Who Can It Be Now (Redux)

So, after a few years (wow, 2014) I have come across Who Can It Be Now again. "Hey," I thought, "let's give this a whirl!"

Let's take another look at the deck. 

3 Defense Grid

3 Penumbra Wurm
2 Nicol Bolas
3 Pathrazer of Ulamog
2 Pelakka Wurm
1 Worldspine Wurm
3 Dragon Tyrant

4 Sneak Attack

4 Seething Song
4 Lotus Petal
2 Pyroclasm

1 Dwarven Ruins
2 Sandstone Needle
3 Forgotten Cave
2 Smoldering Crater
14 Mountain

3 Gamble
3 Reforge the Soul

Well then. I think we can say it's time for a little refresher. 

First; there are too many lands that ETB. Forgotten Cave can be cycled for one mana, but Smoldering Crater? That can just be a Mountain.

Most of the creatures I like! But it's probably time to take a look at creatures that have been printed since 2014...

Oh my.

However, I don't know that creatures are what Who Can It Be Now really needs. It needs card draw, something Red didn't have much of in 2014. It's 2022 though and cards like Thrill of Possibility exist. 

Also, the threats like Dragon Tyrant are 100% glory of cool things. Let's try this:

3 Defense Grid

3 Penumbra Wurm
2 Nicol Bolas
3 Pathrazer of Ulamog
1 Pelakka Wurm
1 Worldspine Wurm
1 Atraxa, Grand Unifier 

4 Sneak Attack

4 Seething Song
4 Thrill of Possibility
2 Cathartic Pyre

1 Dwarven Ruins
2 Sandstone Needle
3 Forgotten Cave
16 Mountain

3 Gamble
3 Into the Fire
4 Strike It Rich

The new goal is to both increase my mana production via Strike It Rich-freeing up Lotus Petal for another deck that might be more appropriate, a Storm or artifact based one-and cycle through my cards a lot faster with Thrill of Possibility and Cathartic Pyre. 

I also took out Reforge the Soul for Into the Fire. This requires me to be a little savvy about how I play my cards out; saving lands in hand for more draws with Into the Fire is a line of play I need to be aware of. But Into the Fire removes an effect that could help my opponent as much as me, while also giving me the option to cast a Pyroclasm on turn three, if I haven't been able to get my pieces together. 

Finally, I have made room for one Atraxa, Grand Unifier. If she's great in Reanimator builds, maybe she can help close the gap in Sneak Attack builds. 

At least, that's the hope. Red as a color has changed so much in the past eight years that it would be foolish to ignore what's opened up. 

Data Gap

One match. Sigh. Would you believe I've been trying to find more people to play with? It's a slow process, I guess.

Now, in this case Who Can It Be Now? did exactly what it was supposed to. The first game had my opponent stuck on two land and the second, pictured, also ended badly for her when I was able to swing with two Pathrazers and a Pelakka Wurm on the same turn.

But I still kept wondering about all those tiny creatures. Any disruption, be it in discard or instant removal from my opponent and it probably would have been a very different game. I should expect this kind of disruption and adjust accordingly.

The card that has felt the deadest throughout has been Through the Breach. I never want it, I never Gamble for it and it is just a stopgap before I land a Sneak Attack because I cannot Breach and win. I have to Sneak and win. So it is time to cease stopgap measures. Pyroclasm kills enough creatures that running two is just a smart idea and will hopefully extend the turns I have to get the board set up.

Finished listing:

4 Seething Song

2 Pyroclasm
3 Gamble
3 Reforge the Soul

3 Pathrazer of Ulamog
2 Pelakka Wurm
3 Dragon Tyrant
2 Nicol Bolas
1 Bloodfire Colossus
4 Penumbra Wurm

4 Lotus Petal
3 Defense Grid

4 Sneak Attack

1 Smoldering Crater
14 Mountain
1 Dwarven Ruins
2 Sandstone Needle
4 Forgotten Cave

I'll Be Trapped

I don't want to take this one datapoint as gospel but...still a pretty fun story.

The drawback of having a job is that I only got to play one game and it was against a Painter's Servant deck running Goblin Welder to keep the win conditions on the table.

My turn 1: Mountain, Gamble for Sneak Attack, discard Sneak Attack. So that's sad.

His turn 1: Mountain, Goblin Welder

My turn 2: Mountain, cycle Forgotten Cave.

His turn 2: Ancient Tomb, tap to play Grindstone.

My turn 3: draw Sneak Attack, play Mountain, say go.

At this point that I know what I'm up against. He's going to find a Painter's Servant, and then mill my entire deck. I know it's trouble unless I can find a Seething Song to cast Sneak Attack and the drop Pathrazer (which I have, along with Nicol Bolas, Dragon Tyrant and Penumbra Wurm).

His turn 3 is spent casting Gamble, discarding something irrelevant and then casting Painter's Servant.

And I draw a Gamble. There is nothing in my deck that can kill anything he has and I concede the game.

On my drive home, I realized that if I'd kept the Pyroclasms in the deck, I could have Gambled for that and maybe given myself a chance to win.

And I laugh, because what the hell. Sometimes it just doesn't work out.

I've Done No Harm, At Least To Myself

The thing about Who Can It Be Now is that it goes all in. You don't get to make a comeback.

I was playing a game against Jason's Mesmeric Orb deck and on turn 2 I had Sneak Attack out, swinging for 7 with Pelakka Wurm. He went to 13 and on the next turn, dropped Maze of Ith.

No problem: I have Gamble and 3 other cards in hand, so on my turn I dig for a Pathrazer, because once I swing with that, he'll have no permanents which is a state that most decks cannot recover from, even though it's early in the game. However, the discard part of Gamble had me losing Pathrazer and Jason goes on to set up his board lock and win.

So while that sucked it was a whimsical suck. I pick any other card from my hand and I win the game. Randomness is fickle; whatcha gonna do? I don't feel the urge to replace all my creatures with Eldrazi, that's for certain.

I had a more interesting matchup against Fuz, who was playing a Second Sunrise/Atog deck. Essentially, he wants to cast a bunch of artifacts, then swing with an Atog, eat the artifacts to make it huge, Second Sunrise brings them all back for a second helping and, if the Atog is big enough but somehow doesn't kill me, use Fling and finish the game.

It's a pretty good plan and it beat me solidly in game 2 but the match was mine.

One thing that I am finding interesting to play with is Reforge the Soul. As with the rest of WCIBN?, it's either huge or it's a massive mistake. 

I bring it up because the one card in the deck that isn't there to make mana/kill opponents is Pyroclasm. It's difficult to argue against Pyroclasm because it is so good. It's been a staple red sweeper for years with nothing really coming close to matching it until Anger of the Gods came out, mostly because Anger can take care of persist and undying creatures.

Still, the increase of consistency that a 3rd (maybe a 4th?) Reforge brings is hard to resist. Add in a third Defense Grid, and then add another nastybad to win with and the ratio of wins might go up.

The drawback: a turn 3 Pyroclasm kills so many bad things. Gaddok Teeg, Bob, every mana dork ever printed, Kor Spiritdancer (sometimes), most anything with Hexproof. It really slows down a lot of good decks. I may not be a big enough gambler to risk it...but I suppose I ought to give it a try. Worst that happens, I put the Pyroclasm back in. Let's see, eh?

Who Can It Be Now

When I met Jason, Sneak Attack was the cornerstone of the first deck he played against me. Eventually, I just had to try and make it for myself and this is what I came up with.

3 Through the Breach

4 Seething Song
3 Flamebreak
3 Pyroclasm
3 Gamble

3 Pathrazer of Ulamog
2 Pelakka Wurm
3 Dragon Tyrant
1 Nicol Bolas
1 Bloodfire Colossus
4 Penumbra Wurm

4 Lotus Petal

4 Sneak Attack

4 Smoldering Crater
14 Mountain
1 Dwarven Ruins
2 Sandstone Needle
1 Forgotten Cave

I named the song after the awesome Men At Work ditty, because the creature suite was always going to surprise. The core started with Penumbra Wurm because it would help give the deck some reach. With only 14 creatures, having some that would stick around to provide more pressure seemed like a good idea. Over the course of years, I updated the creatures list as Sneak Attack decks occasionally appeared and now that Sneak and Show is an official, nasty Legacy deck, I thought it might be time to revamp this a little.

In a Reddit Legacy Magic forum, I saw a thread on Sneak and Show, so I looked into it. I don't have any interest in changing this from a mono-red deck but that doesn't mean there aren't some good ideas.

Out: Flamebreak, because if I need to use it, something had gone wrong. Also, one Through the Breach, because I feel that six Sneak Attack effects are enough redundancy. And three Smoldering Crater.

In: two Defense Grid. This is a concession to my current metagame. My opponents run less Jason-type decks with combos that ignore the opponent, opting for more disruptive elements, from creature removal to countermagic, and taxing elements are stronger than people give them credit for. I've always liked this card and I'm glad to have a reason to use it.

Two Reforge the Soul go in as well. This I took from the Reddit suggestions, and there's enough mana production in here that I can pay the mana to draw a new set of seven cards if I have to. With only 14 creatures, digging up an extra seven cards can be a huge boon, and means I don't have to rely as much on Gamble to get what I need.

Finally, the Smoldering Crater were replaced with three Forgotten Cave. This was done strictly because if I cycle this on an opponent's turn, it's cheaper than cycling Smoldering Crater and I'm hoping that will provide more opportunity to miracle the Reforge the Soul.