Strictly Eternal 101 – Metalworking for Fun and Profit?
Howdy folks! It’s Joe again with another installment of Whose Line is it Anyway? I mean… Legacy. Right, Legacy. We’re gonna talk about Legacy stuff. I may do some improv. We’ll see how it goes.
Anyways, one of the things I wanted to do with this article series is shine a little light on lists that are interesting and different and well… fun? I mean, we can have fun, right?
This week we’re gonna dive into a list that is fun (well, if fun were a subjective measurement and it only applied to the person playing this deck) and interesting (as interesting as watching your opponent concede out of frustration can be) and well, different.
This deck actually took 16th place at the SCG Legacy Open in Washington, DC piloted by the guy who designed the deck, one Michael Coyle. Mike is actually somewhat local to me, hailing from the Columbus, OH area, so I’ve seen this deck around before. I even ran it at a local proxy event for fun times.
The deck is… Metalworker Stax! (You can see why I said fun was subjective)
Metalworker Stax – Michael Coyle | 16th Place – SCG Legacy Open Washington 10/29/17
Creatures (4)
Artifacts (32)
Lands (24)
Sideboard (15)
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
The first most important thing we have to note about this list is what Game 1 looks like. This list has literally no win condition in Game 1 other than the following:
- Frustrating your opponent into conceding because they have no permanents.
- Beating your opponent to death with Metalworker.
- Opponent conceding on the interest of time because you’d mill them out otherwise.
Other than the fact that you can combo off with Staff of Domination + Metalworker to gain infinite life, your game 1 options for winning are, well… yes. When I played this at my local, the game 1’s I won were mostly due to these three things. In fact, one of the games I played against BUG Delver ended up where I had an Ensnaring Bridge in play, had managed to Wasteland all of his lands to keep him off green to stop him from having an Abrupt Decay, and he had a Liliana, the Last Hope emblem making a gazillion zombies per turn. Eventually he conceded on the basis of time.
Post-board you obviously get some additional ways to actually win the game. Bringing in Walking Ballista lets your combo with Staff to go infinite and just make an infinitely large Ballista and shoot them in the face. I actually managed to do this in a game 2 versus Lands to win the game. You can also go harder on the Staff to ensure that combo gets seen more quickly, and Tabernacle is great against matchups where the opponent tries to go wide on creatures.
The real card that is the literal nut is Sorcerous Spyglass, because not only is Pithing Needle a great card, but it’s a Needle that lets you see your opponent’s hand that you can cast on Turn 1. The best feeling about this card? Opening up with this and seeing your opponent have multiples of the same fetch land, and then naming that fetch land. Gravy.
Unfortunately, I ended up the evening of 4 rounds at 1-3, with losses to Lands (Game 3 was a wash and I boned myself playing a Sphere of Resistance), Miracles, and BUG Delver with a win against BUG Delver.
Suffice to say this deck is not for the faint of heart. It requires a very special kind of person, hating life just enough to want to play something like this seriously. If I think about it, I’ll ask Mike how much he hates life and fun. Probably a lot. I’m not really sure.
This deck is also on the pricey side, not even addressing the fact that there’s a fricking Tabernacle in the sideboard (a card which is literally $1000). There are also 4 City of Traitors, 4 Rishadan Port, 4 Wasteland, and then more expensive pieces in 4 Chalice of the Void also makes this deck a pretty penny to pick up at a cool $4,440.
Hilariously enough this deck is only 831 tix on Magic Online, so there is that. Still pricey, but what is fun worth, really? Apparently 831 tix.
It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses an Eye… or Something
That’s all the time we have this week, folks. I’m gonna try and dig up some more lists that are goofy and fun for you guys to check out, and then I’m gonna run em around on XMage and see how they play. There is indeed a Jeskai Delver list making the rounds that plays Steppe Lynx so that might be a thing to try.
Join me next time on The Name Game!
Joseph is an avid player of eternal Magic formats, including Vintage and Legacy. As a Nic Fit player who will tell anyone who will listen about his deck, Joe spends his time analyzing and playing on Magic Online and various online platforms, while prepping for competitive events. To follow more Joe, check out his Twitter!