Today I just want to give you all a quick look at where I’m at with testing. Friday I’ll be posting my writeup for the BUG Leovold matchup, but after reading Sean Brown’s great article a few minutes ago, I figured I should post something real quick as a follow up.

Fatal Push, True-Name Nemesis, and Leovold, Emissary of Trest are currently redefining the Legacy metagame. I think it is foolish to not prepare for that future. I’m working on fighting the new tech with my next level tech. The decklist I’ve been testing for about the last two weeks is as follows, and it is going to raise some eyebrows…

D&T 1/25/17

Yeah, I’ll give you a minute to take that in. I have cut Sword of Fire and Ice from the deck completely and moved Batterskull to the sideboard. These cuts make room for Sword of War and Peace and Sword of Body and Mind in the main. As a whole, I’ve really been disappointed with Batterskull recently. I almost never fetch it, with the exceptions being the BUG and Eldrazi matchups. Four years ago, cheating a Batterskull in was game-warping. These days, the threats and answers have gotten much better, and it’s rare that the little fellow just goes all the way. I was tired of drawing that card, and I’m consistently fearing it getting stuck in my hand like the Progenitus in an Elves deck. I had been considering cutting it for about a year, but the resurgence of the Eldrazi decks put that idea on the back burner. I never had a reason to pull the trigger until now.

Sword of Body and Mind started out as a sideboard card for me. I however, didn’t like having two pieces of equipment in the sideboard; there simply was not room. One piece of equipment needed to go. I’ve been championing SoWaP as a sideboard cards for years and it’s probably going my trademark card at this point. Given how useful it is against Miracles and the mirror, I thought it was time to give it a promotion. Once I did that, I realized that if I moved SoBaM to the main, I would be able to fetch up four colors of protection in the main… *eyebrow raises*

My current deck configuration was born from that line of thought, and it has been testing very well. It’s possible that the Batterskull should just get the axe completely, but sometimes you need a non-white body against Dread of Night or an opposing SoWaP, so I’m hesitant to cut it entirely. I thought that I would miss the card draw from SoFaI, but it hasn’t been as much of an issue as I initially thought it would be.

Other than that, I’ve gone up to a 2-2 split of Mirran Crusader and Serra Avenger in the main, cutting my Banisher Priest to do so. Banisher Priest and Palace Jailer don’t line up well against True-Name Nemesis and Leovold, Emissary of Trest, so I cut them for cards that do. Serra Avenger flies over both of these, but going up to a third copy of it would likely mean I’d have to go down from two copies of Cavern of Souls, a deckbuilding decision I’m not in favor of right now. Mirran Crusader has natural protection from Fatal Push, so having a second copy around can’t be a bad thing.

I’m still playing around with this idea as a whole, so I’d love to hear you all call me a madman or genius. Happy testing!