With 402 players, we were looking at a full nine rounds of Legacy action. Being my second ever Legacy tournament and with a new deck in hand, I was excited to see how the day went, as just about anything was going to be better than the 0-X scrubfest I had at Grand Prix Washington, D.C.
The Deck
Merfolk (a.k.a. Fish Slap)
Creatures
3 x Cosi's Trickster
4 x Cursecatcher
4 x Lord of Atlantis
3 x Phantasmal Image
4 x Silvergill Adept
3 x Merrow Reejerey
Spells
3 x AEther Vial
4 x Daze
4 x Force of Will
Lands
4 x Cavern of Souls
12 x Island
4 x Mutavault
Sideboard
1 x Pithing Needle
1 x Spell Pierce
4 x Swan Song
1 x Vision Charm
1 x Umezawa's Jitte
3 x Submerge
While Burn was a fine deck for starting the format with minimal investment, this seemed like a much better path for starting to build up a "real" Legacy deck, as the investment was pretty reasonable, already owning Mutavaults, Cavern of Souls, and most of the other newer spells and creatures. Force of Will is never a bad purchase, and True-Name Nemesis will probably be a good investment for the long haul.
Plus, there's this:
Ask me a year or so ago when I was getting into the swing of competitive Magic if I would ever shell out for a set of Force of Will and I would have called you crazy, but here we are...
Round 1 - Loss, 0-2 (Black & White)
Not sure what this deck is called, but it ran a ton of hand disruption spells, Dark Confidant, Liliana of the Veil, Stoneforge Mystic (along with Umezawa's Jitte, and Batterskull). With no hand and answers to anything I could topdeck, it was easy pickings for my opponent.
Round 2 - Win, 2-1 (Tendrils Storm)
The board state was looking mighty fine in game one, but he was able to combo off and got there.
Game two saw a spicy no-land-hand keep from my opponent, and he had plenty of combo fuel in there, but stopping that first Dark Ritual kept things in my favor as he never saw another mana source.
Game three also saw me keeping the black sources in check, as he couldn't combo off with no black hands.
Round 3 - Win, 2-1 (Warrens Storm)
With 14 Goblins on board, I was still able to hold them off with my creatures until a Lord of Atlantis brought a lethal swing in for me.
Game two saw Silence and hand disruption pick apart my answers and he was able to overrun me with the gobbos.
In three, True-Name Nemesis and Umezawa's Jitte provided an answer for the Xantid Swarm, which allowed me to punch in to victory.
Round 4 - Win, 2-0 (??????)
This was a very odd round, as the only spells I saw game one were Sensei's Divining Top and Liliana of the Veil and the Top again in game 2. Spinning the top was yielding no results as my opponent couldn't dig for what he needed in either game.
Round 5 - Win, 2-0 (UWR Delver)
Cavern of Souls is ridiculously good to have in game 1, as most of his hand was useless against uncounterable creatures and the ensuing beatdown.
Game 2 saw AEther Vial finally shine, as sneaking in Masters/Lords to blank Lightning Bolt or to get more damage in combat is pretty darn good. Llawan, Cephalid Empress also came in for this game, and ended up removing the flipped Delver, which swung the game hard in my favor.
Round 6 - Loss, 0-2 (BUG Delver)
Good god these were brutal. T1 Deathrite Shaman, T2 double Delver of Secrets, T3 flip = beatdown city. I had no way of stopping the pain train.
Game 2 saw me getting Wasteland'd and not drawing any basics.
Round 7 - Loss, 1-2 (Dark Maverick)
With 4 True-Name Nemesis on board and 1 in hand, the game was mine to win, but I got greedy with an attack and over-extended, allowing my opponent to hit on the backswing and finish with his Deathrite Shaman and Batterskull.
Game 2 saw Pithing Needle shutting down DRS, which slowed down the ramp to good stuff enough for me to get the win. Cosi's Trickster was also a stud here, as it made fetching lands with no DRS value sting that much more.
Game 3 was another land drought game, as I got stuck on an Island and Mutavault with a handful of UU spells.
Round 8 - Loss, 0-2 (Elves)
Game one saw the Natural Order combo get off and game two saw ol' Stompy getting hardcast when I had a Swan Song in hand. A little more pressure on board would have been good for me to race the combo, but, alas, it was not there.
Round 9 - Drop
We decided to make it back to State at a decent hour, since we were all 4-4 or worse at that point.
Wrapping Up
4-4 wasn't too bad of a finish for a brand new format, and I definitely feel as if I learned a lot. Now that I've played the deck and have seen it in action against some other decks, reading/watching videos about the the deck will make a lot more sense for future improvements, tweaks, and changes.
I'm not really sure if this is good or bad, but I think this weekend saw me getting bitten by the Legacy bug. There's something incredibly fun about playing with some of the most powerful cards in Magic's history and all of the completely crazy interactions, spells, and brews that can populate the format.
As I said in my Standard Recap post, we should be posting a Born of the Gods set review soon this week, so keep an eye out for it.
Don't tilt,
-- Michifus
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