Strictly Eternal 101 – It’s Always (Blood) Sunny in Philadelphia

Howdy folks, we’re back again with another edition of The Danny Devito Story: A Biography in Pictures!  Or rather, some spicy Legacy.

This week, we dispel a little bit of hype.  Or at least, I hope we do.  Y’see, the hype around the card Blood Sun is just a little too much.  So much so that since Rivals of Ixalan’s release, the card has dipped hard below its initial hyped price of $10+.

A lot of this card’s hype has to do with possible applications in Modern (even in Modern I don’t see it being effective). But it’s also caused speculation on lands like Scorched Ruins and Lotus Vale in Legacy, causing those lands to spike their prices.

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Our list this week is a 5-0 list from a MTGO Competitive League, a Mono-Red Sneak Attack list that played 3 Blood Sun in the maindeck.  I took this deck for a spin as I always do.  Let’s take a look at the list, shall we?

 

Mono-Red Sneak Attack – Archium | 5-0 MTGO Legacy League 1/22/2018

Creatures (15)

1 Combustible Gearhulk

2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

3 Griselbrand

3 Inferno Titan

4 Simian Spirit Guide

2 Worldspine Wurm

Instants/Sorceries (7)

3 Seething Song

4 Through the Breach

Artifacts (8)

4 Chalice of the Void

4 Lotus Petal

Enchantments (11)

4 Blood Moon

3 Blood Sun

4 Sneak Attack

Lands (19)

4 Ancient Tomb

4 City of Traitors

1 Crystal Vein

10 Mountain

Sideboard (15)

1 Abrade

1 Boil

1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

2 Faerie Macabre

2 Fiery Confluence

2 Kozilek’s Return

2 Magus of the Moon

1 Sorcerous Spyglass

3 Trinisphere

 

The basis of this deck is relatively simple.  Fast mana and a way to get a big fatty into play with haste quickly, either through the use of Sneak Attack or Through the Breach, OR locking the opponent out of the game with Blood Moon (and maybe Blood Sun?  I’m not really sure) or Chalice of the Void and then getting the fatty into play.

  

The deck can be pretty strong when its draws line up.  That being said, they don’t always line up.  I had several games of strange hands that did absolutely hot nothing for many turns.

I actually was relatively unaware that Blood Sun was in this list until the very first game where I had the opportunity to play it Turn 1.  I did so, and of course my opponent opens on Underground Sea into Deathrite Shaman.  Cool.  I drew a card.  Go me.

That ended up being the gist of how I felt about Blood Sun every time I played one.  There was a game where I had three of them in play, so I had drawn three cards.  It never really mattered much.  If the matchups really aligned, perhaps the card might do something. On MTGO where the meta is infested by Czech Pile and Grixis Delver it might even be somewhat playable. But for me the card ended up being a solid… “meh.”  Even in games where it shut off some fetches it never truly mattered because my opponent had enough mana to perform their own game plan.

In short, I felt that every time I had the opportunity to cast this card, I almost wish had it been another Blood Moon.  The card draw simply wasn’t significant enough to matter and it never actually won a game by itself like Blood Moon sometimes can.

That being said, I did have some solid games where my opponent misread what I was capable of doing and misplayed into them. My Death and Taxes opponent played out a Phyrexian Revoker naming Sneak Attacks, when I had up mana for Through the Breach.  Griselbrand as always feels great as the go-to target of choice because drawing a billion cards is pretty amazing.  Worldspine Wurm as well was always good, and Combustible Gearhulk proved to be a little valuable. As always, Inferno Titan was fantastic.

Sideboard-wise, I liked how this deck approaches the metagame with its sideboard. Abrade is a simply stunning card that is seeing tons of 1-2 of sideboard play all over, and the graveyard hate plan of Faerie Macabre is super good.  I managed to keep a Black/Red Reanimator off of a T2 Griselbrand because of Macabre, and then proceeded to play a Trinisphere to force him off casting spells for a bit (having to pay 3 for stuff like Faithless Looting and etc is not great).

Wrapping Up (a Sandwich)

That’s all the time we’ve got this week folks.  This list was fun, but I was really very unimpressed with how Blood Sun played in it.  I’d really want to find places to just maindeck those Trinispheres instead, really go for the lock to force through the Sneak Attack/Breach plan Game 1. I feel that the amount of times you brick on Blood Sun just isn’t worth it.

Join me next time as we continue to grasp for the stars with super spicy Legacy lists, on Dayman Strikes Back: The Master of Karate!

2 comments

  1. Hey Joseph,
    I’m the guy who played the deck and I shameless stole it from Zac Elsik as it was his Legacy deck for SCGDFW.
    Saw it on coverage and first league I ran was a 5-0, then 4-1, 4-1.
    The blood sun on the play against fetches or with city of traitors is very dominant. It usually comes out on the draw. The deck can have some very clunky draws and will loose to itself a few times.
    I didn’t really like the Boil in the SB and it may need something to smooth over the draws and improve consistency. The Grixis Delver match-up is over real quick or grindy and feels real bad

    1. Right on! I really appreciate the insight and it’s awesome to see that people are checking out my content. I can definitely see situations where on the play you can do some busted stuff with Blood Sun, but it just never felt great for me. Still, fun list regardless.

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