I tried to make Collected Company work in Legacy, something that so far hasn't happened but I always had the feeling that the right list was just around the corner, so it led me to research ways to make a list that used the card to its maximum extent. I immediately noticed a couple things:
- Legacy has much better CMC3 creatures than Modern does. TNN is a prime example of this.
- I always loved Mantis Rider but it never found a home in Modern because Lightning Bolt is everywhere. Well, it's certainly less common in Legacy, with only Grixis Delver playing the full set among the most popular decks.
- Having full sets of TNN, Mantis Rider and 3x Edric allowed me to maindeck 4x Force of Will without worrying about including a ton of cantrips just to get more blue cards into the deck, allowing for maximum CoCo action.
The premise of the deck is simple. Turn 1 mana dork into turn 2 three drop into CoCo mid-lategame reach. Your individual cards have very high value and and very efficient so pitching cards to FoW isn't too harmful, plus you will be getting them back with CoCo anyways. Edric TNN synergy will easily fill your hand after dumping it into play.
Mantis Rider was a card I gave a lot of thought about whether it was really worth splashing a 4th color for, but in the end I went for it because it made the whole deck much more cohesive. Some compromises had to be made though, such as the 4-3 split favouring BoP over Hierarch, and no space in the manabase for utility lands such as 2-3 copies of Wasteland and maybe a Karakas. If there's a good CMC3 blue card that can take the place of Mantis Rider I'll be happy to hear it but so far I haven't found anything as good. Lack of remvoal was a concern so having red in the manabase also allowed for Izzet Staticaster out of the sideboard, a very welcome card in some terrible matchups for this deck such as Elves.
III. Matchups
So, what's this deck good for? Basically anything that plans on playing the long game. This deck has one of the best late games in the format despite being a midrange deck, capable of grinding out stuff like Shardless BUG out of topdecks alone. The downside is that being a midrange deck it folds to fast aggro pretty hard, RUG Delver and Burn being particularly problematic, although it does much better against non Stifle Delver decks such as Grixis and some versions of BUG. Being chock full of CMC3 cards together with CoCo makes Miracles pretty much an non issue unless they can float a CMC3 card immediately after getting Countertop online, which is very unlikely as they often only have 2-3 CMC3 cards in the deck.
Overall this is a very fun deck to play with, especially if you enjoy getting drowned in value. Everything in the deck generates value, and despite being a creature deck where you turn creatures sideways and not much else, it is a fun creature deck!
This looks like a really cool strategy I absolutely love value creature decks/toolbox decks so I think I'm gonna try this out. Have you considered eternal witness main deck? Or maybe a few voice of resurgence.
Perhaps new Thalia the 3 drop that makes your opponents creatures and non basics enter tapped and kitchen finks main deck would really help the aggro match up a lot.
Also have you tested with chord of calling as maybe a 3 or 2 of? I know a lot of people would argue that birthing pod is strictly better but I've been trying to get that card to work in legacy because the instant speed and ability to search for anything is actually pretty good (also it's one of my favorite cards so that helps ). But it honestly seems like it could be pretty good in this deck since you have a really really low curve. The only issue would be that it does lower your coco hits and since you are already running other main deck spells it could lower the coco hits to much. That being said I think it could be possible to cut 1 of the swords to plow shares and move it to the sideboard and perhaps cut a FoW.
I. Introduction
I tried to make Collected Company work in Legacy, something that so far hasn't happened but I always had the feeling that the right list was just around the corner, so it led me to research ways to make a list that used the card to its maximum extent. I immediately noticed a couple things:
- Legacy has much better CMC3 creatures than Modern does. TNN is a prime example of this.
- I always loved Mantis Rider but it never found a home in Modern because Lightning Bolt is everywhere. Well, it's certainly less common in Legacy, with only Grixis Delver playing the full set among the most popular decks.
- Having full sets of TNN, Mantis Rider and 3x Edric allowed me to maindeck 4x Force of Will without worrying about including a ton of cantrips just to get more blue cards into the deck, allowing for maximum CoCo action.
II. The list
So, let's see the list:
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Mantis Rider
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Collected Company
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Tundra
1 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
1 Plateau
1 Taiga
1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Windswept Heath
3 Flooded Strand
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Rest in Peace
4 Meddling Mage
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Izzet Staticaster
The premise of the deck is simple. Turn 1 mana dork into turn 2 three drop into CoCo mid-lategame reach. Your individual cards have very high value and and very efficient so pitching cards to FoW isn't too harmful, plus you will be getting them back with CoCo anyways. Edric TNN synergy will easily fill your hand after dumping it into play.
Mantis Rider was a card I gave a lot of thought about whether it was really worth splashing a 4th color for, but in the end I went for it because it made the whole deck much more cohesive. Some compromises had to be made though, such as the 4-3 split favouring BoP over Hierarch, and no space in the manabase for utility lands such as 2-3 copies of Wasteland and maybe a Karakas. If there's a good CMC3 blue card that can take the place of Mantis Rider I'll be happy to hear it but so far I haven't found anything as good. Lack of remvoal was a concern so having red in the manabase also allowed for Izzet Staticaster out of the sideboard, a very welcome card in some terrible matchups for this deck such as Elves.
III. Matchups
So, what's this deck good for? Basically anything that plans on playing the long game. This deck has one of the best late games in the format despite being a midrange deck, capable of grinding out stuff like Shardless BUG out of topdecks alone. The downside is that being a midrange deck it folds to fast aggro pretty hard, RUG Delver and Burn being particularly problematic, although it does much better against non Stifle Delver decks such as Grixis and some versions of BUG. Being chock full of CMC3 cards together with CoCo makes Miracles pretty much an non issue unless they can float a CMC3 card immediately after getting Countertop online, which is very unlikely as they often only have 2-3 CMC3 cards in the deck.
Overall this is a very fun deck to play with, especially if you enjoy getting drowned in value. Everything in the deck generates value, and despite being a creature deck where you turn creatures sideways and not much else, it is a fun creature deck!
Thank you for reading!
Perhaps new Thalia the 3 drop that makes your opponents creatures and non basics enter tapped and kitchen finks main deck would really help the aggro match up a lot.
Also have you tested with chord of calling as maybe a 3 or 2 of? I know a lot of people would argue that birthing pod is strictly better but I've been trying to get that card to work in legacy because the instant speed and ability to search for anything is actually pretty good (also it's one of my favorite cards so that helps ). But it honestly seems like it could be pretty good in this deck since you have a really really low curve. The only issue would be that it does lower your coco hits and since you are already running other main deck spells it could lower the coco hits to much. That being said I think it could be possible to cut 1 of the swords to plow shares and move it to the sideboard and perhaps cut a FoW.