Unfortunately this week we do not have any video content for you guys. Things have been nutty for me as of late, so I just have not had any real time to record the video and get it done. Video stuff is super time consuming, so hopefully we can get back to this for future articles.

That being said, this week we are taking a look at the concept of building and tuning an archetype that came from Modern spice in the form of B/R Vengevine (or Bridgevine as it’s now called) in Legacy.

The Basics of the Deck

Bridgevine is a deck that attacks on the following axis: place cards like Vengevine and Bridge from Below into the graveyard, then use cards like Hangarback Walker / Walking Ballista along with Stitcher’s Supplier to trigger them, flooding the board with cheap creatures as early as Turn 1 to swarm the opponent.

In Modern, this tends to be very good because the level of early interaction is a lot lower than in Legacy. Our question, then: can this strategy be good in Legacy?

Well, it can, but the issue is that Legacy’s interaction is very high. This deck basically wants to do the same thing over and over, and not interact outside of discard.

As a result, this is something I would only recommend you play around with for fun, or maybe the occasional FNM. However, to see how deep the rabbit hole goes, let’s continue.

Variation #1

This is the first variation of the list that I settled on. Instead of cards like Greater Gargadon, we have access to Cabal Therapy, which has always been an all-star in decks with Bridge from Below in it. It also plays nicely with Stitcher’s Supplier and Gravecrawler.

What I found with this variation was that the green splash really didn’t do much for us. Hard-casting a Vengevine is not where we want to be, and for the average P/T of the creatures Nature’s Claim set our clock back too much to properly deal with Leyline of the Void and the like. Destructive Revelry felt too slow to deal with stuff like Leyline, so our interaction needed to be 1 CMC.

Wasteland also proved to be a severe problem to play against, especially with cards like Blackcleave Cliffs in the mix.

In researching some variants, I found myself turning to white as a splash. That led me to this variation.

Variation #2

One of the changes I made with this variation was cutting the Blackcleave Cliffs (since I found that Wasteland just legitimately boned the previous variation) and running more basic lands. The white splash is purely for sideboard interaction with Wispmare as 1 CMC interaction, with two sources of white (Scrubland / Plateau) to make that happen.

Overall, I’m not sure if this is absolutely 100% correct, and I think further work may need to be done to this list to fully get it up to snuff. Goblin Bushwhacker could likely be cut down, and Carrion Feeder brought in as a better sacrifice outlet than Viscera Seer.

I haven’t tested this version, but I look forward to playing around with the idea.

Do you folks have any thoughts on a deck like this? Sound off in the comments or on Discord on what you think!

Wrapping Up

That’s all the time we have this week folks! Short one I know, and no videos, but I at least wanted to talk about my experience in playing around with this archetype a little in Legacy. If you’d like to see a specific deck talked about or something new and interesting, please let me know! I’m always willing to poke at any kind of archetype!

Until next time, join me for another edition of Hollywood and Vine!

Joseph Dyer II

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!

http://www.twitter.com/volrathxp

This week we’re diving into a deck that has been a long-time deck in the Legacy format, but is only just now getting back into the swing of things with Deathrite Shaman and Gitaxian Probe gone, due to the fact that Leovold, Emissary of Trest is also seeing less play. This deck does one of my favorite things in all of Magic in that it draws cards. And I mean lots and lots of cards. It does this under the pretense that your opponent likely isn’t getting to play Magic for the most part.

That’s right, I’m talking about Enchantress.

The Core of the Deck

Whew. This deck is something to behold. What drives this deck for the most part is the fact that mana acceleration such as Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth exists. A typical setup turn for this deck often consists of Turn 1 Sprawl/Growth, Turn 2 Argothian Enchantress, and play a second 1 drop enchantment to draw a card. From there, the deck plays prison pieces such as Elephant Grass, Solitary Confinement, and exile like Cast Out/Banishing Light to place its opponent in a position where they simply cannot play the game. Combine this power with the mana generation from Serra’s Sanctum, and you have a deck that durdles hard, but also draws more cards per turn than most blue decks will ever do in an entire game of Magic. The win condition of this particular variant of course, belongs to Living Wish, being able to go grab a creature out of the sideboard (usually Emrakul, the Aeons Torn) and use that to win the game.

One of this decks biggest issues however is that if you interrupt their early game of setting up an enchantress effect, sometimes the deck can simply not draw enough gas to win the game. However, if you can stick even just 1 Enchantress to the board, you will do well enough, even through a card like Chalice of the Void.

This particular version comes to us from MTG The Source user “Spatula of the Ages”, with a unique name in “Witch House” (a reference to H.P. Lovecraft). You can check out his thread on the Source over here.

For this deck we played 5 matches on XMage and for the first time ever since I started doing these articles, we went 5-0!!!!!! Let’s take a look at them!

Round 1 vs UB Affinity (2-1 WIN)

Round 2 vs RUG Delver (2-0 WIN)

Round 3 vs Soldier Stompy (2-0 WIN)

Round 4 vs Nyx Fit (2-1 WIN)

Round 5 vs Grixis Control (2-0 WIN)

Post Thoughts

Obviously we were pretty pleased at the fact that we went 5-0 with a list the very first time ever in these articles, and I was really pleased with the construction of this list. The extra 1 CMC Land auras like Abundant Growth and the main deck Gaea’s Touch really made this deck draw so many cards and made for some explosive turns. The Living Wish package was very spicy and made for some interesting decisions. I never saw every little card there, but I did get to play Wickerbough Elder in a game and that was hot fire.

While yes, this can be boring to watch for your opponents, if you like drawing cards this deck might be for you, and what’s even better is that this deck is only about 134 tix on Magic Online. So, if this tickles your fancy, then go forth and annoy the heck out of your opponents!

Wrapping Up

That’s all the time we have this week folks! Next week we’re gonna be doing something a little special and different. It’s the first time that we’re constructing a deck all on our own for Legacy! We’re taking a cue from recent Modern spice and hotness and seeing if we can convert the R/B/g Vengevine lists that have been rolling around into a Legacy version!

So join us next time on Little Shop of Vengevines!

Joseph Dyer II

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!

http://www.twitter.com/volrathxp

Let’s take a look, shall we?

The Core of the Deck

At its core, this version of Nic Fit is structured very much like a fair variant, utilizing the deck’s natural ability to cast powerful threats ahead of curve while leveraging the discard from Cabal Therapy and the utility of Green Sun’s Zenith. The major difference is the addition of the main deck Arena Rectors in addition to the planeswalker suite of Ugin, Elspeth, Nissa, and Liliana (the Super Team). With the Super Team, you can very easily cast any of these threats during the game or you can cheat out the bigger walkers off a Rector trigger.

Alongside your planeswalkers however, you have powerful threats in the form of Tireless Tracker, Thragtusk, and Archon of Valor’s Reach, giving you multiple angles of attack.

The sideboard of this variant prepares itself for the combo matchups by use of additional discard and cards like Gideon of the Trials, while having 4 Leyline of the Void for the graveyard matchups. Ensnaring Bridge gives the deck a leg up vs decks like Sneak/Show and go-wide strategies, while Carpet of Flowers gives you game against the fair blue decks like RUG Delver and Miracles.

For this deck we played 5 matches on XMage, going 3-2 in matches. Let’s take a look!

Match 1 vs DnT (2-0 WIN)

Match 2 vs Elves (2-1 WIN)

Match 3 vs Grixis Delver (2-0 WIN)

Match 4 vs DnT (0-2 LOSS)

Match 5 vs Enchantress Parallax Wave Combo (0-2 LOSS)

Post Thoughts

I really enjoyed this deck a lot. While I always enjoy Nic Fit lists, I enjoyed the different angles of attack and the sheer fun this deck has dumping an Ugin into play and watching the opponent cringe. Liliana was exceptionally good, as was Gideon and Nissa. Elspeth is also my favorite CMC 6 planeswalker, so there was a very real happy effect getting to use her. The only issue I had with the list and something I will likely look into more going forward is converting the Hymn to Tourach in the sideboard to maybe additional Thoughtseize. BB seemed like it would be easy but in the matchups you need Hymn, it felt difficult. Regardless, this was a very fun deck and I enjoy the fair + Rector package a lot.

Wrapping Up

That’s all the time we have this week folks! I’m on the hunt for something spicy! Do you have a deck you think I should try? Hit me up on Twitter or Discord and let me know!

Until next time, join me for another round of Eugene’s First Date!

Joseph Dyer II

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!

http://www.twitter.com/volrathxp

It’s a brand new day with a brand new Legacy folks, that’s right it is. With Deathrite Shaman and Gitaxian Probe gone, things are starting to shape up well.

This week’s deck comes from the Source, from a player named Lejay. The deck’s name is a hilarious take on a French tree sculpture (that quite frankly, looks like a butt plug). The name of the deck is Sylvan Plug, and it’s essentially a green/black Stompy style deck with some solid disruption and power to back it up.

The Core of the Deck

The core of this deck is basically like any other Stompy build: Ancient Tomb + Chalice of the Void both make for a pretty potent combination in a format with very efficient spells that often cost 1 mana. In addition this deck packs in the hate from main deck Trinisphere, Choke, and Ramunap Excavator to loop Wasteland. And if that hasn’t wet your whistle quite enough, there’s a Titania, Protector of Argoth and Knight of the Reliquary too!

This deck is very sweet, and one of my good friends Romario Neto is a pretty big pilot of it on Magic Online. We took this list through 5 matches on XMage, going 3-2 with it. Let’s take a look at the matches.

Match 1 vs Monoblack Reanimator (Record 2-0 WIN)

Match 2 vs Sneak and Show (Record 0-2 LOSS)

Match 3 vs U/B Reanimator (Record 2-0 WIN)

Match 4 vs Monoblack Pox (Record 2-0 WIN)

Match 5 vs Soldier Stompy (Record 1-2 LOSS)

Post Thoughts

I personally really enjoyed playing this deck a ton. One thing that I really enjoyed was how resilient the deck is to a lot of different game plans. Between Green Sun’s Zenith and cards like Titania, Protector of Argoth that generate a ton of resiliency and strength, it’s just a very solid game plan for an Ancient Tomb/Chalice Stompy deck.

Also, big time props to Sylvan Library. I think this series more than ever showed how powerful this card really is in providing acceleration, filtering, and sheer draw power throughout the game.

My only regret is never getting to cast Stingerfling Spider even once. Sadface.

Wrapping Up

That’s all the time we have this week folks! Next week we’re going to be continuing this midrange party with yes, yet another Nic Fit list. This one is a list I’ve been working on personally based around the card Arena Rector. It’s a midrange fair list with planeswalkers, with the ability to cheat into play Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, and even Gideon of the Trials makes an appearance!

So join me next time on Yesh, My Name ish Eugene: A Guide to Dating in the Dragon World!

Joseph Dyer II

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!

http://www.twitter.com/volrathxp

This week we’re looking at a very interesting deck created by “adrieng” off the Source, called “RG Stuff” or “RG Things”! This deck is pretty insanely cool, running cards like Orcish Lumberjack and Titania, Protector of Argoth.

The Core of the Deck

As you can see, this deck is crazy fun. Ramping into a Turn 2 Dragonlord Atarka or Primeval Titan off a Lumberjack is real. For that matter, so is ramping into a 20/20 off Dark Depths / Thespian’s Stage. However, another solid fun card is Titania, Protector of Argoth being able to generate 5/3’s off Lumberjack, Sylvan Safekeeper, Crop Rotation, etc.

The sideboard contains mostly what you would think. Combo hate and enchantment hate, as well as some blue hate in the form of Choke.

All in all this looks like a neat deck. We took it through its paces in 5 matches, going 3-2! Let’s check out the matches. Obviously take some note that these videos were recorded before the banning of Deathrite Shaman and Gitaxian Probe, so some of these decks we’re up against may look different going forward.

Match 1 vs 4C Pyromancer (1-2 LOSS)

Match 2 vs Soldier Stompy (2-0 WIN)

Match 3 vs Junk Deathblade (1-2 LOSS)

Match 4 vs UB Nonsense (2-0 WIN)

Match 5 vs 4C Loam (2-0 WIN)

Post Thoughts

I really enjoyed this deck a lot. It has a lot of surprising tools and win cons, and the name is very apt in description as it really is just a pile of “things”. However, it does have a lot of a strength. One of the users on my Discord server, Solnox, is also continuing to test new versions of the deck, implementing technology such as Knight of the Reliquary among other things. It’s definitely a deck I will play around more with in the future (so much so that I’m considering picking up pieces of it in paper).

Wrapping Up

That’s all the time we have this week! Next time on Strictly Eternal we’re looking at another midrange type list, one that’s somewhat similar to Loam. A deck known as Sylvan Plug!

So join me next time on The Plug: The World’s Most Famous Electrical Outlets!

Joseph Dyer II

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!

http://www.twitter.com/volrathxp

That’s right. Deathrite Shaman and Gitaxian Probe have been banned in Legacy.

For quite a while I’ve been of the mind that these cards should be removed from the format. Deathrite Shaman has proven to be a real problem with reducing diversity in the format to the point that there is simply no downside to playing DRS in any deck that supports it, which as it turns out is quite a lot. Deathrite’s power has always been referred to as a one mana planeswalker, and it’s nice to see that Wizards is finally recognizing the impact the card has had on the format.

Gitaxian Probe is another good ban in my mind. The card adds nothing of value to the format, instead providing an outlet for free information that removes much of the bluffing and psychological aspect of the format. I am super glad to finally see this card gone.

So What Happens Next? What Gets Better, What Gets Worse?

This is the real crux of these banning when they happen. How does the format adjust when something that was so ingrained in it goes away? Here’s ten shower thoughts for the peanut gallery to consider.

1. Grixis Delver gets depowered a bunch, but the core of the deck is still pretty strong. This probably topples it from its spot as “best deck” in the format, but otherwise I think the deck still holds some power to it. Gurmag Angler is still insane, and so is True-Name Nemesis.
2. Czech Pile on the other hand, dies a painful death. The deck cannot survive on its manabase without DRS, so it either dies outright or reverts to a 3-color control deck.
3. Splash damage across other archetypes can be mitigated. Decks like Elves / Maverick, etc all ran Deathrite Shaman, so those decks can adjust with other mana dorks like Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves. These decks existed before DRS and will continue to exist going forward.
4. Miracles perhaps climbs back up to a more powerful deck where it doesn’t need to run Back to Basics anymore to combat the Czech Pile menace.
5. RUG Delver climbs back out of obscurity and the Goose does indeed become loose.
6. Random combo decks like Monored Storm and anything else that heavily relied on Gitaxian Probe get a lot worse when they can’t get the free information provided by Probe.
7. Death and Taxes / Stoneblade decks get much better, since the removal of Czech Pile from the format means far less Kolaghan’s Command running around.
8. Dredge actually possibly gets worse in the metagame. This sounds odd, but Dredge’s game plan in Game 1 is actually pretty solid vs DRS because DRS is the only hate they actually see (and decklist construction allows Dredge to simply beat the card). Because of DRS most decks have been skimping on mass gy hate, allowing cards like Silent Gravestone to beat the card. It’s wholly possible that decks start playing more mass gy hate or cards like Grafdigger’s Cage to combat any rise of Dredge in the wake of DRS being gone.
9. Blood Moon gets better in the face of Deathrite being gone. As it stands, Czech Pile was playing Blood Moon itself because it could use Deathrite to get around it. The presence of decks like Dragon Stompy will force these control decks to go up in basic count in their mana base because of the strength of Blood Moon.
10. Aggressive stompy decks like Eldrazi / Steel Stompy possibly get worse in the face of the uptick in Wastelands from decks like DnT, RUG Delver, and also Terminus from decks like Miracles. It’s hard to say how these decks will adjust to a world without the 1-mana elf, but it could potentially be for the worse.

Where We Go From Here

The best course of action from here on in is to start analyzing the data on the format, and how it starts breathing out on Magic Online. MTGO is often fairly indicative of what ends up being powerful in the format and what doesn’t, so it’s going to be interesting this weekend to see how the format shakes out with the first Legacy Challenge.

Either way, it’s definitely going to be an interesting Pro Tour 25th Anniversary.

Until next time, may all your Magic be ETERNAL!

Joseph Dyer II

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!

http://www.twitter.com/volrathxp

This week we’ve got some spice. I mean some real spice. Yes, there’s a Karn involved. But more than that, there’s THE ANTIQUITIES WAR. This list comes to us from good man Danny Batterman off Twitter, and it is spicy as all get out.

The Core of the Deck

This list is absurdly fun. Master of Etherium + Karn is gross, and Antiquities War digging through your deck while eventually making your Baleful Strixes into 5/5’s for a turn is rather dumb.

It’s pretty obvious that this deck is a control deck at heart, using its mana ramp and Chalice/Sol Land plan to lock out the opponent before making an army of dudes to swing through. Post-board it can bring in even more powerful control lock pieces, making it a very interesting and fun deck to play.

We played five matches with this list, going 1-4 overall. Let’s take a look at the matches!

Match 1 vs DnT (1-2 LOSS)

Match 2 vs Grixis Delver (0-2 LOSS)

Match 3 vs ANT (2-0 WIN)

Match 4 vs Maverick (1-2 LOSS)

Match 5 vs UB Death’s Shadow (1-2 LOSS)

Post Thoughts

Despite the performance this deck was a lot of fun to play, and getting to kill an opponent with three 5/5s off The Antiquities War was gas. Definitely an amusing deck and something that would be fun for anyone looking for something silly and brewful to play.

Wrapping Up

That’s all the time we have this week! Next time, we’re hopping off the Karn train for a little bit to dive into a deck that plays… Orcish Lumberjack??

Until next time, join me again on A Lumberjacking We Will Go!

Joseph Dyer II

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!

http://www.twitter.com/volrathxp

I know I said we were gonna be doing an article on a sweet Antiquities War deck, but the fact of the matter is that I simply haven’t had a lot of time to fire up XMage and get the recording done (awkward, I know). Recording videos takes time, especially when you are going back and adding audio and doing a deck tech and then… yeah, you see the issue. So, the AQ War article will get done at some point, just not this week. Last week we took off for Memorial Day Weekend in the States, taking a short break to get ready for the upcoming haul.

This week we’ve been prepping and planning for a trip to Roanoke, VA in literally just a week (coupled with prepping for SCG Regionals this past weekend – yes, I actually play Modern, hilarious surprise indeed) where I will be partaking in an event that has a lot of history.

The StarCityGames.com Power Nine Series

That’s right, for the first time ever I’m going to be playing Paper Vintage. While I will be talking about this in greater length in a future article on my Puca side of things (especially about the experience of the SCG-Con weekend overall), I wanted to talk a bit about how this all came about first.

Around the time of SCG-Cincy Team Open, I had been waffling on whether or not I was going to make the trip to SCG-Con or US Eternal Weekend this year. I had minorly settled on not going to Eternal Weekend primarily because prize payout there is purely in store credit and it was in Pittsburgh again this year. I was feeling very meh about this, but started looking at the event schedule for SCG-Con and was very impressed.

I got to talking with Dennis / Harrison about it that weekend. The idea came up of maybe trying to talk to people about finding a borrow hookup for being able to play Paper Vintage.

That week I spoke to a few folks, primarily Jon Medina and our patron in site Strictly, and hit upon one of our patron members Blackred who owned nearly most of the pieces that I would need to borrow. Over the next few weeks I spoke with Blackred at great length about all of this, under the assumption that another friend of mine would be able to allow me to borrow some of the lands I needed. I very specifically play a variant of Dredge on Magic Online, otherwise known as Sunny Dredge (or “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”).

Right at the get go of May however, that nearly all fell apart, as my other friend’s travel plans flipped sideways on him and he was unable to get down there in enough time to lend out the cards. At this point, a short month away, I could have ducked back and decided to play Legacy. I didn’t. I steeled my resolve, and reached out in all the social media outlets I could. But it was the unlikely place of Reddit (specifically the /r/MTGVintage subreddit) that led me to a guy who was not only able to lend the lands onsite at the event, but was willing to work out with a complete Internet stranger to help him out to be able to play Paper Vintage. It is for things like this that I dearly love the Vintage/Legacy/Eternal Magic community, because of people who are willing and able to help others see and play the formats we so dearly love.

The race back on track, I assembled a time together with Blackred, who lives a scant 3-4 hours away from me to get together to exchange the pieces of Power I would be borrowing from him, and drove up to meet with him. Even though it was a short meeting, I can already tell and hope that we will be able to get together further in the future and be able to jam some sweet games of Magic.

There is excitement in the air. I am greatly looking forward to my experience at this event. Not only will I be there playing Vintage, but I’ll also get to see Dennis again and get to meet Sir Strictly himself! I can’t wait to report on that alone.

Wrapping Up

So I promise that I will be able to get the AQ War article done at some point, cuz I think you guys will get a real kick out of that deck. After that I’ve been kicking around what I want to play. I’m considering a Stax build of some sort, or maybe switching gears and playing a ridiculous Vintage pile on XMage for funsies, or even recording some Sunny Dredge matches.

If you have something specific you’d like to see, please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or on Discord!

Until then, join me next time for another episode of Dayman Strikes Back: The Return of the Nightman!

Joseph Dyer II

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!

http://www.twitter.com/volrathxp

It’s no surprise that Karn, Scion of Urza is a truly amazing and silly card. For the next few articles we’re gonna take a look at decks that Karn probably goes in (including possibly revisiting Steel Men/Ravager Stompy w/ Karn), because the card is absolutely absurd on so many levels.

This week’s list is a big mana deck commonly referred to as “Eldrazi Post” or “Big Eldrazi”. The deck seeks to play gigantic threats via it’s manabase of Cloudpost/Glimmerpost and mana rocks. The spice of this list? 2 Karn and 1 copy of Thran Temporal Gateway!

The Core of the Deck

The core of this deck is based around the commonly notable Chalice of the Void/Ancient Tomb Stompy style deck, but instead of low to the ground curve threats, this deck plays mana acceleration such as Grim Monolith and Thran Dynamo in order to power out massive threats such as the Eldrazi Titans.

The explosiveness of this deck sometimes can not be denied. Many turn 1-2 plays can be highly explosive and powerful. I even was able to manage a Turn 1 Karn (through a line involving Grim Monolith and Voltaic Key) in a game and he simply took over from that point on. The power level of Karn is absolutely insane sometimes, as his filtering gives this deck a way to draw cards which can be stupendously good sometimes. Furthermore his -2 synergizes well with all the mana rocks the deck plays, so you can create a quick clock of an army with them.

Sideboard-wise this deck includes some standard fare in Leyline of the Void, Sorcerous Spyglass, and Warping Wail, but it also includes some additional pieces in Ensnaring Bridge, Duplicant, and Wurmcoil Engine.

For this article, I ran 5 matches on XMage, unfortunately going 2-3 with them. Let’s check out the matches!

Match 1 vs Czech Pile (1-2 LOSS)

Match 2 vs UB Control (1-2 LOSS)

Match 3 vs Tin Fins (1-2 LOSS)

Match 4 vs Mono-Red Prison (2-1 WIN)

Match 5 vs Deadguy Ale? (Not Sure) (2-1 WIN)

Post Thoughts

Honestly, I would like to play this a little more and revisit this list again in the future. This deck has a lot of sweet plays to it and a very explosive nature that makes it great fun to play. If you enjoy casting really big shit, this is a deck that you might want to look into, and thankfully it’s getting more popular.

I also have to admit that the Thran Temporal Gateway in the list was actually not as awful as it may look. The card did a ton of work when it did come out, but I think it may be superfluous to the mana advantage this deck does have. It’s stupendous in matchups defined by Wasteland and Blood Moon however.

Wrapping Up

Next week I’ve got some literal spice for us. Yes, it includes Karn. But it also includes The Antiquities War! So check us out next time on Karn Wars: The Brothers’ Strike Back!

Joseph Dyer II

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!

http://www.twitter.com/volrathxp

This week we’re continuing our look at a budget series of Legacy decks, with our focus this time on the more unfair strategies in the format with Monoblack Reanimator! As far as budget is concerned this is on the upper edge at around $400-$500, but it runs no duals whatsoever!

The Core of the Deck

This deck focuses on cheap and unfair plays, seeking to quickly dump a threat from its graveyard as early as Turn 1 or Turn 2. Most often this threat is Griselbrand, but the deck packs a number of other threats including Grave Titan, Massacre Wurm, and Iona, Shield of Emeria.

This deck can be very powerful as the combo of Entombing a fatty into the yard is a tale as old as time, but good old Griseldad ain’t no beauty. He’s here to beat face and draw cards.

Sideboard-wise being monoblack this deck has very few answers to a threat such as Leyline of the Void. It shores up this weakness by playing threats such as Pack Rat, in addition to destruction spells like Ratchet Bomb.

We played five matches with this deck on XMage, going 3-2 with it across the five matches.

Match 1 vs UG 12 Post (2-0)

Match 2 vs Maverick (0-2)

Match 3 vs Dragon Stompy (2-1)

Match 4 vs RUG Delver (2-1)

Match 5 vs Miracles (1-2)

Post Thoughts

This is a deck that is a decent entry into the format. From its monoblack roots it can be taken straight into Black/Red Reanimator very easily through the use of a Blood Crypt or a Badlands. Being monoblack and leaning harder on rituals, Lotus Petals would also improve the deck’s speed a fair amount, and further threats such as Sire of Insanity and Tidespout Tyrant are also very strong.

One card that certainly surprised me a ton that I really enjoyed playing with this was Pack Rat. It overperformed in every matchup where it was relevant.

Wrapping Up

That about does it for this week! Next week, we should do something completely janky. Does anyone have any suggestions?! Hit me up on Twitter or Discord and let me know!

Until next time, join me on another edition of Sealab 2021: The Early Years!

Joseph Dyer II

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!

http://www.twitter.com/volrathxp