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. 

Half-Measures

 The latest Banned and Restricted announcement went out today and...

~sigh~

They banned Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. 

I'm not surprised mind you: that card is very, very good. Almost certainly too good. 

But this isn't going to change anything. That's why I'm bummed out about it.

Even worse was this line:

However, we feel this is a large change and would like to see how the metagame adapts before considering if other changes are necessary.

The threat suite in a U/R Delver deck isn't the problem that people think it is. It's the countermagic-specifically Daze- and card selection suite (Ponder, Preordain, Brainstorm). It's been obvious to me as a non-competitive observer, that these cards are the problem. That's the engine. 

I'm going to tell you what the future will be and it's easy: the U/R Delver decks are going to up their Delver of Secrets count to four (some had gone down to as few as two), and then they're going to go right back to the well: True-Name Nemesis, Brazen Borrower, Monastery Swiftspear or Magmatic Channeler, maaaybe Ethereal Forager taking up the slack.

It'll take about a month, so from the outset people might feel "hey, it worked!" and then once the UR players have it figured out, we will be right back where we started.

Because you know what doesn't change in the lists from year to year? 4 Brainstorm. 4 Daze. 4 Ponder. Preordain seems to have been replaced by Expressive Iteration but adding an additional color clearly hasn't disrupted the deck. 

The point is that the Delver decks, which have dominated* Legacy for a decade now, will continue to do so. 

*By 'dominated' I mean: been a constant deck to beat, first or second in the listings of something players have to be aware of, always Tier 1. 

If you want to make "a large change" to Legacy, then some of those four cards have to go. Personally, I think Brainstorm would be the card to really crack the format open, but I concede that the splash damage is too much for people. Players would likely revolt. Daze and Ponder however are just too efficient for what they do. 

I would very much like to see a format without Daze and Ponder. Let Ragavan roll: Legacy is already incredibly efficient at finding answers to threats like this. 

WotC made a bad choice and we're going to be dealing with this again in a few months because the Delver decks won't skip a beat, or they will, being "really good" instead of "oppressive"*...until the next efficient Blue or Red or Black card is printed and we're doing this all over again. 

*Read: "well, at least it wasn't as bad as when Ragavan was there, right?" Except it will be just as bad, players will just have had a break from it.

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. 

Neon Building

Wizards released a roundtable discussion about the process they went through to make the new Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty set and I really dug it!

I learned a few things about Japanese culture, but also the process that went into making a world that riffed off real world notions in a way that respected them. 

Worth your 20 minutes. 

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. 

Late To The Party: Metro: Exodus

 I recently finished Metro: Exodus (but since it was released in May, I figure it still qualifies as something I'm late to) and...it's good? 

Well. Mostly good. 

There were multiple times in the game where I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing next and that was a drag. This came from the nature of the levels, though: having a hub in a new area and just sending the player out there can be positive, but it also can lead to 'I don't know where I'm supposed to go/how I'm supposed to get there' moments. 

The flipside to that is that I was allowed a lot of freedom to explore areas and discover things before the game might've introduced them-but none of those discoveries were game breaking. That's a pretty clever trick.

The other negative to Metro: Exodus was that there were multiple times when I didn't know where my enemies were. Dying because you don't know what to hide from or defend against feels bad. 

Finally: The load times were brutal. When I can press start, then get up, get a beer, go to the loo, and come back to continue to wait for a game to load up, that is too long. 

However, I kept playing because the gameplay was solid and just as relevant: the story was good. The characters I interacted felt like they mattered, and each of them got a little time to develop. The ending stuck the landing, which I appreciated quite a bit.

The biggest drawback to M:E was the load times and when that's my biggest complaint (valid though it is) I feel like this can still be recommended. 

Budget Ideas

 So here's a delightful post from ServoToken at Reddit regarding budget decks for Legacy. If you don't want to read the post then here's the direct link they posted to a pretty massive forty one viable decks! 

And looking through the list I have to say that there are some clever, interesting choices. Sure, most of the decks are mining alternative mana bases to keep costs down, but that's fine. (As an aside, this is why I continue to invest in mana: they allow me to play all kinds of decks). 

The larger point is that there are a lot more ways to play. Not just Legacy, but Magic in general. I'm not going to say that someone is going to do well at tournaments with these budget lists, more that one can still play good games with them. Plus, you might find some inspiration for decks of your own-that's certainly what I'm looking for.