This weekend I played a variant on Eli Kassis's Grixis Control deck in the Legacy Premier IQ in Washington DC to an 8th place finish. I had no experience with this deck prior to the event, and basically threw it together Friday night because it looked fun and I didn't want to play my usual Storm deck in a field I expected to be full of people excited to cast Hymn to Tourach again.
Obviously Eli's list isn't viable as is anymore because of the banning, but I felt like playing 4 Dig Through Time might be good in the same shell. Because of the shifted metagame, I also wanted more answers to Tarmogoyf than he originally played, and after much debate I settled on Terminate. Abrupt Decay has proven that 2CMC removal spells are viable, and with 5 burn spells to handle early threats I felt like I wouldn't be forced to run my Terminates into Dazes all that often, which is where Decay shines. I also increased my brick wall creatures by playing an extra Baleful Strix and an extra True-Name Nemesis. I wasn't sold on Dack Fayden, but I played the one copy because he is awesome and I was hoping that wanting him to be good would result in him actually being good.
I settled on this decklist.
Round 1 - Jameson Helfrich - U/R Delver
Like all delver decks, I felt advantaged in this matchup. Strix and Nemesis present great walls they can't get through, and we have enough cheap removal to get to the bigger stuff. I got game 1 after he got a hot start but ran out of gas. Lost game two because I left Dack Fayden in the deck, drew him in my opener, and made a bad keep with a slow hand on the draw that I should've mulliganed because he had a very good start. Got game 3 after fixing my sideboard and drawing removal early for his delver and swiftspear.
-1 Dack Fayden
-1 Gitaxian Probe
-4 Force of Will
+3 Pyroblast
+2 Hydroblast
+1 Sudden Demise
Round 2 - Chris Keller - Shardless BUG
I expected this to be a more difficult matchup than it was. Lightning Bolt kept Deathrite in check, Terminate did a god job of handling Tarmogoyf. He never resolved an Ancestral the entire match, and I cast a lot of dig through times. At least twice I 2-for-1'd myself with burn spells to kill Jaces, but was able to get enough card advantage back from Digs that I got there anyway. Overall I would say this matchup is even at best, and that I got fairly lucky that he didn't draw well. In game 2 he had a sylvan library in play and couldn't find a 3rd land (and I was putting enough pressure on that he couldn't pay a bunch of life for cards). In game 3 he spent a lot of time with green cards in hand and no green land, and I kept killing his Deathrites that would've helped him.
-1 Dack Fayden (even though he can take strixes)
-4 Force of Will (relying on Pyroblast for Jace, don't want Force vs the Hymn deck)
+3 Pyroblast
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Notion Thief
Round 3 - Shawn Casey - Junk
The highlight of this match: Game 1, turn 4. Opponent says "here's a card you don't see in legacy often" and casts Siege Rhino. It resolves, I get helixed. I respond "here's another one" and cast terminate. Won 2-0 after we both played discard on eachother to get to basically hellbent, and then I was playing Brainstorm, Ponder, and Dig Through Time and he wasn't. I had some nutty Cabal Therapies that really helped here.
-4 Force of Will
+1 Sudden Demise
+1 Cabal Therapy
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Nihil Spellbomb
I didn't particularly want the clique or spellbomb here, I just didn't want Force vs his 10-12 discard spell deck. I figured Siege Rhino was the biggest problem for me to deal with and between 4 Therapies, 2 Terminates, 1 Counterspell, and 2 Strixes I could probably handle it without Force.
Round 4 - Zack Kanner -
RUG Delver
The RUG matchup is all about making my land drops. If the game goes long, I almost can't lose. Both games he kept hands that led on Ponders and were light on mana denial, I managed to land TNNs and Strixes and buy enough time for Dig Through Time to take over the game.
-4 Force of Will
-1 Dack Fayden
+3 Pyroblast
+2 Hydroblast
In testing I wasn't sure if I wanted Hydroblast in this matchup becuase it hits so few spells, but everything it hits is very important. Countering a single burn spell thrown at pyromancer can win the game on it's own. Plus RUG sometimes plays things like Sulfuric Vortex out of the board and having answers to that if necessary seems good. I don't know that I'd rush to side them in if I didn't have space, but there's no reason to keep Dack or Force in this matchup, and they fill an excellent role.
Round 5 - Doug Azzano -
Blaverick
I classify this as Black Maverick, but really who knows what the hell to call it. It's definitely hatebears the deck. I Cabal Therapied game one naming Knight of the Reliquary, which apparently isn't in the deck at all. Game 1 was dumb because Doug flooded on 3 Mother of Runes and 2 Deathrites, and then just didn't draw any other threats. I had a pyromancer out, but didn't have many instants/sorceries to fuel it, and every 1/1 I made would mean another 2 damage dealt to me by a shaman. I finally lost when he Living Wished for Orzhov Pontiff, wiped my board, and swung with 3 moms and 2 shamans.
I got game two after he overcommitted into Massacre (which we agreed there was no logical reason for the Young Pyromancer/TNN deck to be playing), and then game 3 we ended up going to time. I think I might've been able to pull game 3 out, but he had a Jitte on board and a Windswept Heath in play, and I shuffled away a Ponder with a Young Pyromancer that probably could've taken over because I expected him to fetch dryad arbor end of turn, equip the jitte, and hit me, so I kept looking for a burn spell that could answer the arbor. Turns out he didn't play Green sun or Dryad Arbor at all. The moral of these two stories is that sometimes it really pays to be the deck people don't expect. I won a game because he didn't know what to expect out of my board, and I didn't win a game because I was playing around stuff he didn't have.
-4 Force of Will
+1 Smash to Smithereens
+1 Null Rod
+1 Massacre
+1 Sudden Demise
Round 6 - Myles Housman -
RUG Delver
In round 4 I said RUG is all about making my land drops. It is, and I didn't. Game 1 I drew two Volcanics and an Island. My turn 1 probe showed double wasteland, which he used on my volcanics, and I never managed to find another land before dying to mongeese. Game 2 we both mulled to six, I kept a two lander with a probe and a ponder. Probe reveals Fetch, Fetch, Pierce, Stifle, Snare, Ponder. He ponders into a waste for my first land, and I never found an answer to his stifle, so my fetchland sat uselessly in play until I died without drawing another land.
I still think all delver matchups are positive with this deck, but even an 80% matchup (which this isn't) means you lose 2 out of 10, and this was one of 'em.
-4 Force of Will
-1 Dack Fayden
+3 Pyroblast
+2 Hydroblast
Round 7 - Richard Cox - Tezzeret Helm/Leyline Combo
This matchup is atrocious. I lost game one after he played a Leyline of the Void on turn 3, then played Helm on turn 4, which I countered. He put it on top with Academy Ruins. I countered it again. He put it on top again, and I didn't have a third counter.
Game 2 had an extremely unfortunate judge call. I won't go deep into the details, but suffice to say that I screwed up maintaining the board state, he didn't catch it, and by the time we realized it and judges were called, things had progressed too far to reverse things, and the partial fix that was applied ended up heavily in my favor. I apologized for the mistake, but we've all been there and it sucks all the way around when that happens. I believe I would've won that game anyway, but it was still not pleasant for anyone.
Game 3 He opens with double leyline, which is essentially a mull to 5 unless he resolves a helm. Probe reveals a helm in his hand, but he's short on mana. I manage to stick a Pyromancer and we fight over a thopter foundry that he rebuys with Academy Ruins at least once. The fights just generate more tokens for me, and I win while he has all of the pieces necessary to combo off in hand, and just can't get them into play.
-3 Dig Through Time
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Forked Bolt
-1 Lightning Bolt
-1 Terminate
-1 Preordain
+1 Nihil Spellbomb
+1 Null Rod
+3 Pyroblast
+1 Smash to Smithereens
+1 Surgical Extraction
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Cabal Therapy
I went a little deep cutting most of my graveyard relevant spells. Dig Through Time is a very important part of this deck, but if he's mulliganing to leyline some of the time anyway, I have no answers to it, and I didn't want to get stuck with a bunch of Digs in hand. He opened both postboard games with Leylines on the board and I was very happy to draw relevant spells instead of digs.
Round 8 - Anthony Laflamme -
Jeskai Control
I won a close game 1 while we were battling back and forth and I was 2for1ing myself to kill Jace. We both resolved multiple Dig Through Times, and had tons of cards, but eventually I found a True-Name with him at 7 life, and he couldnt' find one of his 3 maindeck answers to it in time.
Game 2 He sided in the stoneforge package. I had a fast start while he mulliganed and came out of the gates slowly. I had a bunch of Pyromancer Tokens quickly taking over the game when he found stoneforge and searched for batterskull. I could probably have made enough tokens to race the batterskull, but was able to cast Brainstorm into fetch into Dig Through Time, looking at 10 cards to find a copy of Lightning Bolt or Cabal Therapy to take care of it. This is one of those cases where Dig just completely overperformed Treasure Cruise, allowing me to be incredibly selective and find the exact card I needed right then. I found a bolt and a Force of Will, killed the stoneforge and was able to have Force of Will available for his next turn to seal the win.
-2 Terminate
-1 Forked Bolt
-2 Baleful Strix
+ Notion Thief
+3 Pyroblast
+1 Vendilion Clique
Quarterfinals - TJ Martin -
Lands
The moment standings were announced and I found out I was playing TJ, I knew I was in trouble. The decklist I ended up on is extremely soft to Lands. Our match was pretty boring. Game 1 he played a T1 Mox Diamond, Land, Exploration. I forced Exploration and he passed. He played a T2 Depths, T3 Stage, and the remaining countermagic in my hand was useless against Marit Lage
Game 2 I probe him and see Exploration, Gamble, Crop Rotation, Tabernacle, Port, and two fetches. I force his turn 1 Exploration, Cabal Therapy his Gamble, and get a Pyromancer down with a token friend. Unfortunately he draws a wasteland and a loam, and with the Tabernacle is able to keep me at either 1 or 2 creatures the whole game because I couldn't pay upkeep. I eventually got him to 3 before having to give up the pyromancer and start digging for a Lightning Bolt and a fetch for my last red source, but I didn't find it before he found Marit Lage, ending my day.
-2 Terminate
-1 Forked Bolt
-1 Dack Fayden
-1 Baleful Strix
+1 Nihil Spellbomb
+1 Smash to Smithereens
+1 Surgical Extraction
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Cabal Therapy
Conclusions
The deck is sweet, and some version of it can exist in the metagame because of how good it naturally is against Delver. You play control against the delver decks and you play the beatdown against the control and combo decks. There are obviously several changes I would make.
- Dack Fayden simply wasn't good. I suspect he was better in this deck when fueling Cruises, but he wasn't worth the card disadvantage just to fuel Dig. I played against only 2 Stoneforge decks, neither which had mystic as plan 1, and the 1 tezzeret deck i played against had a ton of artifacts, but not that many worth taking control of. Controlling the Chalice of the Void doesn't help much, y'know?
- I suspect the deck needs an 18th land. I lost 8 games on the day. Of those 8, 4 of them were because I didn't
have enough mana to cast my spells when my opponent attacked my
manabase. It should probably be either a mountain, to help against Wasteland (and probably switch the fetches around a bit as a result), or a Wasteland. This deck is obviously not interested in being a mana denial wasteland deck, but having access to Wasteland in the 75 would've been nice for things like Academy Ruins or Tabernacle. Buying even a single turn without Tabernacle game 2 of the quarterfinals would've won me that game before he stabilized.
- I like to mention this because people sometimes read more into sideboards from these tournaments than is actually there: I never cast Notion Thief, Null Rod, Grafdigger's Cage, or Vendilion Clique all day. I only cast Nihil Spellbomb, Smash to Smithereens, Surgical Extraction, Massacre, and Sudden Demise once each. I leaned heavily on the blasts and the 4th Therapy, but other than that it's all pretty flexible.
- I'd like a bounce spell in the 75. Oddly enough I routinely felt like I would've been happy with a Cryptic Command in hand, but I don't think there's room for it in the maindeck and I'd never side it in. Eli played Recoil, and maybe that's the right answer, but even something like Vapor Snag would've been useful at buying a turn or two against Marit Lage.
- Counterspell and Terminate were the last three cards in the deck, and they both dramatically overperformed. I wouldn't play this with fewer than 2 Terminates. I probably wouldn't play it with more than that either, but they were excellent.
- I never played against a traditional combo deck, so I can't speak to the Show and Tell/Storm matchups. I suspect they're pretty decent but not amazing.
- Even in a world without maindeck Pyroblasts everywhere, I really liked the 2 Hydroblasts in the board. They were relevant versus bolts on my pyromancers, and while it only came up in testing and not the tournament itself, they were very relevant versus something like Blood Moon or Sulfuric Vortex.
If I were playing this deck in a tournament tomorrow, this is what I would register. If you're feeling spicy, replace the second Counterspell with a Cryptic Command or the Vapor Snag with a Recoil.
