Author: Phil Gallagher

Legacy is great right now. The format is pretty wide open. Most games are more interactive and much more enjoyable as a whole than in our previous metagame. Accordingly, I played a ton of Magic in preparation for this GP. It looks like I played about 150 matches on MTGO with D&T specifically, and I probably played another 50 or so matches with other decks. These numbers exclude any special events I played in (e.g. Legacy Premier League) or dedicated testing sessions (e.g. playtesting sessions with a specific player). Here’s how things shook out prior to the GP in terms of my data in Legacy Leagues.

Click here for a bigger version of the same thing. So that ends up being a record of 107-42 (~72%). If you take a look at the graph there, overwhelmingly my matchups were positive against the field. D&T unquestionably felt like the best deck going into the GP. Unfortunately, this did mean that people were well-prepared for the matches…but Shadow was “well-prepared” for the matchup with its three copies of Dread of Night and that didn’t seem to matter very much, now did it?

In the week going up to the event, I played seven different decklists, all only a few cards different from each other. Here’s what I settled on, though I know I’m going to have to explain a few things.

Phil Gallagher, 59th at GP: Richmond

Creatures (25) 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Recruiter of the Guard 3 Mirran Crusader 4 Flickerwisp 4 Mother of Runes 1 Sanctum Prelate 1 Palace Jailer 4 Stoneforge Mystic Spells (11) 4 Aether Vial 4 Swords to Plowshares 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

Lands (24) 7 Snow-Covered Plains 7 Plains 2 Karakas 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland Sideboard (15) 1 Faerie Macabre 1 Walking Ballista 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 1 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Surgical Extraction 2 Rest in Peace 2 Chalice of the Void 2 Path to Exile 1 Leonin Relic-Warder 2 Council’s Judgment

I expected to see a considerable amount of the mirror as well a large amount of fair black decks (Shadow, Grixis Delver, Grixis Control). There were my two biggest considerations going into the event and most heavily impacted my decisions. Let’s break down a few things:

1. No Brightling
I love this card. I wanted to play one so badly for the Miracles matchup, but it performs relatively poorly against the black decks. I didn’t think this was the right weekend for the card, but if Miracles sees an uptick in popularity (spoiler: it will), expect to see this in my deck again.

2. Lands
I have been testing 23 vs 24 lands quite a bit, and I decided that in the Wasteland-filled world we currently live, having extra stable mana is a necessity. Hence I also hedged by playing another Plains over the third Karakas. I almost always had something to do with my mana, and in the matches that go exceptionally long (e.g. Miracles and Grixis Control), you can just trim a land and go back to 23.

3. Maindeck Flex Slots
I knew I wanted a borderline unhealthy number of Mirran Crusaders to punish decks like Death’s Shadow, but I actually was unsure about what to do with the remaining slots. I wasn’t too keen on Revoker in the meta as a whole, so I dropped down to two. Palace Jailer had been wrecking Shadow and had other good game one results, so I kept it in the deck despite very frequently boarding it out. Sanctum Prelate was very underwealming as a whole, but since most of my flex slots in the main had been dedicated towards fighting fair, I opted for one card that would help my game 1 percentages vs combo decks like Sneak and Show.

Brightling, Remorseful Cleric, and Spirit of the Labyrinth were the other cards that I had tested and had very positive results with in the post-banning world. I think all three will continue to see play in the deck at the right moments, but I oped out of playing the Cleric and Spirit to keep my X/1 creature count a bit lower.

4. Sideboard Combo Hate

So…combo hate cards kind of suck right now. All of them. The metagame is exceptionally fair right now, hence I’ve dropped some common hate cards like Ethersworn Canonist and Containment Priest that otherwise are often deck staples. I opted to play Chalice of the Void over Canonist to diversify my hate package a little bit. I wanted a card that I could play against ANT, Sneak and Show, and Miracles, and the best two things that I came up with were Chalice and Spirit of the Labyrinth. I played Spirit quite a bit (and liked it), but again hedged against the -1/-1 effects by playing Chalice. The split of Surgical Extraction vs Faerie Macabre is to hedge against my own Chalices in the Reanimator matchup specifically, one of the few places where your chalices and 1 drops other than Vial truly are in conflict.

5. Sideboard Fair Cards

Grixis Control was one of the only decks that I was actively afraid of coming into the event, and so I really wanted to have Cataclysm for that matchup (and to a lesser extent for Miracles). However, for the metagame as a whole, I thought that was incorrect. Gideon was incredible in the Death’s Shadow matchup, so I was unwilling to make the swap. Otherwise most of what you’ll see here is pretty stock. The Walking Ballista performed quite well in the testing of the mirror I did, while also being able to pick off smaller threats like Snapcaster or Baleful Strix in the Grixis Control matchup. Walking Ballista and Sword of War and Peace both fall in the camp of cards that are great in the mirror that have good amounts of overlap elsewhere; accordingly, I’d play one or the other, but both would be overkill.

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The Event

2-0 Grixis Delver
1-2 Eldrazi
2-0 Grixis Delver
1-1-1 D&T
2-0 Stoneblade
2-1 Burn
2-0 Lands
2-0 Red Prison
0-2 Grixis Control
2-1 Death’s Shadow
0-2 Lands
0-2 Grixis Control
2-0 Grixis Control
2-0 Grixis Delver
2-0 Miracles

Event Highlights

Round 3 vs Grixis Delver
In game one my opponent stuck a two Bitterblossom. This card is on the top of my “oh shit” list as far as game one scenarios go in this matchup. It makes it so that most of my creatures have trouble connecting, and it clocks pretty hard as the game goes on if you can’t force them into chump blocking mode. While things looks bad for a little while, Batterskull eventually gets there after being reset a couple of times.

In game 2 my opponent stuck an early Dread of Night, which many people assume is the end for D&T. It’s amazing, but it doesn’t always just win. I flopped down a Palace Jailer on my opponent’s only threat and rode the extra cards to victory, largely ignoring the powerful hate card.

Round 4 vs D&T
I initially wrote up a four paragraph explanation of the final turns of this round, but decided that it would be in bad taste to post it publicly. We have enough negative stuff floating around already. Essentially, I believe that I got a draw this round largely as the result of incorrect confirmation of the board state by a judge, followed by a poor decision by a judge, followed by a poor ruling by a judge. I’m still extremely frustrated by it, as it forced me into the draw bracket with considerably tougher matchups. The loss still falls on me, as I made an error, but it was an error I never would have made if not for the preceding actions.

Round 10 vs Death’s Shadow
I honestly don’t think Death’s Shadow should be running so many hate cards for D&T. The matchup is so terrible that even if you draw multiple of them, you still usually lose. My opponent lost game 2 despite having both Dread of Night and Liliana, the Last Hope in play. Mirran Crusader is really good. My opponent then lost game 3. Their Toxic Deluge for 4 was excellent, grabbing them a 4 for 1 or something of that ilk, leaving them with a Gurmag Angler and one life. Recruiter for Walking Ballista ended that one easily.

Generic Grixis Control on Day 2
I played against Grixis Control three times on day 2 and I only won the match where I got two free wins. This was one of the matchups I expected to lose given how I chose to build my deck (i.e. not playing Cataclysm). The builds I faced were radically different, but the core engine is incredibly powerful against what I was doing.

Round 14 vs Grixis Delver
My opponent this round was a pretty friendly guy, and it was clear that he didn’t get to play as much Magic as he wanted to. He was having a blast at this event though and was doing well, so I quite happy for him. Making a deep run at a GP is a really big deal for many people, and even if he didn’t end up cashing, I knew he’d be happy with his weekend. He was also a bit confused about why so many people had been chatting with me and asked if I was “Magic famous.” I got a good laugh out of that and explained my website to him. This is why I didn’t lose my mind when he played a Plague Mare in game 1. Under normal circumstances, I 100% would have called a judge to verify the decklist, as that’s a narrow enough card that I would have suspected that my opponent was playing a sideboard card in game 1. My opponent died to Crusader and Jitte the following turn. When I asked him about the Plague Mare, he said he didn’t really get how to beat D&T and he was having trouble with opposing True-Name Nemesis; he figured this was his best shot.

Round 15 vs Miracles
Miracles is a bit of a tough matchup. I was 6-4 against it in leagues going into the event. I got to steal game one easily. My opponent didn’t have a removal spell when I equipped Mirran Crusader with Sword of Fire and Ice. He died. Game 2 was more interesting. For the first time in the event, I boarded in the Chalice of the Void! Yes, in fact, I did go 15 rounds without playing against a dedicated combo deck! My curve was disgusting. It was approximately Chalice of the Void on 1 into Sanctum Prelate on 6 into Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. There were a couple of cards between those, but that’s the gist of it. My opponent put up a hell of a fight, all things considered, by sticking a Jace and getting to Brainstorm for a few turns. Ultimately, I powered through Jace and a follow up Monastery Mentor and secured my top 64 finish.

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Closing Thoughts and Stream Plans
My 10-4-1 finish was good enough for 59th place and $250. While that’s a fine finish, I can’t help but be disappointed with that result. My entire event was soured by my interactions with judges at the tail end of my D&T match on day 1. I can’t help but wonder what my pairings would have been like had I avoided that draw. D&T felt like the best deck in the format going into the event, so I was expecting a better finish. This is the life of a serious Magic player. You can have a good weekend and still walk away feeling terrible. c’est la vie For what it’s worth, I did think the decklist was pretty much perfect for the event, and I’d run it back in a heartbeat.

I’d like to take a moment to thank a few people who contributed to my success in the event. Huge props to the members of the Legacy Premier League as a whole. I used many of them as a sounding board for sideboarding and decklist options. In particular, Mike “Overvoltage” Danielson spent a few hours bashing my head in with Grixis Control so I could try out different sideboard options for that matchup. Similarly, MTGO user Piroko139 helped me test Walking Ballista in the mirror. Finally, mad props to my travel buddies: Zach Koch, Nick Miller, and Stefan Hench. Secretly one of the best things about these tournaments is exploring a new city, finding tasty food and drinks with friends.

Now that the GP is over, I’m going to spend a bit of time working on the 5c Humans archetype. I thought the deck was conceptually pretty good, but I just couldn’t justify putting in time testing it with before now. Expect to see me streaming with that from time to time. On that note, I recently changed my donation goals as well. Now for every three donation decklists I receive, I’ll do something special. At three donation decklists, I’ll be playing an Ensnaring Bridge and Mangara of Corondor deck that’s been at the back of my mind since the bannings. At six donation decklists, I’ll be doing an Infect stream with special guest Nick Miller. At nine donation decklists, I’ll be updating my Mono Black Control decklist and showing the world how great Vampire Nighthawk really is in Legacy.

The donation decklists have been a blast, and I’ve greatly expanded my range as a player by trying some of the odd things my followers wanted me to play. I’m excited to play some Death’s Shadow Burn on Thursday. Yeah, you read that right. It’s gonna be a good time.

Death's Shadow Burn

Lands (20) 1 Badlands 2 Blood Crypt 4 Bloodstained Mire 6 Mountain 1 Stomping Ground 3 Swamp 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 2 Wooded Foothills Spells (26) 2 Diabolic Edict 1 Dismember 4 Fireblast 4 Lightning Bolt 1 Snuff Out 4 Chain Lightning 4 Flame Rift 2 Reanimate 4 Thoughtseize Creatures (14) 4 Death’s Shadow 4 Goblin Guide 2 Gurmag Angler 4 Street Wraith

Sideboard (15) 1 Defense Grid 3 Destructive Revelry 1 Diabolic Edict 2 Dread of Night 2 Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast 4 Leyline of the Void 2 Searing Blaze

Hey folks,

It’s GP time! There’s been a ton of great D&T content put out in the last week, so I just wanted to quickly highlight a few things.

First up is Marcio Carvalho’s tournament report from PT25A. He breaks down some of his deckbuilding choices and even admits that he made some mistakes in building his deck! He then provides a sideboarding guide for “the decklist he should have played.” Be warned that I disagree with many of the sideboarding decisions presented here, but either way, it’s interesting to see how he is approaching each matchup.

Next up is a podcast featuring PT25A winner Allen Wu! Top Down Legacy is a relatively new podcast hosted by Cyrus Corman-Gill (aka CyrusCG) and Eric Vergo. I haven’t had a chance to listen to this yet, but you can bet I’ll be playing it on the way to GP:Richmond. Here’s the link to all of their episodes, as the first three have been pretty great.

Next up we have a match of the Legacy Premier League! Vincent Chandler (aka PleasantKenobi) takes on Caleb Durward. It’s a D&T vs Steel Stompy slugfest with commentary by Rudy Bricksza and me. There are some interesting choices here that are worth examining. Check it out here.

Finally AJ Sacher did an amazing breakdown of one of the PT25A matches: Marcio Carvalho vs Josh Utter-Leyton. His analysis of the match is stellar, and even I learned some things by watching it! The production value of this content is also very high, and he did a great job of diagramming things on screen and visually showing off various options. I’m really looking forward to watching another video like this one! Check it out here.

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Good luck to all of those playing in GP:Richmond!

XOXOXO
-Phil Gallagher

Recently I’ve been making a push towards having a few more voices on Thraben University, and this week I’m very pleased to bring you some content featuring Pro Tour 25 Anniversary winner Allen Wu! Allen Wu is no stranger to the top tables of Magic events. He also won a limited GP in Albuquerque in 2016 and top 4’d a Modern GP in 2017 in Vegas. In addition, he also worked for WotC’s Play Design team. The answers that follow are his, edited slightly for clarity and formatting.

Why did you choose D&T for the Pro Tour? Was this a deck you’ve played for a long time or a deck you picked up specifically for this event?

I’ve played D&T for 3 years or so. I was looking to buy into Legacy and found someone selling the full deck on Ebay for around $1000, which seemed like a reasonable deal at the time. I actually wasn’t going to play this Pro Tour until Deathrite Shaman and Gitaxian Probe got banned since I had a flexible invite. I found a team primarily to play D&T in Legacy. If I decided the D&T wasn’t competitive enough after testing it, I would have played Modern and given Legacy to Greg Orange.

What did your preparation for the event look like?

I played maybe 30 leagues on Magic Online (~150 matches). I was actually the trophy leader for a couple days (my Magic Online handle is Avignon) before deciding that I needed to take a break before the Pro Tour. The main things I tested were the land count and configuration, the new cards, and the sideboard.

Did you test with any of the newer cards like Brightling or Remorseful Cleric? If so, what were your thoughts?

I tested extensively with Brightling and am fairly confident it’s bad. My main issue with the card is that it doesn’t have any kind of evasion, so it stares off against or trades for ground creatures that cost much less mana for it. The first time I had a Brightling and my opponent cast a Gurmag Angler, I was pretty off the card already. I had a Sword of Fire and Ice and still couldn’t profitably attack. Then I played a game where my opponent had 3 Bitterblossom tokens and my Brightling never meaningfully attacked or blocked the whole game. It doesn’t even win combat against Nimble Mongoose without help, let alone Death’s Shadow. The only matchup I’d prefer Brightling to Mirran Crusader and Serra Avenger is Miracles, which isn’t that prevalent. Crusader and Avenger are just more efficient and have more valuable abilities.

I didn’t test Remorseful Cleric at all, but the card also didn’t make much sense to me. I don’t think it’s a big mistake to play a Cleric or two, but don’t see the point either. I couldn’t imagine many situations where I’d tutor for Cleric instead of Palace Jailer or Sanctum Prelate with Recruiter of the Guard. It’s role also overlaps with Faerie Macabre after sideboarding, but Remorseful Cleric is just another 1-toughness white creature that dies to all the usual sideboard cards like Marsh Causalities, Sulfur Elemental, Dread of Night, and Liliana, The Last Hope. It’s a reasonable card to naturally draw but significantly worse in combat than Serra Avenger.

What sort of decks were you expecting to see at the Pro Tour and how did you tune your list for those decks?

I actually pinned the Pro Tour metagame down pretty well. I expected a lot of “fair” decks, like Delver, Grixis Control, Miracles, Eldrazi, 4c Loam, and the mirror. I was afraid BR Reanimator would have a strong showing, but didn’t think many players would actually show up with it. I expected Sneak and Show to be the most popular combo deck, and that relatively few people would play dedicated combo like Storm, Dredge, or Elves. I was actually a little concerned about Death’s Shadow before the tournament since so many people were playing it online, which I guess paid off.

Allen Wu, Winner PT25A, 8/5/18

Creature (25) 4 Mother of Runes 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Phyrexian Revoker 4 Flickerwisp 2 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Sanctum Prelate 1 Mirran Crusader 1 Palace Jailer Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

Lands (24) 3 Karakas 4 Wasteland 4 Rishadan Port 1 Horizon Canopy 1 Mishra’s Factory 5 Plains 6 Snow-Covered Plains Sideboard (15) 3 Rest in Peace 2 Council’s Judgment 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 2 Path to Exile 1 Faerie Macabre 1 Pithing Needle 1 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Containment Priest 1 Leonin Relic-Warder 1 Walking Ballista

You can mostly see those expectations built into my sideboard: 2 Path to Exile, 2 Gideon, 1 Containment Priest and Canonist, 0 Surgical Extraction, etc. My general approach with D&T is that you should bias your maindeck towards the matchups you expect to face least and your sideboard towards the matchups you expect to face most, since the white sideboard cards in Legacy are so potent.

In retrospect, I wish I’d played an even greedier list with 3 Revokers and a Serra Avenger, but I wasn’t comfortable going below 9 2-mana interactive creatures in the 75 against Storm for math reasons.

How did the Walking Ballista in the sideboard perform? Was that there primarily for the mirror?

It’s primarily for the mirror and decks with Baleful Strix, but there are also a number of decks where you’re happy to have a 2-mana removal spell for 1-toughness creatures. I board it in against Delver if they have Young Pyromancer, Bomat Courier, or especially Grim Lavamancer; it’s also strong against Infect, 4c Loam, and Elves. I also board it in against Miracles; games go long and they usually play around Wasteland, so having a card you can dump 8 mana into later on is pretty potent. It also punishes Miracles players who’ll go to a low life total against D&T, assuming you won’t have any way to win after they stabilize.

Ballista is just a really powerful, flexible card, and I think having access to 1 in the 75 is pretty mandatory with Recruiters. It does a lot more than you’d expect it to. For example, I had originally planned to board it in against Josh Utter-Leyton in the finals, boarding out all my Thalias, but convinced myself that I still wanted some Thalias on the play at the last minute. But if I’d had Ballista in my deck, I would have had an almost deterministic win with Recruiter of the Guard instead of needing to sweat my Palace Jailer draws.

Other than winning through triple Dread of Night, what were some of the most memorable or interesting moments from the event?

The triple Dread of Night game was by far the most engaging and complicated game I played the whole tournament. I went 10-4-2 overall, and my wins and losses were pretty much all straightforward. The only other particularly interesting game I played was in round 2 against Tom Martell, where his Dread of Night actually worked against him since it meant he couldn’t Reanimate my Mother of Runes. I eventually put Batterskull into play and attacked him to death with it.

What sort of advice do you have for aspiring D&T pilots or other serious players?

The biggest piece of general advice I have is to play 24 (or maybe even more) lands. With how prevalent Wasteland and Daze are in the format, how powerful the utility lands in Legacy are, and how badly D&T wants to hit its third and fourth land drops, I think playing 23 or fewer lands is lunacy. A part of me thinks that the optimal build of the deck has 26-27 lands, 4 Horizon Canopy, and 2-3 Mishra’s Factory, but I don’t have that much conviction yet.

Regarding piloting the deck, I guess I’d advise new players be cognizant of what your opponents are capable of and what interaction points you have. You almost never “bluff” with Aether Vial, but thinking of when you should and how you can is a useful exercise. For example, you don’t always want to Vial Thalia into play as soon as you can. Waiting for your opponent to pass with 2 mana for Abrupt Decay or Disenchant for your Sword of Fire and Ice and then putting Thalia into play to deny them that option is a lot more powerful than making their Ponder cost one more. And once that’s a part of your range, your opponents will have to respect your Vial activations a great deal more.

One interesting play that I’m still not sure about from game 3 of the finals is whether I should have put Mirran Crusader into play off Vial and equipped it with Batterskull on my main phase. It’s pretty clear at that point that his hand is blank (Dazes, Snuff Outs, maybe Street Wraiths, etc.). I don’t remember the exact details of the game off the top of my head, but the relevant cards he has left in his deck are 3 Wasteland, 5-6 cantrips, 1 Dread of Night, 1 Diabolic Edict, 4 Delver of Secrets, and maybe (but probably not) 1 Engineered Explosives.

• If he draws Wasteland so I can’t equip Crusader, then he just loses to reset Batterskull + Crusader, so Wasteland isn’t really relevant.
• If he draws Diabolic Edict and I pass, then I reset Batterskull, put Crusader in, sacrifice the Germ, and then equip Crusader.
• If he draws Edict and I equip Crusader, I think I’m busted.
• If he draws 3rd Dread of Night and I pass, then I reset Batterskull, my Crusader is blank, he Raise Deads his Angler, and I’m in a tricky spot but the game isn’t over.
• If he draws 3rd Dread of Night and I equip, then I win. He has as many Edicts as Dreads and only one of each, so the real questions are which play is better against Delvers and cantrips.
• If he draws Delver, it’s slightly better to reset Batterskull since he’ll have no outs after I reset Batterskull and Crusader hits him to 5, whereas he’d have another draw or two to hit Edict (with Liliana) against equipping Crusader.
• If he draws a cantrip, I think it’s also better to wait since he’ll likely keep a Death’s Shadow or second Angler if he doesn’t know the Crusader is coming, whereas equipping Crusader lets him know he has to find a Delver or Edict or he’s dead.

Because the Dread of Night-pass scenario is preferable to the Edict-equip scenario and it reveals less information, I still stand by passing. But given Josh did draw the 3rd Dread of Night and it’s such a complicated spot, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something. I’m curious what other people think.

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Is there anyone you’d like to thank?

Oh, I’d like to shout Jacob Nagro out for telling me to play 24 lands, give him shade for obligating me to play mismatching Plains, and thank the rest of the Nathan Smith Memorial chat for their conversation and support.

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End of interview

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Closing Thoughts from Phil

To the surprise of no one, D&T is unquestionably one of the best decks in the format currently. Marcio Carvalho also top 4’d the Pro Tour with a different take on the deck, gearing his sideboard *very* heavily to beat BR Reanimator.

Marcio Carvalho, Top 4 PT25A, 8/5/18

Creatures (26) 4 Flickerwisp 4 Mother of Runes 3 Phyrexian Revoker 1 Recruiter of the Guard 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Palace Jailer 2 Sanctum Prelate 2 Serra Avenger Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

Lands (23) 3 Karakas 10 Plains 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland 2 Cavern of Souls Sideboard (15) 2 Council’s Judgment 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Faerie Macabre 1 Path to Exile 1 Dismember 2 Rest in Peace 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 2 Containment Priest

I don’t think there’s really a stock D&T decklist right now. Looking over the variety of different D&T decklists from the Pro Tour seems to support that. The format is very open, and you need to pick your battles. In building your lists for the coming weeks, especially for GP Richmond, I think there are two big questions to consider:

• How do I beat the expected hate cards that will become more popular due to D&T’s success at the Pro Tour?
• How do I gear my flex slots to beat the expected “tier one decks?”

You’ll need to have a plan to beat cards like Sulfur Elmental and Dread of Night. Make sure that you aren’t leaving in only one toughness creatures in your matchups, and playing some additional answer to a Dread of Night in your 75 probably isn’t a bad idea. I wouldn’t recommend going overboard on changes on that front though; tweaking 1-2 cards is more than enough.

As far as flex slots go, I’ve gotten a ton of messages about Brightling in particular in the last week or two. My thoughts haven’t really changed. I still think Brightling is an important and powerful tool for the deck. That said, Brightling isn’t the best against the black decks that are currently moving to the forefront of the format. Crusader will easily outperform Brightling vs decks like Grixis Control. That’s just factual and it’s not close. If decks like Miracles, Eldrazi, and Red Prison are super-popular as GP Richmond approaches, play a bunch of Brightlings and you won’t regret it. If decks like Grixis Control and UB Shadow are still popular, then load your decks with Crusaders and go to town. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but Mengucci recently put out a Legacy Veedio with Brightling D&T, so that might be another nice datapoint for those of you on the fence about the card.

I hope we’ve given you plenty to think about in the coming weeks, and best of luck as you tweak your decks and prepare for GP Richmond and your other upcoming events!

Edit: A few days after this interview was published, Allen Wu wrote a blog post that elaborates a bit more on some of the questions. You can find that here.

Rax Dillon had a great run at the SCG Team Open last weekend and offered to write up his experience. The content that follows is theirs, though I’ve done a bit of editing here and there. -Phil

Summary
Hi, everyone, my name is Rax Dillon and I’m a periodic grinder whose best format is Modern. I’ve cashed a couple of GPs, but but this my first big top 8. I love Legacy and have been playing for a few years, but haven’t been able to make weeknight events for a while because of having a young child. These days I mostly get my Legacy games in casually and at GP side events. I fell in love with Death and Taxes around six months ago, and have been learning the deck since then. This past weekend, I (with my teammates Kenny and Kevin, center and right below) made top 8 of the SCG Worcester Team Open playing Death & Taxes in Legacy. We went 11-3-1, locking the third seed with an ID in the final round, and then lost in the top 8. My personal record was 8-4-1 with two matches that didn’t conclude before the round was decided for our team.

I’m only going to talk about the Legacy portion of the event since the Standard and Modern decks we played, Grixis and Burn, weren’t anything like Death and Taxes, and I know almost nothing about current Standard.

Quick Takeaways
To summarize my experience playing 15 rounds of competitive D&T:

• Brightling is the truth. Every one of its modes is relevant in the deck: vigilance for double-triggering Jitte, lifelink for winning races, bouncing for fizzling removal spells or preventing Jitte from triggering, and +1/-1 for finessing races and creature combat. That said, it’s still just one card; the supporting context of other cards in D&T like Aether Vial and Mother of Runes is what really makes it powerful for us and dangerous for our opponents.
• If any graveyard decks — Reanimator and Dredge being what I was afraid of in particular — showed up, they weren’t at the top tables day one, and they weren’t in Day 2 at all.
• The format is open, but it didn’t feel that open at this tournament, perhaps because the metagame hasn’t adjusted yet. I did see some blue decks making interesting card choices, but nothing that felt way out of left field.
• Don’t bother with Sword of Light and Shadow. I played it because I think it’s marginally better than Sword of War and Peace both against Miracles and in the mirror, and I don’t think it’s worth it overall.
• Remorseful Cleric is… fine? I’m not sure we need two in the main if the graveyard decks aren’t showing up in paper.

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The List
My list is very close to what Phil’s been playing online. Where my testing list and his diverged, I went with his unless I had a compelling reason not to, because I watched him play more post-ban matches than I played myself. This is what I played:

D&T

Lands (24) 6 Plains 7 Snow-Covered Plains 3 Karakas 4 Wasteland 4 Rishadan Port Spells (7) 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Umezawa’s Jitte Creatures (29) 2 Brightling 4 Flickerwisp 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Mother of Runes 2 Recruiter of the Guard 2 Phyrexian Revoker 1 Mirran Crusader 2 Remorseful Cleric

Sideboard: (15) 2 Council’s Judgment 2 Rest In Peace 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Path to Exile 2 Faerie Macabre 1 Sanctum Prelate 1 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Brightling 1 Leonin Relic-Warder 1 Sword of Light and Shadow

Most of this is pretty standard. A couple of notes:

• I cut my maindeck Sanctum Prelate for a 24th land when I added the second Brightling. I think that’s right, but I really miss the Prelate.
• I occasionally miss having Cavern of Souls, but with Brightling, I think I would miss guaranteed white mana more.
• Phyrexian Revokers is basically a 2/1 for 2 that grows Tarmogoyf against RUG Delver.
• I haven’t been impressed with Sword of War and Peace, and that’s why I’ve been trying Light and Shadow. I’m not really that impressed with SoLaS either.
• Some of the testing I did get in was against graveyard decks, and Faerie Macabre not being hit by Duress seemed very helpful against the specific Reanimator list I played against. I probably overrated this influence.

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Individual Rounds

Round 1: 2-0 vs Charbelcher Storm w/ Land Grant
The die roll may well have determined this game — I led on Plains and Aether Vial on the play, and my opponent made twelve goblins on turn 1. Stoneforge fetched a Batterskull and the lifelink swung the race in my favor. Game two he tried to go the Charbelcher route and I was able to go get Leonin Relic-Warder before he could activate.

Editor’s Note: Bryant Cook has a great table of the number of Goblins required to beat Batterskull here Indeed, Rax likely would have lost game one if he lost the die roll, as only 10 Goblins are required on the play.

Round 2: 2-1 vs Miracles
My opponent was on a heavy Monastery Mentor list with Back to Basics. This is the only match where Sword of Light and Shadow did significant work for me; I recurred Flickerwisps over and over again and eventually played through four Terminus and three Swords to Plowshares in game 3. Remorseful Cleric blew out a Snapcaster Mage once, turning what would have been a Swords to Plowshares on my best creature into having Cleric in the yard instead.

Round 3: 2-0 vs. Miracles
Game one I rode an early Batterskull to victory because my opponent couldn’t find the right cards to interact with it. Game two, my opponent got stuck on white mana and I had the mana denial with Rishadan Port and Thalia to keep him from doing much of anything.

Round 4: 1-1-1 vs. RUG Delver
One game I got Delvered out. One game I Brightlinged him out. We started shuffling up for game three and the match was over. I might have been able to sequence the first game better in order to force the Delver that got through seven times to trade with a Remorseful Cleric; it ended up getting double-bolted to play through Mother of Runes. The flying is very valuable.

Round 5: 2-1 vs. Red Prison
Game one I did Thalia things, but games two and three were really interesting.

In game two my opponent had three Ensnaring Bridges in play. I used Brightling, Mother of Runes, and Umezawa’s Jitte to push damage though and avoid the sea of Goblin Rabblemaster tokens that couldn’t attack. He was using Chandra, Torch of Defiance to deal slow damage, but it looked like I would be able to race… then I decided to use my Jitte counters to kill Pia and Kieran Nalaar and their Thopters so he wouldn’t just throw a bunch of Chalices and Chrome Moxen at my face. I do think it was necessary to stop the Thopters from chumping and then being sacrificed, because then I couldn’t get more counters or gain life, but giving up all of my Jitte counters really hampered my plan here. My opponent slammed a Karn and started making constructs, which I had no way to stop from blocking my attackers, and they were big enough to protect Chandra through to an ultimate.

Game three he came out with a turn one Goblin Rabblemaster off of Ancient Tomb and Chrome Mox and immediately applied a lot of pressure to my life total; however, I had a turn 1 Aether Vial and a good set of creatures, including Brightling, to use with it. I had the read on my opponent having a Fiery Confluence, and so I ended up vialing in a Brightling to block and gain life even though it would leave me tapped out, and leave Brightling vulnerable, because doing so was the only way to stay at 7 life. Surprisingly, my opponent did not make the choice to wipe the board after this, despite having three goblin tokens to my Brightling and Stoneforge Mystic, and instead used his mana on an Ensnaring Bridge. I dropped Leonin Relic-Warder, targeted Bridge, held priority, and Flickerwisped it. This allowed me to permanently exile the Bridge and also take out a Chrome Mox when the Relic-Warder came back. This protected me from Fiery Confluence for the turn I needed to gain more life with Brightling to stabilize.

This matchup made me really appreciate Brightling, and really want a second Leonin Relic-Warder.

Round 6: 0-1-1 versus Goblins

I haven’t tested at all against Goblins. In game one I was reading cards and generally getting overrun by a combination of Goblins card advantage and avoidable mistakes. Turns out you can Karakas bounce Krenko while it has summoning sickness…which is not obvious when Krenko is in Japanese. I should have asked for Oracle text. While I was sideboarding, I discovered that my Modern teammate (who won quickly) had won an SCG Open with Goblins in 2012, and he started both excitedly geeking out about Goblins and helping me make the best choices in the matchup. Sword of Fire and Ice was very good in game two, and I was favored to win when the match ended, but I don’t think my odds of winning a game three were great.

Sword of War and Peace would have been good here, while Sword of Light and Shadow did not even merit consideration. I think it’s important to test this matchup moving forward.

Round 7: 2-1 versus Infect

This was our camera feature match, but unfortunately they didn’t show Legacy at all, which is too bad because there were some interesting plays here. I don’t know what number is best to put Sanctum Prelate on in this matchup, or how to determine on a case by case basis, but here’s one decision I made and how it went:

In game three, I had to make the choice between preventing double Invigorate and Dismember by choosing 3 OR cutting off Berserk, cantrips, and other spells by choosing 1 — but also cutting off my own Swords to Plowshares. I chose 1, with Flickerwisp in hand and a vial on 3 in case I wanted to reset, and my opponent cast a Blighted Agent and attacked with Noble Hierarch, turning into a 1/2 with exalted, into my 2/2 Sanctum Prelate. I blocked, my opponent invigorated the Hierarch, I vialed in Flickerwisp and exiled Sanctum Prelate, my opponent Brainstormed, I responded to Brainstorm by Plowing the Blighted Agent, and then I put the Prelate back on 1. That line won me this match, but I wonder if I should have been safe and just taken the Hierarch beats.

Round 8: 1-2 vs. Sneak and Show
I lost game one to Omniscience. I won game two on the back of two Rishadan Ports. I then lost game three to a Lotus Petal, Ancient Tomb, Sneak Attack line; to be fair, I left myself open to this by playing a beater instead of leaving up Rishadan Port against an Island and Scalding Tarn up.

This is another matchup where I missed Sword of War and Peace.

Round 9: 0-2 vs. Grixis Control
Hymn to Tourach did a tremendous amount of work here, but my opponent also outplayed me, especially navigating a complex boardstate where I had two Brightlings and he had two Gurmag Anglers (along with two Baleful Strix). I was hurting for mana to bounce and recast Brightlings every turn, so I decided to simplify by trading a Brightling for a Gurmag Angler, but my opponent accurately predicted when I would choose this line and walked me into a series of spells that took out the other Brightling. This was our first team loss, and we went into day two as top seeds at 8-1.

Round 10: 0-2 vs. TES (The Epic Storm)
This matchup is very bad, and I lost both games quickly. Game two I had a six-card hand with Rest in Peace and Ethersworn Canonist, but my opponent had the turn one Thoughtseize to take the Canonist, and Rest in Peace didn’t do much. My opponent helpfully pointed out that Rest in Peace is much weaker against Rite of Flame decks; it cuts off one angle, but the deck often wins without Past in Flames. It’s possible even weaker creatures are better if they reduce the number of cards that Ad Nauseam gets to look at.

Round 11: 1-2 vs. RUG Delver
I had to automatically mulligan my first hand in game one because I had sideboard cards in my deck, which I mention as a reminder to always check that, even when you think you’ve already checked that. (I had my sideboard laid out to discuss with my round 10 opponent, but put the wrong pile back into my maindeck.) This unforced error possibly cost me the match. Game two I won with Brightling (this is a theme of many of my games against RUG Delver). Game three I had a Brightling active and stayed alive for a long time, but drew three Aether Vials in a row and was unable to support the Brightling against a go-wide strategy.

Brightling is great, but it doesn’t actually win games completely alone; it needs the supporting cards in the deck to give it the context to use its flexibility.

Round 12: 2-0 vs. Jeskai … Delver Stoneblade Control?
My opponent’s deck was very interesting, playing Delver, a Stoneforge package, True-Name Nemesis, Snapcaster Mage, and… Dack Fayden? If this is a known archetype, it’s not one I’ve run into before. I don’t know if D&T is particularly favored, but when we ended up with dueling Jittes in game two, I had more creatures than my opponent and was able to prevent his Jitte from staying equipped long enough to deal damage.

Round 13: 2-0 vs. RUG Delver
This time Brightling got the support she needed from Mother of Runes and Thalia and I was able to win easily.

Round 14: 2-0 vs. Sultai Control (Shardless-less BUG?)
My opponent’s deck, which played Noble Hierarch, Tarmogoyf, Liliana the Last Hope, True-Name Nemesis, Leovold, Jace, and lots of Fatal Push and Abrupt Decay was quite scary because of its ability to power out cards that could answer many things in my deck at once. Remorseful Cleric was quite good here, and my opponent didn’t have Hymn to Tourach; this allowed me to gain advantage with equipment and close game one with Brightling and game two with Mirran Crusader. Liliana, the Last Hope remains very scary; it ticks up while killing a sizable portion of D&T’s creatures. This win allowed our team to draw into top 8.

Round 15: Intentional Draw

Top 8: 1-2 vs. RUG Delver (opponent from Round 13)
Game one I kept a hand with two Plains, three Mother of Runes, and a Thalia; my opponent had Force of Will for the second and third Moms, but that put him way behind on resources and I was able to get there with Recruiter of the Guard and Flickerwisp.

Game two my opening hand was Port, Vial, five creatures on the draw, and I decided to mulligan because getting the Vial countered would leave me unable to do anything. Unfortunately my six was literally six plains, and my five-card hand was Vial, Swords, Mom, Vial, Thalia. I scried a third Aether Vial to the bottom, kept, and still almost got there. I eventually couldn’t answer a Delver and died. It’s possible I should have gone to four, but having slept on it, I would keep this hand again.

I would probably mulligan my game three hand, though, of Recruiter of the Guard, Flickerwisp, and five lands. I had Port and Wasteland and was on the play, but my opponent went T1 Delver, T2 Delver, T3 Mongoose Mongoose, and had the Force of Will for my Flickerwisp. RUG Delver is probably a good matchup, but their T1 Delver hands are incredibly powerful, and I was too afraid of mulliganing based on the previous game and left myself open to getting run over.

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What I Would Do If I Were Playing This Same Event Tomorrow
If I didn’t get to do any testing but got to have the experience of already having played in the event, I would make three sideboard changes:

• Sword of War and Peace in, Sword of Light and Shadow out. I’m higher on SoLaS and lower on SoWaP than most people. I know that in theory getting things back from the yard is bad against exiling removal, but in practice I find I often have things I want to Raise Dead. That being said, with the matchups I faced, I would still rather have SoWaP.
• Leonin Relic-Warder in, 1st Faerie Macabre out. There are a lot of targets for the Relic-Warder, including other Stoneforge Mystic decks, Mono-red Prison decks, and Sneak and Show. It’s also a 2/2, and seeing lots of effects that give -1 toughness to my creatures in my sideboard makes me want to find ways to play incidental creatures with 2 toughness.
• Surgical Extraction in, 2nd Faerie Macabre out. I never faced Dredge or Reanimator, but they were running around day 1, and Lands is also a concern (and Extraction is better against Loam decks). Leaving one piece of hate beyond Rest in Peace in the board seems wise.

Other than that, I’m quite happy with my list for the weekend. This is what I’d bring if I were playing in Philly.

Things To Try In The Future

Since I’m not playing in another major event for a while, I’m going to try a few things that are a bit further afield in the next few weeks.

I’m particularly interested in the 24th land. I know the white sources are important for Brightling, but I did flood out a bit more than I’m used to. Two Brightling in the main is not so many that I see them every game. Cavern of Souls would be nice to have on turn 1 or 2 to protect against Daze, but there are so many creature types in the deck at this point that it might only get to tap for white once. I don’t like the life loss from Horizon Canopy, but the cycling does help with flood. I am interested in Mishra’s Factory as a land that can attack, block, and (in a pinch) wear equipment after a Terminus. I might also try Ghost Quarter, since against RUG Delver it’s a fifth Wasteland. The issue is that all of these options are also bad against Blood Moon, so I’m not sure I’ll stick with any of these.

I miss Sanctum Prelate in the main, and miss having access to two post-board, but I’m not sure where to make a slot for it. If the graveyard decks stay away, maybe one Remorseful Cleric is enough, and it’s possible to grab a slot there? Cutting X/1s is appealing. I could also cut one of the beaters, maybe by moving the Mirran Crusader to the third Brightling slot in the board? That would leave me with only Flickerwisp as a searchable beater, which feels loose. Against the decks I happened to play I could honestly cut a Phyrexian Revoker and be happy, but I’m pretty sure that’s a bad idea unless I start seeing a very high percentage of RUG Delver.

I also want to play with some sideboard slots. I cut Containment Priest a couple of months ago and mostly haven’t missed it, but it’s a 2/2 that’s good against Sneak and Show while also offering permanent exile shenanigans when combined with Flickerwisp. If I want more exile shenanigans, Mangara of Corondor is an option. I’ve seen people playing Manriki-Gusari and though I’m not personally that worried about the equipment matchups right now, I would like to try it and see how much it swings those matchups.

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Writing a report like this was an opportunity to share what I have learned and also a chance to learn more about my thoughts by organizing them. I’m always happy to talk about the deck on the Death & Taxes Discord (the invite code is EqTF7y5), on Twitter as @raxvulpine, or via email at rax@akrasiac.org.

Theodore Jung had a great run at the SCG Team Open last weekend and offered to write up his experience. The content that follows is his, though I’ve done a bit of editing here and there. -Phil

Hey guys! My name is Theodore Jung and my team finished 13th at the SCG Team Open in Worcester. I was playing Death and Taxes in the Legacy seat, and my friends James and Andy were playing Affinity in Modern and RB Aggro in Standard (respectively). I picked up D&T about 2-3 years ago; now I won’t play anything else. My notable Magic accomplishments include a top 8 at SCG Syracuse in 2014 as well as many top 16/32 finishes at various Opens/Classics.

(psst, I’m the one in the middle)

In the weeks leading up to the event, I spent a good amount of time testing various WW and RW builds. However, all that work became mostly irrelevant when WotC dropped a bomb on us: Deathrite Shaman and Gitaxian Probe were banned!

After thinking extensively about what implications this would have and consuming way too many hours of ban-related Legacy content, I made my card choices based on the following assumptions:

-RUG Delver, Miracles, and various flavors of Stoneblade will be the most popular fair decks in the format.
-Reanimator as well as Sneak and Show will make a resurgence and are going to be the most popular combo decks.
-I’m going to be playing the mirror match a lot more often.
-I’m going to play against Kolaghan’s Command and Marsh Casualties a lot less often.
-The mana denial plan involving Wasteland, Port, and Thalia becomes a valid angle of attack without every fair opponent having 4 Deathrite Shamans in their deck.
-People are going to play jank that they’ve somehow convinced is playable because Deathrite got banned.

These are similar conclusions that Phil came to in his video about how the Legacy metagame was going to shift. Thus I made my list very similar to his with minor changes to the sideboard.

D&T

Creatures (25) 2 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Brightling 4 Flickerwisp 1 Mirran Crusader 4 Mother of Runes 2 Recruiter of the Guard 2 Remorseful Cleric 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben Spells (11) 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 4 Swords to Plowshares 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

Lands (24) 13 Plains 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland 3 Karakas Sideboard: (15) 1 Sword of War and Peace 2 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Faerie Macabre 1 Leonin Relic-Warder 1 Sanctum Prelate 2 Rest in Peace 2 Path to Exile 1 Surgical Extraction 2 Cataclysm 2 Council’s Judgment

Since Phil has discussed his reasoning for including Brightling/Remorseful Cleric in his 75 extensively, I want to talk about some minor differences in my sideboard.

Faerie Macabre instead of 2nd Surgical Extraction
This is a very minor change that’s mostly irrelevant. I just wanted a way to interact with the graveyard right when I play Recruiter of the Guard on turn 3 without needing to have a Vial. I expected a lot of BR Reanimator at this team event, both because of the Deathrite ban and it being a deck that an inexperienced pilot can pick up easily. Having the option to search for Faerie Macabre can be the difference between losing and winning games, however rarely it may come up.

Cataclysm over the third Recruiter and Brightling
I opted for Cataclysm since it provides a unique effect in D&T that it lacks otherwise. The card can restore the board to parity when you’re behind. I was considering this or Gideon, Ally of Zendikar in the flex slot, but I felt like the merits of playing Cataclysm were going to come up more this weekend. It’s great against Miracles and Stoneblade while also hosing random strategies such as Tezzerator, MUD, Elves, Enchantress, and Goblins.

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Matches and Sideboarding:
(Sorry if I forgot to write down your name, it was a long weekend)

Round 1- Merfolk (1-2)
Game 1: My opponent sticks a Vial on turn one and I keep a hand with 2 Thalias, a Recruiter, a Vial, and 3 lands. I draw the third Thalia and die to 2 True-Name Nemesis and a lord.
Game 2: I play a Vial on turn 1 and play Stoneforge on turn 2 grabbing Sword of Fire and Ice. They play a True-Name on turn 3, which I have Council’s Judgment for. He didn’t play anything relevant after, which let Sword of Fire and Ice on Brightling clean up the rest.
Game 3: Sort of a repeat of game 1. I play Stoneforge on turn 2 grabbing Sword of Fire and Ice and then Flickerwisp on turn 3 to grab Jitte. However, my opponent played 2 consecutive True-Name Nemesis and then Vialed in a Phantasmal Image to make a third. I scooped up my cards soon after.
Sideboarding:
-4 Thalia, -1 Revoker, +2 Council’s Judgment, +2 Path, +1 Relic-Warder

Round 2- Sneak and Show (2-1)
Game 1: I don’t remember much about this game. I think I played Thalia and Wasteland + Ported them so they couldn’t do anything.
Game 2: My opponent played a turn 2 Show and Tell into Omniscience + Emrakul. I didn’t have Flickerwisp to delay it for a turn or a Leonin Relic-Warder. Welp.
Game 3: I have turn 1 Vial, turn 2 Thalia, into turn 3 Port + Wasteland. My opponent plays Sorcerous Spyglass on his turn 4 naming Port (which I have 2 of in play). I Vial in a Flickerwisp to flicker his Spyglass at the end of my turn, Port him twice on his upkeep, and I have lethal on the next turn.
Sideboarding:
-4 Plow, -1 Stoneforge, -1 Cleric, -1 Jitte, +2 Council’s Judgment, +2 Canonist, +1 Sword of War and Peace, +1 Prelate, +1 Relic-Warder

Round 3: Micheal on Czech Pile without DRS (0-2)
Game 1: My memory of this one is a little hazy. However, I do remember making a mistake by attacking my opponent with a Brightling equipped with a Batterskull instead of an Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver that had a bunch of cards under it. I also saw a Grove of the Burnwillows that told me he was playing Punishing Fire.
Game 2: I lost this game to Punishing Fire + Grove. My Sword of Fire and Ice got Abrupt Decayed as well.Thankfully my teammates carried me by winning their matches.
Sideboarding:
-4 Plow, -2 Revoker, -1 Jitte,-1 Plains, +2 Cataclysm, +2 Judgment, +2 Rest in Peace, +1 Prelate, +1 Sword of War and Peace

Round 4: George on Grixis Delver (2-0)
Game 1: I plowed an early Delver, but then my opponent played a Gurmag Angler. Unfortunately for him, it turns out an unanswered Batterskull with Sword of Fire and Ice and Jitte on it beats a 5/5 zombie fish. I saw Thought Scour so I was inclined to board in Rest in Peace.
Game 2: I play a turn 1 Vial and Rest in Peace on two. He plays two Delvers. One gets Plowed and the other trades with a Vialed in Flickerwisp. Brightling cleans up.
Sideboarding:
-2 Recruiter, -2 Revoker, +2 Path, +2 Rest in Peace

Round 5: Drago on UWR Stoneblade (0-2)
Game 1: I don’t remember this one well, but I believe I eventually died to Jitte or Batterskull on a True-Name after all of my stuff got Plowed.
Game 2: I keep a hand with 2 Revokers, 2 Ports, a Wasteland, Plains, and Karakas on the play. Both of my Revokers as well as the Thalia I drew get answered. I drew 4 consecutive plains after drawing Thalia on turn 2 and die to a Jitte on a Snapcaster.
Sideboarding:
-4 Plow, -1 Plains, -1 Cleric, +2 Cataclysm, +2 Judgment, +1 Relic-Warder, +1 SoWaP

Round 6: Death and Taxes (2-1)
Game 1: I keep an iffy hand of Vial, 2 Ports, Stoneforge, 2 Plains, and a Wasteland. My opponent has two Mother of Runes in play, which I eventually Revoker away along with his Jitte. However, he puts Sword of Fire and Ice on Flickerwisp and starts mowing down my dudes.
Game 2: I play Stoneforge on turn 2 and Flickerwisp it on turn 3 to grab Jitte and Sword of War and Peace. I slap SoWaP and Jitte on my Flickerwisp. It felt pretty dirty.
Game 3: I keep an questionable hand with no white mana on 6 cards with Vial, Jitte, Plow, and a Mom. It turns out my opponent also kept a hand with no white mana. I end up finding Recruiter and making an army of Wisps. He gets stuck on 1 basic plains so I Flicker his Vial to send him back to the stone age. Wisps and Brightling finish the rest.
Sideboarding:
-4 Thalia, -2 Cleric, +2 Judgment, +2 Path, +1 Relic-Warder, +1 SoWaP

Round 7: TES (2-1)
Game 1: He has a slow hand and I eventually find Thalia.
Game 2: I play a Mom turn 1 on the draw and I get Ad Nauseumed turn 2.
Game 3: My opponent mulls to a 6-card no-lander with Chrome Mox to cantrip for a land. He doesn’t find one. I play Thalia and Revoker naming Chrome Mox. He scoops.
Sideboarding:
-4 Plow, -1 Stoneforge, -1 Plains, -1 Jitte, -2 flickerwisp +2 Canonist, +1 Surgical, +1 Faerie, +1 Relic-Warder, +1 SoWaP, +1 Prelate, +2 Cataclysm

Round 8: UR Omnitell (2-1)
Game 1: I play Thalia on turn 2 and deny his mana long enough until I have lethal.
Game 2: He plays Show and Tell into Omniscience into Enter the Infinite on turn 2.
Game 3: He Show and Tells in an Omniscience and I Flickerwisp it away for a turn. I also have a Thalia and a Vial in play. I pass after attacking him and he Ponders then shuffles by paying one with Ancient Tomb. He Brainstorms…… and passes. Apparently he found nothing with his cantrips and Brainstorm locked himself. I have more than enough time to attack for lethal.
Sideboarding:
-4 Plow, -1 Stoneforge, -1 Jitte, -1 Cleric, +2 Judgment, +2 Canonist, +1 Relic-Warder, +1 SoWaP, +1 Prelate

Round 9: Alexander on ANT (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent mulligans and I Port him off mana for a while until I topdeck a Thalia.
Game 2: My opponent plays Dread of Night on turn 1. However, he doesn’t combo quickly and Infernal Tutors for a Dark Ritual, then passes. I Surgically extract the Tutor and nab 2 more from his hand. Nice! The rest of his hand is 4 Rituals and a Tendrils of Agony. I draw Rest in Peace next turn. He plays an second irrelevant Dread of Night and Batterskull + SoWaP takes care of the rest.
Sideboarding:
-4 Plow, -1 Stoneforge, -1 Plains, -1 Jitte, -2 flickerwisp +2 Canonist, +1 Surgical, +1 Faerie, +1 Relic-Warder, +1 SoWaP, +1 Prelate, +2 Rest in Peace

Round 10: Dan Jessup on RUG Delver (0-2)
Game 1: I keep a Vial hand with no colored mana on 6 and get Nimble Mongoosed to death.
Game 2: I make a minor mistake that let my opponent Abrade my Batterskull by Wastelanding me off the third land. This would cost me the game since I had Rest in Peace in play and got memed to death by three 1/1 Mongooses while I drew running Plows. Sad times.
Sideboarding:
-2 Revoker, -2 Recruiter, +2 Path, +2 Rest in Peace

Round 11: Jake on Grixis Tezzerator (2-0)
Game 1: I lead with a Vial and my opponent plays a turn 1 Mox Diamond and a land. He misses his second land drop and plays another Diamond. I Revoker both away and grab a Sword of Fire and Ice to attack through his Baleful Strixes.
Game 2: My opponent mulls to 5 and I Cataclysm him on turn 4 when he has a bunch of stuff in play. I then Revoker his stuff away and hit them for the last few points with SoFaI on a Mirran Crusader.
Sideboarding:
-4 Plow, -1 Mom, +2 Cataclysm, +2 Judgment, +1 Relic-Warder

Round 12: Gerard Fabiano on UW Stoneblade (1-1-1)
Game 1: He forces my turn 1 Vial but gets stuck on 2 Plains and never draws any blue mana. Stoneforge and the crew cleans up.
Game 2: This game goes really long. I have 2 Brightlings in play at some point and one gets dealt with. He assembles TNN with Batterskull and Jitte and I attempt to Cataclysm him after playing a Flickerwisp. However, it gets Dazed out of nowhere and a 7/5 unblockable lifelinker with Jitte is good enough to get the job done for Gerard.
Game 3: This game looked a lot like game 2 except my Cataclysm resolved. I kept a Flickerwisp attached to a Batterskull and a Plains. He keeps Batterskull equipped to TNN and a Plains. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and since the Modern and Standard seats split matches, it ended in a draw.
Sideboarding:
-4 Plow, -1 Plains, -1 Jitte, +2 Judgment, +2 Cataclysm, +1 SoWaP, +1 Relic-Warder

Round 13: Paolo on Grixis Control (0-2)
Game 1: I get a Sword of Fire and Ice on a Mirran Crusader and put him down to 4. However, he Kcommands my Sword and bolts my crusader. Darn. I never get down another threat and die to Jace and an Angler.
Game 2: This one was kind of crazy. We trade resources in the early turns and we get to a point where we’re both at a very low life total and on topdeck mode. He plays a Liliana, the Last Hope and after a couple turns, is about to ultimate it. I draw a Recruiter and go grab a Crusader which would deal lethal if I untap with it. Unfortunately, Paolo topdecks a Jace and bounces my crusader. I die to a horde of zombie tokens.
Sideboarding:
-4 Plow, -1 Plains, -2 Revoker, +2 Cataclysm, +2 Council’s Judgment, +1 Prelate, +2 Rest in Peace

Round 14: Matthew on Sneak and Show (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent mulls to 5 in game 1, and I have a turn 2 Thalia. He gets stuck on an Ancient Tomb that I kept Porting and an Island. He plays a Lotus Petal at some point, telling me he’s on Sneak and Show.
Game 2: He plays a turn 2 Show and Tell into Emrakul, which I Karakas a turn later. On turn 3 he slams Sneak Attack which eats a Council’s Judgment. My opponent doesn’t have anything else after and gets beaten down by a bunch of weenies. In retrospect, I think I got really lucky by having a hand with answers that lined up really well with the threats he did have.
Sideboarding:
-4 Plow, -1 Stoneforge, -1 Cleric, -1 Jitte, +2 Council’s Judgment, +2 Canonist, +1 Sword of War and Peace, +1 Prelate, +1 Relic-Warder

Round 15: Ethan on RUG Delver (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent just can’t deal with a Brightling with an active Mom.
Game 2: I play Rest in Peace on Turn 2 but he Stifles the trigger. He attacks me down with Tarmogoyf while dealing with all of my stuff. He plays Sulfur Elemental to kill my Mom and Thalia and I lose shortly after.
Game 3: I play a Vial into Mom into Thalia. He can’t find a third land for Sulfur Elemental even with an active Sylvan Library and 2 Brightlings kill him.
Sideboarding:
-2 Revoker, -2 Recruiter, +2 Path, +2 Rest in Peace
It might be good to find room for Council’s Judgment since RUG players tend to bring in silly things like True-Name Nemesis and Sylvan Library. Worst case it deals with one of their threats for 3 mana.

Individual Record: 9-5-1
Team Record: 10-4-1

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Conclusion:
To be honest, my play wasn’t immaculate throughout the course of the tournament. There were definitely spots (such as round 10 against RUG) where I made a couple of poor judgment calls that let my opponent crawl back into the game. I definitely got luckier than usual and didn’t play against any horrible matchups. I also think my experience with the Legacy format paid off, since I’ve been playing against all of these decks for years. Now, I want to examine which parts of the deck over/underperformed in my opinion.

Overperformed:
Phyrexian Revoker: I almost always wanted to draw Revoker in most of my matches except against RUG Delver. Being able to turn off opposing planeswalkers, combos, and equipment was a huge factor in winning the matches I did. With Sneak and Show picking up in steam and Delver being less popular as a whole post-ban, I would strongly recommend playing 3 going forward.

Brightling: Phil has sung his praises about this card endlessly. After this event, I couldn’t agree more. It was completely game-warping in all of my fair matchups when I played it and served as a quick clock against Sneak and Show and Storm. I’m still not sure about playing the third in the sideboard but anyone who’s not playing 2 in the maindeck is doing themselves a huge disservice.

Stoneforge Mystic: If I had to attribute most of my wins to anything other than the mana denial package, it would be Stoneforge Mystic. Kolaghan’s Command is at an all-time low which means free wins by grabbing a Batterskull with a turn 2 Stoneforge are a thing again. Even being able to fetch Sword of Fire and Ice and establishing a clock against combo was super relevant.

Underperformed:
Remorseful Cleric: I did not play against any graveyard decks during the entire tournament so my opinion of this card may be a bit skewed. It was lackluster in most of my matchups and I frequently found myself sideboarding a copy out. As for whether this card is good in the bigger picture, we can observe that there were 0 copies of Reanimator in the day 2 metagame and only one copy in the top 16 of the Classic. It seems like graveyard decks are underperforming right now due to people being over-prepared for them; I don’t expect that to change much in the coming weeks. Maybe trimming or cutting Cleric and adding a Serra Avenger would be optimal since it is another flier that races True-Name pretty well.

24 lands: Phil recently went up to 24 lands but the higher land count turned out to be a liability for me. I had almost no problem hitting my land drops but got flooded frequently in long games against fair decks. I understand why the deck would want more mana at its disposal with Brightling, but situations where you don’t draw it, drawing 4+ copies of basic Plains feels miserable. I boarded out the 13th Plains throughout the tournament fairly often and see myself cutting it from the deck.

Faerie Macabre: I thought that having a tutorable Surgical Extraction would be relevant in an expected field with a lot of Reanimator. However, Faerie Macabre proved to be lackluster, having boarded it in once throughout the entire tournament against ANT. Surgical can come in against a variety of combo and graveyard-based decks other than Reanimator, which is often more relevant than the few percentage points the deck gets from including Faerie. I will be playing 2 Surgicals going forward.

Unsure:
Cataclysm/Gideon: Cataclysm is the card that I’m the most unsure about in the 75. While it has gotten me out of jams this weekend, I missed just being able to proactively slam a Gideon on an even board. I think I’ll keep Cataclysm around because the format is still very much up in the air and it is much better at hosing random strategies than Gideon. If anyone has a good argument for one over the other, I’ll be more than happy to hear it.

Going Forward:
All things considered, this is most likely what I’ll be running in SCG Philly:

Revised D&T

Creatures (26) 3 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Brightling 4 Flickerwisp 1 Mirran Crusader 4 Mother of Runes 2 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Remorseful Cleric 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 1 Serra Avenger Spells (11) 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 4 Swords to Plowshares 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

Lands (23) 12 Plains 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland 3 Karakas Sideboard (15) 1 Sword of War and Peace 2 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Leonin Relic-Warder 1 Sanctum Prelate 2 Rest in Peace 2 Path to Exile 2 Surgical Extraction 2 Cataclysm 2 Council’s Judgment

Overall, I had a blast playing in Worcester. Team Constructed tournaments are often my favorite, since you always end up having a good time with your friends, win or lose. I’ll be playing Death and Taxes in the Team Open at Philadelphia this weekend. Anyways, if you have any questions or comments about the article, please contact me at hojaejung@gmail.com or find me as Theo Jung in the Legacy Death and Taxes Facebook group. I’d love to hear anything you’d have to say!

Thanks for reading and may your Vials always resolve,
Theo Jung

June 23rd (once again!) marks a few important things for me: my birthday, the first full day of my summer job at Virginia’s Latin Academy, and the two year anniversary of Thraben University. Honestly, I’m amazed at everything that’s happened in the past year. Here’s a small recap of things that have happened on the site, though I’m sure I’m forgetting some things:

~24 new articles
Expansion of the matchup section
Significant revision of the matchups from last year
Creation of some useful tools and references pages (e.g. Math of Splashing page)
Significant revision of some of the splash pages
Significant revamping of the decklist tab
Reorganization of materials
More cooperative content than ever, including podcasts and guest articles
Creation of new tabs on the site, like Coming Soon
Organization of the first in-person D&T meetup at a major event
D&T mulligan survey that resulted in a heavily updated mulligan page
Creation of a stream
Creation of an accompanying Youtube Channel
Joined the Cardhoarder Network
Production of ~300 hours of streaming content
Accumulation of over 900 followers on Twitch
Active involvement in the D&T Discord Channel

Looking back at my goals from the previous year, I’m very pleased with how things have progressed. There were a few bumps along the way, but that’s just life. The stream didn’t get started up as quickly as I anticipated due to technical difficulties; accordingly, I didn’t quite make my goal of hitting Twitch Partner status (I’ve been sitting on the cusp of that for months though, so it’s inevitable). I have a few planned changes that didn’t happen due to some unforeseen stressors in my life the past two months or so; accordingly, I didn’t have much time to meet up with someone and work through some of the layout and technical changes to the website that I have planned. Those changes are coming, don’t worry, but I’m not sure exactly when I’ll get around to them.

But enough with the past, let’s look to the future!!!

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First, the immediate future. I’ll be teaching Spoken Latin at Virginia’s Governor’s Latin Academy from June 22nd to July 15th. During that time, my streaming schedule will be sporadic. My summer job is going to take priority over the stream, but there will still be a good number of streams. I teach every other morning, so there’s the possibility for streams prior to noon every other weekday. I have Sunday mornings off as well, so unless I’m dead tired (which is a real possibility!), I’ll be planning on Sunday morning streams. Above all else though, I do need to avoid burnout, as my summer job is extremely intensive and has long hours. My afternoons and evenings will be almost entirely filled with various activities for the academy, so unfortunately it is extremely unlikely that there will be any late streams during my time there. If you haven’t followed me already on Twitch, it’s probably a great time to do so, as getting push notifications for when I’m starting up is probably the best way to catch when I’m streaming for the next month.

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Now let’s look ahead to the remainder of the summer. This year my collaborative content was very well received, so I think it’s time to crank that up to 11. I’d like to announce that I am now accepting applications for exhibition streams! That’s right! You now have your chance to take on “The Dean” on stream for the enjoyment of the Legacy community. My goal is to showcase Legacy at its highest level and produce some high caliber content to promote interest in and growth of Legacy as a format. I’m intending these streams to be educational; they should showcase how to optimally approach and play a matchup. Anyone is welcome to submit an application, but I am looking for players who are masters of their decks and/or other Legacy streamers. I’d love to be able to stream both sides of a matchup, so that players can watch concurrently or take a look at the other side of the matchup later to see how things are playing out.

I intend for the bulk of these exhibition streams to take place between July 16th and August 5th, as I will have a great deal of scheduling flexibility during that time. That being said, I have no doubt that some of these will trickle over into the rest of August and perhaps the months to come. I won’t be able to accept every application, but I’m very excited for this opportunity. If you’d like to submit an application, please click here or complete the Google Form embedded at the bottom of this article. Feel free to pass on this form as you see fit.

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Finally, let’s look ahead to my long-term plans for the next year. I want to really invest in the stream in the year to come. I’ve had so much fun interacting with the chat in the last six months, and I’d like to do some things to really improve that experience. Here’s the direction I think I’m going in the next year and my set of goals given my anticipated growth.

1. Finish upgrading my stream setup by buying a pair of new monitors.
2. Create a donation queue of some sort to clearly track my donation decklists and donation content.
3. Add some new graphics to the stream (e.g. stream starting soon screen and bathroom break screen)
4. Hit Twitch Partner Status
5. Hit 2000 Followers
6. Find a good balance between D&T and non-D&T content.
7. Increase my range as a Legacy player by playing more decks.
8. Increase average number of weekly streams from two to three.
9. Try to stream once a week at a non-evening time to allow others to catch me live more frequently.
10. Play in some Legacy Challenges.

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I’d like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to a few people who have really helped with my content over the past year.

Kerry Milan– He’s one of my closest friends and my tech support. He helps me get Thraben University up and running again anytime something weird happens.

Zach Koch– He’s been one of my primary sounding boards for prepping D&T decklists for events.

MTGO User Piroko139 and Source User ZTurgeon– These two players were incredibly helpful in helping me learn Red Prison at a higher level. Zach gave me some great sideboarding notes, and Piroko139 was my sounding board for my various Red Prison questions.

My subs and donors– Thraben University is profitable now, whereas last year it was largely just self-sustaining. I can now justify putting more time and effort into both the stream and the website itself. I can’t tell you how much it means that I have such an opportunity. Thank you.

Cardhoarder– Cardhoarder gifted me with a large loan account, allowing me to play a wide variety of Legacy decks other than just D&T. This really opened up my audience beyond just those players who love D&T. I’m very grateful for that.

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I hope you all have enjoyed my content over the past year, and here’s looking forward to another great year of Legacy content!

XOXOXXOXO
-Phil Gallagher

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Okay folks,

For those of you going to SCGcon, we’ll be having an informal D&T meetup on Friday after the conclusion of the 3:00 Legacy Challenge. This event is four rounds, so it will probably wrap up somewhere between 7:00 and 7:30. We’re going to meet at the SCG Prize Wall and then relocate to some empty tables to shoot the bull about D&T. It’s very likely that we will relocate for dinner, but I’m not going to solidify plans for that until I know how many people are interested. I’ll push out notifications about where we’ve moved to and such on my Twitter, so feel free to check that for updates or if you can’t find us! https://twitter.com/MangaraLock

-Phil Gallagher

Any experienced Legacy player can pick up a deck and pilot it to some degree of success, but there’s a reason why you see so many grinders and high-caliber players sticking to the same deck or same style of deck. It takes time to learn the math and mental shortcuts associated with playing a new deck. There’s a difference between understanding how an interaction works and having those interactions internalized to the point where they are second nature. One of the goals I set for myself last year was to gain high-level proficiency with another deck and then write a few articles on that deck. I chose Red Prison for this task, primarily because it is great at stealing all of the fun from my opponent…uhhh, I mean, it is well-positioned in the current metagame. Yeah, that’s it. I won’t claim to have true proficiency with the deck, I’m still making misplays in my leagues, but I’m on the path to proficiency. In no particular order, here are some of the things that I’ve learned.

#NoFear

The first thing you have to accept when playing Red Prison is that you are playing this deck to win. The good news is that many of your wins are really easy and quick. A vast percentage of your wins come from resolving a hate card of some nature on turn one. You have to be prepared to just jam your hand and hope that it is good enough. In most cases, you cannot afford to be afraid and play around cards like Daze or Force of Will. You will lose some games by going all-in and losing to some blue card. You’ll win a far greater number of games by just going for it. If you cannot accept this, you need to play a different deck. This is not debatable. That is how this deck functions.

As far as mulligans go, you need to have a gameplan in your opening hand. You have less selection than most other Legacy decks, so your opener has to have good potential. Most seven card hands that cannot make a turn 1 or 2 play should be thrown back. There are some exceptions (e.g. you have a Chrome Mox and one land, meaning that drawing a land, Simian Spirit Guide, or red card would allow you to make a play), but if you’re not in a position to do something early, your six card hand will likely be better. I accept most functional six card hands in game 1 scenarios, even if they are slow.

On a conceptually similar note, you don’t need a win condition in your opening hand. If you lock your opponent out of the game on turn one or two, you can literally take 30 turns to kill your opponent. You have plenty of time to draw towards a kill. If your opponent cannot cast any spells, a ten turn clock from a 2/2 Simian Spirit Guide is good enough.

How Do I Lose?

Red Prison is a deck that stops your opponent’s avenues of attack. A single hate card often *nearly* locks out your opponents. That leaves you asking the question, “How can I lose from here?” If you eliminate your opponent’s remaining outs, it does not matter how long it takes to win. Let’s look at a few examples of what I mean:

You have resolved a Blood Moon against Grixis Delver on the play. How can you lose? The answer is obviously to a Young Pyromancer. Accordingly, if you put a Chalice of the Void on two, the game is over…well, unless they are playing the Bob Huang tech of Island in the sideboard.

You have resolved a Blood Moon against Turbo Depths. How can you lose? The easiest way to lose from here is for your opponent to play a Dark Depths, which will enter with no counters, and then follow up with a Krosan Grip to destroy your Moon. Accordingly, you should start looking for an Ensnaring Bridge to keep Marit Lage from attacking, or a second Blood Moon effect to prevent a single Krosan Grip from hosing you.

Goblin Rabblemaster Math

An unchecked Goblin Rabblemaster is a four turn clock on its own. It (and its goblin buddies) attack for 1, then 6, then 8, and finally 10. The biggest damage bump is on the first turn when the Rabblemaster itself gets to attack, then the damage progression is a linear two damage per turn. Of note, on the third turn you’ll have dealt 15 damage with the Rabblemaster, so a Fiery Confluence becomes lethal. Also of note, if you play a second Rabblemaster on the following turn, the clock is shortened to a three turn clock; the damage progression there is 1, then 8, then 21. Be careful though, as the Rabblemasters will force each other to attack.

On that note, it is sometimes correct to not play this card, as the downside of Rabblemaster’s “must attack each turn” clause can be very real if your opponent has something like a Batterskull or a Griselbrand. Remember, playing Rabblemaster post-combat so that you do not make a token is an option as well. Rabblemaster pairs very well with Ensnaring Bridge. You draw a card each turn, allowing your Goblin tokens to attack, if you so desire. If attacking isn’t good, you can also play out your card for turn before combat, keeping your goblins from attacking. By doing this over the course of a few turns, you can often build up a strong enough force to swing through the opposing team in one go, even if they do have a lifelink creature.

Tension and Awkwardness in the Deck
Red Prison is full of objectively powerful and problematic cards, but there is some tension in the decklist that you need to be aware of. Sometimes you’ll trip over your own cards. Your Trinisphere makes your inexpensive cards like Chrome Mox considerably harder to cast; this in turn makes it harder to empty your hand for Ensnaring Bridge purposes. On a similar note, you can use your sol lands to power out Moon effects, but then they just become Mountains. Make sure that you account for this when sequencing your turns and figuring out how much mana you have. In practice, this isn’t that big of a deal since your opponent is usually much more hindered by the hate cards than you are.

Karn, Scion of Urza is an amazing card in this shell, but a very awkward one as well. His plus ability pairs poorly with Ensnaring Bridge, so in some situations it is correct to do nothing with your Karn. There’s a huge risk associated with something like drawing a land for turn, activating Karn, and getting stuck with a second land you cannot play. Remember, if you have your opponent locked out, it doesn’t matter how quickly you win. Accordingly, it’s not that sacrilegious to not activate your planeswalker. Honestly, his ability to make a token also plays pretty poorly with Bridge. You often have to decided pretty early on if you are on the “Karn Aggro” or “Karn Card Advantage” plan and map your turns accordingly. Karn is easier to cast than Chandra, so sometimes you’ll find yourself playing a pair of sol lands and just slamming Karn on turn two. Turns out that is pretty good against most decks. If you end up changing your mind part way through the game and you have to hide behind an Ensnaring Bridge, keep in mind that you can blow up you own Bridge with Fiery Confluence or Abrade to get that last lethal attack in.

When I first started playing Karn, I think I vastly underestimated the power of the tokens. At the time you make the first token, it’s pretty unimpressive. Let’s say that you control two artifacts prior to casting your Karn. You minus to create a 3/3. Meh. You then minus again the following turn; you now have a pair of 4/4 dudes. Okay, this is sounding better. If you use your mana to produce another artifact that turn, you’re swinging in with a Gurmag Angler and have a backup one ready to go the next turn…oh, that’s neat! If you are going heavy on Karn (3-4 copies), it’s probably correct to play a set of Great Furnace. The exposure to Wasteland and artifact destruction is probably worth it, as Karn can close games very quickly on artifact heavy starts. On that note, if you have a Karn and are getting aggressive, it’s often correct to play a Chrome Mox just to give your tokens a buff.

Kozilek’s Return also is a bit of an oddity here. It’s Devoid, meaning that it can kill things without that pesky Mother of Runes getting in the way. However that also means that it cannot be paired with Chrome Mox to produce mana. This comes up more often than you might think. Kozilek’s Return also sweeps away your Magus or Rabblemaster, so keep that in mind when considering your resource management and play progression.

One last awkward thing: if you cast Fiery Confluence using the destroy target artifact mode and it has no legal targets upon resolution, it will be countered. If you cast Fiery Confluence and your opponent sacrifices or otherwise removes your targets (e.g. with Flickerwisp or Arcbound Ravager), the remaining portion of your spell isn’t going to resolve. I recently played a match against ANT where I targeted a Lotus Petal with Fiery Confluence and then dealt four to my opponent. It resolved. If my opponent would have sacrificed the Petal in response, they could have saved themselves four life. This is why I love Magic: knowledge about rules and technical play can really give you an edge.

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This is my first of three articles on Red Prison. As I have it mentally mapped out right now, my second article is going to look at various Red Prison decklists and talk about the conceptual strengths and weaknesses of each. My third article is then going to discuss matchups and generic sideboarding tips. I hope you’ve enjoyed this digression from my regular D&T content, and you can expect to see another Red Prison article in a week or so!

Simon Depraz (aka Mannaus on The Source) just made of finals of the EU Eternal Weekend. He reached out to me and offered to write a tournament report, and I happily obliged. What follows is his material, though I’ve made some minor adjustments.
-Phil

My name is Simon Depraz, and I’ve been playing Death and Taxes for almost 2 years now. I’ve played tons of different versions, and just like any DnT regular, I’ve had my fair share of exciting successes as well as huge disappointments. Sometimes I feel like I’m walking down a rocky road, yet, I believe in the deck and its ability to break almost any strategy in Legacy (let’s face it, Elves are out there).

Eternal Weekend was the next big event on my radar. I tested an extended range of matchups with my friends. Luckily I had the opportunity to test many different builds, bringing my various decks to competitive events around Switzerland. I played with a WB build for a long time, splashing for the good old Orzhov Pontiff and occasionally a one-of Dark Confidant. I had some success, most notably against TNN decks, but nothing too mind-blowing. Then, with Czech Pile on the rise, I went for the RW strategy with 2 Magus of the Moon and Pia and Kiran Nalaar; I also tried out Dire Fleet Daredevil.

Yet, whereas playtesting results were pretty encouraging, competitive events went very poorly. I played a few events with average results, feeling that I was losing to my own lack of stability. Indeed, whereas the RW build had some pretty decent runs versus tier 1 decks, I lost way too many matches versus tier 2 or tier 3 decks. I just always felt like the deck was too centered around punishing the rampant greed in Legacy top-tier decks, and not enough around being concretely solid against any opponent. The free wins Magus enabled were pretty nice, but the price to pay felt too high.

So…what next? I was left with a serious trade-off: True-Name Nemesis and Czech Pile are a thing, but so are Monoblack Pox, Steel Stompy, Omnitell, and all other various small meta percentage decks. Thus, for a big event (almost 300 players showed up in Paris), I decided to go back to a WW build. I took the approach that a strong, stock build would be better suited to face a field full of random decks while still being able to put up a serious fight against tier 1 decks. Here’s what I registered for the event:

Simon Depraz, EU Eternal Weekend

Creatures (26) 4 Mother of Runes 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Stoneforge Mystic 2 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Serra Avenger 4 Flickerwisp 2 Recruiter of the Guard 3 Mirran Crusader 1 Sanctum Prelate Spells (11) 4 Aether Vial 4 Swords to Plowshares 1 Umezawa's Jitte 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Batterskull

Lands (23) 4 Wasteland 4 Rishadan Port 3 Karakas 10 Plains 1 Horizon Canopy 1 Snow-Covered Plains Sideboard (15) 2 Rest in Peace 1 Containment Priest 2 Surgical Extraction 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Path to Exile 2 Council's Judgment 2 Cataclysm 1 Sword of War and Peace 1 Sanctum Prelate

So, I’m not sure what a “stock” DnT list is nowadays. I think it’s also a rather difficult call, so those choices are just my opinions. In the main deck, there are realistically about 54 unmovable slots; you can make very minor changes to the manabase, but the end result is always about the same. Thus the real deckbuilding decisions come in those 6 flex slots. I went for the rather aggressive plan with 3 Mirran Crusader and 2 Serra Avenger filling 5 of those 6 slots. The reasons are quite straightforward: Mirran is a bomb versus everything that plays green and/or black. It’s also great in matchups where racing is important. Serra Avenger is great against True-Name Nemesis (which it can race) and isn’t bothered much by all the -1/-1 effects in the format. I chose to be proactive with big bodies with evasion instead of trying to be reactive with slots like Magus of the Moon. I tried to make my opponent focus on handling my board rather than developing theirs.

Something I took into consideration when choosing over flex slots was the mana curve and the Vial curve. And to this extent, Serra Avenger is actually a pretty solid contender as well. It fits very well both as a 2-drop off of Vial and as a mid/late-game topdeck 2-drop to hardcast while still leaving some mana open for things like casting other spells, equipping, or using Rishadan Port.

Then Sanctum Prelate felts like an absolute must-play in my opinion. It requires quite extensive matchup knowledge to use properly and definitely some heavy pondering of the board state and the possible lines of your opponent. That said, it handles situations no other card can handle and it has the unique ability to soft-lock an opponent out of their game plan.

I went down to two Revoker, as I felt that was enough in the current meta. He is necessary, and I am most of the time quite happy to top deck it. Plus it’s also a fantastic Recruiter target in many matchups. But two feels like enough, especially in a monowhite shell that can play other direct answers to problematic permanents in the sideboard (e.g. Council’s Judgement).

Concerning the lands: I took out my copies of Cavern of Souls, thus maxing on basic Plains. This was to support my my maximum consistency plan. The basics felt great against any Wasteland or Blood Moon strategies. I still sleeved up a Horizon Canopy though as a minor card-advantage plan for control matchups like Miracles or Czech Pile.

Then the sideboard: rather stock. I went down to 1 Containment Priest in favor of a second Prelate. Sneak and Show tends to play multiple copies of Omniscience now, and Containment Priest feels rather weak against these versions. I rarely want more than one Priest in other matchups, like the mirror or Green Sun’s Zenith decks, for which a 1-of Containment Priest can be a very nice reactive touch, but also a quite mediocre top deck. Thus 1 seems enough.

I played the Sword of War and Peace as a concession to Miracles, which I expected a lot of in Paris. Plus it’s a game-winning card in many other matchups (Punishing Fire decks, the mirror, Combo…). I rate it very highly as a sideboard card. That left me with one last tough choice: Cataclysm vs Gideon. That was my most debated choice. It’s close, Gideon is very strong, but Cataclysm can just save you from otherwise unwinnable situations. In the end, I have more fun resolving Cataclysms than Gideons, so Cataclysm it was.

So let’s look at how the event went for me…

Matchups:

Round 1: Bye

Round 2: Food Chain (2-0)
When my opponent pitched Misthollow Griffin to Force of Will to counter my turn 1 Vial, I prepared myself for an uphill battle. But in game 1, beatdowns with equipment got me there, and in game 2 hatebears (Sanctum Prelate, Canonist, Thalia) prevented my opponent from developing his board since he had to manage mine.

Round 3: Miracle (2-0)
I had to re-learn paying versus topless Miracles. But here again, having access to both high pressure cards (big bodies and equipment) on the board coupled with taxing effects is a great path to victory. I committed only minimally to the board, leaving my opponent to answer my threats one-by-one rather than having time to develop his own board. It worked.

Round 4: Grixis Delver (2-1)
I knew my opponent from a trial the day before, in which he beat me. I owe both those wins to Avenger and Stoneforge Mystic. My actions left my opponent with must-answers threats on the board, forcing him to cantrip aggressively into his answers. Swords to Plowshares and Thalia then also prevented my opponent from trying to race me, and once tempo was in my favor, I took over the game easily.

Round 5: Czech Pile (1-2)
The games were very close. I won the first, then lost the second to a totally unexpected Gurmag Angler that bought him 4 turns to find answers to my board. He found them. I lost. I lost the last game to multiple Hymn to Tourach and Kolaghan’s Command. Not too much I could have done differently, I believe.

Round 6: Death and Taxes (2-0)
Game 1, I found and connected with Jitte faster. My opponent put up a solid fight, but, yeah, Jitte connected. Game over. In the mirror, sometimes you have the right sort of draw to just cripple your opponent’s hand with minimal interaction. My Revoker on Vial did just that, and Serra Avenger on the board lead to another of those situations: I had 2 must answer threats, which dispersed attention. Answering one would still leave the other, and meanwhile I was developing my board state faster than my opponent. He was a very nice opponent, and I always feel a little sad to encounter fellow DnT players, as only one of both has the chance to advance.

Round 7: Grixis Control (2-0)
Again, multiple big bodies and equipment plus some designed hate cards caused my opponent to have to fight my threats rather than looking for his own threats. Meanwhile I was accumulating gas in my hand, which meant I could bounce back after any bombs from my opponent like Kolaghan’s Command or Toxic Deluge.

Round 8: Sneak and Show (2-0)
This was the most one-sided match of the day. Game 1 he cast Ponder turn 1, but then he got taxed out the game. Thalia made him effectively take off a turn to cast a Lotus Petal on turn 2 and I Wastelanded his Volcanic Island on turn 3. He got beat down by 2 Avengers and a Thalia rather quickly. In game 2 he had a Blood Moon and a Sneak Attack, but was trying to top deck a threat to close things out. I developed a board that could survive an Emrakul annihilator trigger and still attack for lethal. Here the aggro plan worked out very nicely. Just having Serra Avenger off of Vial into Mirran Crusader allowed me to race him quite efficiently.

Round 9: Intentional draw into top 8.
I finished the 9 rounds of swiss having pretty decent tie breakers: 80% GW (best of tournament) and 68% OMW (2nd best).

Top 8:
1/4 finals: Grixis Delver (2-0)
It went down pretty smoothly: my threats forced him to dig for threats/answers, I answered his threats with Swords to Plowshares and Sword of Fire and Ice. He found some answers, but I just kept the threats coming. I slowly built up my board game 1, knowing no sweepers were available to him, and at some point I just overwhelmed him. Game 2 basically followed the same pattern.

Semifinals: Monored Prison (2-0)
Game 1 was pretty favorable, as his entire Blood Moon strategy felt a little dead. I managed to win under double Ensnaring Bridge with a Jitte, slowly chipping away at his life total. In game 2, an early Chandra was answered by my Revoker, and then Serra Avenger and the equipment took the game out of reach for my opponent. The stability choice I went for when considering deck-building decisions (i.e. playing so many basic lands) totally payed off for this matchup. I never felt like I could lose it. The Avengers also felt really good here, since they survive otherwise unbeatable stuff like Sulfur Elemental.

Finals: BG Depths (1-2)
My opponent played a very interesting mid-rangey version of Turbo Depths; he called it “Slow Depths.” I won game 1, with a very good opening 7, putting a Batterskull on the battlefield and getting some insurance versus any sneaky Marit Lage. The game 2, I had a very strong hand, yet his was even better and he was comboed me. Game 3, I kept a very solid hand versus the combo side of his deck, yet it was the other side of his deck that came out: Dread of Night, Liliana, the Last Hope, and Bitterblossom. Not much I could do here…

It felt very difficult to take into account both the possibility of a turn 2 Marit Lage and at the same time a turn 2 Liliana, the Last Hope or Dark Confidant. This version of Dark Depths combo seems very promising, and maybe we’ll have to watch out for this and adapt both sideboard strategies and the matchup approach. I will note that my opponent was the nicest of guys. We played very relaxed, yet competitive, games, in a very sound atmosphere for all the spectators watching us. That felt very good. Congrats to him for winning the tournament, especially by representing this new Dark Depths combo deckbuilding twist.

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In the end, I went 9-2-1 in the day, losing only to Czech Pile and Slow Depths, and only conceding one game to Grixis Delver in all of my wins.

Serra Avenger over-performed. It felt gas all the time. Thalia was, as always, insane. Against the blue decks, they are forced to dig for answers to your threats while you constrict their mana. This probably was the winning engine of my tournament.

As a general comment, I would like to add that equipment won me almost all my games. Yes, artifact hate is everywhere, but Stoneforge Mystic always felt like it would be the game-winning advantage in all fair matchups. I still believe that the WW version featuring both high board-pressure big body creatures (Mirran, Avenger), high stack-pressure creatures (Thalia, Prelate), and card-advantage engines (Flickerwisp, Recruiter, Vial) is the best-suited version of Death and Taxes to fight a large and varied metagame in any given big tournament. The stability of the deck, coupled with a proven and well-tested shell will lead to many wins if you practice careful decision-making.

Thank you all for reading this report, and I would welcome any comments or discussion on any topics I brought up in my article. I am a rather active member on The Source as well, under the pseudonym Mannaus. Feel free to message me or comment on the DnT thread.

I’ve spent the last week or two doing some brewing and trying some experimental ideas. This was partially because I was curious to see how some of my theories played out and partially because I wasn’t sure if I was playing what was going to become a dead format if Deathrite Shaman got a ban. Unfortunately, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this year, and that means we’ve got a long Deathrite Shaman-filled winter ahead of us…or something like that. In no particular order, here are some of my thoughts on the format.

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Enchantments are great

If we boil down Legacy right now to its simplest form, we’re currently living in a world of Grixis Delver and Czech Pile vs Anti-Delver/Czech Pile decks (note that here I am also referring to the decks that are conceptual clones Czech Pile as well). This is obviously an oversimplification, as there are other top tier competitors, but bear with me for a minute. It’s very similar to the relationship between Turbo-xerox decks and Shops decks in Vintage. On the Legacy side, Red Prison seeks to invalidate many of the strengths of these decks with Blood Moon and/or Blood Sun. Miracles similarly tries to lock out opponents with Back to Basics. D&T gets to leverage the power of Rest in Peace for post-sideboard games.

Enchantments seem to be a great way to attack the format currently, and I don’t just mean that within the context of D&T. Most of the popular decks in Legacy have few to no answers to a resolved enchantment. Cards like Sylvan Library have always been great, but it might honestly be a good time to revisit decks with maindeck enchantments or even an enchantment theme or subtheme. Though I didn’t stream with this due to the potential poor viewer experience, I played around with this decklist quite a bit.

Enchantress by Fjaulnir, MTGO 5-0

Maindeck (60) 4 Abundant Growth 4 Argothian Enchantress 1 Banishing Light 1 Bayou 3 Candelabra of Tawnos 1 Cast Out 2 Doomwake Giant 1 Dryad Arbor 4 Elephant Grass 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 4 Enchantress’s Presence 5 Forest 4 Green Sun’s Zenith 1 Karakas 2 Misty Rainforest 1 Savannah 3 Serra’s Sanctum 1 Sylvan Library 2 Tropical Island 4 Utopia Sprawl 4 Wild Growth 4 Windswept Heath 3 Words of Wind

Sideboard (15) 1 Gaddock Teeg 1 Helm of Obedience 1 Humility 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 4 Leyline of Sanctity 3 Leyline of the Void 1 Reclamation Sage 1 Rest in Peace 1 Seeds of Innocence

Though I’m not necessarily sold on a few of the sideboard cards, I feel like the maindeck here is just absolutely insane in the current metagame. For anyone not familiar with the “combo finish” of this deck, it involves Words of Wind, Candelabra of Tawnos, at least two Enchantress effects, a land that produces multiple mana, and a one mana enchantment. You tap the land for mana and then untap it with Candelabra. Next you cast the one mana enchantment and replace two draws with Words of Wind. Using one draw, you bounce a one mana enchantment; using the other, you bounce Candelabra. You can then repeat this process to bounce all of your opponent’s permanents, often drawing as much of your deck as you need to win in the process. Though this may sound like a surprising number of cards to assemble, in practice it’s not too difficult once you start doing your thing. Words of Wind gets my award for “Card that looks like garbage but is secretly insane and the opponent really needed to Force of Will it.” I really need a better name for that award…

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The Stoneforge Mystic Package is still important in D&T

There’s been a theory floating around the D&T watercooler that the Stoneforge Mystic package is an outdated relic of older iterations of the deck. This theory has been championed strongly by Bahra (Marc Konig) and has been explored quite a bit by the community recently. The crux of the argument is twofold: 1. Stoneforge Mystic, while providing card selection, costs an absolute ton of tempo. Something like 6 mana worth of investment can often be undone with a single one mana removal spell. 2. The equipment is no longer guaranteed to survive like in previous metagames now that cards like Kolaghan’s Command and Abrupt Decay are seeing significant play.

I think there is quite a bit of truth to the theory, but, I’m still not sure that it’s really viable to cut the Stoneforge package and still end up with a balanced deck. Many of the D&T decks that I’ve played in the last week or two have gone “off the deep end” in one direction or another. They tended to hedge very strongly against the Delver and Czech Pile decks of the world, but didn’t necessarily have enough game against the “random” decks of the format. The equipment package is one of the best ways to fight against a bunch of the midrange and alternative aggro decks of the format. There are two other big downsides to cutting the Stoneforge package.

First, you lose out on one of the deck’s best two drops. D&T historically has always craved a better two drop. Many of the lists I played have been so heavy on three drops like Mirran Crusader *because* it’s so difficult to slot in more two drops. If you want to cut the Stoneforge package (especially if you also want to trim Revokers, which has been a recent trend), you need to fill the gap on the curve. The issue is that many of the cards are either low-impact, narrow, or otherwise lack a desired quality. Spirit of the Labyrinth, Ethersworn Canonist, and Selfless Spirit are about the best “true” two drops to consider, with Direfleet Daredevil and Serra Avenger not really being something that you can cast on curve for the sake of this conversation.

Secondly, you lose out on the best mana sink in the deck. D&T rarely truly floods. Most of the time between Rishadan Port and the equipment package, you have at least something to do with your mana, even if it isn’t always the most optimal or efficient thing. Without the equipment package, if you flooding out or are in topdeck mode, most of your cards besides Recruiter of the Guard won’t give you much to do. As an aside, with Stoneforge gone, your Flickerwisps also lose a fantastic blink target, further decreasing some of your late game power.

For those of you who want to continue messing around with builds without the Stoneforge package, I’d encourage you to either trim some lands or find a new mana sink. I don’t have the clean answer for how to do that yet. Cutting white-producing lands doesn’t seem like the best idea, as casting the WW three drops would become trickier. Cutting Port or Wasteland doesn’t seem correct either. Maybe notorious scumbag land Horizon Canopy has a place in that shell….

Honor of the Pure is surprisingly good

Returning back to the “enchantments are good” theme, I tested maindeck and sideboard Honor of the Pure in a number of different shells. It over-performed, which was not really something that I expected. Some creatures like Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Mirran Crusader, Judge’s Familiar, and Hallowed Spiritkeeper (more on that in a minute…) are much better with a little boost. Your vigilant creatures in particular appreciate the boost, as it gives you both an offensive and defensive bonus; if you’re playing Honor of the Pure, previous borderline unplayable cards like Aerial Responder deserve another look as well.

While I was playing Honor of the Pure to hedge against the top of the metagame, it also helped me close the game more quickly against combo decks like ANT or Sneak and Show while also minimizing the impact of hateful cards like Izzet Staticaster or Forked Bolt. I rarely boarded it out, if that tells you anything about its performance. There are some “nonbos” with it though. Phyrexian Revoker (and splash cards you might be playing) don’t get the boost. It’s also poor to try and play it alongside both Vryn Wingmare and Thalia, as casting it can be a bit tricky through the stacked taxes.

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Hallowed Spiritkeeper is also surprisingly good in the current metagame

I tested Hallowed Spiritkeeper quite a bit previously and was terribly disappointed with the card. I tested it in a metagame full of white removal though, which is not what we are seeing currently. In a world of non-white removal, this is a great flex slot option. This is an awesome silver bullet to have against Czech Pile, as in the late game, it is essentially a weird True-Name Nemesis. They usually can’t kill this card, as the army of spirits that would follow would be insurmountable. As an aside, this card is absolutely disgusting when coupled with Honor of the Pure. Full credit goes to Bahra there for that sweet synergy. Unfortunately, this card doesn’t pair so well with our favorite sideboard card, Rest in Peace. That’s a real tension, so if you want to mess around with Spiritkeeper as more than about a one of, consider alternative graveyard hate for your sideboard.

Though I got thoroughly trounced while playing this build, something like this that incorporates both Honor of the Pure and Spiritkeeper might have promise with a few adjustments.

Experimental Build

Lands (23) 2 Karakas 6 Plains 7 Snow-Covered Plains 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland Creatures (26) 3 Flickerwisp 2 Mirran Crusader 1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos 4 Mother of Runes 2 Recruiter of the Guard 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Ethersworn Canonist 3 Aerial Responder 2 Spirit of the Labyrinth 2 Hallowed Spiritkeeper 1 Phyrexian Revoker Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 3 Honor of the Pure

Sideboard (14) 1 Containment Priest 2 Council’s Judgment 1 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Leonin Relic-Warder 2 Cataclysm 3 Path to Exile 2 Rest in Peace 2 Surgical Extraction

Many of the best cards against Deathrite decks are still weak to Deathrite decks

I think this has been one of the most frustrating aspects of playtesting in the last few weeks. There’s a desire to play cards that let you grind through Deathrite, but many of the best grinding cards also get checked by Deathrite. Want to use Hallowed Spiritkeeper to attack Czech Pile? It’s a shame that Deathrite can peck away at your graveyard to mess with the trigger…. Do you think that Direfleet Daredevil is great as an additional set of removal spells vs Delver? It’s a shame that it can’t do its thing in the face of active Deathrite unless you get really cute with the timing. Want to play Rest in Peace to fight against the menance? It’s a shame that Delvers, Young Pyromancer, and True-Name don’t care about the graveyard. Want to get some sick value by bringing by your dudes with Unearth? Oh, it’s a shame you have to deal with the Hungry Hungry Caterpillar…err Deathrite Shaman. You get the point here.

Many deckbuilding decisions will make your deck better against Delver or Czech Pile, not both

There a real tension in D&T deckbuilding right now (though this might cross over to many decks, to be frank). You want to have a great, grindy endgame to compete with Czech Pile’s card advantage, yet you also need a strong early game with varied removal to fight Delver. The Stoneforge package is one of your best ways to stabilize and take over a game against Delver, but feels pretty silly in the face of the third Kolaghan’s Command of the game against Czech Pile. There are some overlaps cards that hit both matchups, but it’s a tricky position. If you want to play some swingy four drop to beat Czech Pile, that card is going to feel terrible when Daze eats it for borderline no investment. Similarly, if you want to hedge against Delver by playing more maindeck removal, that card feels terrible when it targets a Snapcaster or Baleful Strix.

This contributes to the tension in splash builds at the moment as well. Pia and Kiran Nalaar is a nightmare for control decks, but usually uncastable against Delver due to the RR requirements. Magus of the Moon can be lights out against Delver, but feels pretty silly in the face of an opposing Island and Swamp from Czech Pile.

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In the past two weeks, there have been a ton of kooky D&T lists floating around. Some of them look pretty neat. I’m a big fan of a ton of what’s going on in this list.

BW Taxes, Egget, 5-0

Creatures (29) 4 Dark Confidant 1 Disciple of Bolas 4 Flickerwisp 2 Hallowed Spiritkeeper 1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation 4 Mother of Runes 1 Orzhov Pontiff 2 Recruiter of the Guard 2 Serra Avenger 2 Spirit of the Labyrinth 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Vryn Wingmare Spells (8) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial

Lands (23) 3 Flooded Strand 2 Karakas 4 Rishadan Port 3 Scrubland 4 Snow-Covered Plains 4 Wasteland 3 Windswept Heath Sideboard (15) 1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation 1 Orzhov Pontiff 1 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Containment Priest 2 Council’s Judgment 2 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 1 Palace Jailer 3 Path to Exile 2 Surgical Extraction

Dark Confidant is a great way to keep drawing gas in the endgame, and it’s a good potential way to fill the gap left by removing the Stoneforge package. The Disciple of Bolas and Hallowed Spiritkeeper best-friends-forever combo might be a stretch, but this is a nice starting point for a black splash.

Others of them were…less good.

Unkillable D&T, Phil Gallagher

Lands (23) 3 Karakas 8 Plains 8 Snow-Covered Plains 4 Wasteland Creatures (26) 4 Flickerwisp 4 Mirran Crusader 4 Mother of Runes 2 Spirit of the Labyrinth 2 Recruiter of the Guard 2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Auriok Champion Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 3 Honor of the Pure

Sideboard (15) 1 Containment Priest 2 Council’s Judgment 1 Ethersworn Canonist 3 Path to Exile 3 Rest in Peace 1 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Leonin Relic-Warder 1 Sanctum Prelate 2 Mindbreak Trap

Conceptually, I liked the direction this decklist was exploring. The idea was to generate a series of threats that were borderline unkillable for decks like Czech Pile and Delver and then help them to close out the game by pumping them with Honor of the Pure. It didn’t perform well, but the idea probably has some promise. Auriok Champion was crazy against the Young Pyromancer aspect of Grixis Delver, I ended up at 30 or 40 life in many of the games I played. There were some cute synergies in the deck, like Brimaz, King of Oreskos making tokens that got pumped by Honor of the Pure and also gaining you life off of Auriok Champion. I don’t know that I’d explore this style of deck further, but Auriok Champion definitely showed that it could be a viable sideboard card. At the same time, I do sort of want to have an Auriok Champion in play when a Hallowed Spiritkeeper dies…

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My intention today was to give you all quite a bit to think about when it comes to deckbuilding and metagaming right now. I don’t have the answers yet, but you can expect me to be trying out a ton of ideas in the next two weeks as I prep for the Team Open in Baltimore. Dominaria will be legal then, so it’s possible that some cards might make a splash there, but I wouldn’t expect any major changes that will overthrow our current overlords.

Bill Schlichting has been a supporter of Thraben University for quite some time. He had a pretty good run at GP:Seattle and offered to write up a tournament report for the site. What follows is his material, though I’ve made some minor adjustments. I didn’t do quite as much editing and linking to cards as I normally due, as the last week or so has been really busy on my end.
-Phil

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As soon as GP Seattle was announced, I made plans to attend with my local group in Charlotte. I had played Death and Taxes for a number of years, including GP Vegas last year where I made my first Day 2. After Vegas I played other decks, but never felt comfortable enough to register one of them for Seattle; accordingly, I went back to Death and Taxes. With Phil’s help, we came up with the following 75.

GP Seattle D&T

Creatures (26) 4 Mother of Runes 3 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Serra Avenger 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Flickerwisp 2 Mirran Crusader 2 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Sanctum Prelate Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 1 Umezawa’s Jitte 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Batterskull

Lands (23) 3 Karakas 6 Plains 4 Rishadan Port 6 Snow-Covered Plains 4 Wasteland Sideboard (15) 1 Containment Priest 2 Ethersworn Canonist 3 Path to Exile 2 Surgical Extraction 2 Council’s Judgment 2 Cataclysm 1 Sword of War and Peace 2 Rest In Peace

I took Travis Brown’s deck from the SCG Dallas Team Open and made a couple of small modifications. I took out the 2 Cavern of Souls for 2 additional basic lands so my deck would be more resilient against opposing Wastelands and Blood Moon effects. I also split the basics between regular Plains and Snow-Covered Plains as a hedge against Miracles and the card Predict.

For the sideboard I removed 1 Containment Priest for an additional Path to Exile. I was expecting a ton of Delver based on the SCG Worcester results, and I wanted 3 Path to Exiles for that matchup. I also swapped Manriki-Gusari for a Sword of War and Peace for the mirror and 8 Moon decks.

Without further ado, here’s the tournament report!

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For Round 1, my opponent was a no-show. In effect, I get a round 1 bye.

Round 2 – 4c Punishing Thieves (2-1)

He had Grove of the Burnwillows and Dack Fayden, but in all three games I luckily never saw a Punishing Fire. I won Game 1, but he won Game 2 by stealing my Jitte and equipping it to his Revoker. Game 3 was a back and forth game. He eventually used Abrupt Decay on the Germ token and then took Batterskull with Dack Fayden. I cast Cataclysm to push things considerably in my favor and played a land. A topdecked Thalia did the last point of damage to finish things out.

In: 2 Cataclysm, 2 Rest In Peace, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: 2 Mirran Crusader, 4 Swords to Plowshares
Current record:2-0

Round 3 – 8 Moon (2-0)

Game 1, he was on the play and played a turn 1 Blood Moon. I have 2 Plains in hand and can cast my spells. All he can do is cast Chalice for 1 before conceding.

Game 2, we get to a point of I have a Revoker (naming Chandra Torch of Defiance) equipped with a Sword of Fire and Ice and a Sanctum Prelate on 4. He has a tapped Goblin Rabblemaster, 2 tapped Goblin tokens, and Chandra. I attack with both creatures, he flashes in Sulfur Elemental and trades with the Prelate. Sword of Fire and Ice shoots the Rabblemaster. I then tap 7 lands, and play Cataclysm followed by Flickerwisp, targeting the remaining Goblin token. He concedes with 2 Fiery Confluences and another Chandra in his hand.

In: 1 Sword of War and Peace, 2 Cataclysm, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: 1 Umezawa’s Jitte, 2 Mirran Crusader, 2 Serra Avenger
Current record: 3-0

Round 4 – BUG Delver (2-0)

Despite being Hymn to Tourached 3 times, Mirran Crusader and friends get the first game. In Game 2, an early Rest In Peace and 2 Mirran Crusaders won the game.

In: 3 Path to Exile, 2 Rest In Peace, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: 3 Phyrexian Revoker, 1 Sanctum Prelate, 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, 1 Flickerwisp
Current record: 4-0

Round 5 – Grixis Delver (0-2)

I play Noah Walker, who later made the Top 8. In Game 1, I lead with a Thalia and Wasteland his Volcanic Island. He then Wasteland my Rishadan Port, and leaves me locked under my own Thalia. I never drew another land.

In Game 2, he ended up with 3 active Deathrite Shamans, a True Name Nemesis, and bolt for my Mother of Runes. He Cabal Therapied away my Sword of Fire and Ice, and my Thalia and Mirran Crusader can’t get past the TNN. I never drew a flyer, and the Deathrites kill me.

In: 3 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgement
Out: 3 Phyrexian Revoker, 1 Sanctum Prelate, 1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Current record: 4-1

Round 6 – Weird Miracles Brew (0-2)

He had maindeck Back to Basics,Rest in Peace, Energy Field, and Helm of Obedience. I mulliganed into a hand with four non-basic lands and a Vial. The Vial was counted and Back to Basics locked me out of the game. He eventually Helmed me. Game 2 he Miracles Entreat the Angels and wins easily.

In: 2 Cataclysm, 2 Council’s Judgment, 1 Sword of War and Peace
Out: 4 Mother of Runes, 1 Batterskull
Current record: 4-2

Round 7 – 8 Moon (2-1)

My opponent locked himself under an Ensnaring Bridge on Turn 3 and followed it up with 2 more Bridges. Eventually I checked the math and I would deck myself before him, so I conceded. I won Games 2 and 3 through Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of War and Peace easily since he never drew a Bridge.

In: 1 Sword of War and Peace, 2 Cataclysm, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: 1 Umezawa’s Jitte, 2 Mirran Crusader, 2 Serra Avenger
Current record: 5-2

Round 8 – MUD (2-1)

Game 1, he activates a Kuldotha Forgemaster and brings a Blightsteel Colossus into play and attacks. In Game 2, he plays an Ancient Tomb and passes. I Wasteland his land. He plays a Glimmerpost and again can’t make a play. I play a Thalia. I then Wasteland his next land drop, leaving Thalia and friends to finish the game. In Game 3, a Revoker naming Metalworker (he had 2 of them in play) coupled with mana denial won the match.

In: 1 Sword of War and Peace, 2 Cataclysm, 2 Council’s Judgment, 3 Path to Exile, 1 Containment Priest
Out: 4 Mother of Runes, 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, 1 Sanctum Prelate
Current record: 6-2, on to Day 2!

Round 9 – Death and Taxes (2-0)

I play the mirror match. Both games come down to I have a Jitte and he doesn’t. After the match, we discuss the intricacies of the mirror and how to sideboard, as he made questionable sideboard decisions.

In: 1 Sword of War and Peace, 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, 1 Sanctum Prelate
Current record: 7-2

Round 10 – Death and Taxes (2-0)

I play the mirror again. This round was basically a repeat of Round 9. I won the equipment war. I had the experience in the mirror and he didn’t. We discussed the mirror and sideboard decisions and how to exploit the apparent symmetrical cards (i.e. Phyrexian Revoker and Pithing Needle naming cards your opponent has in play but you do not).

In: 1 Sword of War and Peace, 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, 1 Sanctum Prelate
Current record: 8-2

Round 11 – Death and Taxes (0-2)

I play the third mirror in a row. Game 1 evolved into a bogged down board state.

My Revoker named Jitte and his Revokers named Vial and Batterskull

Eventually he won due to having 2 active Mother of Runes to my 1 Mother. Game 2 he was able to get the Recruiter of the Guard and Flickerwisp engine going and had more equipment (including a Manriki Gusari) to win the match. We both agreed that he drew better than I did.

In: 1 Sword of War and Peace, 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, 1 Sanctum Prelate
Current record: 8-3

Round 12 – Czech Pile (2-1)

We trade Games 1 and 2, and I was able to grind out Game 3 with 2 Rest In Peace and topdecking a Mirran Crusader that couldn’t be killed by his Kolaghan’s Command.

In: 2 Rest In Peace, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Cataclysm, 1 Sword of War and Peace
Out: 3 Phyrexian Revoker, 4 Swords to Plowshares
Current record: 9-3

Round 13 – Turbo Depths Reanimator (2-1)

In Game 1, he eventually has 2 Vampire Hexmages, a Reanimated Thalia, and a Dark Depths against my Thalia, Wasteland and 2 additional lands. He goes through the motions and creates a Maret Lage.

In Game 2, he reanimated a Grave Titan on turn 1 that got Sword to Plowshared. A turn 2 Thalia stops the zombies. I get a Serra Avenger in play to also block the zombies and attack. He then hard cast a Grave Titan and I topdeck a Council’s Judgment. The Avenger goes the distance.

In Game 3, a turn 2 Rest In Peace turns off the Reanimator portion and a Karakas and Wasteland turn off the Dark Depths. A couple of creatures get the 20 damage in.

In: 1 Containment Priest, 3 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Surgical Extraction, 2 Rest In Peace
Out: 4 Stoneforge Mystic, 1 Batterskull, 1 Umezawa’s Jitte, 1 Sword of Fire and Ice, 1 Recruiter of the Guard, 1 Mother of Runes
Current record: 10-3

Round 14 – 4c Aggro Loam (2-1)

Game 1 his Dark Confidant and 2 Knight of the Reliquaries win the game. In Game 2, an Umezawa’s Jitte won the game by killing 2 Dark Confidants and 2 Mother of Runes. In Game 3, I was able to deny mana from him to allow Thalia, Flickerwisp, and Batterskull to win the match.

In: 2 Surgical Extraction, 2 Rest In Peace, 2 Cataclysm
Out: 2 Mirran Crusader, 2 Recruiter of the Guard, 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Current record: 11-3

Round 15 – Czech Pile (1-2)

I win Game 1 through beat down and mana denial. Games 2 and 3 came down to him stabilizing with multiple removal spells (including at least 2 Forked Bolts) and drawing Liliana of the Last Hope. I drew no answers each game, and the Planeswalker won the match.

In: 2 Rest In Peace, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Cataclysm, 1 Sword of War and Peace
Out: 3 Phyrexian Revoker, 4 Swords to Plowshares (2 Revokers went back in before Game 3)
Current record: 11-4

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I figured if I had won round 15, I would have had a good chance of top 32. Win the loss, I believed I would have been nowhere near the cash. Then I saw the final standings:

66th place out of about 1600 people! Although this finish was just out of the money, it was my best result at a Grand Prix so far. It is possible that my 1st Round no show cost me those tiebreaker points, as my losses ended the tournament at 12-3, 12-3, 11-4, and the Top 8.

I ended up playing 3 Death and Taxes, 2 Czech Pile, 2 8 Moon, Grixis Delver, BUG Delver, Miracles, 4c Punishing Thieves, Turbo Depths Reanimator, 4c Aggro Loam, and MUD. Out of 14 rounds, I played only 6 Brainstorm decks. To paraphrase Travis’s report, playing a deck you know is important when facing a large tournament. I didn’t play against any truly unwinnable matchups expect for the Round 6 Miracles.

Going forward, if the metagame stays the same, I wouldn’t change anything out of the 75. I think cutting Revokers in the Czech Pile matchup may be a mistake, especially if that deck is playing more Liliana of the Last Hope against us. Cataclysm was a match winner in the matchups that I cast it, notably in Rounds 3 and 4. It also forced my Round 12 Czech Pile opponent to take it with a Thoughtseize early in Game 3 instead of some other spell.

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As an aside, the day before the Main Event, I was playing in the last round of a side event against Maverick. In Game 1, I believe I had the best Sanctum Prelate I could have ever had against a creature deck. He played Sylvan Library the previous turn when I played the Prelate on 1. Here were the first two cards he drew off of Sylvan Library…

Thank you for reading my tournament report and may all your opponents’ spells cost 1 more!

Hey folks,

The results of the mulligan survey have been converted into a new page. It’s creatively called “Mulligans” and you can find it under the Playing the Deck tab. I’ve also written a primer for the Affinity (Steel Stompy) matchup, though I’ll be returning to polish up the conclusion once I get some more data.

-Phil

Things are booming over here at Thraben University, and I’m excited to announce some incoming changes to the site. I recently updated my donation page, and something truly astounding happened once I did. A donor (who wishes to remain anonymous) contributed a sizable about of money to the site in order to support my efforts and fund more content. I’m not going to share the number publicly, but it was enough that I cried tears of joy, and I’m not a particularly emotional person. It was a validation of the work I’ve put into the site thus far and it rekindled my passion for this site brighter than ever. As a result, there’s a ton of new content coming, and I wanted to publicly announce that today.

I now have a Coming Soon page which shows all of my current projects and things on my bucket list. I’ve already made a few changes to the site and my stream, and many more have been planned. Most notably, the Red Splash page has been completely redone; the old version hadn’t be touched in like two years and was in drastic need of a facelift. There’s a ton of info on interesting interactions with Magus of the Moon and a good deal of strategic advice about sequencing your land drops and sideboarding. You can also expect to see me streaming a bit more than the usual Monday and Wednesday nights, as donations have bribed encouraged me to stream more.

The D&T Facebook group recently went through about a bazillion posts about keeping and mulliganing opening hands. I was very surprised at both the hands that people were keeping and the hands that people were questioning. Well, that was my hint that it was time to do a big piece of content on mulligans. I’m not just going to give to you the definitive answer, I want you to play along and experience the process!

Here’s what’s going on. I’ve created a Google Form with 15 different opening hands and scenarios. It’s your job to rate the hands, and if you’d like, provide an explanation for your ranking. I’m going to collect data from people for the next ten days (until 3/11/18), and once the data is in, I’ll analyze it and compare my own take on the hand to those of the various D&T pilots from around the world.

This link will take you to the survey and the survey is also embedded below. I hope you’ll consider taking it when you have a few minutes!

Dire Fleet Daredevil got a ton of attention when spoiled…well, more accurately, a couple of people on The Source and Reddit thought that it might be fun in RW D&T. I didn’t bother testing the card at first. I initially believed that the card had a very high ceiling for how good it *could* be, but that on average it would be a mediocre card. I made the comparison to Phyrexian Metamorph; while it *can* do many things, you can’t rely on it to consistently do what you want. Then a handful of results started rolling in. It popped up in a few 5-0 finishes on MTGO and in a few decklists at various events. I thought the card was still over-hyped, but at this point I decided to test it to see what the card could do.

Conceptually, there were tons of things that sounded very appealing. Snagging a relevant card in response to a Past in Flames, getting to exile relevant graveyard-based spells like Life from the Loam or Punishing Fire, flashing back critical card advantage spell like Kolaghan’s Command or Hymn to Tourach…the possibilities were endless.

In the first couple of matches, it became very clear that there is quite a bit of tension between Daredevil and the rest of the deck. The flashback portion of the deck doesn’t work well with Thalia, Vryn Wingmare, or Rest in Peace; this was further complicated by the fact that Rest in Peace and Daredevil tended to be good in the same matchups. It’s hard to curve out with the card given the other things you want to be doing. For example, if you cast Thalia on turn two, you can’t cast Daredevil and something like a cantrip on turn three. Similarly, trying to get value off of Daredevil by Vialing it in often forces you to either keep your Vial at two for longer than you would like or take a turn off from doing more proactive things.

No one of those things was enough to deter me from playing the Daredevil, but together, they made for a very awkward card. I was often faced with very difficult decisions when this card was in my hand, and I don’t mean that in a good way. For example, I have Thalia and three lands in play with Daredevil, Flickerwisp, and Pia and Kiran Nalaar in hand. Do I wait a turn to tick up the Vial to three so that I can get maximum value out of my cards at the cost of tempo? Do I activate with the vial trigger on the stack to give myself options for the three or four drop next turn, but decrease my flexibility if I draw a relevant card? Do I just tick the Vial up to three now to hold up Flickerwisp, but in doing so, prevent myself from really doing something with Daredevil this turn? This is the sort of non-obvious, line-warping tension that Daredevil creates.

I will say that just cantripping with Daredevil was better than I initially imagined. Between the fetchlands, Stoneforges, and Recruiters, we can actually do a pretty good job at getting only the cards we want off of Brainstorm and Ponder. In my initial evaluation of the card, I feared that the cantrips wouldn’t feel particularly good, but was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. When a deck that normally has very little card manipulation and selection gets to start increasing its consistency, that’s scary.

There’s another obvious issue with the card: it’s a hard-to-cast 2/1 with first strike at any time where you opponent does not have an instant or sorcery in the yard. In many popular matchups (e.g. Eldrazi and the mirror), you realistically might go through most or all of a game without getting a viable target for this card. That’s devastating. Additionally, there is some fear that an opposing Deathrite Shaman or Snapcaster Mage might decrease your ability to do what you want with this card. The inverse is true as well though, so you might get to blow out your opponent with it as they try to flash back a critical removal spell.

I went 20-15 with the Daredevil build, which is only 57%. That’s not great, as breaking even for a league on MTGO is a 3-2 finish (60%). Skimming my notes, Daredevil was responsible for very few of my wins. I’ll share most of them in the screenshot highlights at the end of the article, as many of them were hilarious or otherwise unusual wins. I managed to get one 5-0 finish with the build (the last league I opted to play with the deck), but otherwise it was a sea of 3-2 and 2-3 finishes. That’s not where I want to be.

Bringing it all together, here’s my final word on the card. Dire Fleet Daredevil is a card with high potential upside; it is situationally amazing and can win you games no other card can. This comes at the cost of a handful of deckbuiliding, sideboarding, and play restrictions. It is in many ways like Palace Jailer: it won’t always be good, but when it is, it will really pull you ahead. It suffers some consistency issues, but it is a 100% viable flex card slot. I personally will not be continuing to run it, as I value consistency over everything else in deckbuilding. If you’re interested in the card, here’s my 5-0 finish as well as Egget’s Legacy Challenge-winning list for you to use as starting points.

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And now, in no particular order, the shenanigans I saw while playing this build:

Have you even wanted something off the board so badly that you’d Murderous Cut it twice? Maybe. Was that thing a Recruiter? Hopefully not, because, boy, did I feel bad for my opponent!

Malimujo is playing ANT here and has just used a Karakas to bounce my Thalia… Not pictured is me screaming at my webcam questioning their life choices.

Sometimes Daredevil is just a guy with first strike. As pictured here, that can be just fine.

This situation was sweet. I knew my opponent had a Lightning Bolt from a Delver flip a turn or two back. I was in danger of being killed by True-Name Nemesis before I could stabilize with my equipment. Due to my Thalia, the Bolt would cost two mana. My opponent would have to fetch in order to blank my life gain this turn. When my opponent fetched, I Vialed in Daredevil and used a Stifle to nab their fetchland. That felt good.

Against red-based decks, Daredevil serves as reach. My opponent thought they were safe behind their chump blocker and Jace… Wrong!!! My line this turn was Recruiter for Daredevil, Daredevil for Bolt. Not something my opponent was playing around…

Look, sometimes you are the bug, and sometimes you are the windshield. I can’t just write about all of my successes and sweet moments. Sometimes I have to show that I too am mortal. I fold to hate just like everyone else.

Ahhhh, sometimes you just have to let the mistakes soak in and enjoy them. My opponent conceded in shame after this particularly rough misplay.

How do I always get paired against Nic Fit? Like, I guess it’s better than Elves, but it’s just odd. I can now check off Nicol Bolas, God Pharaoh from the list of cards that I’ve played against in Legacy.

So this spot was really neat. My opponent couldn’t remove my Magus of the Moon and desperately needed to do so. They had to resort to casting a Standstill and then casting Fatal Push to get revolt by sacrificing the Standstill. It was a cool line, but my opponent was so far behind on board already AND they gave me three cards to get rid of the Magus. That’s a literal 5-for-1. Magus of the Moon, ladies and gentlemen.

Today’s guest article is by Austin local and long-time D&T player Travis Brown. He recently top 8’d the Team Open in Dallas with Jeremy Frye and Will Ho. The content that follows is his and in his style, though I’ve done some editing and formatting. Feel free to give me comments on the guest article, as that may influence how I choose to do guest articles in the future.

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Taxing out the competition in Dallas Team Trios

Around Christmas time, Will Ho reached out to me to see if I wanted to team with him and Jeremy Frye as the Legacy player for the team, as people know I always jam D&T in Austin. I knew both of them reasonably well, and luckily both were functional human beings who shower and are good at Magic to boot! Accordingly, I decided to throw down on a sweet team event. Little did I know that I was getting picked up by 2/3rds of the team that would win GP Santa Clara not 2 weeks later.

So… there’s that

Anyway, I had tried a bunch of ideas, but in the end stuck with a traditional and reliable decklist. I opted to stay pretty balanced against an open field, with a slight skew to beating True-Name Nemesis and Stoneforge Mystic decks. I hate losing to them.

Here is the sweet, sweet, basic list we’re using to crush our spicy opponents into a bland, flavorless paste:

Travis Brown, Dallas Team Open

Creatures (26) 4 Mother of Runes 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Stoneforge Mystic 3 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Serra Avenger 4 Flickerwisp 2 Recruiter of the Guard 2 Mirran Crusader 1 Sanctum Prelate Spells (11) 4 Aether Vial 4 Swords to Plowshares 1 Umezawa's Jitte 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Batterskull

Lands (23) 4 Wasteland 4 Rishadan Port 3 Karakas 2 Cavern of Souls 10 Plains Sideboard (15) 2 Rest in Peace 2 Containment Priest 2 Surgical Extraction 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Path to Exile 2 Council's Judgment 2 Cataclysm 1 Manriki-Gusari

Welp, here is the matchup breakdown

Round 1: RB Reanimator (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent is shuffling in a way where my teammates can clearly see what he is on. They grapevine the info to me, and it pays off. I mulligan once, jam Thalia on turn 2 on the play, and he never hits a second land. The takeaway: Shuffle your cards in a way that doesn’t give away your deck. Also, draw lands.

I boarded as such:

In: 2 Containment Priest, 2 Rest in Peace, 2 Surgical Extraction, 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: 4 Stoneforge Mystic, 1 Umezawa’s Jitte, 1 Batterskull, 1 Sword of Fire and Ice, 1 Mirran Crusader

Disruption matters far more in this matchup than closing the game quickly, so I cut the entire Stoneforge package.

Game 2: I lose after mulling, and missing 5 lands in a row while he reanimates Iona, Shield of Emeria. I have multiple cards rotting in my hand.

Game 3: I use Surgical Extraction to nab his Griselbrand and follow up with Thalia. After that, I flashed in Containment Priest in response to him casting Reanimate on a Chancellor of the Annex; that feels particularly good, as it causes him to still lose the seven life. That put him to 8, and 2 turns later he is dead.

(1-0)

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Round 2: MUD (2-1)
Game 1: I sit across the table from someone I know plays DnT almost religiously. Foiled deck, all that jazz. I keep a hand with Mom, Stoneforge, Flickerwisp, and Swords to Plowshares. Great hand! He wins the die roll and slams a Cloudpost. Oh boy… I get him to 11 with Stoneforge + Flickerwisp. I have been activating Vial every turn on 3 putting nothing into play for a few turns when he slams Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, clears my board, and attacks into my apparent nothing hand with a Kuldotha Forgemaster. I then vial in a Crusader, suit it up with Batterskull, and hit him for 12. That’s why you activate Vial when you have nothing.

In: 2 Containment Priest, 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Cataclysm
Out: 4 Mother of Runes, 2 Mirran Crusader, 1 Umezawa’s Jitte, 1 Stoneforge Mystic

Game 2: He jams Trinisphere on turn 1 and then Wastelands me 3 times. We do a bunch of nothing. I finally get back up to 3 lands and slam Flickerwisp to give myself a clock and hit the Chalice of the Void on 1. This unlocked the 2 spot removal spells in my hand. Alternatively, I could have gotten rid of Lightning Greaves with Council’s Judgment. He then proceeds to rip Kuldoltha Forgemaster, suit it up, grab a Blightsteel Colossus, suit it up, and kill me.

Game 3: He puts Pithing Needle on Wasteland, and right before draw Flickerwisp to blink the Needle and triple Waste him, both my teammates pick up their matches.

(2-0)

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Round 3: Burn (1-2)

Game 1 he has three 1-drops on the play with the perfect curve topping out into Fireblast. I did not have the nuts, so I lost unceremoniously.

In: 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Ethersworn Canonist
Out: 2 Mirran Crusader, 3 Phyrexian Revoker, 1 Recruiter of the Guard

Game 2 I assembled Batterskull and Umezawa’s Jitte. He didn’t have Smash to Smithereens on time. It was that simple.

Game 3 he has removal spells for numerous creatures in the early game, but I stabilized by playing a Sanctum Prelate on 1 with Thalia as backup. I played around Smash to Smithereens since I was at 2 life. He eventually hits the Fireblast after I am unable to close the gap fast enough. Sure enough, he shows 3 Smash to Smithereens and a Grim Lavamancer that he said he couldn’t cast due to Prelate.. (He definitely could’ve). Luckily my teammates saddled up and got there.

The takeaway: Reading is hard, but playing Burn on a nut draw is not.

(3-0)

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Round 4: Maverick (2-1)

Game 1: He fetches Savannah and leads on Green Sun’s Zenith for a Dryad Arbor. I go on the mana denial plan with two Wastelands and two Swords to Plowshares for his Dryad Arbor and follow up Scavenging Ooze. Crusader gets there a few turns later after ambushing a Qasali Pridemage and cracking back for lethal damage.

In: 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment, 1 Manriki-Gusari, 1 Containment Priest
Out: 4 Thalia, Guard of Thraben, 1 Sanctum Prelate, 1 Batterskull

Game 2: He goes ham by casting multiple Swords to Plowshares, killing my equipment, getting Jitte online, and casting Zealous Persecution. It was… rough.

Game 3: The matches are 1-1, so this is the deciding one. Time to buck up, Sunshine. We waste each other to very low mana and I have Revoker on Deathrite Shaman to keep us even. I do have an Avenger pecking at him with Manriki-Gusari to put a solid clock on him, and I got to destroy his Batterksull as well. He slams a giant Knight of the Reliquary and I finally vial in my Flickerwisp during his end step to blink his Knight. I rip the land off the top to cast Containment Priest in response to the Flickerwisp trigger, keeping Knight exiled forever. He then tried to Green Sun’s Zenith for a Noble Hierarch at his teammates’ recommendation. It took his entire turn and Containment Priest kept the Hierarch from entering play. Wisp and Avenger win the game soon after.

The takeaway: Play to your outs, no matter how big or small the odds are. Also, reading is important.

(4-0)

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Round 5: W Czech Pile (2-0)
Game 1 I get a Vial on board and curve into Mother of Runes, Rishadan Port their land, Thalia and Wasteland, Stoneforge Mystic, and finally Flickewisp the Stoneforge. My Jitte and Sword of Fire and Ice did a lot of work against Deathrite Shaman and a couple of Baleful Strix.

In: 2 Cataclysm, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Rest in Peace
Out: 3 Swords to Plowshares, 1 Sanctum Prelate, 1 Phyrexian Revoker, 1 Flickerwisp

Game 2 I get a Rest in Peace online alongside Mom & Thalia. He has Deathrite Shaman, Baleful Strix, and Jace, the Mindsculptor. I realize he has no countermagic, so I bounce Thalia on his end step. I then slam Cataclysm and the following conversation ensues:

Opp: “Let me read this.”
Me: “Sure.”
Opp: “Wait, this kills Jace, doesn’t it?”
Me: “Yep”
Opp: “AND you get to keep your stupid enchantment???”
Me: “Resolves?”
Opp: “Resolves.”

I keep Mom, Vial on 2, Rishadan Port, and Rest in Peace vs his Swamp, Deathrite, and Baleful Strix. The game soon ends when he realizes he can’t beat the board due to the Rest in Peace.

The takeaway: Cataclysm is the most fun DnT can have.

(5-0)

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Round 6: Maverick (1-2)

Game 1: I win an incredibly awkward series where my opponent casts Green Sun’s Zenith for 1 less than intended due to miscounting Thalia math, meaning he can’t fetch Qasali Pridemage to pop my Jitte. The Jitte+Thalia+Karakas+Vial combo ends up beating a 6/6 Scavenging Ooze among other things, and my opponent dies.

Same SB strategy as match 4

Game 2: I mull to a Karakas, Vial, Mom, Stoneforge, and Swords to Plowshares hand and snap it off. He Wastelands my land and uses Abrupt Decay my Vial. I never drew another land, and since he slammed Gideon, Ally of Zendikar on turn 3, I died quickly.

Game 3: This played similarly to game 2, except I do have a few lands. He draws 3 spot removal spells and Zealous Persecution. I die to Gideon and a bunch of big idiots.

The takeaway: Draw better scrub.

(5-1)

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Round 7: Burn Misplays (2-0)

Game 1: I am supposed to be super dead. Just… like incredibly dead. I played it as well as I think anyone could, but if my opponent didn’t miss a bunch of Eidolon of the Great Revel triggers, I probably would have ended up at -14 or -16 life. But he does miss the triggers, so I suit up Thalia with a Jitte and eventually get there. I’d feel bad if I also didn’t feel that my opponents’ triggers are their responsibilities.

See sideboarding from match 3

I get Thalia into play and kill multiple guys while Aether Vial slowly ticks up. While the game did not conclude, it was looking very good for me. Good job teammates picking up those quick W’s!

The takeaway: triggers are hard. Just like math. And magic.

(6-1)

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Round 8: Grixis Delver (2-0)

This was our feature match, and my closest to being on camera all weekend. Game 1 my opponent plays the standard delver game on the draw. Mom + Thalia clogs up the ground while multiple Flickerwisps clock my opponent in the air.

In: 2 Rest in Peace, 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: 3 Phyrexian Revoker, 1 Recruiter of the Guard, 2 Mirran Crusader

Aside: I’m still not 100% on this matchup, as I think I’m supposed to trim another card instead of the second Recruiter, but with all the Bolts and Forked Bolts in Grixis Delver, it felt right.

This game was very sweet. I start by quickly Wasting, then fetching Jitte with Stoneforge. He sticks a Young Pyromancer, but due to an uncounterable Thalia, he was only able to make 1 token. I suit up the Stoneforge with Jitte and attack with both creatures, and he Bolts the Stoneforge, and triple blocks Thalia to trade the Young Pyromancer and 1 token for her. Luckily I got to then slam another Thalia. He untaps and Bolts Thalia #2. I play a Flickerwisp to hit the token. He slams Gurmag Angler. I hit him to 9, play another Flickerwisp. I Flickerwisp my Flickerwisp and then flicker the Gurmag Angler to save myself five life. He slams another Gurmag. I attack for 6 with the Wisps putting him to 3, and then play a third Flickerwisp. I do the same song and dance as before, blinking his black source to play around a potential Dread of Night. He attacks with both Zombie Fish. I take ten. Then he passes and I kill him. While the feature match said we won 2-0, we really won 3-0.

The takeaway: Flickerwisp is the best card ever. It just is.

(7-1)

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Round 9: Mana Dredge (2-1)

Game 1: He mulls to 6, keeps, plays Lion’s Eye Diamond, and passes. I play Vial, and pass. He draws, and passes back. I slam Thalia. At this point, he can’t do much. He managed to get a few tokens, but 2 Flickerwisps backed by Mother of Runes eventually get there…somehow. How did I beat Mana Dredge on the draw? I don’t know.

In: 2 Containment Priest, 2 Rest in Peace, 2 Surgical Extraction
Out: 2 Stoneforge Mystic, 1 Sword of Fire and Ice, 2 Mirran Crusader

Game 2: I find out Will has lost, and Jeremy is down a game. My opponent kills me turn 2. That’s about it. Hooray Dredge!

Game 3: This is where things get nutty. Jeremy won his game 2, so we are still live. I keep Surgical Extraction, Rest in Peace, Plains, Wasteland, Vial, Thalia, and Mom. I play Plains and Vial. My opponent then tanks, and discusses “hitting it now”. I have to assume he has Nature’s Claim in hand. They decide against playing it, and play City of Brass into Faithless Looting, discarding Narcomoeba and Golgari Grave-Troll. I Surgical the Troll and see 2 Cephalid Coliseum, Breakthrough, Nature’s Claim, and some irrelevant cards. I draw another Mom, decide to Wasteland the City of Brass, and play Mom. He then plays Coliseum and Breakthrough, discarding his whole hand. It all comes down to this draw. I rip the Plains and slam Rest in Peace. Then Thalia and the Stoneforge off the top quickly finish the game. Jeremy is able to then hardcast Emrakul and attack twice to win the game.

The takeaway: Play to your outs and hope for the best.

We finished as one of only 3 teams at 8-1 (no X-0’s) going into day 2 and then enjoy margaritas.

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Round 10: Esper Stoneblade (2-1)

Game 1: I feed off the salt of my opponent constantly complaining about how “perfect” my draws are (as I never hit land 4…). I did beat him over the head with a Sanctum Prelate on 1 and a Serra Avenger, so that’s cool. He does eventually Engineered Explosives away my board, but Mom survived. She grabbed a Batterskull and Sword of Fire and Ice. It was pretty sweet.

In: 1 Manriki-Gusari, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: 2 Swords to Plowshares, 1 Batterskull

Game 2: He stabilizes at 11 life when he rips the Disenchant off the top naturally. I protect my Sword of Fire and Ice with Flickerwisp, but he follows up with a Snapcaster to Disenchant the Manriki. This lets his True-Name Nemesis get suited up with Batterskull, and it’s over after that.

Game 3 :I have uncounterable Mom into uncounterable Thalia. My teammates both pick up their wins, but after discussing it with my opponent, we decided it would’ve almost definitely gone my way.

The takeaway: when your opponent gets salty, enjoy the seasoning :P.

(9-1)

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Round 11: ANT (0-2)

Game 1: I keep a solid hand, but he wins on turn 2 on the play. Not much to be said.

Sideboarding didnt matter because he stormed off on turn 2 through a Revoker naming Lion’s Eye Diamond and a Surgical Extraction after I mull to a functional hand. Unfortunately another teammate lost.

The takeaway: Sometimes they’ve got you.

(9-2)

Round 12: Grixis Delver (0-2)

Game 1: He plays double True-Name Nemesis after using Daze on my Vial. I died very quickly afterwards.

In: 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Rest in Peace
Out: 3 Revoker, 1 Recruiter, 1 Wisp, 1 Crusader

Game 2 was… odd. He kept Daze in on the draw. It also proved once again how filthy Gitaxian Probe is as a Magic card. I play land go. He plays land, Ponder. I untap and play Stoneforge, but he Dazes it. He then casts Probe into Cabal Therapy, taking out my removal spells. My Thalia then sticks and I Wasteland his only land. I then proceed to lose after playing 2 Flickwisps to clock him when he drops an Izzet Staticaster. He then hits a True-Name Nemesis to brickwall my Batterskull. He hits Dismember the turn before I can suit it up with the Sword of Fire and Ice. One of my teammates also lost, so now we are in the rally bracket.

The takeaway: Always leave in 1 revoker for staticaster. Ouch.

(9-3)

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Round 13: DnT mirror (2-0)

Game 1: I took the bold line of playing lots of creatures and he had multiple Thalia. Pro plays on my part. I know.

In: 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment, 1 Manriki-Gusari
Out: 4 Thalia, 1 Sanctum Prelate

Game 2: He mulligans, I Path his Mom, and we proceed to durdle while playing out another Mom each. I get Jitte on the board after he Revokes it, and I have a Serra Avenger vs his Crusader. I eventually hit my third land to exile his Mom and another removal spell to kill the Revoker. He casts another Revoker before I can equip, but both my teammates win. I have Mom and Jitte advantage, so I was heavily favored that game.

The takeaway: Draw more relevant cards in the matchups. You will win.

(10-3)

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Round 14: BUG control (2-0)

Game 1: I know my opponent is on a grindy midrange deck since he is a local from my area. As such I keep a Wasteland and Vial hand with an insane curve up. He then takes the Vial with Thoughtseize. Luckily I proceed to draw 3 lands in a row so I can deploy Mom into Thalia into Recruiter into Stoneforge into Flickerwisp. The combination of Batterskull and Sword of Fire and Ice outraces his True-Name Nemesis before it picks up his maindeck Jitte.

In: 2 Cataclysm, 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Rest in Peace
Out: 1 Sanctum Prelate, 2 Swords to Plowshares, 1 Flickerwisp, 1 Pyrexian Revoker, 1 Serra Avenger

Game 2: I get a Mom and Thalia online with Vial. He struggles to draw relevant cards with Sylvan Library due to my Rishadan Port and Thalia messing with his mana. He misses a few land drops and I start vialing in an army. He has to take time off to Thoughtseize my Crusaders, so I beat him down with Wisps and Thalia. The game ends quickly.

The takeaway: Really, rattle those lands off the top so you can do absurd things.

(11-3, locked for top 8)

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Round 15: Aggro Loam (1-2)

A quick aside: I understand Magic is hard, and that Legacy is arguably the most complex format. But remember to play at a reasonable pace. My opponent this round was new to the format, but took a very long amount of time between decisions despite me prompting him multiple times to make one.

We offer the intentional draw to our opponents, but they are X-3-1 so they have to turn it down.

Game 1: I punt by attacking with Prelate on 2. I know, I know. I should have waited, but it had been a long day and I did some math wrong. After my Prelate went down, my Moms followed behind it (Punishing Fire is a hell of a card). His 16/16 Knight of the Reliquary killed me quickly. Unfortunately it took a long time to get there, and even the judge was shocked when she asked about game 2, and I clarified game 1 concluded. I then asked a judge to stay at the table and monitor us both for rate of play.

In: 2 Cataclysm, 2 Rest in Peace, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: 2 Mirran Crusader, 1 Pyrexian Revoker, 1 Flickerwisp, 2 Swords to Plowshares
(I have no idea if this board plan is right)

Game 2: I get a vial online, and he plays Mox, Mox, Land, Liliana of the Veil. From there I proceed to vial in Mom, Stoneforge, and Angel. I then get batterskull online and during my opponent’s end step put in a Wisp to hit my Batterskull. After I attack on my next turn, I play Cataclysm, keeping Serra Avenger, Vial and Port. I then play a Plains and Batterskull comes back. I tick the Vial up to 3 and Port his Maze of Ith. I hit him down to 6, and Vial in another Wisp. The game ends.

Game 3 is looking to be a slugfest. During this game my opponent received multiple verbal warnings from the judge for slow play, as he was tanking as early as turn 1. We had about 8 minutes to complete the entire game. Eventually I have lethal on board, but I likely lose due to my opponent finding his 1-of Golgari Charm. That being said, my teammates pick it up and we are on to the top 8! Thank you Will and Jeremy!

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Quarters: Lands

Going into the round, I’m planning out my lines of play, my board strategy, and generally just getting a breather.

Sure enough, we miss out on being the feature match by 3%! I sit down across from my opponent, see the decklist, and the first cards that catch my eye are Elvish Spirit Guide, Vampire Hexmage, and Sylvan Safekeeper… This isn’t LANDS! This is Turbo Depths! My opponent says he thinks we would’ve gotten the feature if SCG had posted the correct deck name, and I agree. I am also excited because in my experience the matchup is great!

Game 1: I draw nothing and my opponent 20/20’s me out on turn 4.

In: 2 Surgical Extraction, 2 Path to Exile, 2 Council’s Judgment
Out: -4 Stoneforge Mystic, -1 Batterskull, -1 Sword of Fire and Ice, -1 Mirran Crusader

Game 2: I finally draw a Flickerwisp after forcing him to blow multiple lands to keep his Sylvan Safekeeper around. The 3/1 kills the 20/20 and he scoops.

Game 3: I am about to snag Thespian’s Stage with Surgical Extraction and play Revoker naming Vampire Hexmage to seal it up. Unfortunately, Jeremy had a rough matchup, and Will mulliganed into oblivion and drew even worse. The run ended in the quarters, but I had a blast, and I was ecstatic to finally top 8 a major tournament with 2 awesome dudes.

The takeaway: eat more peanut butter sandwiches.

The sample of decks I faced was incredibly odd and the fact that I only played against 5 decks with Brainstorm is pretty silly, but it goes to show you why playing a deck you know is so important. It lets you adapt to any tournament or meta (unless it is the Belcher/Oops/Elves meta).

Going forward, I would change very little about the deck. I may change the board a bit (specifically Manriki is always a card that I can substitute out for things like Sword of War and Peace, but I think they are close). I would also like a second Prelate in the 75, but I have no idea what to cut.

Cataclysm is staying in the deck for the foreseeable future. That card is not only fun to play, but wins you games no other card could. Plus it is great vs Pile and Lands, which are both incredibly relevant right now. Otherwise the deck felt great, and I would recommend it to anyone else who likes DnT.

Thank you for reading my rather exhaustive report, and just keep taxing ’em out!

If you missed my stream last night, I spent quite some time discussing some of the pros and cons of various D&T decklists from the Open. You can check out that video here.

Alrighty, once again, it’s data time! Since mid-December I’ve been mucking around with RW Taxes. The build is my own at this point, though I used a combination of Iatee and Bahra’s builds as my starting points for exploring this side of the archetype. Here’s the decklist in its current form:

RW Taxes, 1/12/18

Lands (24) 2 Cavern of Souls 3 Karakas 3 Plains 3 Plateau 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland 1 Marsh Flats 1 Arid Mesa 2 Flooded Strand 1 Windsweapt Heath Creatures (24) 3 Flickerwisp 4 Mother of Runes 2 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Recruiter of the Guard 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Magus of the Moon 1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar 1 Vryn Wingmare 1 Palace Jailer Spells (12) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Umezawa’s Jitte 1 Rest in Peace

Sideboard (15) 2 Ethersworn Canonist 3 Path to Exile 2 Rest in Peace 1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar 1 Sanctum Prelate 1 Mirran Crusader 1 Containment Priest 1 Leonin Relic-Warder 1 Cunning Sparkmage 2 Cataclysm

Before I get into the data, I should take a moment to briefly talk about a couple of quirks and strengths of this build. Magus of the Moon is the real reason to splash red; it provides an instant “I win” button against a sizable percentage of the format. It frequently comes off of Vial as a surprise as well, not giving your opponent the opportunity to fetch in response or float some mana. Pia and Kiran Nalaar is a side benefit of splashing red. While the card might not look impressive on the surface, it does a surprising amount of weird things. With a Karakas and an Aether Vial on four, you can produce an army of Thopter tokens that will drown most fair decks. Those Thopters are handy little fellows. Being colorless, they aren’t affected by things like Dread of Night or an opposing Mother of Runes. They are fantastic chump blockers against a fair deck like Eldrazi. Since P&K produces multiple bodies, it is pretty annoying for control decks like Czech Pile or Miracles. P&K is a weird, tutorable source of end game inevitability, something that the mono white build lacks. It is, admittedly, a little hard to cast, but it’s not a card that you usually want to slam on turn four anyway.

The red also gives us a touch more utility in Cunning Sparkmage in the sideboard. It’s great in the mirror and against small creature decks (Elves, Infect). Then there’s that spicy maindeck Rest in Peace. While many people have questioned that decision, I think it has been worth its weight. I’ll discuss it a bit more in the data section and let you form your own conclusion. Most of the rest of the list is pretty standard.

So what didn’t make the cut? I originally started with a Faerie Macabre in the sideboard, as both builds I had been looking at played the little fellow. My previous testing found that it was really only amazing in the Reanimator matchup, and after a couple of leagues with it in the deck, I cut it again. Similarly, both builds featured Fiendslayer Paladin, a card I wasn’t particularly keen on. I get that it is an attempt at hedging against Burn, an absolutely terrible matchup for the RW build, but I found that it was a low impact card on average. I opted to throw a Sanctum Prelate in the board to increase the utility of my Recruiters and a third Path to Exile to help with the Delver matchups (more on that in a minute). I also opted to play a third Plateau over the third Cavern of Souls to make some of my cards a little more castable on average.

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The following dataset consists of 111 matches (268 games) in competitive MTGO leagues with the RW build. As discussed above, the build did vary by a card or two over the course of the matches. I ended up with a record of 71-40 (63%). This is slightly higher than the results I got with the monowhite build after a similar number of matches (60%). Though I don’t have an exact number on it, I know I had a higher percentage of 5-0 finishes with the RW build than with the mono white build. I’ll do a bit of comparison a bit later in the article, but I want to start by looking at the matchup breakdown for the RW version. With one exception (Red Prison), I only included matches that had a sample size of four or greater for the matchup breakdown that follows. Here’s the overview before I break things down a bit more:

Very Good Matchups
Eldrazi (5-1, 83%)
BUG Delver (6-3, 67%)
D&T (5-1, 83%)
Lands (3-1, 75%)
Red Prison (3-0, 100%)

Even Matchups
Czech Pile (5-4, 56%)
Miracles (4-4, 50%)
Big Eldrazi (3-2, 60%)
ANT (2-3, 40%)
Grixis Delver (6-6, 50%)

Very Unfavorable Matchups
Burn (1-4, 20%)

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Now for some qualitative comments and my thoughts on some of this data!

Very Good Matchups
Eldrazi (5-1, 83%)
BUG Delver (6-3, 67%)
D&T (5-1, 83%)
Lands (3-1, 75%)
Red Prison (3-0, 100%)

The Lands, BUG Delver, and Eldrazi matches are all matchups that a Magus of the Moon has the potential to instantly end. Accordingly, it’s not too surprising that all of those matchups ended up being so favorable. Having a maindeck Rest in Peace also didn’t hurt for the Lands and BUG Delver matchup. It is a little interesting that the Red Prison matchup is still so good despite splashing; despite playing Magus of the Moon ourselves, we are quite vulnerable to an early opposing Blood Moon.

The RW deck tends to approach the mirror a little differently than the mono white version. The mono white version tends to attack the mirror via permanents. Cards like Sword of War and Peace and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar threaten to swing the boardstate very quickly in your favor. The RW Version instead is trying to play more of a control role. With lots of extra removal like Path to Exile, Cunning Sparkmage, and Pia and Kiran Nalaar, you hope to knock your opponent off balance for long enough to get a foothold on the equipment war or let your powerful four drops take over the game.

Even Matchups
Czech Pile (5-4, 56%)
Miracles (4-4, 50%)
Big Eldrazi (3-2, 60%)
ANT (2-3, 40%)
Grixis Delver (6-6, 50%)

It seems like this version of D&T holds it own against the premier control decks of the format, but does not necessarily excel against them. Pia and Kiran Nalaar provides a great end game against the value-oriented nature of both Miracles and Czech Pile. I’m not particularly worried about the average draws from either of these decks. I am quite worried about a good draw that stabilizes the board and follows up with a Planeswalker on an empty board. A curve of Terminus into Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Kolaghan’s Command into Liliana, the Last Hope is backbreaking. Cataclysm has been pretty good in both of these matchups when my opponent gets ahead early, but is not necessarily always a game-winning play.

You’re probably surprised to see Grixis Delver in this category. I was too. The RW version is much more susceptible to opposing mana denial than the mono white version. Cards like Stifle and Wasteland are markedly better against this version. Hence you open yourself up to “just getting Delvered” a bit more often. Most of my loses against Grixis Delver came before I added the third Path to Exile to the deck, something I did mostly for this matchup. Since this deck has a few four drops and a weaker manabase, you do have to fear a fast hand getting ahead of you. Also of note, this build has literally no way to answer a resolved True-Name Nemesis. You have to race it once it hits play. There’s no Council’s Judgment to bail you out.

Very Unfavorable Matchups
Burn (1-4, 20%)

Burn is normally a nail biter of a matchup for D&T. Once you start taking some damage from fetchlands and open yourself up to more damage from Price of Progress, it’s no surprise that this matchup becomes markedly worse. The original builds I based my build around had a Fiendslayer Paladin as a concession to this matchup. I think I’m fine with losing a few percentage points to the Burn matchup to not have that card in my 75 though. I’m not even sure that tutoring for that guy is going to be fast enough to matter in the matchup anyway for non-Vial hands.

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Single Card Discussion

Magus of the Moon was pretty great, I’m not going to lie. I attributed 26 of my game wins to that card. In most of those cases, it hit play and my opponent conceded within 1-2 turns. In all the time I played it, my opponent only wiggled out of the Magus four times (when it actually cut them off mana). Twice it was answered by red removal (Forked Bolt and Lightning Bolt) after resolving; in one of those cases, it actually gave my opponent mana to cast the Young Pyromancer and Lightning Bolt that was stranded in their hands. Otherwise it was only answered twice: once by floating mana for an Abrupt Decay and once by casting a Drop of Honey off a Mox Diamond.. Magus was so powerful that I’d consider playing a third in the 75 or a third Recruiter of the Guard to go and find it.

I attributed 8 of my wins to Pia and Kiran Nalaar. In the games where I actually resolved that card, it frequently warped the game. The dream is obviously to combo it with Vial and Karakas, but it’s still solid even when you don’t have the “combo.” The situations that P&K can dig you out of are often pretty dire. One of my favorites involved generating an army of Thopters to hold back a Marit Lage and flinging the tokens at my opponent’s face after blocks. Did I mention the reach?! It feels nice to effectively have burn in your deck. Your opponent has a Null Rod? No worries, just start flinging those Vials at their face! The red/colorless bodies aren’t irrelevant either against hate like Dread of Night.

So that maindeck Rest in Peace… I kept pretty detailed records on this card in particular, as I was very curious to see how it would perform in the Deathrite Shaman-infested world. Each time I drew the card in game 1, I assigned it a value. Zero meant it was a dead card; it does literally nothing in the matchup OR it has the possibility of doing something extremely marginal but did not. One was doing something relevant and likely worth the card slot; in some cases, it was difficult to tell how impactful the card was, but if it seemed like my opponent was likely hindered by it, I assigned it this value. Two represented the power level of a dedicated hate card; it made a very noticeable difference on the board or my opponent’s play pattern. In one case I assigned a value of -1; my opponent got value off of my Rest in Peace using an Oblivion Sower.

I drew the maindeck RiP 31 times, assigning it an average value of 1.3. On average it was a great draw, and when I happened to draw it in the right matchups (e.g. Reanimator, Loam, Lands), it warped the game. I attributed five of my wins directly to a resolved RiP in game 1, and another 3 times where it would have been game-endingly good, but was answered. RiP is great against four of the six Decks to Beat of the moment and certainly not dead against Miracles either, decreasing the power of Search for Azcanta and Snapcaster Mage. Running one in the main is certainly viable and perhaps even good. The card does have some issues: it’s not tutorable via Recuriter, it’s sometimes dead, and it doesn’t necessarily play nice with Thalia. However, when your opponent leads on Deathrite and you follow up with a RiP…well, that fells pretty darn good.

I attributed eight of my wins to Cataclysm. There was also one more scenario where I was so far ahead that I didn’t need to cast it and an instance where I lost a game after resolving Cataclysm. The card is of a comparable power level and utility to Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Gideon tends to be better when you are ahead on board or at about parity, whereas Cataclysm tends to be better when you are behind. Gideon will be better in more matchups; his generic utility is a bit higher, and there are fewer spots where you can’t deploy the card out of fear of losing the game. There are times where you cast a Gideon and your opponent does something like cast a Snapcaster Mage, remove the token you make, and kill the Gideon. Those scenarios feel bad, but remember that a good percentage of the time when you resolve Gideon, he does still win you the game (though Cataclysm will likely win the game a higher percentage of the time when it resolves). Gideon is a card that you can just jam. Cataclysm is a card that requires a bit more setup, but has a higher potential upside.

Cunning Sparkmage and Sanctum Prelate underperformed. I did not attribute a single win to Cunning Sparkmage. Maybe I’m not boarding it in enough or in the right matchups. I didn’t hate having its utility in the board, and I’m not convinced that I should cut it, but I’ll be exploring my options for this slot. I added Sanctum Prelate to my deck at about the halfway point of my dataset. I only attributed three wins to this card. I didn’t tend to want to tutor for it when given the opportunity. Magus of the Moon often locked my opponent out just as well, or fetching Vryn Wingmare to stack with Thalia did just as much work. I think Prelate is really important for the mono white builds to deal with Life from the Loam and Punishing Fire decks, but it feels less necessary in this build.

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Here’s the graph of my overall results with the RW version. Here is a bigger version of the graph if it isn’t readable on your screen as is.

Comparison to Crusader Build

So, at the end of the day, what version of D&T should you be playing? On average, I felt like my performance with RW Taxes was better (based on my percentage of 5-0 and 4-1 finishes). We’re not here for gut feelings though, now are we? In the following chart and discussion, the mono white build will be referred to as WW. Let’s look at some hard data.

If you were to play only against a field of the Decks to Beat with a perfect distribution based on the metagame percentages, RW and WW taxes would probably put you in about the same spot based on the data here. RW Taxes does have a markedly higher average win percentage vs the Decks to Beat though and a higher overall win percentage. Based on what’s here, it is probably better to be playing the splash build at the moment.

I do want to qualify this data a little bit though: I didn’t have Sanctum Prelate in my deck for many of the matches against Lands with WW, the sample size for the Miracles matchup with WW is three, and the percentage against Grixis Delver with RW is likely a bit higher than 50% now that I added the third Path to Exile. The overall result is probably that the WW build probably is better than the data here suggests. Its percentage against Grixis Delver, the most popular deck of the format, is just so high that it makes up for deficiencies elsewhere. Assuming that the Lands matchup is really closer to something like 40% for WW, the Miracles matchup is closer to 50% for WW, and the Grixis Delver matchup is closer to 60% for RW, WW will actually probably slightly outperform the RW build in the weighted average category by about 3%, but will still be behind the RW deck in the average win percentage by about 5%.

If I were to go to a GP tomorrow, I’d take RW Taxes without a doubt, though it probably doesn’t matter too much if you play WW or RW in the grand scheme of things. Either way, make sure you address the deficiencies of your build against the decks you expect to face and you’ll probably be fine. If you don’t have a ton of time to test, play whichever build you are comfortable with. If you have the time the test, the RW build has a ton of upside; at the very least, having some games under your belt will help you understand the mirror and open up the possibility of playing with the build in the future. I don’t recommend picking up the RW build and bringing it to a GP without sufficient testing; sideboarding can be legitimately tricky with this version of the deck, and even I am unsure how I want to approach a couple of matchups.

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Changes to Consider

I’ve already suggested a few of these things throughout the article, but here’s what I would consider testing in the RW build in the future:

1. Adding either a Magus of the Moon or a Recruiter of the Guard.
2. Adding an answer to True-Name Nemesis like Orzhov Pontiff or Blessed Alliance.
3. Removing some of the less impressive cards like Sanctum Prelate and Cunning Sparkmage to see if their absence is missed.
4. Testing Dire Fleet Daredevil. I don’t think it is going to be of a consistent enough power level to be worth slots, but a couple of people on The Source have their eye on the card.

Based on the data and testing I have from the RW build, here are things I would consider testing in the WW build:

1. Swapping Gideon, Ally of Zendikar with Cataclysm.
2. Playing the 24th land since the build is so heavy at the three drop slot. Maybe a Horizon Canopy would work well.
3. Trying the Rest in Peace in the main over the 4th Mirran Crusader.
4. Dropping the 2nd Surgical Extraction in the board for a third Rest in Peace. Additionally, going down to one Surgical might in turn lead to dropping the other for some other sideboard card.

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I’ll be continuing to work on the RW build in some capacity, likely starting with some of the suggestions above. I look forward to hearing your thoughts, and if you want to chat about the build more, feel free to hit me up with questions on my stream. I’m deathandtaxesftw on Twitch and you can check out my channel here. The channel has videos enabled, so you can click here to watch the videos of my last few streams. If, say, Twitch happens to be blocked at your workplace, you can also check out my videos on the Thraben University channel on Youtube.

Note from Phil: Allen Norman recently top 4’d MTGFirst’s Win-a-Lotus event up in Baltimore. It was a pretty high profile event as well as the culminating event of a series, so I reached out to him with the offer to write a tournament report for the event. He happily obliged. The content below is his content and in his style, though I’ve done some editing for clarity and such. Feel free to let me know what you do or don’t like about this article; it’s very different from how I write up my own tournament reports. Your comments may influence how I choose to go about doing guest articles in the future.

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Hi, my name is Allen Norman and I am a Software Engineer who plays in the Baltimore/Glen Burnie area. I have been playing Death & Taxes for a few years now. Though I initially borrowed this deck from a friend, I was immediately hooked. I bought it for an Invitational a couple years ago and basically have not played anything else in Legacy since. I do not get to play a ton of Magic as I have wife, work, and various other adult responsibilities. When I do have time to play, I prefer to play Legacy D&T.

I had been testing a few different versions of the deck since before the recent SCG Team Open, but I was consistently struggling with the Czech Pile matchup. My friend Weston and I always bounce ideas off of each other and try wonky cards. Let’s put it this way: I definitely have 4 Treasure Hunter on my MTGO account. We tried builds with 3 Spirit of the Labyrinth in them for the purpose of helping the Czech Pile matchup. Its three power was relevant and its effect is pretty good at letting you attack their mana through Leovold, Emissary of Trest since you can still Wasteland and Rishadan Port them without giving them cards. This build initially showed promise, but then we pretty much stopped winning with it all together.

Ultimately it didn’t help the Czech Pile matchup as much as we had hoped. In addition, Spirit was just awful against Grixis Delver; it can only trade down in combat and they have many ways to easily remove it. I was still unhappy with my decklist despite trying out a few things that seemed promising. Unfortunately, I was not able to play in the Baltimore Open, but I later saw Derzco’s list from the Open with 4 Mirran Crusader. I was going to give it a shot, as that was a pretty direct way to attack that matchup. I actually ran into Phil at the Team Open at a table of mutual friends/acquaintances; he said he had been playing a similar version for a while and consistently winning the 4 Color Control matchup. Leading up to the Quest for Power: Black Lotus event at MTGFirst, most of my testing I was with versions of the deck that had 4 Mirran Crusaders. I had a solid record the month or so before the tournament, so I started to feel good about the deck again. This is the list that I ended up at for the tournament.

Allen Norman, 4x Crusader D&T

Creatures (26) 4 Mother of Runes 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 4 Stoneforge Mystic 3 Phyrexian Revoker 4 Mirran Crusader 4 Flickerwisp 1 Sanctum Prelate 2 Recruiter of the Guard Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire & Ice 1 Umezawa's Jitte

Lands (23) 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland 3 Karakas 2 Cavern of Souls 10 Plains Sideboard (15) 3 Rest in Peace 2 Containment Priest 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Council's Jundgement 2 Path to Exile 1 Sword of War & Peace 1 Surgical Extraction 2 Gideon Ally of Zendikar

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THE MATCHES

Round 1: UW Miracles, Anuraag Das
G1 – He had the Force of Will for my turn one Vial. Without it, my hand wasn’t really able to pressure him effectively. He stuck a Jace, the Mind Sculptor and the game was basically over; an army of angels off Entreat the Angels left no doubts.

I had seen him around at tournaments and I felt like he was likely to be on the full control version of the deck with no Monastery Mentor in the main or sideboard. Accordingly, I sideboarded out my Swords to Plowshares.

Sideboarding:-4 Swords to Plowshars, -1 Umezawa’s Jitte; +1 Sword of War and Peace, +2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, +2 Council’s Judgement.

G2 – I was able to stick a Vial and attack his mana a little bit. Eventually he had to try and stick a Jace into an active Vial on two. Unfortunately for him, I had the Phyrexian Revoker and lethal damage the next turn.

G3 – I kept Revoker, Stoneforge, Council’s Judgement, Flickerwisp, Crusader, Karakas, and a Wasteland. The hand was a bit clunky and I was pretty consistently behind in the game. It dragged on for a while and he made 8+ angels and killed me. He asked me what I kept and he said he would have mulliganed. He knows that side of the matchup very well and thinks Vial is so important in the matchup that it is worth mulliganing that hand to find one. I agree that Vial is the most important card, but I don’t think I am quite at the point where I would send that hand back; Stoneforge is also one of your best cards and that hand has quite a few things covered. I could certainly be wrong though.
1-2 (0-1)

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Round 2: Lands, Steve Newcombe
G1 – He had a decent hand with Life from the Loam, but was not able to dredge into a way to slow down my creatures before Sanctum Prelate locked out his 2 drop spells. Some little beats ensued and we were on to the next one.

Sideboarding: -4 Swords to Plowshares, -2 Mirran Crusader, -1 Umezawa’s Jitte; +1 Surgical Extraction, +3 Rest in Peace, +2 Path to Exile, +1 Sword of War and Peace

G2 – He had a turn 2 Life from Loam, but I had the ideal curve of Rest in Peace into Sanctum Prelate. He was not able to remove my RiP or assemble anything without Loam. He promptly died.
2-0 (1-1)

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Round 3: Sneak and Show, Jeremy Bowman

G1 – I thought he was likely to be on this deck, as I see him around at Legacy events playing it. Thankfully I opened a good hand for the matchup: Vial, Thalia, Revoker, Karakas, Rishadan Port and 2 other cards. I win the die roll and my Vial sticks. He forces my turn two Thaila and follows up with a sol land, Lotus Petal, and Sneak Attack. Luckily for me, he doesn’t have another red source to put anything in this turn. I vial in Revoker on Sneak Attack and the game is effectively over. He plays on for a turn or two then concedes.

Sideboarding: -4 Swords to Plowshares, -1 Umezawa’s Jitte, -1 Mirran Crusader; +2 Ethersworn Canonist, +1 Sword of War and Peace, +1 Council’s Judgement, +2 Containment Priest

The second Council’s Judgement could be better than another Crusader, but I have found it to be pretty clunky in this matchup; the spots where it is good don’t come up a ton. I could see it being better though.

G2 – My hand was very good with Canonist, Vial, some other reasonable creatures and some Ports. After being Ported for a few turns, he is able to get off a Show and Tell for Omniscience. I have the Canonist to put in to buy myself a turn and a Flickerwisp to blink the Omni during my next end step to save myself for yet another turn. I equip a Sword of Fire and Ice to my Canonist and attack him down to 6. He gets his Omniscience back and casts Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. I have a creature to Vial in, giving me exactly 8 permanents. I live through the Emrakul attack, keeping just the Sword and the Canonist, and crack back for lethal.
2-0 (2-1)

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Round 4: Lands, Lucas
G1 – I don’t remember much about this game besides that he had an early unchecked Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. He still died. I think I sideboarded the same as before.

Sideboarding: -4 Swords to Plowshares, -2 Mirran Crusader, -1 Umezawa’s Jitte; +1 Surgical Extraction, +3 Rest in Peace, +2 Path to Exile, +1 Sword of War and Peace

G2 – He had Life from the Loam, an early Tabernacle, and a Seismic Assault! After he mowed down my initial creatures, I just passed for a bunch of turns until I had a Sword in play and two Vials on three. I used Flickerwisp to blink out his Seismic Assault, giving me a chance to safely put in a Prelate on 2. I equipped Prelate with the sword and started getting in the red zone. He drew Maze of Ith to buy time and copied it with Thespian’s Stage multiple times, but thanks to some combination of Flickerwisps, Wastelands and Ports, I was able to push through for the last couple of hits.
2-0 (3-1)

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Round 5 Aggro Loam, Nick Ditizio
G1 – His mana didn’t really come together. I was able to attack his lands and beat down with some ladies.

Sideboarding:-4 Thalia, -1 Phyrexian Revoker, -1 Aether Vial, -1 Mirran Crusader; +2 Council’s Judgement +2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, +3 Rest in Peace

G2 – I was not able to get on the board fast enough. He basically ground me into nothing with Wastelands and Knight of the Reliquary finished me off.

G3 – We traded off resources for most of this game. Eventually he had Liliana of the Veil and I had nothing. I drew enough creatures to keep Liliana’s loyalty manageable until I stuck a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. It took me a few turns to find the fourth land, but Gideon took over the game with ease.
2-1 (4-1)

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Round 6: Punishing Maverick

G1 – He was on the play and went for a very aggressive kill: mana dork into Knight of the Reliquary into a main phase activation of the Dark Depths and Thespian’s Stage combo. I think this is a bit too aggressive, as I could Flickerwisp it next turn and set him back immensely. I didn’t have an out to it in my hand, but luckily peeled Karakas, bounced the token, and went on with my life. It was a long game, but I eventually took it down since he never assembled the Punishing Fire and Grove of the Burnwillows lock. Thalia + Karakas + Vial on 2 kept gigantic Knights out of my face for a few turns until I got in with a Jitte to take over the game.

In my opinion the matchups where you care about both their graveyard and their individual creatures are difficult to sideboard for. This is what I chose to do, within a card or two:
-4 Thalia -1 Sanctum Prelate, -1 Phyreixna Revoker, -1 Mirran Crusader; +2 Rest in Peace, +2 Council’s Judgement, +2 Path to Exile, +1 Sword of War and Peace.

G2 – My opponent mulliganed to 5 and I kept a hand with some lands, Vial, Rest in Peace, and a Flickerwisp, just hoping he didn’t have a Stoneforge. He had it on turn two and searched up a Sword of Fire and Ice. I knew he had a Jitte. It turns out he had the Batterskull as well, as that is what he Stoneforged in turn three. He got counters on a Jitte a couple times, which put him way ahead, but eventually I was able to Council’s Judgement the Jitte and start hitting him with my equipment. I took down a very close game.

We talked about the Stage+Depths play game one after the match and he thought that going for cost him the game; he said he didn’t think I had Swords to Plowshares because I did not Swords his Knight turn two, which made sense. If he was planning on going for it I think waiting is better as it plays around Flickerwisp, a card I couldn’t have played yet. It is a little worse against Wasteland, but I can’t tap it in fear that he will make a 20/20. If I do have the Wasteland, he doesn’t have to commit to going for it and destroying two of his own lands; he can just play a normal game and try and beat me with an early active Knight of the Reliquary. I still got very lucky and he got punished quite hard for taking the aggressive line.
2-0 (5-1)

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Round 7 Eldrazi, Chris Hair
My breakers were not very good and there were a couple 13 pointers who would make it so at least one of the 15 pointers have to play it out. Luckily I got paired against another 15 pointer and we could safely ID in.
ID (5-1-1)

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Top 8 – BUG Control, Brendan McGrail
G1 – Some gigantic Tarmogoyf murdered me. Unfortunately, there’s not much else to say here.

Sideboarding: -4 Aether Vial, -2 Swords to Plowshares, -1 Sanctum Prelate; +3 Rest in Peace, +2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, +2 Council’s Judgement

G2 – I stuck a Rest in Peace and we were pretty much in a stalemate with both of us having pretty large board states. Most importantly I had a Crusder that was being held back by his True-Name Nemesis. I drew a Stoneforge and found Sword of Fire and Ice to get protection from blue. He was at 10 and based on his lines of play, I suspected he did not have an Abrupt Decay. There was a spot two turns ago where my opponent would have fired off an Abrupt Decay if he had one, so my opponent only had two draws to have drawn one. I felt like my spot was not going to get better, so I just suited up the Crusader and went for it. He didn’t have it. Phew!

G3 – My hand was great with Rest in Peace, 2 Mirran Crusader, Council’s Judgment, and some lands. He took my Rest in Peace with a Thoughtseize, but my Crusader stuck on turn three. My opponent did not answer it for 3 or 4 turns, and by the time he cast Toxic Deluge, it put him down to one life. My hand was still pretty stacked, and he couldn’t answer the follow up Crusader.
2-1

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Top 4 – UW Miracles, Anuraag Das
G1 – My turn one Vial stuck, which can be very important in this matchup. I was able to pressure him, but he had Swords to Plowshares for my first couple of creatures. I got him down to about ten life pretty late in the game when we were both getting low on cards. I had been sitting on a Batterskull for a while and didn’t want to cast it into open mana, as he had a Counterbalance in play; I didn’t want to just have him Brainstorm back a Force of Will to counter it with Counterbalance. He eventually tapped low to try and save his Jace, the Mind Sculptor that I was attacking with Flickerwisp. He fetched with all his lands tapped and I Vialed in a Sanctum Prelate on 1 in response to ensure his Jace died. Post combat I played Batterskull and he blind flipped Force of Will to Counterbalance. Then during his upkeep he used Predict to get the Force of will off the top of his deck and blind flipped Terminus to kill my Flickerwisp and Prelate…. That one hurt. After that he played another Jace and a Search for Azcanta. I conceded shortly afterwards.

G2 – I cast a couple Stoneforges, but with a combination of Unexpectedly Absent and Swords to Plowshares, he was able to keep me from connecting with equipment. My opponent resolved a Jace, the Mind Sculptor, leaving me in a bit of a bad spot. I could go for casting my Sword of Fire and Ice to kill the Jace right now or play it more patiently and use Stoneforge to put it in without exposing it to a counterspell. My opponent only had one mana up and two cards in hand, so I opted to cast the sword and go for it. I felt like I just needed to get the Jace off the board. He had the Force of Will for my Sword, so I was punished for not just playing it slow. I’m not sure if I was in a position where I could afford to play it slower, hoping he doesn’t hit an out on his next turn. After that point, Jace just buried me in card advantage.
0-2

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I was fortunate to finish as well as I did. I had some good moments like the topdecked Karakas in round 6, winning the top deck war against Aggro Loam, and some of my hands lined up well against my opponent’s hands when they really needed to; however, it was hard not to feel disappointed after getting wrecked by that Terminus in game one of the quarterfinals. I walked away with $600 of store credit, so that certainly helped to make me feel better about my day! Congrats to Anuraag and Chris who split $4000 in the finals. I know Anuraag played extremely well in our matches; he was certainly a deserving winner.

I liked this list a lot and I will probably play something similar if the metagame doesn’t change too much. I would be remiss if didn’t try these Judge’s Familiar builds that have been popping up in lists online. I suppose time will tell what I will be playing in the upcoming weeks. The next big event I have is the Philadelphia Team Open; all signs point to me being the Legacy player for my team there. I am happy with where D&T is right now in Legacy, so I will certainly be playing it in Philly. Hopefully I see you there and thanks for reading!

While usually my articles are very strategic and sing the praises of Sword of War and Peace or Mirran Crusader, I thought I’d do something a little different today. To round out the year, I thought it would be fun to highlight some moments from my online gameplay, showcasing some interesting scenarios and odd things that occur on MTGO. It’s story time!

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There are times when I feel like all hope is lost. Times where I have no idea how I could possibly win. Yet, I play on. You see, sometimes the random number generator blesses me with a win I don’t deserve. My ANT opponent here had two Dread of Night in play. That left me with almost no ways to do any damage to my opponent. It was time to cross my fingers and hope for Phyrexian Revoker to be in the top couple of cards of my deck. Luckily for me, my opponent got overly aggressive with an Ad Nauseum. They were at 4 life. They couldn’t kill me this turn, so they kept going when at five life; in reality, they could have taken their sweet time. They flipped a Past in Flame and Tendril of Agony, so the kill was pretty guaranteed the next turn. Lo and behold, they flipped a Dark Petition (a one-of in this deck and the only expensive card left in the deck) and died. That’s how to win through double Dread of Night. Skill. Pure skill.

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It’s really easy to forgot that cards matter. I know that’s weird to say, but hear me out. In complicated board states, it’s often best to focus on the key information. Zero in on what truly matters, ignore everything else until it becomes relevant. Well, that can be best, if you are correctly valuing what matters… For a 4 Color Loam player, Chalice of the Void on one shouldn’t be relevant to their actions; after all, the deck doesn’t play any one drops in many cases or just summons them with Green Sun’s Zenith instead of casting them! My opponent was focused on the Thalia on board here that they forgot about the Chalice. Paying 2 mana didn’t bring Chalice to mind until it was too late… Be sure to reevaluate the board state from time to time. Things that once weren’t relevant can become relevant once circumstances change.

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Sometimes I come across really weird scenarios, the sorts of things that haven’t come up in years of playing the deck. It’s often easy to work my way through these scenarios as they occur, but sometimes I miss things. Here’s one time where I messed up. My opponent had a Chancellor of the Annex in play and had revealed it at the beginning of the game as well. My opponent cast an Exhume to try and get a Griselbrand in play. I was planning on just passing the turn, dealing with the Chancellor with spot removal and bouncing the Griselbrand with Karakas. I had everything under control. I hit okay and then swore very loudly. I realized that I could cast Containment Priest into the double Chancellor trigger, ridding myself of the one from the beginning of the game. The Priest would hit the graveyard to return momentarily to the Exhume. I then could have used Flickerwisp as a removal spell as well. My previous plan worked just fine, but I absolutely took the wrong line because I didn’t take enough time to really think through the situation. There were so many variables to focus on that I failed to see that the Chancellor trigger could actually be beneficial to me. I cost myself some tempo and mana, but this absolutely could have been a game-losing scenario in other circumstances.

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MTGO is a hell of a drug. It’s just good enough to keep you coming back, but it has some serious issues and quirks. Earlier today I disconnected and the client didn’t bother to tell me for 5 minutes; I thought my opponent had gone to the bathroom or something. Wrong. I finished that match with like a minute remaining. I recently played a match against Bryant Cook where he misclicked/lagged and produced a bunch of white mana while playing TES; somehow he was able to undo most of his turn and fix that, which baffled both of us. Sometimes the game lags causing you to do something beyond stupid. This screenshot captured one of the worst ones I’ve seen. My Lands opponent copied their Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale instead of their Dark Depths. Tabernacle, like Dark Depths, is legendary. Instead of creating a 20/20 tentacle monster, they just blew up one of their lands at a critical moment.

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When I bought into MTGO, I expected largely to play against top tier decks all the time. Most people who buy in to Legacy on MTGO probably already own that deck on paper. It’s a real commitment to acquire a Legacy deck both on paper and online. The diversity of MTGO surprises me from time to time, I do admit. There are still brews and fringe decks all over the place. Here’s a match where an interesting Mono Black Control deck is beating me down with a pair of Vampire Nighthawk. That’s sweet, I’ve got to admit. Vampire Nighthawk is my favorite Magic card and the first single I ever bought. I’ve been wanting to throw that card in a B/W Taxes list for ages, but the mana doesn’t really work too well for double off color, non-human splashes.

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It’s really easy to experiment with sideboard tech on MTGO. Most non-relevant cards cost pennies. No need to shell out a few dollars to try out some tech for your local event. This sometimes leads to really odd and interesting sideboard cards making an appearance. Steel Hellkite out of Eldrazi’s sideboard was not something that I expected. I’m really glad I had the removal at that exact moment. It would have destroyed everything I loved every turn for the rest of the game. I’m not sure that it’s a good use of a sideboard slot since it doesn’t work with the Eldrazi-specific lands like Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple, but I was certainly afraid!

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Have you ever thought to yourself, “Well, it can’t get much worse?” I try to avoid that phrase. Undoubtedly, I find a way that it can get worse. While Red Prison is a great matchup for D&T, sometimes…well, the shit hits the fan. My opponent assembled the dreaded Bottled Cloister and Ensnaring Bridge lock. That’s fine, once I get a Flickerwisp, I can blink the Bridge and attack with Mirran Crusader equipped with Sword of Fire and Ice. Another wild Ensnaring Bridge appears! Uh oh, now I need two Flickerwisps… Some Chalice of the Void appeared on one and two, limiting my ability to do things. Then the Chandras rolled in. I finally conceded to Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Chandra, Pyromaster, and Chandra, Flamecaller. The changes to the Planeswalker rule results in some wacky boardstates in Legacy.

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Speaking of… MatsOle has stomped my face in a few times with 4 Color Loam recently. His list features Liliana of the Veil, Liliana, the Last Hope, Garruk Relentless, and Ajani Vengeant. Poor ol’ Phyrexian Revoker can only do so much work! I didn’t think to get a screen shot of another game where I lost all of my permanents to a combination of three planeswalkers, but this one should give you a good enough idea of what the matchup feels like against this exact 75. Garruk Relentless, Liliana of the Veil, Liliana, the Last Hope, AND The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale! Bleh!

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It can be tricky to evaluate what deck your opponent is playing. I can usually do it after a turn or two, but, sometimes, I’m lost. My opponent started the game with a Badlands and Cabal Therapy. Grixis Control with Young Pyromancer. They then played a Pernicious Deed. Uh, Jund Nic Fit? Then they played a Sneak Attack and then threw an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and a Worldspine Wurm at me. Uh, Jund Nic Fit Sneak Attack? I don’t have a graceful name for this deck and I was a little confused about how to sideboard.

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While I take my MTGO testing very seriously most of the time, even I have my moments. I went on a Judge’s Familiar kick for a little while in the tournament practice room and had a hoot. My opponents tended to have very interesting reactions. Here’s the response to me eating a Daze trying to counter my Stoneforge Mystic.

Happy holidays, and I hope your matches are this interesting!

I played quite a bit of Magic Online since Eternal Weekend: 127 matches. Well, I should say 127 matches that I logged data for. I probably played another 20 or so matches, but I didn’t record data when I played while a little loopy from prescription cough syrup or trying out experimental decklists. For example, I went something like 10-2 with a 4x Judge’s Familiar build like Triosk’s from the last MTGO Challenge. Those matches were just played in the tournament practice room, so I didn’t take the results too seriously. I did, however, take great pleasure in typing “hoot hoot” every time Judge’s Familiar came off a Vial to counter a spell. While not really relevant to the rest of the article, here’s the list I was playing around with if you’re curious:

Judge's Familiar D&T

Lands (23) 2 Cavern of Souls 2 Karakas 10 Plains 4 Rishadan Port 1 Scrubland 4 Wasteland Creatures (26) 3 Flickerwisp 4 Judge’s Familiar 4 Mother of Runes 1 Palace Jailer 2 Phyrexian Revoker 3 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Sanctum Prelate 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

Sideboard (15) 1 Containment Priest 2 Council’s Judgment 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 1 Sword of War and Peace 1 Orzhov Pontiff 2 Path to Exile 2 Rest in Peace 1 Sanctum Prelate

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All of the data presented below will be for a 4x Mirran Crusader build. The exact 75 varied by a card or two over the course of the testing, but was essentially the same as I’ve been playing since Eternal Weekend. The data does NOT include matches I played while sick, testing an experimental decklist, or playing the Judge’s Familiar build; I did not log any data in those instances.

Crusader D&T 11/1

Lands (23) 2 Cavern of Souls 3 Karakas 10 Plains 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland Creatures (26) 4 Flickerwisp 4 Mirran Crusader 4 Mother of Runes 3 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Sanctum Prelate 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

Sideboard (15) 2 Containment Priest 2 Council’s Judgment 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 2 Path to Exile 2 Rest in Peace 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Sword of War and Peace

127 matches is enough data to get enough data to talk about the deck’s performance, but not necessarily make solid conclusions about every matchup. Feel free to check out my various matchup primers for more detailed thoughts on individual matchups. For now, lets talk about what this data *suggests.* I’ll add some qualitative comments based on more general experience where I think the data is suggesting inaccurate conclusions. My overall record with the deck was 77-50, which is about 61%. That’s not quite the percentage I’m aiming for, but it is certainly a self-sustaining percentage. It should be very clear in a moment why that percentage isn’t higher. I played against 47 distinct decks, potentially a couple more depending on how precise you want to be about deck divisions. Here is the breakdown of the data for any matchup with at least 4 matches in the dataset. Note that the numbers I’m using for my categories here are based on my win percentage, not necessarily what I think the actual match percentage would be.

Very Favorable Matchups (>/=75%)
Red Prison (4-0)
4 Color Loam (4-1)
R/B Reanimator (5-0)
UR Delver (4-1)
Grixis Delver (8-1)
D&T (9-3)

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Good Matchups (>/=60%)
Czech Pile (5-3)

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Even Matchups (41%-59%)
Eldrazi (3-3)
ANT (3-4)

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Very Bad Matchups (25% or below)
Elves (1-3)
Lands (1-4)
Belcher (0-4)
Sneak and Show (1-6)

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I’m going to break each one of these categories down a little bit further, but what should be immediately obvious is how polarized these matchups are. The matchups that are very good or very bad are absolute landslides in one direction or another. Additionally, most matchups are falling into one of those categories right now. That’s a bit of an odd position to be in.

Very Favorable Matchups (>/= 75%)
Red Prison (4-0)- 2% of metagame (used statistics for Dragon Stompy)
4 Color Loam (4-1)- 3% of metagame
R/B Reanimator (5-0)- 4% of metagame
UR Delver (4-1)- 5% of metagame
Grixis Delver (8-1)- 12% of metagame
D&T (9-3)- 4% of of metagame

Cumulatively these decks make up about 30% of the metagame. Having an overwhelmingly positive matchup against a good portion of the field feels good. The numbers on most of these probably aren’t surprising to most players. Historically, D&T has stomped Delver decks of pretty much every variety. The various Red Prison decks have always struggled with D&T’s mana denial elements. That’s old news. Let’s talk about the other matchups. My percentage in the mirror went up drastically after putting Sword of War and Peace back in my deck; winning the equipment war is essential in that matchup, and SoWaP is a great card for that purpose. That card or an equivalent mirror hate slot like Manriki-Gusari seems essential to me given the deck’s popularity; though D&T is only stated as 4% of the metagame, I feel like it is everywhere both online and on paper.

My results against 4 Color Loam were very positive, though my gut feeling for that matchup isn’t necessarily as good. It’s an awkward matchup (ask any D&T player how to sideboard for that matchup and watch them pull their hair), and one that will get a primer on this site some time in the future. The lists are shifting away from Dark Depths combo, opting to play a more dedicated control game without the combo finish. Without having to fear the combo, I can tap out for Crusader with impunity.

The RB Reanimator matchup is probably much better than I initially thought. In my primer, I suggested that this matchup would likely be close to even; we’ll win pretty much everything where we play Magic, but will just lose some games to the nut draws. I’m finding that my opponents are not having unbeatable hands as frequently as they used to. The deck seems to have slowed down a bit with cards like Collective Brutality giving the deck more game against Deathrite Shaman at the cost of raw speed. It also might be the case that my opponents aren’t mulliganing as aggressively as they should be in the matchup.

Of note, I haven’t played against Grixis Delver in 58 matches. That’s a bit unusual for a deck that makes up such a large percentage of the field. I used to play against it almost every league. I’m not sure if the deck is starting to become more poorly positioned and pilots are switching decks or if this is just how my matchups have fallen recently. I’ve got my eye on this.

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Good Matchups (>/= 60%)
Czech Pile (5-3)

This matchup is just fine with 4 Crusaders. Sure, you lose games to Kolaghan’s Command; that card is bonkers. Most games involve your opponent screaming at wave after wave of pro-black idiots chipping away at their life total. I lost one of my matches here testing Palace Jailer in the matchup. Other people kept telling me it’s an unbeatable card in the matchup; I disagreed, but wanted to try it out. Sure enough, I lost the crown to an end of turn Snapcaster Mage and promptly lost the game. In my opinion Jailer is a trap here, just like it was against Miracles.

Even Matchups (41%-59%)
Eldrazi (3-3)- 5% of metagame
ANT (3-4)- 5% of metagame (used statistic for Storm)

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Both of these matchups really seem to be coming down to “stumbling” based on my notes. Your opponents have a dedicated gameplan, but one that has big holes in it. If you exploit one of those holes in the initial turns, you usually win. Eldrazi often flails around aimlessly if you blow up a couple of lands. ANT struggles against hatebears. You will just lose many of the games to their best draws, but many of the longer games favor you. These even matchups could be improved pretty easily by dedicated sideboard hate, but may not be worth adjusting the deck for. Individual deckbuilding decisions and how draws line up against each other will often be deciding factors here.

Very Bad Matchups (Sub 25%)
Elves (1-3)- 3% of metagame
Lands (1-4)- 4% of metagame
Belcher (0-4)- ~0% of metagame
Sneak and Show (1-6)- 4% of metagame

17 of my 50 losses (34%) were to the same four decks; that’s a little bit concerening. D&T has always had some bad matchups, that’s nothing new. Elves and Belcher (as well as any other similar turn 1 combo deck) have been in the borderline unwinnable category for years. That’s not going to change anytime soon without making deck-warping changes your 75. Luckily, D&T’s abysmal matchups historically have been small parts of the metagame. Yet this time around there are a few more matches in this category. If Lands and Sneak and Show are trending towards becoming more difficult, we probably need to do something about at least one of those two matchups.

My gut feeling told me that Sneak and Show had become an unfavorable matchup. Many people disagreed with me on that one, remembering the glory days of this matchup essentially being a bye. Now that most versions of this deck are running 2-3 Omniscience in the main as well as Kozilek’s Return in the sideboard, this is just no longer true. Omni is tough to beat with our normal resources. You can Flickerwisp it off a Vial a few times and try to aggro your opponent out (if it’s late enough in the game), but cards like Revoker, Containment Priest, Ethersworn Canonist, and Thalia don’t pack the same punch with an Omni on board. While Sneak and Show isn’t necessary a deck to beat by The Source’s definition, it is right outside of that bubble and frequently a popular choice regardless of how well it is positioned due to its raw power.

Lands is a matchup that has gone on a bit of a roller coaster in terms of matchup win percentages in the past year. It went from about even to highly favorable when Sanctum Prelate was printed. Now that the Lands players have adapted with cards like Barbarian Ring and Molten Vortex, the matchup feels considerably more difficult than before. Note that for some of these matches I had Vryn Wingmare in the main over Prelate, so that may contribute a bit to my low win rate here, but every game has felt rough, even those I’m winning. Lands is certainly a deck to beat right now by The Source’s standards, and one that I personally feel is pretty well-positioned as a whole.

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Moving forward, I’d like to do something to slightly improve the Lands or Sneak and Show matchup a bit; I don’t want to continue folding to two popular decks. I’ve talked to quite a few people who like a third Rest in Peace over the second Surgical Extraction; that seems like a potentially good choice moving forward. Allen Norman did that in his top 8 list for the Win a Lotus event in Baltimore, but otherwise his list was identical to what I’ve been doing. Rest in Peace has been one of my most frequently sideboarded in cards recently; you won’t always want the third against fair decks (Grixis Delver), but having access to three seems fine.

Here’s another look at a direction to take the sideboard:

Sideboard, Zach Koch

(15) 3 Rest in Peace 1 Surgical Extraction 2 Ethersworn Canoist 1 Path to Exile 1 Containment Priest 2 Council’s Judgment 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 1 Palace Jailer 1 Leonin Relic-Warder 1 Sword of War and Peace 1 Pithing Needle

The core of what I’ve been running is here, but redundancy was cut for additional range. That might be better right now, I’m not sure. Trimming numbers on Gideon and Path made room for the Pithing Needle and Relic-Warder, flexible answers for various annoying things. I’ll probably play around with this a bit to see how I like it. It gives a potential answer or two to Omni while also sneaking in a Needle for the Lands matchup. I also imagine that the mirror feels very good for this build.

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Though I’m not going to share all of my data today, I will leave you all with the graph of my results. Here is a bigger version of the graph if it isn’t readable on your screen as is.

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I’m planning on having a follow up article that shares some interesting moments from my Magic Online experiences as well as a guest tournament report in the not too distant future, though it’s a little difficult to say when both of those will happen due to the impending holding season. Until then, Io Saturnalia!

Are you interested in an hour and a half of chit chat about D&T? Well, then I’ve got the perfect thing for you! This week I was a guest on the Leaving a Legacy podcast. Jerry and Patrick asked me all sorts of things about D&T’s history, its place in the metagame, and where I see the deck going in the future.

You can check out the podcast here

Of note to the podcast: I started played Magic in 2010 and starting playing Legacy in 2011. As such, my knowledge about the early days of D&T is all secondhand; please excuse any small errors on my end. My deck history page (which was largely courtesy of Finn) was the basis for most of my answers to their questions about the deck’s history. Feel free to check that out if you have more questions about the deck’s history that I didn’t discuss here!

It has been an interesting couple of weeks in the D&T world. While I went heavy on Mirran Crusader to fight against the current metagame, other people have been experimenting with other tech. There was an interesting post suggesting that The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale is a viable sideboard card in D&T. MTGO user Egget put up a 6-1 finish in a Legacy Challenge with a list featuring two Rest in Peace in the maindeck. There was also the emergence of a 5 Color Human deck in Modern that bears a strong resemblance to D&T in terms of general strategy and playstyle, and I’ve seen a few people mucking around with a Legacy port of that as well.

I chatted with Michael Derczo quite a bit in the weeks leading up to the Team Open. We were both very happy with our lists from EW and the Legacy Open, so we didn’t want to change much. For his last event, he had a Vryn Wingmare in the maindeck over my Sanctum Prelate, but otherwise our lists were identical. I liked having a fifth flier in the deck, as going to the 4 Crusader build meant that I lost my Avengers, but I also felt that having a Prelate in the deck was absolutely essential for the Punishing Fire and Life from the Loam matchups. We ending up registering the same 75 for the event, opting to keep the Wingmare in the main, but drop a Containment Priest from the board to squeeze in the Prelate.

Crusader D&T 11/20

Lands (23) 2 Cavern of Souls 3 Karakas 10 Plains 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland Creatures (26) 4 Flickerwisp 4 Mirran Crusader 4 Mother of Runes 3 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Vryn Wingmare 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

Sideboard (15) 1 Containment Priest 1 Sanctum Prelate 2 Council’s Judgment 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 2 Path to Exile 2 Rest in Peace 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Sword of War and Peace

My team for the event was the same as last time around, Harley Cox on Modern and Mike Kerby on Standard. Collectively, we finished at 6-3 for the day once again, missing the cut which was at 6-2-1. I’m going to focus on my own results from here on out. The main event was a very medicore finish of 5-4:

1-2 vs Sneak and Show
1-2 vs Eldrazi
1-2 vs High Tide
2-0 vs Grixis Delver
1-2 vs Eldrazi
2-1 vs Czech Pile
2-1 vs Czech Pile
2-1 vs Grixis Delver
2-0 vs Punishing Maverick

Round 2 vs Eldrazi

The difference between a team event and an individual event in that your teammates can save you from our own folly. My opponent this round make numerous errors, and I’m not going to harp on all of them, but it shall suffice to say that my opponent was very inexperienced with Legacy. I was about to take over the game with equipment while at two life. My opponent does not realize that he can just kill me by activating Eye of Ugin to tutor up Reality Smasher. He just failed at counting his mana. His teammate then counts his mana for him and tells him to activate Eye. He wants to get an Endbringer. His teammate asks what my life total is, and then tells him to just kill me with Smasher. Sometimes you lose to the teammate, and not your opponent. Such is the nature of a team event. Unrelated, my opponent’s deck also had Ramunap Excavator in it. My eyebrows raised quite a bit when he put Cavern of Souls on Naga…

Round 3 vs High Tide

Sometimes, you do everything right, but things just don’t work out. In game 3, I let my opponent resolve the first High Tide, and then used a Surgical Extraction to rip them from the deck in response to him cracking two fetches. My opponent cast a Time Spiral, and I drew a second Surgical. My opponent resolved a Turnabout, and then I went to extract that too. Unfortunately, he had a second Turnabout at that moment, dampening the effect of my efforts. My opponent ended up with just enough mana to cantrip a couple of times and find a Cunning Wish for Brainfreeze. You earned that one. Well done!

Round 7 vs Czech Pile

I was paired this round against my friend Paul Lynch, so I knew this was going to be a fun one. The first two games are highly interactive and interesting, but the third game left us both feeling a bit sour. He casts a Ponder, and while he is thinking about it, I go to look and see what is going on with my teammates. I look back, and then one of Paul’s teammates says, “Paul, that’s not a Brainstorm…” *expletives on both sides of the table* I can’t confirm which cards were from the Ponder, so I call the judge. The ruling for this was essentially that I got to choose which cards were a part of his Ponder and which cards were a part of his hand. Paul appealed, but it was upheld. It’s a feel-bad situation, but it’s very difficult to lose from a position where you have perfect information AND you get to sculpt your opponent’s hand. My hand was great, and Paul had mulliganed to five already, but that’s not how I wanted this round to go.

There was some poor communication on the end of the judges with this call due to the appeal. We were never told how much of a time extension we received. Accordingly, I looked at the slip and saw a 12. I assumed that meant we had a 12 minute extension. I was wrong. It turns out that the 12 indicated that our match would begin extra turns when the clock hit 12 minutes over. We were both utterly baffled when the judge told us that we were now in turns considering that the judge call had lasted about 20 minutes. We had only received an extension for the part of the judge call that had been during normal round time, which makes sense and is correct, but the judges hadn’t initially let us know that and were a bit unsure about when the judge call actually started. Despite the warping nature of the judge ruling and his mulligan to five, we had a surprisingly good game. Our plays became a little odd towards the end since we were both trying to close the game quickly. Paul scooped to me in turns, having no outs to my Mirran Crusader with SoFaI and Flickerwip backup.

Round 9 vs Punishing Maverick

Okay, so this round was the epitome of everything going wrong on both sides of the table. My opponent established an early Punishing Fire lock, keeping all of my small creatures off the field. My Wastelands had kept my opponent completely off of white mana. Neither one of us could do a thing. Over the course of about 15 turns or so, I managed to sneak in all three pieces of equipment. My life total was at 33 solely from Grove of the Burnwillows…yeah, it was that sort of game.

I slowly wiggle myself into a position where I get a few Jitte counters and manage to get a couple of creatures to stick to the board. My opponent (finally) draws a white source, and is able to start deploying the cards that have been stuck in his hand all game. I was able to get in a few chip shots with varying combinations of a Batterskull and a Stoneforge Mystic wielding Jitte. My opponent was at 2 life when he was finally able to produce Marit Lage via Knight of the Reliquary. I had just a Stoneforge Mystic with Batterskull and Jitte equipped in play, so my opponent thought his board of Scavening Ooze and the giant tentacle monster would be enough to get him back in the game. I bounced the Batterksull and redeployed it during my opponent’s end step, plowed the Ooze during my turn, and swung in for lethal. I ended that game at 61 life.

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Our team ending up doing the submarine that day. We dove down to the depths of 0-3, and then finished out the day 6-0. While not enough to make day 2, we had redeemed our pride and had the same finish as at the previous team open. That’s good enough for me! We met up with one of my friends from Baltimore for a late dinner, and she suggested some Indian place that featured a belly dancing show. The venue was actually pretty small, so it was rather hilarious to watch the waitresses and waiters try to sneak past the belly dancers and sword twirling to deliver food and drinks. We enjoyed the spectacle, but headed in pretty quickly after dinner so that we could get a decent night’s sleep before the Classic.

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I managed an unimpressive 4-3 finish in the Classic.

2-1 vs RB Reanimator
0-2 vs Sneak and Show
0-2 vs Lands
2-0 vs Eldrazi
2-1 vs Deathblade
1-2 vs Grixis Delver
2-0 vs Food Chain

Round 1 vs RB Reanimator
Many people say that you need to mulligan very aggressively to graveyard hate in this matchup or you will lose. I disagree. In both of the games I won, I just kept reasonable 6 card hands with strong mana denial. A combination of Wasteland and Port effectively took down game two. Thalia and Wasteland took down game 3. You don’t need to throw away otherwise reasonable hands if they lack graveyard hate, but you do need to have a clear path to victory.

Round 4 vs Eldrazi

I lose the die roll. I then look at the following opening hand and tank: Thalia, Plains, Cavern of Souls, Rishadan Port, and 3 Wastelands. If my opponent is playing a deck with lots of basic lands, I’m probably losing this one. If my opponent leads on Deathrite Shaman, I probably lose this one. I keep the hand given its potential power level, acknowledging that my potential loss may come about at cost of this keep. My opponent leads on Eye of Ugin, and I was immediately rewarded for my sketchy keep. I blow up his first three lands and handily take down the game. My opponent was so tilted by the first game here that he kept a six land hand in game two. *shrug* It worked out.

Round 5 vs Deathblade

This round was fun. We had two very complex games. The first ended with my Batterskull and Mom trumping his Monastery Mentor. The second effectively ended after a 3-for-1 off a Zealous Persecution. We had an incredibly complex board state in game 3 involving multiple pieces of equipment, a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar on my side, and about a dozen creatures. He blows up the world with a Toxic Deluge. My opponent is at five life. I have a Gideon. I animate Gideon and swing in. He takes the damage and says, “I’ll go to one.” I let him know that Gideon is a 5/5. A look of horror spreads across his face. He had confused Gideon, Ally of Zendikar with Gideon of the Trials, which is a 4/4. Oops.

Round 6 vs Grixis Delver

It’s really annoying how good True-Name Nemesis is against D&T. In game 2, I just got 7 turn clocked by it after my opponent deployed it on turn 2. In game 3, my opponent started with another early TNN. My Council’s Judgment was snatched up by a Thoughtseize, so getting the little guy out of the picture was unlikely. A few turns later, my opponent was at 4, I was at 5. I had my opponent’s board under control with the exception of that wily TNN. My Crusader and Flickerwisp were threatening lethal the following turn, aided by a pair of Moms. All I needed to do was dodge Lightning Bolt for one turn, and life was golden. Sure enough, my opponent drew Bolt for the turn and I made some loud, obnoxious noises as I lamented my death. This time, TNN had killed me in six turns rather than 7 due to the friendly red spell! My opponent tried to console me, stating that at least I died to a Beta, signed Bolt rather than some white boarded garbage. I had a good laugh.

Round 7 vs Food Chain

We sit down for the round, and acknowledge that this is just a match for fun at this point before getting things started. My opponent laughs at his hand and then shows it to me. A blue fetch, 4 Brainstorms, and 2 Ponders. We laugh and he takes a mulligan. In game 1, I see only the following cards: a cantrip or two, Forest, Island, and Swamp. My mana denial combo of Thalia and triple Port left him unable to cast anything meaningful. He concealed a little bit of information and tried to keep me in the dark for sideboarding.

I boarded for Aluren. My opponent was on Food Chain, so most of my boarding choices ending up working perfectly. Game 2 was a little bit comical. Again, I had a pair of Ports which kept my opponent choked on mana. I opted to release him from my clutches for a turn to deploy Gideon, as he would likely shorten my clock by about 3 or 4 turns. My opponent took the opportunity to cast a Trinket Mage and tutor up a Pithing Needle. Unforunately, I Wasted one of his lands and Ported the other two, so Gideon did him in very quickly before he drew another land for the Needle.

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This weekend wasn’t great for me. I had an overall record of 9-7, which is only about a 56% win rate. That being said, I love the decklist and think D&T is still very well-positioned in the metagame right now. I started keeping some pretty detailed records of my paper and MTGO data after Eternal Weekend, and that was considerably lower than my normal performance. I was very happy with my results against Grixis Delver (8-1) and Czech Pile (6-1), decks I anticipated as two of the more popular decks going into the event. Most of my losses were extremely close, and only two of my seven losses were 0-2 results.

Moving forward, I likely won’t make too many changes to my list. I still love having four Crusaders, and I like most of my other choices as well. The sideboard space is really tight as is, and I already felt like I was cheating a bit by dropping a Containment Priest. I have my eye on a couple of things though:

1. I’m not sure that the Sneak and Show matchup is as favorable as it used to be. I know that sounds blasphemous to say, but my data is supporting it. I keep getting skunked in this matchup even when I have hate. Most of the recent builds have been packing ~3 Omniscience in the main, and we have considerable trouble beating that card. It largely ignores Revoker, Thalia, Karakas, and Containment Priest, while also only being mildly inconvenienced by Canonist. Their sideboard also frequently has dedicated hate for this matchup, most notably Kozilek’s Return, which has been a beating. Most D&T lists have also moved away from having extra hate (e.g. Pithing Needle) to make room for other things, which is certainly a contributing factor.

2. Eldrazi might be on the rise again. It was very heavily represented at this event. I don’t lean too heavily on data from team events, as things are skewed a bit, but considering that my roommate made the top 8 of the last Open with it as well, it’s on my radar. I’m not overly fond of this matchup, so it it continues to pick up steam, it might be time for another removal spell in the 75.

Coming off of my 9-2 finish at Eternal Weekend, I felt great going into the Open. Well, more accurately, I felt great about my 75. I, on the other hand, wasn’t doing so hot. I ended up taking off work for half of Wednesday and all of Thursday. I had picked up the dreaded “con crud” at EW the previous weekend. Two of the guys who went to EW with me were some combination of exhausted and sick as well, so the crew that made it from Roanoke to DC for this event was smaller than expected. Back to back out of town events can be rough, so they opted to rest up. I had some reservations about going to the event myself, unsure if I’d be able to play well through the Dayquil daze.
After two consecutive 4-1 MTGO finishes in my pajamas while my head was pounding, I resigned myself to fate. With my medicine cabinet loaded into my bag, I headed to DC Friday after work and registered the same 75 I played the previous weekend.

Crusader D&T

Lands (23) 2 Cavern of Souls 3 Karakas 10 Plains 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland Creatures (26) 4 Flickerwisp 4 Mirran Crusader 4 Mother of Runes 3 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Sanctum Prelate 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

Sideboard (15) 2 Containment Priest 2 Council’s Judgment 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 2 Path to Exile 2 Rest in Peace 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Sword of War and Peace

Day one was a wild ride, I’m not going to lie to you. There was a really fun subgame going on that involved me planning on when I could afford to go to the bathroom and take shots of Dayquil. I got a good laugh out of calculating how much time was remaining in the round vs how long it would take the drugs to kick in, all while pondering how many doses would prove fatal to my ability to play. I settled on three doses of Dayquil over 9 rounds, and balanced them out with two sandwiches from Arby’s; they seemed to be the only thing my body wanted to eat for some reason… Despite the fact that I was feeling terrible, my head was pounding, and I generally felt like I was in a dream-like daze, I managed an impressive 8-1 start on day 1!

Day 1
2-0 vs D&T
2-0 vs Eureka Tell
2-0 vs Grixis Delver
2-1 vs ANT (off-camera feature)
2-1 vs Grixis Delver
2-0 vs BR Reanimator (off-camera feature)
1-2 vs Elves
2-1 vs Shardless BUG (backup feature match)
2-1 vs D&T (Mike Derczo, off-camera feature match)

Round 1 vs D&T

You know that moment where you friends give up on your chances of winning a match? They shake their head and walk off rather than watch you get pummeled. One of my friends did that once she saw my opponent coming at me with a Batterskull equipped with a Sword of Light and Shadow. At 30 life, my opponent suspected the game was over. They were right. I Vialed in a Mirran Crusader and activated a Stoneforge Mystic to put in a Sword of War and Peace. My opponent had 5 cards in hand, and I already had an Umezawa’s Jitte with two counters. Turns out that adds up to 30 damage in a single Crusader attack. I ripped off my shirt and beat my chest in a display of manliness. Not really, but it was a thought that occurred to me at the time. That one was the Dayquil talking, and I didn’t take its advice.

Round 2 vs Eureka Tell

Show and Tell. He puts in Griselbrand. I put in Mirran Crusader. He attacks me for 7. I attack him for 32 with a Crusader who was flailing around with Jitte and SoFaI. High score! People ask me why I’m playing four Crusader. It’s basically this. Those were the two most impressive examples of Crusader damage from this event, but it wasn’t uncommon for me to do lethal out of nowhere with a Crusader.

Round 5 vs Grixis Delver

I got one of these games for free. We got deck checked this round, and my opponent didn’t register his True-Name Nemesis on his decklist. Whoops. I got a warning for marked cards. Four of my cards had a little bit too much wear, and the judges asked me to replace them. I ended up resleeving my deck after day 1, because I didn’t want to take any chances. I went through the rest of day 2 with SCG mammorth sleeves because they didn’t bring KMCs with them. Daggers! Rest in Peace stranded double Gurmag Angler in my opponent’s hand in game 3, making the win pretty easy from there.

Round 7 vs Elves

Let me just summarize this round by saying that my opponent said something along the lines of “It doesn’t matter how badly I play, I’m so sorry. I have no idea how you are sitting there and still smiling after I played this badly and still won.” My opponent received two GRVs during this match, one for not paying the Thalia tax for a Green Sun’s Zenith, and one for trying to cast a Natural Order as his second spell for turn while I had an Ethersworn Canonist in play. The Elves matchup is so bad that even if your opponent misplays almost every turn (and gets a game loss mid-match for their third GRV of the day), they’ll still probably find a way to win. C’est la vie.

Round 8 vs Shardless BUG

I was not expecting Master of the Wild Hunt as a sideboard card. I’m not sure that it is generally a good idea to play, but boy it sure ate me alive in game 2! My opponent kept a risky, mana light hand that didn’t pan out in game 3. The deck with 4 Mirran Crusader was probably going to get the win here anyway, but it was a shame to watch the third game go down so quickly after two super-intricate games.

Round 9 vs D&T

Mike Derczo got his rematch, but, I ended up winning the equipment war one more time than he did. The games were very interesting and skill-testing, and I enjoyed them immensely. There were a few times where I tried to call bluffs throughout the match, but he always had the Swords to Plowshares he represented when I made the call. I could have played a bit more conservatively, but sometimes you have to just go for it and make them have it. It was almost a card for card mirror match (74/75), and it ended with dueling Sword of War and Peace on the table as well as probably a combined total of 6 or 7 pieces of equipment in play. The math got a little weird since we both had the potential for a ton of life gain, but I connected a few too many times with SoWaP and pressed my life point advantage pretty hard. Ending the day at 8-1 and 7-2 was a solid start for both of us, and we were obviously pretty happy with the results.

Day 1 ended with a hearty dinner at Iron Age, an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ joint of deserved notoriety. After a night of feasting, I retired to my chambers and imbibed the necessary Nyquil to time travel to day 2.

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Day 2

0-2 vs Sneak and Show (3x Omniscience maindeck)
2-1 vs Grixis Delver
0-2 vs Deathblade (backup feature match vs Jon Goss)
1-2 vs Stax
1-2 vs ANT
2-0 vs D&T

The wheels fell off the bus a bit on day 2, and with the exception of the Stax matchup, all of my losses were completely out of my control. I kept good hands and played well, but it just wasn’t in the cards this time. Jon Goss obliterated me with his playset of True-Name Nemesis, the ANT player stormed off before my turn two twice, and my Sneak and Show opponent had Omniscience hands when I had hands that could beat anything but Omni. So it goes. But let’s talk about that Stax matchup…

Round 13 vs Stax

I sit down for my match, and my opponent is like noticeably jittery. When we drew our opening hands, he was super nervously shuffling his cards in his hand. After eyeing him up, I put him on D&T, assuming that he recognized my name and was really nervous about playing the mirror against a potentially better player. He leads on Rishadan Port and passes. I mentally fist pump at my power of deduction, and smile at my hand that is basically unbeatable in the mirror. He follows it with an Ancient Tomb into a Crucible of Worlds…oops, this isn’t D&T, it’s MUD! Then he plays a Smokestack…this isn’t MUD, it’s full on STAX!!! Smokestack eats my board over about the next 6 turns, and he locks me down pretty good. He begins to loop Inventor’s Fair to tutor for various things. He gets a Metalworker on board, and I offer to concede as soon as he can show me a win condition. He says he just wants to play it out. I take this as him wanting to run down the clock, going for a 1-0-1 win, and I concede. I would later find out that he didn’t actually have any other win condition in the main other than Metalworker… I respect you, bro, I really do.

I quickly aggro my opponent out in the second game, and he takes five mulligans in the third game. To be fair, three of them hardly counted since there were off Serum Powder. My opponent began the game with 21 cards in exile, and I notice that a ton of goodies are already in exile. I’m feeling good about this one, but then my opponent landed the third Ensnaring Bridge, and my plan of aggroing him out went down the drain. My plan instead became to deck him. I dumped as many permanents as I could on the board, including using a Gidoen, Ally of Zendikar, which I had boarded in since it could produce Smokestack fodder. It’s at about this time that I could have won this match if I had better matchup knowledge.

My opponent had Crucible of Worlds and Inventor’s Fair. I decided to shut down this engine with a Surgical Extraction. When I looked through my opponent’s deck, I saw, in horror, that their only remaining win condition was a Walking Ballista. If I had opted to wait and nab the Ballista instead, I could have won the game via decking like I intended. Instead, a few turns later, I died to an infinite Ballista laser fueled by Metalworker and Staff of Domination. It’s really hard to guess deck composition of something like Stax since it can be so pilot-dependent, so I won’t say that it was necessarily a misplay, but it was something that was clear to me in retrospect after seeing the list. My opponent admitted that his deck was less than 50% vs the field, but that he almost always knew the matchup better than his opponent, and that gave him a big edge. He went on to top 16 the event.

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My finish at 10-5 was good enough for 35th, and Derczo ended up at 11-4 for 15th. We were both very happy with our performances and how the deck felt. I really enjoyed this event despite my personal illness making things a bit tougher on me. I’m glad I have a couple of weeks to rest up before the team open in Baltimore though, I’m not gonna lie. Speaking of, one of my teammates for that event (and my roommate), Harley Cox top 4’d the Open this weekend. Congrats, buddy, it’s been a long time coming. He went X-3 at EW last weekend, and though it took a little convincing to get him to play Eldrazi in a potential sea of Lands, the choice ultimately paid off for him.

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I have a couple of things I want to test before Baltimore, but generally speaking, I don’t mess with a decklist that has given me above a 70% win rate. <3 you, Mirran Crusader!

Hey folks, it’s been quite some time, hasn’t it? My bad. Life got in the way of Magic for about the last month, but I’m back and I ended up going on quite the tear. In the days leading up to EW, I tried out a handful of games with the stock D&T decklist I’ve been preaching since like August to the following results:

2-1 ANT
2-0 Grixis Delver
1-2 Elves
0-2 D&T
1-2 Tin Fins
2-0 Hypergenesis
2-0 Death’s Shadow Delver
2-0 Miracles
2-0 Miracles
0-2 Grixis Delver

The list still felt fine, but I had noticed two problems with the list since putting it together in August.

1. Czech Pile matches frequently came down to how many times my opponent got to cast Kolaghan’s Command or Snapcaster Mage. I could grind through or aggro them out, but many of the games were just out of my control. I don’t think the matchup is quite as abysmal as other prominent D&T players, but I wanted to do something to make it a bit better. Sword of Light and Shadow was a good start, but relying on something that eats it to Kolaghan’s Command doesn’t solve the problem. I tried Fiendslayer Paladin as both a maindeck and sideboard card, and that wasn’t quite doing what I hoped either. While it was really difficult to get off the table, it wasn’t actually winning games; it just kept me from losing.

2. I was losing the mirror far more than I expected given my proficiency with the deck. I was finding that my opponents (on average) were more prepared for the mirror than I was. I kept running into things like Manriki-Gusari, Seal of Cleansing, and Pithing Needle; my opponents often had multiple of these things in addition to the number of stock sideboard cards. I’m a little curious how my opponents kept finding room in their sideboards for these things, as I think sideboard space is precious at the moment. Most stock lists really only have about 5 or 6 maindeck cards that need to come out, so I wonder if some of my opponents are actually boarding out cards that are just fine and not using their sideboard space optimally.

In my mind, there were two choices at this point: adjust the build slightly to improve the Czech Pile and mirror, or play a splash build. When I reached out to the community, Iatee found time to ship me this list between his various posts on getting Rishadan Cutpurse banned.

Red Splash

Lands (24) 3 Cavern of Souls 1 Flooded Strand 3 Karakas 3 Plains 2 Plateau 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland 4 Windswept Heath Creatures (25) 3 Flickerwisp 2 Magus of the Moon 4 Mother of Runes 1 Palace Jailer 2 Phyrexian Revoker 1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar 2 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Sanctum Prelate 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 1 Vryn Wingmare Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

Sideboard (15) 2 Containment Priest 1 Cunning Sparkmage 2 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Faerie Macabre 1 Fiendslayer Paladin 1 Leonin Relic-Warder 1 Mirran Crusader 3 Path to Exile 1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar 2 Rest in Peace

I really liked this build, and I highly recommend it moving forward. Alessandro Yeneggi top 4’d an 187 person event with it overseas. Mike Derczo went 5-0 with a list one or two cards off from this one in a trial on Friday as well. I had three days of intensive testing prior to EW, so I wasn’t up for making this big of a jump. That lead me to this:

Crusader D&T

Lands (23) 2 Cavern of Souls 3 Karakas 10 Plains 4 Rishadan Port 4 Wasteland Creatures (26) 4 Flickerwisp 4 Mirran Crusader 4 Mother of Runes 3 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Sanctum Prelate 4 Stoneforge Mystic 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben Spells (11) 4 Swords to Plowshares 4 Aether Vial 1 Batterskull 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 1 Umezawa’s Jitte

Sideboard (15) 2 Containment Priest 2 Council’s Judgment 2 Ethersworn Canonist 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar 2 Path to Exile 2 Rest in Peace 2 Surgical Extraction 1 Sword of War and Peace

I decided that I wanted to win the Czech Pile matchup via virtual card advantage (i.e. not by out-grinding, but by invalidating opposing resources, effectively putting myself ahead). 4 copies of Crusader and 2 Recruiters to find them meant that I would very consistently be able to stick a very difficult to remove threat that didn’t get bogged down by Baleful Strix and other small chump blockers. While my opponent would likely have a couple of answers in the 75, I had a long-term gameplan. Previously, I had used SoLaS to push through Strix as well as recoup card advantage, but that was no longer needed. Which lead into change two…

Welcome back, SoWaP! As Derczo put it on Friday night, “Phil, you’ve got such a f*cking hardon for that card!” We all exploded in laughter, but nobody actually questioned it. I had wanted something that would improve my percentages in the mirror, and this was an obvious inclusion once I upped the numbers on Crusader. I attribute more of my wins this weekend to this card than any other sideboard card.

Here were the results leading up to the main event between MTGO and 2 trial events:

2-1 Burn
2-1 Elves
2-0 Turbo Depths
2-0 Red Prison
1-2 Grixis Delver
2-0 Miracles
0-2 Back to Basics Stoneblade
2-1 Czech Pile
2-1 Sneak and Show (with Omni)
0-2 Elves
2-0 Czech Pile
2-0 vs Reanimator
2-0 vs Reanimator
1-2 Tezzerator
0-2 Lands (with Smokestack!)
2-0 Mono Red Sneak
2-1 D&T
2-1 Maverick
0-2 Sneak and Show
1-2 Aggro Loam
2-0 D&T
2-1 BUG Delver
2-1 D&T

That adds up to a record of 16-7, which is a win rate of about 70%. I was very happy with those small changes. Crusader seemed to be far outperforming Avenger in most of my matchups, and the SoWaP was really good at getting people dead. I felt very comfortable with the list, and it delivered in the main event:

2-1 Jund
2-1 D&T
2-1 D&T (Mike Derczo)
1-2 Czech Pile
0-2 ANT
2-0 Grixis Delver
2-1 Turbo Depths
2-1 Aluren
2-0 4C Leovold (white for Lingering Souls)
2-0 Czech Pile
2-0 UW Stoneblade

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Rather than talk about all of the sweet things I did, savage traps I lured my opponents into, or write a novel on the glory of SoWaP, today I’m going to highlight the mistakes I made and the things that I was unsure about. 9-2 is a great finish and that record was able to put one person into the top 8. Yet, despite the fact that I played like a demon, I want to show that I too have room for growth and I still make mistakes.

Round 1 vs Jund
I really don’t like playing this matchup. It’s always been difficult, but the printing of Grim Flayer meant that this deck had yet another must-answer two drop alongside Bob and Goyf. I bring up this matchup because I sideboarded very strangely for it and my opponent though I was a madman. I boarded out my Thalias and Revokers for 2 Council’s Judgment, 2 Rest in Peace, 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, and 2 Path to Exile. My opponent believed that Thalia was the key to keeping the Punishing Fire engine in check, while I believed that it was more important to be able to answer early threats while also being prepared to grind out a long game. Was I correct? I don’t know, but I liked my approach.

Round 3 vs D&T
I rarely make egregious errors. Like anyone, I make small misplays and occasionally take sub-optimal lines, but I really messed up here and it should have been a match-losing error. Here’s the approximate situation, I don’t remember all the details, as the board state was stupid complicated, but Derczo was attacking with a Gideon wielding a Jitte. I, in a moment of brilliance, decided that I was going to block with a Mirran Crusader and then use my Jitte counters to shrink his Gideon, killing it before it did combat damage. We got to first strike damage, and Derczo stops me when I try to assign two damage to Gideon, as it has a nice little clause there preventing damage being dealt to it. *string of expletives* I have to use my Jitte counters to kill my own Crusader to prevent him from getting Jitte counters, and I narrowly eek out the win on the back of SoWaP. I didn’t deserve that win. He played better this time. The better player doesn’t always win though. That’s Magic.

Round 8 vs Aluren
I knew my opponent this round, Mike Kochis. He had gotten the better of me in a grueling slog-fest that lasted about 2 hours in the top 8 of a Classic last year. He was on Shardless and I knew he had Shardless on MTGO as well from our conversations during that match. I keep a hand that was solid against Shardless, but weak against the field as a whole. He leads on two copies of Ancestral Vision, so I feel great about my hand. Then a couple of turns later, a Coiling Oracle hits the field. I still feel like this is Shardless, but this is some sort of adaptation to Czech Pile’s ability to grind. Sure enough, the Aluren hits the field the following turn. Yup, this was just Aluren with a set of Ancestrals. Whoops. Turns out Cartesian had been playing around with a build like this one and had top 16’d the Legacy Challenge the previous week. So there was some precedent for this build, I just didn’t know about it.

Round 9 vs 4 Color Leovold
Sometimes it’s really difficult to tell what deck your opponent is playing, especially if they’ve made some metagame-dependent alterations to their deck. In game one, I think I saw Brainstorm, Ponder, Swords to Plowshares, Force, Jace, Tundra, Scrubland, and Tropical Island. I then set a Sanctum Prelate to one and my opponent died shortly thereafter. So, what do I board for? I boarded for some sort of Deathblade deck, but it actually ending up being Four Color Leovold. I didn’t actually figure that out until I asked my opponent at the end of game two. My opponent’s build was a little non-traditional, opting to splash white over red for Lingering Souls as a trump card for the mirror. Luckily, my sideboarding choices largely overlapped with what my opponent was playing, though I did make a wrong call here.

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So where do things stand now? My record with my current decklist is 25-9, a win rate of about 74%. Some people have been telling me that the sky is falling and traditional D&T can’t compete in the current metagame. I don’t think I agree. According to the metagame breakdown from this weekend, Czech Pile, Grixis Delver, Sneak and Show, Reanimator, D&T, and Lands were the decks that made up 6% or more of the field. I feel good about my decklist in that field. I am a little worried that Hans Goddik’s BUG Delver list will catch on. I don’t really want to play against a Delver deck that has two Liliana, the Last Hope in the main as well as two Massacre and two Toxic Deluge in the side.

I’ll likely play something pretty similar next weekend for the Legacy Open. I’ve been toying around with the idea of dropping a Revoker for something else, as it isn’t great against Delver and Czech Pile, but I haven’t convinced myself to pull the trigger yet. It’s too important for many of the fringe matchups, and it’s nice to have them in the deck when I’m staring down a Dread of Night. I was also considering playing some kooky enchantments to fight against Czech Pile, but I couldn’t quite justify running something like Angelic Destiny in a serious tournament. Enchantments are a real pain to get off the board for much of the format, and I think that’s a good direction to explore. I’ll muck around in The Gatherer later this week to see if anything catches my eye.

Overall, I really enjoyed myself at EW. 11 rounds did make for a bit of a grueling day though, I’m not going to lie. I talked to many players who simply were not physically prepared to play that much Magic in a day, especially after doing the Vintage and/or 93/94 events on previous days. This weekend was a marathon. We’ve all gotten used to the Open/GP system that cuts to a day 2 of the event, so having a couple days in a row of getting up at 7am and leaving the convention center at 11pm was rough. I was definitely banking on the fact that the round would go over by 20 minutes when I ran to go get lunch, and I might not have had time to eat dinner if not for my friends who fetched food for me. I heard stories of people ID’ing in the last round because they were just too tired to play at anything resembling peak levels. I guess that’s what happens when your convention center actually doesn’t have water fountains… C’est la vie. The attendance was much better this year than last year though, so that’s a big plus. I also think that it’s a bit weird that an event of this scale and prominence pays out in store credit, but I got a Moat after pooling my credit with one of my roommates, so I’m not complaining. It was wonderful getting a chance to chat with many of you last weekend, and I’ll see you in DC in a few days!