I'm Gonna Set It Straight

 

Though the testing ended on a down note with Noah-he beat me with his mono-Black zombie deck- I am satisified with Sabotage for the time being.

It was strange to be out-aggroed by zombies but in the two games I lost, I had no removal. Meaning Asmora didn't appear for me to get read of the lords. Plus, I didn't adjust well to a new role in the matchup; I should have slowed down and made a few blocks in game three. 

In addition, Noah correctly killed off my Anje's Ravager before I could get an attack in with it. At that point my hand was empty and I was in trouble. 

Sabotage does make me wish I had some Hellbent cards I could utilize. But they just do not mesh well: they are all just too expensive for the impact they have on the game.

It's also possible that I'm whiffing on the use of Fiery Temper either main or side. In an aggro deck, sometimes three damage for R is exactly what you need. For now, though, I like this (even with the Granger. It's got more panache!)

3 The Underworld Cookbook

4 Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Hollow One
3 Anger
4 Anje's Ravager
4 Kitchen Imp
4 Putrid Imp
2 Ox of Agonas
1 Ovalchase Daredevil
1 Tombstalker
2 Street Wraith

5 Swamp
7 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Blood Crypt

4 Faithless Looting

 Sideboard
2 Pithing Needle

3 Shadowgrange Archfiend

 4 Leyline of the Void
 3 Blood Moon

 3 Meltdown

Switch Up My Channel

This is a bit of a rarity for me: everyone is tired of playing Sabotage except for me. I don't blame my friends, entirely: the deck is pretty good, it doesn't seem to need a lot of suggestions or changes and it has a blowout element to it, where I can be attacking for what can be argued is a silly amount of damage on turn two. 

I don't want to burn my people out on this deck. At least with other powerful decks I've built in the last year, there's been a process of ramping them up, or a random quality to them where I can take my shot and blow it. 

Sabotage doesn't do that much and the list I came up with from the start was pretty good, based as it was on an already powerful deck. 

Still, I haven't had to face many countermagic decks or combo ones. I fear what happens when I play Reanimator builds and they're able to use Grief to knock out the best part of my hand. 

I figure I've got one more set of games before I have to wrap this up but I'll admit, it's hard to put Sabotage down. The inclusion of Street Wraith has been a good thing, and if I could squeeze more in there, I'd probably do it. 

I haven't had time to get into the sideboard much but with Ragavan's recent banning and no action on Urza's Saga, artifact oriented decks should pick up a lot of steam. I'm definitely sticking with Meltdown in the slot. 

Can't Say Nothing

(Ed.: sorry about the delay again: I was in surgery yesterday and this slipped my mind.)

I posted Sabotage to the Magicdeckbuilding sub at Reddit and got an interesting response: that I should use Ash Barrens to help cast Amsora and contribute to Hollow One's cost reduction. That's a pretty neat idea! Especially for budget builds, Ash Barrens seems like a no-brainer. 

However, it got me thinking: Ash Barrens doesn't help me do anything faster than The Underworld Cookbook or Putrid Imp. And the downside of being a colorless source of mana is real, when part of the reason I wanted to make a R/B version instead of a RGB version was to solve mana issues. 

To really get there, I'd need something that let me cycle for free and they don't let you do that...except they do. 

The swap of Night's Whisper for Street Wraith feels like an easy one to make. Now, though, I'm concerned about my life total. This isn't a Death's Shadow deck...is it?

No no no, let's focus! (...but stiiiiiiiilllllll...)

Now I have a way to cycle a card on turn one and get out an Asmora, which can then find the Cookbook and that offers me a cheap way to keep discarding cards for value. 

That's good. 

But is it good enough?

For awhile, I was testing Bomat Courier because that was in a list. As a one drop, the card makes a strong case: it's a hasted 1/1 for one mana and it can be a discard outlet. 

However, what I found was that the hidden information aspect of the card meant that I never felt comfortable knowing when to activate the ability. The mana cost to activate the ability was also a strain on a deck that is very trim on mana sources. It might be an excellent sideboard card against a heavy discard deck but I didn't feel like I was getting the best out of that card maindeck.

That said, games have been going well and I've been finding ways to close games quickly. 

Can't Stand It

(Ed. Sorry this is a day late!)

As a nice coincidence I found Reid Duke playing a version of this deck. He too was using Firestorm as a sideboard card but about fifty minutes in he says he's not thrilled with it so that is probably a change I'll make. 

I do want to take a minute to talk about the sideboard, since I don't often include them. I'd consider taking Sabotage to an event though, so having a sideboard felt like a good decision to flesh out. Reid's video is as good a prompt as any!

It'd be a bad idea to ignore the wisdom of better players, so Firestorm is likely a cut. That video also confirmed the importance of Leyline of the Void. I don't know how anyone builds a Legacy deck without having some kind of graveyard hate, unless they're doing combo.

Big Game Hunter is there for decks that want to use Show and Tell or Sneak Attack to power out a massive creature-your Emrakuls, Griselbrand, even Murktide Regent. Now, that's probably the correct card but I won't lie to you: adding in a Shadowgrange Archfiend really seems awesome. The eight life is a pretty nasty drawback, unfortunately but since it's for a very specific purpose I'll probably try it out.

Blood Moon is also the kind of problem that when it arrives I feel is a card people just scoop to. Since the impact on my deck is minimal I put that in the 'low risk, high return' category.

Pithing Needle is a fine catchall. But since the rest of the sideboard was three Firestorm, should I consider upping the Pithing Needle? 

Or would it be better to have Meltdown, as Sabotage could be locked out by Chalice of the Void, or given fits with Trinisphere? Meltdown also has the benefit of dealing with Urza's Saga tokens and the decks that like to utilize Urza's Saga in general. 

I recognize that there is a metagame component here: while cards like Leyline of the Void and Blood Moon really shouldn't go anywhere, the other slots are ones that offer more flexibility and should be thought of as spots to adapt to whatever decks are in the field. 

For now, I think I'll add in the copies of Meltdown, because of the utility against Urza's Saga and Chalice. 

Sabotage

So here we go:

4 Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Hollow One
3 Anger
4 Anje's Ravager
4 Kitchen Imp
4 Putrid Imp
2 Ox of Agonas
1 Ovalchase Daredevil
1 Tombstalker

          3 The Underworld Cookbook  

5 Swamp
7 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Blood Crypt

4 Faithless Looting
2 Night's Whisper

Sideboard

2 Pithing Needle
3 Big Game Hunter
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Blood Moon
3 Firestorm

The genesis for this deck comes, once again, via Thraben U, who has played a few variants of it. The skeleton comes from a deck I put into The Retired pile (mostly the manabase) and a desire to streamline the colors. A solid manabase goes a long way. 

The name is probably obvious. 

As a two color deck, I had to make some choices to make up for the lack of Lion's Eye Diamond, Vengevine and Basking Rootwalla. On the flipside this made the inclusion of Anger not only easy, but a necessity. (Also, I remember when Lion's Eye Diamond was awful. Which is wild to think about as the card costs $430 for a heavily played one.)

Kitchen Imp is being overlooked even in non-Anger decks, since a 2/2 with haste for B is good and can also take on an opposing Delver of Secrets. The hasty flier is my replacement for Vengevine, and Night's Whisper a way to work with Faithless Looting to keep the cards coming. 

Ovalchase Daredevil was a card I stole from someone else's list while doing research for the deck. The synergy with The Underworld Cookbook is something I initially slept on but hope to get good things from.

Finally, Tombstalker was a suggestion from either Matt or Caitlin, I don't remember exactly. I don't know if this is a good card for this deck but if I can get a 5/5 flyer with haste for BB then that is an outstanding rate.