of goyfs are worth keeping around. I pay the upkeep for two turns and attack for the win.

Win 2-0 Games 2-0 Matches 1-0

Round 2: Matthew Hawker

Game 1

He wins the die roll and mulligans and I keep my 7. He plays Wooded Foothills fetching Mountain and then casts Goblin Guide. He attacks and I reveal counterbalance. I play Misty Rainforest fetching Island and cast my Sensei’s Divining Top. He plays Taiga, attacks revealing Tropical Island and passes the turn. I play the Tropical Island, cast Counterbalance and he bolts me in response. He plays Wasteland, Goblin Piledriver and then wastes my Tropical Island. I replace it with another and cast Tarmogoyf, but he has a second Wasteland for my second Tropical Island. I have him counter-top locked floating a counterbalance on top so he doesn’t resolve anything and can’t attack, but I only have Island and no land on top of my deck so I can’t play out the rest of the creatures in my hand.

After a few turns he tries Aether Vial so I put my Sensei’s Divining Top on top of my deck to counter it. Next turn I replay the Sensei and he bolts me in response.

He hits his 4^th land and goes for a Goblin Ringleader but I Daze – being stuck on one land for this long is not letting me play out any more defence than my goyf and I need to stop him from being able to use Gempalm Incinerator to kill it.

All the while he is testing my lock with Goblin Lackeys and Goblin Piledriver he manages to resolve a Goblin Ringleader, revealing Goblin Piledriver, Gempalm Incinerator, Goblin Warchief to restock. He manages to find a window to resolve a Goblin Matron, searching for a Gempalm Incinerator.

After a few more turns of draw go and me drawing up to 4 land I play Rhox War Monk. He uses his next turn to cycle Gempalm Incinerator targeting my Rhox War Monk (his board is 4 goblins – lackey, piledriver, matron, ringleader).

I crack Flooded Strand to Swords to Plowshares the Goblin Piledriver in response to the trigger and he cycles a second Gempalm Incinerator in response to that. This turns out to be very bad for me because I end up with a forest and two duals on top of my deck and my Counterbalance lock is broken.

He still can’t attack through my goyf so he passes back. I play Qasali Pridemage and now all I have is a couple of dazes in hand and I pass back. Next turn he gets Goblin Warchief ( I spin the top, hoping for a Rhox War Monk but there are only dual lands) he plays a Goblin Piledriver and things start to look bad.

I have more land on top of my deck, what I would do for a shuffle effect right now!

He plays out more guys on his turn and attacks. I block what I can but his forces are too numerous and when the top of my deck reveals a fetchland I rejoice and crack it into a top 3 of double force of will and daze. I pass the turn and he sees the win on the board so it’s on to game 2.

Sideboard -1 Progenitus, -1 Trygon Predator, -4 Force of Will, +2 Umezawa’s Jitte, +3 Kitchen Finks, +1 Empyrial Archangel.

Game 2

My draw this game is amazing. I get Rhox War Monk on turns 3-5 and double Tarmogoyf and a Kitchen Finks for good measure. He can’t attack through my team but I can’t profitably attack him either because piledriver has protection from blue (which I find out the first time I attack him). He builds up his board, uses Gempalm Incinerator to off a Rhox War Monk. When he has about 10 creatures on the board he lays down a Goblin King and starts adding up the power of his guys and counting how many blockers I have. He looks confused, gives up on the maths and passes the turn. I know he needs about 30 creatures in play to get past my wall of blockers, so I pass back with a comment about how I’m probably dead to 2 more goblins. He believes me so he decides to play a couple of warchiefs and attack.

I block his guys and swords the goblin king for good measure, gaining 1 life overall in the damage step from letting some goblins through gaining 6 from 2 monks and I gain 2 from a persisting kitchen finks. I end up on 22 life and he loses his 5 best creatures.

He scoops when I move to declare my attackers.

There are only 5 minutes left on the round. In game 3 I manage to stick a turn 2 goyf and he tries his best, but he can’t deal 20 and we draw.

Draw 1-1 Games 3-1 Matches 1-0-1

Round 3: Dredge (no LED) Thomas Reeve

It was the Games Club X-as tournament day and Jason in his role as awesomest tournament organiser ever (sorry Rob, haven’t been to your tournaments yet (no problem - Edictor) had organised food for after round 2 – a full plate of Xmas dinner! Obviously going to time on round 2 meant I only had 5 minutes to collect my food before starting the next round.

Thomas Reeve 9-1’d the games club legacy league with dredge so I figure he’s playing dredge. I tell him I have 15 sideboard cards against dredge and he looks worried so I am pretty sure that’s what he’s playing. I win the die roll and mulligan a hand of 3 land and 4 creatures into a hand of natural order, 2 land, noble hierarch, force of will, counterbalance. Thomas keeps his 7.

The judge comes over and tells us we are being deck checked. I apologise that we’ve already drawn our hands (DCI policy is to let players continue if they’ve already drawn their hands, but he seems not to know and not to care when I ask him about it). He insists he’ll preserve the hands so he takes the decks away. I don’t protest since I get an extra 10 minutes to eat my dinner and chat to ‘the Reeve’.

We talk about how I could say that he has brought me back the wrong 6 cards and search for a great 6 (which is probably why DCI policy is the way it is – the scenario quickly becomes complicated and there are many opportunities for cheating or corrupt judges screwing people over) but when the judge comes back he gives us both back the hands we started with so we’re happy and get on with the Magic! (the policy is to take the decks when players present them, no sooner or later – Judge Editor)

I play Misty Rainforest fetching Tropical Island and cast Noble Hierarch. He plays Putrid Imp off of City of Brass, which I opt not to counter – I am saving my Force of Will for a Breakthrough should he have it and I’d like to cast my Counterbalance if possible.

Turn 2 I attack and pass. He discards a stinkweed imp on his upkeep and dredges 5. He hits a Narcomoeba, Tireless Tribe, Breakthrough and 2 land.

Turn 3 I cast Natural Order turning my Noble Hierarch into Progenitus

On his upkeep he discards his Stinkweed Imp again dredges into a Bridge from Below, casts Cabal Therapy naming Force of Will, casts Breakthrough dredging 23 cards, then Dread Return on Iona, Shield of Emeria naming white. He flashes back 2 Cabal Therapy to take out all my non-land cards in hand and passes back the turn with 25 power of zombies/Iona in play. I have no outs so I scoop them up.

Sideboard +1 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Tormod’s Crypt, +4 Ravenous Trap -1 Trygon Predator, -3 Natural Order, -1 Progenitus, -1 Rhox War Monk

The judge comes back over and says sheepishly “sorry I dropped one of your bridge from below here it is”. Thomas is cool about it, partly because he still won the game but it definitely explained why he was a little bridge-light early on in the game.

Game 2

I mulligan a hand of Counterbalance, Sensei’s Divining Top, Tarmogoyf, Noble Hierarch, Daze, 2 land. (AKA the god hand against any other deck). I really need to draw hate to have a chance, I get a hand of 2x force, daze, top, 2 land. Not really what I want since but I can hopefully disrupt him enough to draw into hate from my top and lands, so I keep rather than risk 5 cards with no mana or disruption. Having played the game out, I think I ought to have mulliganed again since dredge is perfectly capable of playing through counterspells and you really have to have dredge specific hate to beat it.

I counter a Breakthrough with my Force, removing Daze but he gets a Putrid Imp down and starts dredging. When he has 3 Bridge from Below in the graveyard I draw a Relic of Progenitus and use it to wipe his yard, but I have no pressure so he just dredges the rest of his deck and my eventual Tarmogoyfs can’t get through the zombies while he attacks in the air with Narcomoebas and Imps.

Lose 0-2 Games 3-3 Matches 1-1-1

Round 4 Deadguy Mark Lailey

My notes get a little bit less detailed at this point, since the day is wearing on. I have seen Mark playing at a lot of PTQs and stuff and I know he’s really bad at playing the game (especially combat) but he likes good creatures and usually chooses a good deck, so I anticipate some powerful creature deck on his side of the table.

He wins the die roll and he double mulls while I keep a Counterbalance, Sensei’s Divining Top, Noble Hierarch, Force of Will, Daze and 2 land. He plays turn 1 Dark Ritual into Hypnotic Spectre, which I Force of Will removing Daze. Thanks to my Counterbalance and Sensei’s Divining Top he doesn’t resolve a relevant spell for the rest of the game, but doesn’t concede the game until my tarmogoyf kills him just so he can see more of my deck.

While sideboarding I think if I resolve a Natural Order into Empyrial Archangel he’ll have no real outs so I side out a Trygon Predator for it.

Game 2

We both keep, this game is weird as we start by trading our entire hands 1-for-1. 2 Dazes and Force of Will (removing Rhox War Monk) and Counterbalance for Dark Ritual, 2 Dark Confidant, Hypnotic Spectre and a Vindicate - until all we have is empty hands and his board of 2 lands to my board of 1 land and top. I draw into a land and a goyf and so does he. I follow it up with a string of creatures and he has a string of removal. Eventually he draws a baneslayer angel, he follows it up with a tomb stalker. I am still in the game if I can get a swords for the baneslayer but spinning the top, cracking a fetch, spinning again yields nothing but land so it’s off to game 3.

Game 3

I keep a hand with creatures, Plains, Misty Rainforest, Flooded Strand. I play Misty Rainforest fetching Forest and cast Noble Heirarch and he plays wasteland. I play a Plains into turn 2 Rhox War Monk and he plays Dark Confidant. I swords the confidant, fetch an island (nice wasteland) and play a Tarmogoyf, he plays a Hypnotic Specter and passes. I play another Tarmogoyf and a Sensei’s Divining Top, my hand is now empty except for a land so his Hyppie is looking very weak too. He plays a Tarmogoyf and Swords to Plowshares on one of my Tarmogoyfs.

I draw Quasali Pridemage so I can use exalted to go on the offensive. My war monk is still bigger than his ‘goyf so that gets in for a few turns. He draws a Dark Confidant and uses it to chump block, which is pretty bad cause he needs to draw removal and he could double block to trade one of his creatures for my monk. This pumps the goyfs so I’m not gaining life when I attack but I can still get in with my exalted goyf. He can’t draw runner-runner removal and I have put on too much pressure for him to deal with. He chumps using topdecked creatures for a few turns hoping for a baneslayer but it doesn’t come and an extra exalted creature from me means my war monk can get up to 5/6 so he’s drawing dead.

Win 2-1 Games 5-4 Matches 2-1-1

Round 5 Goblin Charbelcher-Empty the Warrens Stephen MacIntosh

Stephen is a newcomer to legacy and wanted to play something where he doesn’t have to know what his opponent is playing. So he’s playing one of the turn 1 kill decks. This is exactly how game 1 goes when I don’t keep a hand with force of will. Game 2 he gets the Charbelcher out and flips over 3 cards before hitting stomping grounds so I take 6. He has a land and chrome mox in play so drawing any mana source wins him the game.

I take my first turn, tropical island into noble hierarch. He draws and passes. My turn 2 is trygon predator and with Charbelcher and mox in play, if my predator hits it’s game over for Stephen. I am holding daze so he has to draw an uncounterable mana source (Simian or Elvish Spirit Guide) of which there are 6 randomly distributed through the top 47 cards of his deck. He flips over the top card of the deck and it’s… Elvish Spirit Guide. W00t!

Lose 0-2 Games 5-6 Matches 2-2-1

Round 6 Mono-Blue Tezzeret Stax Rik Powell

Rik and I Facebooked before the tourney and we are going to GP Madrid together (along with me – sexy Editor), so I know what he’s playing and he knows what I’m playing. I have no idea if it’s a good matchup but my plan is to stick a Tarmogoyf and beat him up with it before he casts a Tezzeret.

Game 1 we both keep 7 card hands, mine is 2 Daze, 2 Force of Will, Sensei’s Divining Top, 2 fetchlands. He is so excited about his hand, he shows it to the people sat either side of him – not a good sign for me, but I hope I can counter his stuff and find a threat to mop up with before he does whatever brokenness he has drawn.

I play Flooded Strand fetching Island and cast Sensei’s Divining Top. Rik plays Ancient Tomb and casts Mox Diamond discarding City of Trators and then casts Trinisphere. I daze it. Next turn I replay the island. He plays wasteland and goes for trinisphere number 2. I Force of Will the Trinisphere, removing Daze. Next turn I use Windswept Heath to fetch a Forest and play a Tarmogoyf. Rik plays Island, tezzeret. I daze that too. Rik looks around in astonishment, his hand is getting smaller and the awesomeness he was going for just doesn’t seem to be happening. He makes a comment about infinite counterspells and passes the turn.

I attack with the goyf but I’m out of gas so I pass the turn back. Rik draws and then smiles as he plays another island and tezzeret number 2. Got a 3^rd Force? He asks. No, I reply. Tezzeret does his thing (fetching thopter foundry out of Rik’s deck) Rik explains he can sacrifice and artifact to make a blocker for my ‘goyf and search out a Sword of the Meek next turn so I’m drawing dead and scoop them up.

Game 2 I take out my 3 Swords to Plowshares for 2 Krosan Grips and a Kitchen Finks thinking that Rik has no targets for them in his deck but he’s sided in Sower of Temptation so when my Forest-Noble Heirarch into no-land, Quasali Pridemage gets turn 3 Sowered I’m in for a race. I draw a Tarmogoyf and play it and another Pridemage but with 3 per turn from the exhalted Sower I can’t disrupt Rik’s Ensnaring Bridges and Tezzerets and Chalice of the Voids and put on enough of a clock so I lose.

Lose 0-2 Games 5-8 Matches 2-3-1

I really like Rik’s deck since it really takes advantage of Tezzeret. I can see it might have problems with super fast weenies and burn (looking at you Rob (my weenie is super fast.. and burnt – Pained Editor)), but it can make a turn 1 chalice for x=1 or propaganda to shut down those decks and then get thopter foundry to lock them out of the game. It also doesn’t look terrible against combo with maindeck Trinisphere and Chalice. So I might have put some work in and see if I can get a version which can perform better than Rik’s 3-3 record here.

Overall I wasn’t too pleased with my performance since I thought that counter-top was supposed to be the best deck, but I came to the realisation that although there is a lot of great library manipulation in the deck with shuffle effects, top and brainstorm there aren’t many ways other than counterbalance to gain card (quantity) advantage, which is especially difficult after pitching spells to Force of Will.

If I were to play the same deck again, I would remove the Natural Order engine because it was never essential – either replacing it with ponder or something more effectual like kitchen finks or stifle. I would write off dredge – even with hate cards you can’t put any sort of clock on – I’d use those 7 slots in my sideboard to play some more broadly useful cards. (e.g. hydroblast, sower of temptation)

Next time I play legacy I will try playing either some card advantage engine like life from the loam, survival or standstill or some super-fast combo deck like the ad nauseum-tendrils-doomsday deck which Top8ed. I’ll also put some work in with mono-blue stax. Hopefully I can settle on something I like in January so I can spend February practicing with it.

Legacy (+ GP: Brighton) Report and Play of the Week #1

By Wagz

Hi guys. Jim's asked me to write a report on the Legacy event and GP Brighton. I don't have much to write on the second of these so I've included the first play of the week as a counterpoint to punt of the week.

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Grand Prix: Brighton

M10 sealed was the format for this and it is widely accepted as a fairly bad sealed format. The best core set sealed, but bad regardless. The fundamental reason for this is that the creatures aren't generally good enough, there are no real sources of card advantage and some huge bomb will get you there a lot of the time, more than normal. It is also decided by 2 uncommons, which due to the decreased number of cards in the set, occur quite a lot - Overrun and Fireball. If you don't have these or have an answer for these then you're likely to be in trouble.

My sealed pool put me in trouble. I basically had 2 Rampant Growth to get me to big creatures, but if my opponent had anything interesting then I was in trouble. With two byes I needed 5-2 to get to day 2. I won my first two matches by turning creatures sideways but I lost to Overrun, Master of the Wild Hunt and Whispersilk Cloak to drop at 4-3. Matt Kitchen was the only Leeds player carrying on after this if I recall correctly and ended the day at 5-4. I won't be unhappy when Zendikar comes along.

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Legacy

After bombing out of the Grand Prix, a few Team Leeds plucky hopefuls borrowed decks off Rik to enter the Legacy side event. Having played Faeries for days I tried testing the Counterbalance deck but lost to Zoo over and over again so brough the creature menagerie to the tables. This tournament included such great players as Antti Malin and Jim Marlow so it was going to be tough to get there.

I faced Stax in round 1 but my guys got me there and the burn finished him off when he got a Humility down. Goblins fell to me next before I beat a BW discard based deck. A Doran deck got the better of me but two successive Counterbalance decks (landing Choke against these is a killing) gave me the wins needed to ID into the top 8. I was pretty happy at this point but didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't know what the good or bad matchups were so I was just playing the situation I had - probably a good attitude to have in competitions as I felt very relaxed the whole time.

In the quarters I faced the guy I ID'd with using Merfolk. He let me land several creatures in play which was unfortunate for him my guys are much bigger than his (well, Grim Lavamancer means his Lords don't stop that fact). I won this match pretty quickly and wandered the venue for some food before the semis. After the match, the judge commented to my opponent that he'd kept pretty bad hands. I thought this was a bit unprofessional but my opponent seemed fine with it and it was his first Legacy event - Legacy events are pretty easy to top-X if you've not done one before. This was my second event and I top 4'd both so I should probably stop playing soon before I figure out what goes on.

In the semi finals I played against a spanish guy using Standard GW Elves combo. This was a surprisingly well positioned deck for the tournament since the control decks don't have the right counters for it and the Burrenton Forge-Tenders shut down my stuff a little bit. I couldn't get enough damage through against him but if I owned Ethersworn Canonists instead of Gaddock Teegs then the story might have been different. I landed Grim Lavamancers but you just can't get enough cards in the graveyard to deal with all the guys they play.

I walked away with 9 boosters but it would have been nice to get to the final and win the iPod. Maybe next time, eh?

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Play of the week #1

After making this one I had to take a minute off before sideboarding for game 3. After the match I ran around telling people. It's a bit of a doozy. Here's the situation:

Opp on 12, you on 14, plenty of lands in play on both sides (9ish easy). I have a Tidehollow Strix and he has a 3/2 ground guy plus a Maelstrom Nexus. I attack him to 10 and pass the turn.

He plays Magister Sphinx, cascading into Igneous Pouncer. The Sphinx's trigger puts me to 10 and he attacks me to 2. Ouch.

I untap and use Soul's Fire to deathtouch kill his Sphinx (had to explain that rule), attack him to 8.

He makes a Borderpost, perhaps not realising it counts as a spell for the Maelstrom Nexus. It cascades into Wretched Banquet, targeting my Strix. Here's the silliness. I cast Agony Warp, giving the 5/1 -0/-3 and the 3/2 -3/-0. This leaves him with just a 0/2 in play. The Wretched Banquet is countered on resolution due to my guy not being tied for the lowest power. He makes a Grixis Slavedriver (I had to stop him Cascading here) and passes the turn.

I untap and attack with my little man that can, the Tidehollow Strix, taking him to 6. I tap 8 of my lands and cycle the Resounding Thunder I'd been sandbagging to take the game for exactly lethal. Re-diculous. I've got there with just a Strix for 21 damage before but this was more satisfying.

Post M10 Merfolk....for every format.

By Jim Marlow

Hey everyone,

I hope everyone is doing great in Leeds and elsewhere, i am really excited to see everyone again, and im feeling confident about the PTQ.

I was a bit stuck on what to write for the next article, which is really annoying because i seem to come up with ideas when im working then when i get a day off i cant seem to string any sentences together.

I was going to leave it untill tomorrow to give a report on the WNM at Runik Games this week, when i spotted a little something in the Sam Black article on starcity today

Merfolk Sovereign - and how it may make merfolk playable again.

Anyone who knows me should know i have a fairly sexual relationship with our slippery cousins, and the deck i have had the most fun playing in magic was u/w merfolk from TSP_10th_LOR, so i checked it out on mtgsalvation....

'Other Merfolk creatures you control get +1/+1'

After a brief trouser change, i realised that this was indeed a reason to play merfolk again, in every freaking format around....

O wait, didnt WOTC take mana burn away....hello Wake Thrasher!!!!

This card is basically a garuantee that i will be playing merfolk in every constructed magic event i compete in the next year or so, sweet!

I was already tempted to play merfolk in legacy, then i was thinking u/g or U/G/r threshold, so anyway i knocked up some post M10 lists for standard, extended and legacy.


Standard

3 x stonybrook banneret
4 x stonybrook adept
4 x merrow reejerey
4 x merfolk sovereign
3 x reveillark
4 x wake thrasher
2 x sygg river guide


4 x cryptic command
3 x sage's dousing
3 x path to exile
2 x jace beleren

4 x glacial fortress
4 x wanderwine hub
4 x mystic gate
4 x mutavault
6 x island
2 x plains

This deck looks pretty sick, i havent done a board for any of the decks yet, i havent really looked at m10, and obviously there will be some metagame shifts due to it and the rotation in general. I may put sower of temptation in the main instead of the jace's though.

Extended

4 x cursecatcher
4 x lord of atlantis
4 x merrow reejerey
4 x merfolk sovereign
4 x silvergill adept

4 x ancestral vision
4 x mana leak
4 x spell snare
2 x cryptic command
2 x umezawa's jitte

4 x mutavault
2 x riptide laboratory
4 x wanderwine hub
14 x island


Legacy

What i hate about this list, is that reading it is probably the biggest incentive to crap out of GP brighton i have....although its not like i need an incentive to do this.

4 x cursecatcher
4 x lord of atlantis
4 x silvergill adept
4 x merrow reejerey
4 x merfolk sovereign
2 x wake thrasher

4 x force of will
4 x daze
4 x standstill

4 x aether vial
2 x umezawa's jitte

4 x mutavault
4 x wasteland
12 x island


im pretty happy that 1 card has single handedly made me excited about M10, i should probably look at some of the other cards in the set now i guess.

See everyone at my house on friday, for a pre PTQ party.


Until then,


JimAs always,


feel free to comment on anything about this article, or anything unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, articles, pictures or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk

Legacy deck

By Jim Marlow

Hey everyone,

I hope all is well in the Team Leeds camp, and everyone is super psyched for manc, there are certainly enough Team Leeds members going to make it embaressing for us to not make top 8, if not the blue envelope, so here's hoping.

Anyway, Rik has recently pointed out that for those who rip an abortion of a sealed pool there is more to do than beat Mario Pascoli all day at the gunslinging table all day, as there is an Ipod up for grabs at the legacy tournament.

I really do not know enough about legacy, except that it is amazingly fun, and some of the spells are pretty fucking retarded....

My proposed deck for the event is kind of a mix between a conventional counter-top deck and a U/G threshold deck, but also using standstill (which i have no idea if it has a place in the deck)

Here's the list i have made


4 x nimble mongoose
4 x tarmogoyf
4 x lorescale coatl
2 x trygon predator

4 x force of will
4 x daze
3 x standstill
4 x brainstorm
2 x ponder
3 x stifle

3 x sensei's divining top
3 x counterbalance
2 x umezawa's jitte

4 x polluted delta
2 x flooded strand
4 x tropical island
4 x wasteland
2 x mishra's factory
2 x island

Im not really sure if lorescale coatl is worth playing or is any better than werebear, which has the infinitely funnier name, and so probably deserves the slot for no other reason.

Also, im not sure if the standstill is relevent in this type of deck, but i thought with goyfs and the coatl's growing and/or the ability to arrange the counterbalance/top combo i can create multiple softlocks whilst still being an aggressive deck

Saying that, i would like to play the maximum number of stifle's and ponders, which seems to be the norm for UG threshold decks, and cutting the standstills would allow me to do this.

I really have no idea whether this is worth playing, or if the deck is an absolute pile, so please give me a few pointers if you can.

Also, i have a partial sideboard of the obvious, but im not entirely sure what else i need to be prepared against and/or how to combat it.


See you all soon, and look out for a facebook message coming round about preparation for PTQ Manchester.


Until then,


Jim


As always, feel free to comment on anything about this article, or anything unrelated to magic whatsoever. If you would like to contribute to the TLM blog, please email any ideas, articles, pictures or anything else to ss07jm@leeds.ac.uk