Howdy folks, this is Joe and we’re here with another edition of Red is the New Black: My Life in a Meat Grinder. Or rather, a little more fun Legacy content to whet your whistle.
This week we’ve got a pretty sweet list that comes to us from Daniel Holland, a frequenter of the Leaving a Legacy Facebook group. He has some hot spice that I wish had a better name than R/B Prison. Maybe we could call it Azor’s Stompy to utterly confuse people. I don’t know.
Either way, this deck is pretty sweet. Despite my results with it over 5 games (1-4) I still had a ton of fun with it. Let’s dig right in, shall we?
The Core of the Deck
Right off the bat, this deck is pretty awesome. Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Liliana of the Veil, and all stars like Collective Brutality and Ensnaring Bridge! Powered up by some fast mana like Mox Diamond, Simian Spirit Guide and some Ancient Tombs, this deck can lay down some fast lock pieces pretty quickly.
This deck is really well positioned against creature decks, with threats like Liliana, the Last Hope and Pyroclasm around for dealing with pesky small threats, and Liliana of the Veil for dealing with larger threats. The goal of this deck is super simple: Stick lock pieces and ride either Chandra or Liliana to victory. You can even eventually win through your own Ensnaring Bridge with Last Hope by intentionally keeping your hand size small to let your zombie army overrun.
The real star of the show for me though? Azor’s Gateway. While this seems like an odd inclusion, the Gateway was a solid card through and through in every matchup. It allowed a deck that typically can’t filter to “loot” away dead cards. That alone made it very good. The card never actually fliped into its life-total mana producing half, but that’s fine. All we care about is the looting half.
Sideboard-wise, this deck includes one of my personal favorite two-card combos in Leyline of the Void + Helm of Obedience. For those unaware as to how this combo works, Helm looks specifically for cards going into the graveyard. Leyline prevents this from happening, so a Helm activation for X=1 mills your opponent’s entire library into exile.
Let’s take a look at our matches, shall we?
Match 1 vs BUG Leovold (Record: 0 -2 LOSS)
Match 2 vs RUG Delver (Record: 2 – 0 WIN)
Match 3 vs Grixis Delver (Record: 0 – 2 LOSS)
Match 4 vs MUD (Record: 0 – 2 LOSS)
Match 5 vs Goblins (Record: 1 – 2 LOSS)
Post Thoughts
I actually really enjoyed this deck a ton. I would love to play it more and re-visit it later on in a future article because it was super enjoyable. I would definitely benefit from more practice time on it. I’m sure I kept some loose hands here or there, and there was definitely a play or two that I bungled (such as running out Blood Moon against the Goblins player), but all in all I really enjoyed it.
I have to give a super thanks to Daniel for sharing this list with me because it was really cool and inventive, something you don’t see often in this format.
Wrapping Up
That’s all the time we have this week folks! Next week is a real treat, another Nic Fit list! This time however, we’re getting flashy with a BUG Nic Fit variant called “Flash Fit”.
Join me next time on The Adventures of Barry Allen: The Guy Who Messes Up Time!
– Joseph Dyer
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!