Taking traditional GW Maverick for a spin at the Dutch Open Series

Introduction

Hi, my name is Alex and I’m from Haarlem, the Netherlands. I’ve been playing Magic since about ’94, with a long hiatus somewhere in between, and I’ve been an avid fan of Legacy since about 8 years ago when I started out with Miracles. I knew nothing about the format then and it showed in my results. In modern, I’ve played toolbox with Birthing Pod for a long time, and it was around three years ago I picked up Maverick to kind of get that same versatility in a Legacy deck.

The deck has been my favourite Legacy deck since. I was really, really bad at it in the beginning, but having played Pod, I recognised the strengths of a good toolbox and stuck with it. Now I’m about halfway decent and loving the deck even more.

Deck choice

I’ve never been one to change my deck in Legacy depending on the meta, but I do of course try to adjust the deck to what I’m expecting.

I’ve been trying out different Maverick builds the last couple of months. I played the usual black splash, mainly for Thoughtseize, and I did like the build. Though Thoughtseize adds a definite advantage to Maverick, I found that the mana could be awkward at times and I didn’t like that I had to play more Birds than Nobles if I wanted to keep my preferred consistency at casting the black spells.

I’ve been trying out a blue splash the last couple of weeks, mostly for Oko (Maveroko, anyone?). I changed some of the dorks to Gilded Goose, and also added a Deputy of Detention and a Meddling Mage in the mix. I think this build has potential, but it needs a lot more work before I take it to a tournament.

The Dutch Open Series is the biggest tournament series in the Netherlands, with bigger tournaments four times a year. Normally I’m fine taking a more or less untested or a wacky version of a deck to these tournaments (3 months ago, I made it to the semis with this monstrosity), but this time I just wanted something solid. I decided to put aside the blue splash first – that’s for later.

Then I decided I wanted the most streamlined and consistent version of the deck I could find. This meant just going straight Green White with no splash whatsoever. I recognised I was giving up percentages against some decks (mainly combo), but my reasoning was that I’d be getting percentages back in other matches – RUG Delver, for example. Plus I figured combo might be on the downswing because of the same RUG Delver and UR variants. Besides, I feel quite solid against some combo decks like ANT, even without Thoughtseize.

I really like taking chances with regard to the matches I run into at big tournaments. No matter how well you play, to win bigger tournaments, you always need to get a bit lucky, or not unlucky, and trying to tune your deck to beat all matchups usually lowers your chances across the board. In other words, being a bit more polarised in your matches means you can spike a tournament in which you get a bit lucky with your matchups. And if that is true, I really like playing the most consistent version of the deck possible to minimise my chances of being unlucky in matches that should be winnable. At least, that’s how I see it. And that’s how I decided to go back to good old GW Maverick the day before the tournament.

GW Maverick – Alex Rouw

This list is pretty standard. I like the 24 lands with the Maze of Ith being more like a spell. Even late game, getting lands to sacrifice to Knight is fine, but the upside is that you don’t get stuck as often in your opening turns which are crucial for a fair deck.

The Bird over the fourth Noble is a concession to Plague Engineer, plus a small upside in that it carries the Sword of Fire and Ice better. I chose Giver of Runes over Mother for the same reason, but since it’s just a bit weaker, I didn’t want to run four. The protection from colourless does have its upsides too, though. Playing fewer one drops also meant I got to increase my two CMC creature count.

Tomik is great against Wasteland decks and Depths decks (and of course all those pesky Candelabra decks that are running amok). I’m really impressed by this guy and I wouldn’t consider running less in this build.

The Questing Beast is much better than I expected it to be. All the different keywords have their moments when they’re important. Having access to a hasty thread with Green Sun’s Zenith is a big upside against walkers (besides their anti-walker ability already being there), or even as a sort of reach for their last life points. The most fun part to me is that damage your creatures deal can’t be prevented. It gets around a lot of annoying things like protection (opposing Givers/Mothers, True Name Nemesis) and it gets around lands like Maze of Ith and Glacial Chasm. But the flashiest part of this ability is that it works really well with your own Maze of Ith.

Maze of Ith untaps an attacking creature and prevents all damage dealt to and by that creature. In practice, Mazing your own creatures with a Beast out makes your creature deal combat damage but not receive it. Blocking an opposing creature and then Mazing it still makes it take damage from your creature. This effectively makes combat a nightmare for your opponent to navigate.

Just a short note on the equipment. Maverick is already good at beating down in general, and I don’t think Batterskull adds much to our diversity (even if it is efficient). Jitte and Sword of Fire & Ice add utility to our gameplan – exactly what we want. Less beaters, more choices to handle all kinds of situations that arise.









The Matches

The turnout was pretty good with over 70 players competing. I’m not good at remembering the play by play exactly, but with some help from my lifepad, I reconstructed most of the games.

I don’t really remember sideboarding either, but I’ll make some assumptions to what I’ve boarded. I really need to write down an exact sideboard guide sometimes.

Round 1 – Dredge

Game 1 – On the draw

I didn’t do anything. We definitely have the tools to beat Dredge game 1, but not knowing what I was up against and OP on the play doing lots of broken stuff made sure I didn’t stand a chance.

Sideboard:

+3 Surgical Extraction +1 Path to Exile +1 Containment Priest +2 Sanctum Prelate

-1 Teeg (didn’t see anything indicating Dread Return) -1 Excavator -2 Tomik -1 Pridemage -1 Library -1 SoFaI

Game 2 – On the Play

I wasn’t feeling great starting with a mull to 4. I decided to keep two lands, Noble and Tracker, to give myself a chance to draw to answers. My first draw was a third land, and the draw for my third turn was a Jitte. OP had dredged a bunch already but hadn’t hit a Narcomoeba. He had dredged three Bridges though, so I gladly sacrificed my Noble. He never got anything good going after that.

Game 3 – On the Draw

Both keep 7. OP opens with a Putrid Imp. I’m ready to Surgical his pitch on his second upkeep, a Stinkweed Imp. Still in his upkeep he then pitches a Golgari Thug, which I also Surgical. In the meantime, I get a turn 2 Knight out. I don’t remember what happened after that, just that it wasn’t much of a game after I also got rid of his lands.

2-1 Match Result | 1-0 Tournament Record

Round 2 – RUG Delver

We drove up here with a group of four, and of course I get to play one of my buddies early on.

Game 1 – On the Draw

This game was mostly about slogging through a Wrenn and Six and an Oko. I made a mistake where I played an early Scryb Ranger that didn’t have any untap value, while I could’ve also played a Scavenging Ooze. The Scryb died to his W&6 without actually doing much. During the following turns, he built up a lot of land advantage, but his draws were terrible. Well, except an Oko coming down. But by that time, I had a Library active and was just dumping creatures every turn. Enough to overcome the 2 PWs and take the game.

Sideboard:

+2 Sanctum Prelate +2 Choke +2 Council’s Judgment

-1 Noble Hierarch -1 Scryb Ranger -1 Qasali Pridemage -1 Gaddock Teeg -1 Green Sun’s Zenith -1 Ghost Quarter

I shave on some 1 toughness creatures against W&6. The current iterations of RUG Delver are also slower than they used to be before the planeswalkers, so I don’t mind shaving a Zenith and slowing down a bit too. Our Knights are still the best threats in this matchup, though Oko has given them another out. Alternatively, getting to Sword up a creature is big game.

Game 2 – On the Draw

OP leads on Fiery Islet into Ponder. The Islet is an indicator that he might not have another colored land, but not shuffling from Ponder might have solved that problem for him. I felt I needed to accelerate playing a turn 1 Zenith into Dryad Arbor, knowing that a Wrenn slows me down and effectively made me throw away a later chance at a Knight. There was a chance there wasn’t a second coloured source for him or he just didn’t have the Wrenn. OP did have the land and Wrenn and it kind of went downhill from there. I played some threats but didn’t find my own answers. This time, he kept recycling his Islet, finding enough removal and counters, and ran me down quickly.

Game 3 – On the Play

Accelerating on the play feels much better in this matchup. I went turn 1 Noble. OP goes turn 1 Delver. I play a Wasteland, cast a Thalia, which gets Forced, and then Wasteland him. His turn two, he flips his Delver from another Force and, after attacking, he passes the turn without playing a land. OK, this looks good, but I still need to land a threat or deal with his Delver. I play my turn into his Force and he has a third Force my next turn. It’s now a couple of turns later and it’s actually getting a bit dicey.

He’s attacked me down to 6 life, and I have two choices. I know if I go down to three from the attack and he draws a land, I’m probably losing to a bolt. I either play a Scavenging Ooze and get some life back on the spot, or I play a Knight so next turn I can get out of bolt range with the Scavenging Ooze and have a Maze of Ith to protect from the Delver. I opt to go for the Knight, since getting two life from the Ooze actually leaves me dead from a Bolt two turns from now and effectively gives him another chance to find land. OP doesn’t draw a land for his fifth turn, so I get to Maze him and get out of Bolt range with the Ooze.

After the match, he shows me two bolts from hand. It always sucks to beat a mate, but I appreciate you driving us, Sebas!

2-1 Match Result | 2-0 Tournament Record









Round 3 – UR Delver

This matchup is pretty good for us. Thalia’s, Knights and Wastelands are really effective against them. Make sure to play around Daze and Stifle when you can – that card has been reappearing more and more. But generally if we keep slamming threats, they soon begin sticking and we can take over.

I don’t really have many recollections from these matches, other than one play in game 2 where I played a turn 3 Excavator with a Wasteland in play, hoping to draw counters or removal from his hand. He played an Abrade on his turn, which was perfect. I landed a Sanctum Prelate set to 1 my next turn and he didn’t cast a spell after that. He told me afterwards the matchup felt really bad. Though I agree there are runaway games like this and it’s favoured for us, it’s not as skewed as this match led to believe.

Sideboard:

+2 Sanctum Prelate +1 Path to Exile +2 Choke

-1 Gaddock Teeg -1 Qasali Pridemage -1 Questing Beast -1 Sylvan Library -1 Ghost Quarter

2-0 Match Result | 3-0 Tournament Record

Round 4 – GW Depths

This is a matchup where Tomik really shines. It takes away his Depths combo and his Wasteland plan and stops his Scavenging Ooze from shrinking our Knight.

Game 1 – On the Draw

I get down a turn 2 Library which finds me a turn 3 Tomik. I take 12 damage from my library over the course of the game, ensuring I’m ahead in every way except life. Two huge Knights provide enough protection and start swinging themselves to finish the game in short order.

Sideboard:

+2 Council’s Judgment +1 Palace Jailer +1 Path to Exile

-1 Gaddock Teeg – 3 Thalia

Game 2 – On the Draw

I once again get down a turn 2 Library into turn 3 Tomik. OP is not happy. Basically it’s game 1 all over again, where I take 12 from my Library and get so far ahead it’s just a matter of finishing it up.

2-0 Match Result | 4-0 Tournament Record

Round 5 – Infect

Infect is always an edge-of-your-seat matchup. I love playing this matchup because it is rarely boring, and the smallest mistake can cost you the game. And then again, sometimes they just run you over on turn 2 or 3.

Game 1 – On the Draw

I have to mulligan to a hand without Swords to Plowshares but it has acceleration and a Knight. OP plays a Tropical Island and casts a Glistener Elf turn one. I GSZ for a Dryad Arbor. He plays a Pendelhaven and attacks. I could be dead anytime but chump blocking here felt really bad having no 2 CMC play, so I let it go and just take 2 damage. My turn 2, I play the Knight and it gets countered.

With me having no protection up, he Invigorates and Berserks me to a sickly death. Though I did have acceleration, the rest of my hand was too clunky and lacking in removal to beat a strong draw from the opponent. That’s just how this matchup goes sometimes. I don’t remember the exact contents of my mulligan to 6, but perhaps I wasn’t aggressive enough.

Sideboard:

+1 Palace Jailer +1 Path to Exile +1 Choke +2 Council’s Judgment

-1 Gaddock Teeg -2 Tomik -1 Green Sun’s Zenith -1 Questing Beast

I’m boarding in anything that removes creatures and one Choke. The Choke is debatable, but usually when we win this matchup it’s because we get to stymie his early aggression and then start pressuring him on lands, so they don’t have explosive turns, before beating down with a Knight. That or Jitte.

There is something to be said for keeping in Tomik so they can’t target their own Inkmoths with pumpspells, but I’m rather on the removal plan.

Game 2- On the Play

I get down an early Thalia, while he gets down a Noble Hierarch and spins his wheels a bit. I refuse to attack Thalia into his Noble Hierarch because Invigorate removing the Thalia would give him much more space. I get down a Tracker, make some clues and attack him into his Noble instead. He does block and Invigorates, so that was a relief. After that, I get down a Knight, have removal backup and crack some clues and the game doesn’t take too long.

Game 3 – On the Draw

I get to Swords his first threat, but I’m off to a slow start otherwise. I don’t exactly have the play-by-play for this game, but after some turns of back and forth, he finds what he needed from a Brainstorm to Invigorate and Berserk kill me with a Blighted Agent.

1-2 Match Result | 4-1 Tournament Record









Round 6 – Death and Taxes

Game 1 – On the Play

I get some nice acceleration into a Knight, whereas my OP goes turn 1 Cavern of Souls and Vial, into turn 2 uptick Vial and pass the turn, missing his second landdrop. The Qasali Pridemage in my hand takes care of the Vial which brings in a Mother, and then my Knight searches up a Wasteland for his one land. The turn after, I Zenith for a Questing Beast because I want this game over as fast as possible. He chumpblocks my big Knight with a Mother and gives her protection… to no avail.

Sideboard:

+1 Containment Priest +1 Collector Ouphe +1 Knight of Autumn +1 Force of Vigor +2 Council’s Judgment +1 Palace Jailer

-1 Gaddock Teeg -3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben – 1 Sylvan Library – 1 Green Sun’s Zenith -1 Ghost Quarter

Sideboarding on the fly might have gone a bit wrong here, but luckily I wasn’t punished. I brought in the Containment Priest (which I normally don’t play too often) thinking it shuts off their vials and that might be worth not being able to Zenith, which I also cut one of. What it also does, which I didn’t think about, is make their Flickerwisps into hard removal. So that will be the last that card comes in in this match. With them being able to control lands so well, I think it’s fine to cut one Zenith.

Game 2- On the Draw

We had some more back and forth this game, but it was still fairly one-sided. He started off with two Vials, which were nicely answered by a Collector Ouphe. I got an early Knight active that started to work on his lands. At one time, he Plowed my Ouphe to get his Vials back online, but I had a hardcast Force of Vigor in response to take care of those. The game finished quickly after that.

I quite like the DnT matchup. It’s a classic fair versus fair, where both decks go about it a bit differently, but there’s (generally) so many interaction points that it always feels rewarding to walk away with a victory.

2-0 Match Result | 5-1 Tournament Record

Round 7 – BR Reanimator

I don’t mind drawing here (at all), and luckily my opponent shakes my hand. This is one of those matchups where we’re not without tools, but their average hand mostly beats our average hands, so we need to get a bit lucky. The draw gives us both some time to have a bite and relax a bit before the top 8.

A 5-1-1 score was good enough for a fourth place in the swiss.

Draw Match Result | 5-1-1 Tournament Record

Quarterfinals – Bant Stoneblade

The opponent played a snow-covered basics version of UW Stoneblade with the addition of Oko and Ice-Fang Coatl. This guy mostly plays off-the-wall decks (and does well with them) and this one looked pretty sweet too.

Game 1 – On the Play

I mull to 6 to a hand without acceleration, but it does have a Scavenging Ooze, Library, two Knights, a Savannah and a Wasteland. I run a turn two Scavenging Ooze, because I’d rather have that one countered than the Library, which I get to land the turn after. Problem is, he responds with a Narset and my draws are less than stellar. I draw 3 additional Wastelands and no coloured sources while he just fetches basics and uses his Arcum’s Astrolabe for filtering. I was unable to draw extra cards or play any of the Knights (or anything really) and the game quickly ends.

Sideboard:

+1 Collector Ouphe +1 Knight of Autumn + 2 Choke +2 Council’s Judgment

-1 Gaddock Teeg -1 Scavenging Ooze -2 Tomik -1 Ghost Quarter

Game 2 – On the Play

I accelerate into a turn 2 Choke and a turn 3 Library. I take 8 damage from the Library, even though he gets to put down a Batterskull from a Stoneforge, and I slam all the goodies. I’ve got removal for the Germ and putting down a Knight of the Reliquary. I’m not worried about a sweeper since I’ve got so much more gas, and I just want to pressure him while he is struggling with the Choke. This works out great.

Game 3 – On the Draw

Once again, I have the ability to cast a turn 2 Choke, but after I saw him sideboarding some more between games 2 and 3, I decide to first cast the Sword of Fire and Ice to bait removal/counters. The sword gets Disenchanted and I get to cast a Choke the next turn, which he doesn’t have an answer for. His Narset isn’t too much of a problem since he misses with the first activation, but he hits an Oko on his second. I have too much of a lock on his lands with the Choke and a Knight to take out his duals, that he never really finds the time to cast it.

2-1 Match Result









Semifinals – Infect

Game 1 – On the Draw

My first hand was an alright seven if you don’t know what you’re playing against, but it didn’t have removal, or even something like a Thalia to slow the opponent down. I mulliganed into a hand with two Plows, 3 lands, of which one Waste, and a creature. My opponent goes turn 1 Noble into turn 2 Blighted Agent, which I get to Plow on my turn playing around a Daze. He then plays another infecter, which I Plow. He then plays a Inkmoth. Knowing it’s very unlikely he has another creature on hand, I Waste his Inkmoth, giving him the ability to animate it and cast a Vines on it, but I’m ready with a third Plow to respond. After that, I go to work on his lands with a Knight and eventually get a Jitte active, which shuts down any chances he has.

Sideboard:

+1 Palace Jailer +1 Path to Exile +1 Choke +2 Council’s Judgment

-1 Gaddock Teeg -2 Tomik -1 Green Sun’s Zenith -1 Questing Beast (same as before)

Game 2 – On the Draw

I mull once again to six, finding a bit slower hand, but with a turn 2 Thalia into a turn 3 Knight. I decide to keep and what follows is the weirdest game of Magic I’ve played in a long time. My opponent starts with a Noble. I play a fetch and pass the turn. OP lands a turn 2 Library and an infecter – pretty good. At his endstep, I go to fetch a Dryad Arbor. My reasoning is that the rest of my land is good enough to support the needed white and this might give me a chumpblocker somewhere down the line.

I am not familiar enough with infect to know this was a real bad line against one particular card they bring in for this matchup. Still at his endstep, he casts a Submerge on my Dryad Arbor! I don’t think I’ve ever had such a tempo negative play in my life and it felt like this game was lost to me. My opponent proceeds to draw some extra cards from his Library, puts some extra infecters down and slowly starts to poison me. But luckily, they didn’t draw any pumpspells from his Library or cantrips. So I just go turn 2 Dryad Arbor (I’m now so far behind I need to take chances here), turn 3 Thalia, turn 4 Knight of the Reliquary, turn 5 Knight of the Reliquary and get out a Maze of Ith. His board is now 1 Blighted Agent, 2 Glistener Elves and a Noble, and he has also put out a Meekstone. The opponent has been searching so hard with his Library (as he should have) that he is now down to 5 life and I’m at 7 infect.

He swings with the Agent. I don’t want to preemptively Maze and get blown out by a Vines, so with no effect from the opponent, I go to 8 infect. I draw for my turn and find… a Swords to Plowshares. I decide to main phase my Plow on his Agent first to get more information about his hand. Surprisingly, it resolves. The game actually started to turn around. I went on the offensive and started attacking and Mazing my own Knight to untap it through the Meekstone, and he had to slowly chumpblock his creatures away to stay alive.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much behind in a match and still pull out ahead. My opponent was really unlucky with his Library and cantrips and this gave me tiniest of windows to take the game. My adrenaline was really pumping after this one.

So I took a short minute break and went on to the finals against infect once again.

2-0 Match Result

Finals – Infect (The same opponent who beat me in the Swiss)

Game 1 – On the Draw

The first game wasn’t too exciting. I got down a quick Jitte attached to a Noble and attacked with it. It got Berserked, which was a fine play since it was my only creature, but still getting two counters on the equipment was my real goal. These counters made sure the opponent couldn’t just go for it and this gave me the time to land a creature a turn later and have it pick up the Jitte the turn after that, effectively ending the game.

Sideboard:

+1 Palace Jailer +1 Path to Exile +1 Choke +2 Council’s Judgment

-1 Gaddock Teeg -2 Tomik -1 Green Sun’s Zenith -1 Questing Beast (same as before)

Game 2 – On the Draw

I honestly don’t recall much from this game. I remember taking a lot of infect damage from an Agent while holding a Maze of Ith up, just to prevent the Vines blow out. In the end, I went up to 9 infect but I felt safe enough as I developed the board and started taking out his lands. After I left him with just the Inkmoth as a land and I could start Mazing his Agent, the game didn’t take too long to finish up.

It was a sweet day – I was overjoyed at winning this tournament and getting to join some of my mates at the invitational tournament in a few months. Like most Legacy tournaments, the players are really friendly and the top 8 (and rest of the tournament) had some really tough players in it. And I got to pick up some sweet cards as prizes too.

2-0 Match Result | 8-1-1 Tournament Record

Won the legacy Dutch Open Series (70+ players) yesterday with Maverick, straight GW, because I was a bit splash-tired. Worked out great! I guess I'm set on a deck for Bologna now 🙂 pic.twitter.com/3yTlVylkpo — Alex Rouw (@AskForAlex) November 11, 2019

The Matchday 75

For once, I didn’t finish a tournament thinking I should completely rebuild. It felt really smooth and it was great to get back to the roots of Maverick. No splash, no Depths, no Elvish Reclaimers. Instead, I had so many more options to tutor for and this really increased my enjoyment too.

The Ghost Quarter was a bit underwhelming. I generally like it in combination with the Excavator to have the option to run the opponent out of basics, and it’s also mana fixing in a pinch. It just never felt really good enough during the day. I think I’ll try out a Blast Zone in its place for next week, though I’m also not completely sold on that one.









Closing thoughts on Maverick

Whether a meta is right for Maverick is a tough question. Maverick definitely has the label that it’s too fair for all the combo decks. Where I play, there are plenty of combo decks around, but not to the extent that it’s on MTGO (which I don’t play). Succeeding with Maverick is partly getting a bit lucky with your matchups (as you can see in my matchups of the tournament), but this is actually true of most decks.

Then again, it always seems to me that an intimate knowledge of this deck actually gets you ahead so much further than bad matchups restrain you. A bit more than a year ago, I also got to the finals of this same tournament, beating Storm and Reanimator along the way (before losing to Grixis Control). I made day two of GP Birmingham, defeating Sneak and Show for my win and in. This might be anecdotal, sure, but these are my experiences playing this deck and I never feel helpless in any matchup. The toolbox aspect of this deck provides so many lines that I still often feel I could probably have played games much better, or turned a losing position into a winning one.

All in all, Maverick is still my favourite Legacy deck to play – it really never gets boring because of the versatility and interactions. The deck can be built in so many ways, splashing or not, that it feels like you’re never done testing with it. It always feels like there is something you can do to get out of a tough situation, plus it has some powerful openers that a lot of decks will struggle against.

Yeah, I think I’ll stick with this one for a while!

Alex

A huge thank you to Alex for taking the time to write up a tournament report and allow the Green Suns Zenith to be its host. Another congratulations on your win Alex, it’s been great having you in my stream chat bringing up interesting lines and a different mind to some really tight situations. Looking forward to how you go in future tournaments! – Douges