This Week in Legacy: May Statistics, More GP Vegas Prep and an Interview with the Australian Legacy Champ

by Sean Brown // Jun 14, 2017

Welcome to another This Week in Legacy! It's going to be a big one, with all of May's post-Top statistics laid out and more insight into decks to expect at GP Vegas. I also have an interview with the Australian Legacy Masters winner and a spicy brew for everyone.

May Statistics

We've haven't looked at these in quite some time, so let's just jump into the charts for Online and Paper for the month of May:

We've known it certainly by now, but Grixis Delver is indeed the best deck in the format currently, taking the lion's share of placings both in Paper and Online. Online, Storm followed closely behind, freed from the shackles of Counterbalance, while in Paper many opted for Stoneblade variants now that Miracles and its Terminus weren't really around. Though there's certainly a change I'm looking forward to in June: the adoption of the new Miracles lists in Paper, after their rampant success Online, and hence the potential downfall of these Stoneblade shells. It's notable that in Paper the Stoneblade shells varied greatly, while Online many gravitated to the aggressively-bent Bant Deathblade lists.

The other deck that adapted quite well is Death & Taxes, who was third in Paper and put up decent numbers Online despite the ever-looming cost of Rishadan Port. Many players opted for Red and Black splashes Online, while Paper lists remained much more conservative. UR Delver and Lands put up impressive numbers, especially in Paper, and look to be decks that are up-and-coming as expected with the death of Counterbalance. Reanimator and Sneak & Show put up moderate results, though Reanimator's results Online in May leave something wanting. Eldrazi Stompy has largely been superseded by Dragon Stompy Online, but has still put up solid numbers in Paper tournaments. Controlling BUG shells and Elves have also continued to prosper. Burn has interestingly largely fallen by the wayside, and Turbo Depths, although expected to rocket in popularity, has only seen moderate success.

GP Vegas Preparation

Let's continue on our analysis of what the top decks at GP Vegas will be. Also, I'll give some links to prior articles about archetypes that are still relevant in the post-Top world to start us off and get everyone up to speed:

Louisville Preparation Part 1 Part 2 Vegas Preparation Part 1 Delver

Death & Taxes

Eldrazi Stompy Lands

Infect

Sneak & Show

Elves

Reanimator

Aluren

Turbo Depths Bant Deathblade

UR Delver

And don't forget the analysis of the new Miracles list thanks to Whitefaces a few weeks ago!

And now, on with the rest of the decks to analyze!

Grixis/4c Control

With the printing of Leovold, Emissary of Trest, the esteemed Tomas Mar, known for his weird 4c Delver/midrange decks, started brewing together a real pile of cards. Eventually the deck was picked up by Noah Walker of SCG circuit fame where it got plenty of camera time. You can hear some more information about the Czech Pile's creation here. Nonetheless, although initially designed to grind like crazy and hence be able to combat Miracles, 4c Control still lives in the post-Top era as a powerful control shell. The recent Legacy Challenge was taken down by mortr3d and his list is certainly a great template for the deck:

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It looks like a "pile" because its wide and varied answers, along with its incredibly greedy mana base, though it actually is a base Blue-Black deck with a double splash. Green for Decay and Leovold, and Red for the deck's hallmark card, Kolaghan's Command (and Red Blasts too!).

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What's New?

Little of the deck has changed since the banning of Top, and the deck can be tailored to however a player feels fit. Night's Whisper has largely become standard in lists as additional ways to generate cards over more expensive options like Painful Truths. Some lists have opted for main deck Hymn to Tourach, while others have not. Even a card like Liliana, the Last Hope is a potential addition to lists.

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I've also mentioned "Grixis" above because many lists are now opting out of the Green spells and featuring a leaner mana and creature base. These lists are more reminiscent of Dig Through Time-era Grixis Control, with Pyromancer/Therapy/Probe as their core means of grinding opponent's to dust, along with the aforementioned Kolaghan's Command. These decks often topped off with a Delve threat like Angler, and these lists can be thought of as "big Grixis Delver".

A few lists have also gotten even more radical - utilizing Dack Fayden, Punishing Fire and Notion Thief. Find one of those here.

How Do I Beat It?

The 4c Control can dominate attrition matches, but really has scarce interaction against a combo deck other than a few main deck discard spells and Force of Will. The deck can sometimes deploy Leovold, Emissary of Trest to cripple the combo deck's ability to cantrip, though he can be a little slow. So going fast against these decks is never a bad idea.

The other weakness of the deck is, of course, its mana base. Stifle in particular is excellent at suppressing the deck from developing its mana and getting its colors on time, and a Delver and Wasteland backing this up can lead to a pretty good time. For those more into brute force, Blood Moon accelerated out can also do a fair bit, though basics and Deathrite can put a wrench in that plan.

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In the end, try and shorten the game as fast as possible against these decks. They have an incredible amount of inevitability and answers, and the only deck on par with the Kolaghan's Commanding machine's card advantage is perhaps the new Predict Miracles lists.

Dragon Stompy/Mono-Red Sneak Attack

These decks have been around Legacy for awhile, ever since Bloodrock Cyclops was castable. The linchpins of these decks are artifact lock pieces Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere, along with up to eight Blood Moon effects in Moon itself or its representative Magus. They differ only in how they want to kill you. One attempts to beatdown with creatures and burn (like a good Red mage should), while the other utilizes a combo of Sneak Attack or Through the Breach and a large creature to either devastate the opponent or win on the spot.

What's New?

Typical Dragon Stompy, although not concerned with any Dragons, has had an amazing revolution after Kaladesh. Chandra, Torch of Defiance and the discovery of Fiery Confluence as an excellent, flexible spell by the Japanese, formed the core of lists to come. Sin Prodder also joined the party with Goblin Rabblemaster to get the beatdown going.

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More recently, with True-Name so prominent, many players have opted to cut Rabblemaster for a more prison-based plan using Ensnaring Bridge. The creature suite has also been modified to accommodate this, with Quicksilver Rebel and Hazoret, the Fervent new and excellent ways to still get in damage behind a Bridge. Rebel is also impressive as a way to mow down creatures turn after turn, definitely appreciated against the Delver decks.

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Meanwhile, Mono-Red Sneak Attack has largely remained the same. Some lists have incorporated Chandra for additional grind power, and many have been utilizing monstrous artifact creatures like Combustible Gearhulk or Wurmcoil Engine in their lists, which are not only excellent to put into play off Sneak Attack, but are also very reasonable options to cast.

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How Do I Beat It?

The easiest way to turn off a huge swathe of these decks is to simply have a robust, basic-heavy mana base. Death & Taxes has traditionally had very solid matchups against these decks thanks to the power of basic Plains, and many other decks can modify themselves similarly to avoid the travesty of being locked out under a Moon. Having variable mana costs is also very helpful to avoid getting damaged by Chalice of the Void, and main deckable artifact or enchantment destruction like Abrupt Decay or even Kolaghan's Command is at a premium against these decks, in addition to any more narrow options like Ancient Grudge from the sideboard.

Revoker and Needle effects are also similarly reasonable, with most lists having a variety of important permanents to name, be it Chandra or the game-winning Sneak Attack.

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Food Chain

What's New?

Food Chain has gone from strength to strength after a couple of very solid printings. Eldritch Moon brought the deck Eternal Scourge, a self-exiling infinite mana combo piece one mana cheaper than Misthollow Griffin, that can lead to some very powerful and quick kills, but was simply a nice little luxury addition. And then Aether Revolt brought Walking Ballista which revolutionized the deck entirely.

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Previous iterations of Food Chain had very clunky combo pieces to use for the final kill, such as Genesis Hydra or Fierce Empath for Emrakul. Ballista made the kill not only much cleaner, but also is an incredibly serviceable creature in its own right, able to shoot down Delvers and beatdown if needed. Ballista complemented the grindy gameplan of the deck incredibly well and pushed the deck out of its previous fringe status . It is now very much a deck well-equipped against many varied difficulties of the Legacy format.

How Do I Beat It?

Food Chain is very interesting in that it often does not need to "truly" combo in order to win the game. It can often simply use Manipulate Fate to draw four cards via exiling three Griffins and then grind out the opponent by recurring these with or without a Food Chain in play. It is therefore very important to get aggressive and stop the Food Chain player from setting up shop and reaching their turn four. Treating it like a control deck once more and going under the deck with Stifle/Wasteland is not a bad idea, though be wary of the huge amount of basic lands the deck plays.

Phyrexian Revoker once again shines against this deck, but can be a little overworked, with it needing to stop Ballista and stop Food Chain from creating recursive Griffins. Needle can also be reasonable, but can only name Ballista.

The other way to beat Food Chain is, yet again, to throw a Griselbrand at them. The deck suffers incredibly against combo; Sneak & Show is an impressive option against Food Chain. It's certainly one of the deck's poorer matchups.

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For more info on Food Chain I'd highly recommend giving Marius Hausmann's guide to the deck a read!

That's finishes up all the big decklists I've been wanting to look at. There is one last that I'd like to talk about, however.

The Rogue

You sit across from your opponent with your Delver deck. You feel like you're ready for anything. On the draw, you open a hand of Delver and some cantrips. Excellent. You play your turn one Delver, your opponent then plays an Underground Sea, Mox Diamond (pitching Wasteland), and plays Chalice. Ooookay then. Let's hope Delver can go all the way. Your opponent then casts a few mana rocks and eventually casts Transmute Artifact. Suddenly, Breya, Etherium Shaper is on the battlefield and you are dumbfounded. You've also lost.

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Legacy is a format of many, many strange interactions, and there are limits to format knowledge. If you've been following along with my articles for awhile, you might know a huge swathe of the format, but Legacy is incredibly open-ended. A friend of mine, Graham King, brought this up once as a really important point for a Legacy player, especially in the early rounds of a GP. You need to understand, on the fly, what answers your deck has to the opponent's cards, what plan you'll be deploying and how you are going to find these. Blue decks with Force of Will are so prominent because they have these blanket answers and the tools to find them via cantrips, but that's not to say the that powerful armory that Recruiter of the Guard, Green Sun's Zenith, or Crop Rotation provides is anything to scoff at either. It's worthwhile to have a few general all-purpose cards for whatever oddities come your way in your toolbox. Pithing Needle is a great random fifteenth sideboard slot, and I've in particular been favoring Winter Orb to help out against odd ball matchups and make them play on Delver's terms. I'll always favor a more flexible sweeper like Sudden Demise over Dread of Night because, in a big tournament being flexible is one of the most important things.

Anyway, hopefully this has all been helpful for those of you heading out to Vegas! I'll have a rundown of that and a few other events in next week's article!

Interview with Legacy Masters Champion Patty Robertson

In Australia, Saturday the 10th of June to Monday the 12th of June is a long weekend thanks to the Queen's Birthday. Every year, players from around Australian have brought themselves to the quaint Victorian suburb of Dandenong to play for a piece of power in one of the three events in Australian Eternal Masters (not related to the set Eternal Masters, mind you!). The Legacy event was record-breaking this year, with an amazing ninety players participating, a big deal for the Australian population so spread out across a large land mass. I'll soon be going through a big rundown of the event in the week ahead. Patrick "Patty" Robertson needs little introduction for Melbournians, being a high-caliber player of all formats, and last year's winner of the Legacy portion. He ran it back this year and took down the Mox Jet, and I shot him some questions to get some insight on himself, his deck, and his tournament.

Sean: Hi there Patty! Feel free to give a little bit of an outline of your Magic resume and, in particular, your experience with the Legacy format.

Patty: Hi Sean, thanks for inviting me to do this interview. I’ve been playing Magic competitively on and off since I was about seventeen, the highlights of which have been attending Pro Tour Hollywood 2008, Pro Tour M2015 in 2014, where I finished in the Top 50, and Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir in 2015, along with a 2nd place finish at GP Melbourne 2014. My experience with Legacy has been sporadic; I first played the format in 2013 in a local league where I won enough store credit to finish my off my Sneak & Show deck. Since then I have played the deck a handful of times between Friday side events at GPs and Eternal Masters, which I have been fortunate enough to of now won two years in a row. Although my Magic priorities are typically focused towards qualifying for the PT, I enjoy playing Legacy when the opportunity arises.

Sean: From what I understand you haven’t had much recent practice with the Legacy format. What kept you coming back this year for the Legacy Masters event?

Patty: Yeah, life has been busy. I’m finishing my PhD very soon, and I recently got married, so I’ve had very little time to play any Magic, let alone Legacy. Even still, Eternal Masters weekend is a bit of an institution at this point and so it offers a good opportunity to dust off my cards and see friends from interstate that I don’t get a chance to see every often anymore. Obviously, there is some extra motivation, being the defending champion and all.

Sean: Your deck of choice was Sneak & Show. What brought you to this deck as your weapon of choice?

Patty: I guess the simple answer is that it is the deck I have the most experience with. The more nuanced answer would be that I think it’s the best deck in the dark. Given that I don’t play the format more than once or twice a year, I would prefer to play something that can give me free wins and can more-or-less ignore what the opponent is doing, while still giving me plenty of opportunity to do the inherently enjoyable Legacy-specific things, like casting lots of cantrips and Force of Will.

Sean: Any interesting deck building decisions with your list? Many players have opted for the Omniscience hybrid, what drew you away from that?

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Patty: I was strongly considering Omni-Tell, I even went to the effort to borrow the necessary card for it. One thing that put me off was the ubiquity of Cunning Wish, and all the baggage that comes with it. When I was drafting up Wish boards, I could only ever imagine Wishing for Firemind's Foresight or maybe a bounce spell, and it ultimately seemed like lots of effort for very little reward. Maybe it’s my inexperience with the intricacies of the format, but all the Wish boards I saw just looked like wasted space. Given that I didn’t want to play Cunning Wish, I considered playing Omniscience in my sideboard just to bring in against Death & Taxes, but ultimately opted for the more broadly useful Blood Moon (Moon and Omniscience seemed like overkill). I also realized that if I ever had a hand of Sneak Attack and Omniscience, I’d have to throw my deck into the bin. Eventually, I just decided to go back to what I know, and opted to be as consistent, fast and powerful as I could.

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As for specific small changes from a stock list, I opted to play Boseiju, Who Shelters All in the main over the basic Mountain. I typically never wanted to fetch the mountain or draw it, and so I opted to save space in the sideboard instead. I played a single Gitaxian Probe as a concession to my inexperience with the format. If I played Legacy every week and knew what was in every deck, then I’d probably play the fourth Preordain instead. I played a Jace main to help against the discard heavy decks, and he complements the Blood Moon plan in post-board games. Finally, the Flusterstorm was moved to the main to make more sideboard space.

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In the sideboard, I opted to borrow the Lavamancer and Engineered Explosives tech that has seemed pretty common. It did nothing for me all day, but maybe I wasn’t bringing it in as much as I should. Still, it felt nice knowing that my Death & Taxes plan overlapped in utility against various hate cards that I could potentially face, instead of having narrow effects like Pyroclasm as I have had in the past. I opted to play three Leyline of the Void because someone told me that Reanimator was very popular, and it looked like a tough matchup on paper. Between Chancellor of the Annex and discard, it felt tenuous to rely on resolving a hate card the normal way.

Sean: What were the stand-out cards from the deck throughout the day?

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Patty: Turn two Jace won me two very important game ones in the semi-finals and the finals. The Flusterstorm was good for me, and contrary to my previous experiences, I probably won a lot more with Show and Tell than I did with Sneak Attack. I generally think Sneak Attack is the best card in the deck, and your most reliable route to victory, particularly post-board against hate cards. This time, however, I was appreciative of the ability to hold up Spell Pierce on turn three. My sideboard was more or less ineffective all day, I barely brought in Lavamancer or Explosives, didn’t really get a good opportunity to Blood Moon anyone and Leyline was irrelevant to my outcome against Storm and Lands.

Sean: How did your tournament go? Feel free to run down each match round-by-round.

Patty: I lost Round 1 to RUG Delver. I think this is by far the hardest of the Delver matchups, they are just so low to the ground and Stifle is such a dagger. I think I misplayed in game three though: I kept a hand of Tomb, Tomb, Petal, Spell Pierce, Sneak Attack and a creature on the draw. My opponent took a while to keep their hand, and I bricked on land on turn one while my opponent played Mongoose into 0/1 Goyf. I bricked again on my turn, but decided that I would go for it, because it didn’t feel like it was getting any better. I was immune to Daze at least, but figured I wouldn’t get a shot to Spell Pierce anything going forward. I should have acknowledged my opponents lack of pressure, and just been more patient. They are likely to cast a cantrip to get some stuff in the graveyard eventually, and maybe I can have my Pierce be live. As it was, they had Force and suddenly had a 4/5 Goyf and I was basically dead. I don’t think I was going to win anyway, based on my next few draw steps, but I think patience was a better line.

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In Round 2 I beat Grixis Delver and in Round 3 I beat a 4c Stoneblade deck that Brainstorm locked themselves in game 3. In Round 4 I beat Mono-Red Prison. Round 5 I played against Grixis Delver again and in game 2 we had a tough spot where my opponent played turn 2 Pyromancer on the play, I had Force and opted to Force the Pyromancer. My opponent Forced back and then died to my Show and Tell. I made that play because my hand was cantrip heavy, and if they opted to let me counter Pyromancer then I would at least have the breathing room to build up protection or redundancy to beat their Force, and if they did Force back, then at least I’m saving myself one Pyromancer token if they have second counter on their turn. It was a tough spot for my opponent as well, their hand was all counters, it made sense to tap out now, but as it played out they would have been better off just waiting with mana up and trying to draw a third mana source.

In round 6, I got paired to Lands and won a ludicrous game 1 where I Forced turn 1 Explorations, and was 99% to win from the moment when I resolved Sneak Attack, but couldn’t get a second creature off of fourteen cards from Griselbrand that got Mazed. Eventually I cantripped into Emrakul and ate their board, but by this point I was at three life from fetches and a couple of Punishing Fires. I had to Force Mox Diamond to stop them from casting another Punishing Fire after I fetched again to shuffle. It was all a bit of a joke, and I eventually got another threat and ended it. Game 2, I kept a land heavy hand with Leyline, which shut off their Loam engine and my lands were enough to beat their Sphere effect. I got paired down in Round 7 to Eldrazi and won pretty easily.

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I was 6-1 and in Second place after the Swiss. I beat Food Chain in the quarter finals. I bungled game 2 really badly. I drew my Probe early and had perfect information about my opponents hand full of counters, and navigated my way to resolve Show and Tell for Griselbrand. My opponent cast Surgical Extraction on my Show and Tell and Force of Will in response to me drawing cards, and consequently I drew approximately twenty-one blanks over the next turn or two. My opponent drew Diabolic Edict to kill my Griselbrand, and I was on low enough life that their Deathrite was legitimately threatening my life total. That led me to make a huge mistake, where I opted not to tap Ancient Tomb and instead tapped my Blue sources to cast Sneak Attack and played right into my opponents remaining counters that I knew from before. This left my Sneak Attack in play, but I was tapped out. My opponent ripped Pithing Needle to shut out my Sneak Attacks and I was left with no outs in my deck. It was a giant mess and it left me feeling very silly. Thankfully, justice was served and I crushed them in game 3 very easily.

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In the semi-finals I played against my friend on almost an identical seventy-five. In Game 1, I jammed turn 2 Jace and he had no Force of Will. I used Jace to build a hand with some protection, won the fight over the first spell and then got very lucky to draw another Force plus two blue cards to turn on the Force that remained in my hand, which let me win the fight on the following turn. In game 2, I had superior mana development to my opponent and eventually resolved Jace, then resolved Probe which revealed a hand that did not matchup against mine.

In the finals I played against Storm and I agonized over my keep of Jace, Show and Tell, Sneak Attack, Petal, Tomb, land, land. I was fearful of my lack of protection, but it turns out that my opponent kept a disruption and cantrip heavy hand. They Probed me and then Therapied my Show and Tell, which I felt was a big mistake. It let me resolve Jace on turn 2, which let me assemble the combo while they just cast discard spells and spun their wheels. I was dead to action for a couple of turns but they bricked. In game 2, I kept Leyline, Force, Force, Griselbrand and lands. They took my Force and Griselbrand and I drew 4 straight lands. Unfortunately for them, their hand was all rituals and no action, so again I had plenty of time to draw something. Eventually I drew Brainstorm, saw Show and Tell, Show and Tell, Emrakul and got to stick Emrakul and have Force backup, which was enough to win it. Obviously, it was kind of surreal to win two years in a row, and now I have a Mox Jet to go with my Mox Ruby from last year. It was definitely a crazy feeling to win nine straight after losing Round 1 too.

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Sean: How do you feel about the Legacy community in Melbourne/Australia, as well as the metagame here?

Patty: I am somewhat removed from the Legacy community in Melbourne, given that I play so infrequently, so it’s hard to give any meaningful comment there. I will say that it is awesome to see just how fast the format is growing. Last year's Masters was the biggest at the time, with sixty-odd players, and then this year to have added 50% again is staggering growth. In regards to the metagame itself, it felt relatively in-line with what I expected. Lots of Delver, Show and Tell variants as the most popular combo deck, some Death & Taxes and then a whole lot of stuff in the middle.

Sean: Feel free to add any closing words!

Patty: Thank you for inviting me along and for everyone who read this far. If you want to get in touch, you can find me on Twitter @ghett_smart or @gasmtg

Conclusion

Once again we reach the end of another This Week in Legacy. Join me next week for a run-down of Vegas, Australian Legacy Masters, two Legacy Challenges and probably more.

Before you head off, check out some sweet content from others!

Til next time!

Sean Brown

Email: sean_brown156@hotmail.com

Reddit: ChemicalBurns156

Twitter: @Sean_Brown156

What I'm Playing This Week

With Australian Legacy Masters done and dusted (note: I got crushed in both my first rounds by Thalia, Heretic Cathar, this is what I get for betraying D&T for Grixis Delver!), it's time to play the spicy brews that I've had on the back burner for quite some time. If we remember some weeks ago I posted about two Bomberman lists awhile ago (here and here) and Caleb Durward also piloted the deck to a stunning 3-0 win over Bob Huang in the LPL. I've been tinkering with the deck quite a bit, and have settled on this list as my go-to moving forward.

I've opted out of Gitaxian Probe due to its poor synergy with Chalice, and instead have opted for every single artifact "slow trip" available. Instead of Blue for Trinket Mage I have opted for Red, as I've realized it's not Lion's Eye Diamond I want to typically find - it's Salvagers. The big 2/4 can outgrind opponents with ease just by looping Bauble activations until a Lion's Eye Diamond is found, and can also hold the fort against most annoying permanents. That's actually what's impressed me the most. This deck has a very solid Plan A (combo), B (turbo Mentor Stompy), C (Salvagers grind) and D (Chalice + idiots beatdown).

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The sideboard is also reminiscent of Imperial Painter, in that it can utilize a variety of hate bears to further dismantle game plans. I really like how this list can support Magus of the Moon as another must kill or counter threat (or maybe they just can't thanks to Cavern of Souls). Nahiri, the Harbinger also adds an additional four-mana grind machine that can also get rid of troublesome permanents in a pinch. Her ultimate also tutors for any combo piece required.

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I'm honestly super excited to be trying this. It's all the janky creatures I love, bundled up into a Stompy-combo deck that's surprisingly fluid. I'll report back on how the deck runs next week! I also wrote a monster primer for the deck on The Source, so have a look there if you're interested further.

The Spice Corner

If that wasn't spicy enough for you...

The dream stays alive for Albert Huang, who smashed a 1k with Doomsday even without Top! The most exciting new part of the Doomsday piles are previously unplayable-looking cards - Three Wishes and Act on Impulse.