I couldn't find a thread on this archetype in this forum and I think it could really fit the bill as an interesting budget legacy build. This is an archetype in Modern and some work has been done already on a Legacy version, but the latter is outdated and doesn't consider all the tech that can be gathered from Modern.
So the idea behind this deck is that you can play a large copy number of the banned über powerful Balance by using Restore Balance and 3 CMC cascade spells instead. This however makes the balance effect itself much more difficult to abuse, since you can't just throw cheap artifact mana in your deck because NOTHING can cost less than 3 except Restore Balance, or else your 1 card combo won't work. The goal of the deck is to suspend some threats on turns 1-3 and then RB on turns 3-4, leaving your opponent with no creatures, 1 land and 0-1 cards in hand. Legacy brings three important (and affordable) cards to the table that Modern lacks:
Unmask: It's 3+ CMC so it doesn't interfere with cascade, it helps you resolve RB and it clears your hand of cards to make RB more devastating. Fantastic! The only problem is the need for black cards, which is easily solved by adopting a Borderpost mana base (a common build option for the Modern versions). Cunning Wish: You really only want mana, RB+cascaders and threats in the deck. The problem with too many cascaders is that you'll have multiples way too often, leaving you cards in hand and making your RBs less effective. With CW, you can wish for a Violent Outburst if you need to, or for something better if you already have a cascader (such as Orim's Chant/Silence to cover your cascade). CW lets you run fewer dedicated cascaders and still have a very consistent decks with game 1 answers to decks that don't care much about your main strategy (dredge and enchantress mostly). Modern must use Thieves' Fortune instead - still a key card in those builds. Elvish Spirit Guide: SSG is already a staple in Modern and there's really no reason not to run all 8. Acceleration that doesn't interfere with cascade is rare and this is free and pitches as a mana source - awesome.
Here's a few additional notes on card choices to hopefully start a discussion on the viability of the archetype in a budget legacy context:
CASCADE PACKAGE Restore Balance: Yeah, we need those. I think the best option is to run 3 main to reduce the risk of two in the opener (suspending one on t1-2 isn't bad as it sets up your second RB very nicely). With Cunning Wish, running the 4th copy and a single Research//Development in the wish board enables you to survive an Extirpate/Surgical Extraction (very problematic otherwise). A singleton Mistveil Plains ensures that you have inevitability against counter-heavy control (tech borrowed from the Modern builds) and makes 3 RB main very doable. Ardent Plea: Perhaps the best cascader. Cumulative with itself without interfering with later RBs due to its type. Enables Mistveil Plains. Shardless Agent: More expensive to buy but probably at least as strong as Plea. A 2/2 is pretty easy to handle, but it gets more difficult with no cards in hand and no creatures on the board. Violent Outburst: Mandatory as a target in the wish board, but probably not as strong as Agent/Plea, despite the awesomeness of instant speed. You should run 7-8 cascaders in addition to 3-4 Wishes and 3 RBs main, so you'll have to pick the ones you like the most. Demonic Dread: Horrible. Sorcery speed and requires a target (bad against control). Only saving grace is pitching to Unmask, but it's not needed.
THREATS Greater Gargadon: It's huge, cheap and it eats lands, making you geddon more cleanly which is especially important against control. 3-4 of in most builds. Nihilith: Comes out more readily and presents a 4/4 evasive dude with haste right after you wipe the board and hand on turn 3-ish, which is kind of scary. AND it pitches to Unmask. Auto 4-of. Anurid Brushhopper: Kind of interesting, performing almost the same funtion as Gargadon but for your hand instead. I could see this as a 1-2 of with 3 gargas for better control over your RBs. It also enables Mistveil Plains.
MANA BASE
Spirit Guides: As already discussed, an auto 8 slots. They let you RB as early as turn 0 if needed, but typically 3-4 will be the sweet spot.
Borderposts: The 8 black ones (also providing red and blue sources) not only let you stay ahead when using RB, the also pitch to Unmask. Since they still count as land drops, you don't want too many of them to avoid hand clutter. 8-12 is probably ideal.
Basics: Needed to enable the borderposts while also making you naturally wasteland resistent! The basic fetchers Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds are crucial (see the modern builds) since you're 5C. One of each basic and 6 fetchers is optimal for enabling borderposts and getting the colors you need without cluttering your hand/board too much. Gemstone Mine: The perfect land for the deck - fixes mana while it matters and then readily kills itself. 4-of! Mistveil Plains: As discussed. The guides and posts make you short on white mana anyway, so a few more dedicated sources is a good thing. Flagstones of Trokair: Mike Flores actually argued running 4 of these in the Modern build to feed Gargadon. I think it can't hurt as a 1-of and it helps fetching Mistveil Plains too!
Sac lands (Sulfur Vent etc.) : While these are good for acceleration and killing themselves, they don't help you create a lasting advantage like the borderposts. I could see running a few of these alongside Gemstone Mine, depending on how many borderposts you decide to run.
Looking forward to your comments and will try to post a deck list later!
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Instead of playing Borderposts (which can be countered by Daze and Spell Pierce and killed with basic artifact kill), I recommend the Invasion sacland build. They do the usual things (tap for mana, sac to Armageddon, sac to Gargadon) but can help cheat out planeswalkers and can't be countered and beat tax effects and tax counters, all of which are plentiful in Legacy.
Another option is to run some number of Zuran Orb alongside Gargadon. Flagstones of Trokair could be strong in this build. You can sacrifice the Flagstones, then with trigger on the stack Violent Outburst into Balance. Flagstones won't count towards your land count and you still get the land from the trigger, all profit. But ZOrb costs 0. There may be some other land sac outlet that works?
There was some experimentation with this archetype on The Source. Also, planeswalkers. The non-budget version of this plays blue for 4 Shardless Agent 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor and 4 Force of Will and 0-2 Misdirection. That is not feasible for a budget deck. But having countermagic protection, a Jace to survive the Balance and/or Shardless Agent resolving after makes the balance even more advantageous!
Since we are budget, we should probably stay out of blue altogether. Jund colors seem good. You get tools like Unmask and can run Demonic Dread + Violent Outburst and both Spirit Guides. Spirit Guides let you better play around tax counters and control your hand size. Black also allows Tombstalker and Shriekmaw
Steering away from the full 8 guides because this is ultimately a combo-control deck and the goal is not necessarily to go off early as it is to take control of the game through Balance. Sometimes this means removing hatebears and/or playing around tax counters first. There is not really any profit from turn 1 Balance. You get way more value on turn 3-4 or later, as long as you keep control of the board.
So the idea behind this deck is that you can play a large copy number of the banned über powerful Balance by using Restore Balance and 3 CMC cascade spells instead. This however makes the balance effect itself much more difficult to abuse, since you can't just throw cheap artifact mana in your deck because NOTHING can cost less than 3 except Restore Balance, or else your 1 card combo won't work. The goal of the deck is to suspend some threats on turns 1-3 and then RB on turns 3-4, leaving your opponent with no creatures, 1 land and 0-1 cards in hand. Legacy brings three important (and affordable) cards to the table that Modern lacks:
Unmask: It's 3+ CMC so it doesn't interfere with cascade, it helps you resolve RB and it clears your hand of cards to make RB more devastating. Fantastic! The only problem is the need for black cards, which is easily solved by adopting a Borderpost mana base (a common build option for the Modern versions).
Cunning Wish: You really only want mana, RB+cascaders and threats in the deck. The problem with too many cascaders is that you'll have multiples way too often, leaving you cards in hand and making your RBs less effective. With CW, you can wish for a Violent Outburst if you need to, or for something better if you already have a cascader (such as Orim's Chant/Silence to cover your cascade). CW lets you run fewer dedicated cascaders and still have a very consistent decks with game 1 answers to decks that don't care much about your main strategy (dredge and enchantress mostly). Modern must use Thieves' Fortune instead - still a key card in those builds.
Elvish Spirit Guide: SSG is already a staple in Modern and there's really no reason not to run all 8. Acceleration that doesn't interfere with cascade is rare and this is free and pitches as a mana source - awesome.
Here's a few additional notes on card choices to hopefully start a discussion on the viability of the archetype in a budget legacy context:
CASCADE PACKAGE
Restore Balance: Yeah, we need those. I think the best option is to run 3 main to reduce the risk of two in the opener (suspending one on t1-2 isn't bad as it sets up your second RB very nicely). With Cunning Wish, running the 4th copy and a single Research//Development in the wish board enables you to survive an Extirpate/Surgical Extraction (very problematic otherwise). A singleton Mistveil Plains ensures that you have inevitability against counter-heavy control (tech borrowed from the Modern builds) and makes 3 RB main very doable.
Ardent Plea: Perhaps the best cascader. Cumulative with itself without interfering with later RBs due to its type. Enables Mistveil Plains.
Shardless Agent: More expensive to buy but probably at least as strong as Plea. A 2/2 is pretty easy to handle, but it gets more difficult with no cards in hand and no creatures on the board.
Violent Outburst: Mandatory as a target in the wish board, but probably not as strong as Agent/Plea, despite the awesomeness of instant speed. You should run 7-8 cascaders in addition to 3-4 Wishes and 3 RBs main, so you'll have to pick the ones you like the most.
Demonic Dread: Horrible. Sorcery speed and requires a target (bad against control). Only saving grace is pitching to Unmask, but it's not needed.
THREATS
Greater Gargadon: It's huge, cheap and it eats lands, making you geddon more cleanly which is especially important against control. 3-4 of in most builds.
Nihilith: Comes out more readily and presents a 4/4 evasive dude with haste right after you wipe the board and hand on turn 3-ish, which is kind of scary. AND it pitches to Unmask. Auto 4-of.
Anurid Brushhopper: Kind of interesting, performing almost the same funtion as Gargadon but for your hand instead. I could see this as a 1-2 of with 3 gargas for better control over your RBs. It also enables Mistveil Plains.
MANA BASE
Spirit Guides: As already discussed, an auto 8 slots. They let you RB as early as turn 0 if needed, but typically 3-4 will be the sweet spot.
Borderposts: The 8 black ones (also providing red and blue sources) not only let you stay ahead when using RB, the also pitch to Unmask. Since they still count as land drops, you don't want too many of them to avoid hand clutter. 8-12 is probably ideal.
Basics: Needed to enable the borderposts while also making you naturally wasteland resistent! The basic fetchers Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds are crucial (see the modern builds) since you're 5C. One of each basic and 6 fetchers is optimal for enabling borderposts and getting the colors you need without cluttering your hand/board too much.
Gemstone Mine: The perfect land for the deck - fixes mana while it matters and then readily kills itself. 4-of!
Mistveil Plains: As discussed. The guides and posts make you short on white mana anyway, so a few more dedicated sources is a good thing.
Flagstones of Trokair: Mike Flores actually argued running 4 of these in the Modern build to feed Gargadon. I think it can't hurt as a 1-of and it helps fetching Mistveil Plains too!
Sac lands (Sulfur Vent etc.) : While these are good for acceleration and killing themselves, they don't help you create a lasting advantage like the borderposts. I could see running a few of these alongside Gemstone Mine, depending on how many borderposts you decide to run.
Looking forward to your comments and will try to post a deck list later!
A series of seven articles using Magic to explore the very stuff of the Universe!
"At least for those who can play cards, their present incarnation is not quite wasted."
[Click here for the articles!]
Instead of playing Borderposts (which can be countered by Daze and Spell Pierce and killed with basic artifact kill), I recommend the Invasion sacland build. They do the usual things (tap for mana, sac to Armageddon, sac to Gargadon) but can help cheat out planeswalkers and can't be countered and beat tax effects and tax counters, all of which are plentiful in Legacy.
Another option is to run some number of Zuran Orb alongside Gargadon. Flagstones of Trokair could be strong in this build. You can sacrifice the Flagstones, then with trigger on the stack Violent Outburst into Balance. Flagstones won't count towards your land count and you still get the land from the trigger, all profit. But ZOrb costs 0. There may be some other land sac outlet that works?
There was some experimentation with this archetype on The Source. Also, planeswalkers. The non-budget version of this plays blue for 4 Shardless Agent 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor and 4 Force of Will and 0-2 Misdirection. That is not feasible for a budget deck. But having countermagic protection, a Jace to survive the Balance and/or Shardless Agent resolving after makes the balance even more advantageous!
Since we are budget, we should probably stay out of blue altogether. Jund colors seem good. You get tools like Unmask and can run Demonic Dread + Violent Outburst and both Spirit Guides. Spirit Guides let you better play around tax counters and control your hand size. Black also allows Tombstalker and Shriekmaw
For example, BlackscaBalance.dec
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Durkwood Baloth
4 Nihilith
3 Shriekmaw
//Enchantments: 2
2 Pernicious Deed
//Spells: 20
4 Violent Outburst
4 Demonic Dread
4 Restore Balance
4 Unmask
4 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
2 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Ebon Stronghold
4 Tinder Farm
4 Forbidden Orchard
2 Rainbow Vale
1 Dakmor Salvage
4 City of Solitude
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Ingot Chewer
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Garruk Relentless
Something roughly like that.
Steering away from the full 8 guides because this is ultimately a combo-control deck and the goal is not necessarily to go off early as it is to take control of the game through Balance. Sometimes this means removing hatebears and/or playing around tax counters first. There is not really any profit from turn 1 Balance. You get way more value on turn 3-4 or later, as long as you keep control of the board.