Wouldn't an elf deck that runs natural order be able to do what this deck does but way better? And if you splash white, well Windswept Heath is probably the cheapest fetchland there is right now.
Elf decks have a bit more trouble grinding out Miracles. Also, Natural Order requires greater initial investment (the sacrifice is part of the cost), and that restricts your maneuverability significantly. In addition, the top targets for Natural Order are Ruric Thar, Craterhoof Behemoth, and Progenitus. Craterhoof requires a heavy board commitment already (easy in the actual Elves deck. Not necessarily advisable for other decks in many match-ups). Ruric Thar requires the opponent to be one of a specific subset of decks (and even some in that subset can handle it easily). And Progenitus is not the threat that it once was. The Emrakul kill in this deck combines the advantages of the craterhoof and progenitus kills while not entailing their weaknesses. We also get a number of small upsides, such as being able to combo through our own gaddock teeg.
Windswept Heath is indeed as cheap as it gets, but in case of the budget substitutions mentioned in the OP, the substitution would be a temporary replacement of Verdant Catacombs with Wooded Foothills.
I've goldfish tested your build many times, and I've found that I prefer cutting the Visionary, Explorer, and Nissa for 3x Eternal Scourge.
Granted, I have a personal biase against Explorer, but the no-nonsense combo of Scourge-Chain mana gets around some of cards that disrupt the traditional combo.
That said, my tests were pure goldfish, so this is more theory then practice.
In straight goldfish, that would probably be best, because it doesn't account for the grindy gameplan that this deck falls back on. A single copy of Nissa is far better as an early game way to make land drops and late game threat off of GSZ.
Similarly, remember that Veteran Explorer is there solely to interact. It makes every GSZ an opportunity to set up a blocker that rockets you ahead to functional mana. It's not going to do much when your opponent isn't there.
On the topic of Visionary though, I'm unsure. Scourge goes infinite, sure, but you don't have a way to tutor it and it's not as good as your other critters in the absence of chain, and I include Visionary in that statement. As an example, vs Miracles you'd rather have visionary than scourge against terminus (doubly so if you have a gavony township running). Also, it's not super obvious, but the deck is a bit light in the 2-drop slot, and each 2-drop cut both weakens us to mana denial and lessens our explosiveness off of tight mana food chains (consider that a turn2 food chain cast off of DRS is only lethal if you have a 1-drop or a 2-drop to chain through to hit 3 mana to leverage your tutor dudes). I will mention however that even with all that said, I'm actually in the process of testing whether to cut the Visionary altogether (thus dropping the maindeck to 60).
The problem I see with Eternal Scourge is that it doesn't win the game on its own. You need to have a Recruiter or Empath to fetch an Emrakul to chain into. But if you have a Recruiter or an Empath, you don't need Scourge's mana to go off.
For the past couple months I have been toying around with GW Food Chain.
Origins:
Awhile back a fellow mod and friend asked me to help them come up with a deck for Legacy. The criteria for the deck included fitting his budget while not being a "budget deck". This meant that there should be no card sacrifices made on cost. If the deck would want to run something, that card was getting played, regardless of cost. There was a secondary objective that any fetches and duals would be replaceable with shocks and cheaper fetches with minimal impact on the ultimate playability of the deck. This would allow the deck to be played sooner and then grow to full ideal form as they slowly invested money. I spent a long time thinking on the problem and after sketching out a good number of brew options, I settled on an early prototype of this list to try to tune into a competitive state. This list is the result of the tuning that followed.
Current tournament results have been promising with a number of pilots performing well in smaller events (for example, I went undefeated with it in two 4-rounder side events at GP San Jose at the end of January).
Parallel Attempts:
I know that a user on our very site has attempted a similar Bellower engine in the past in this thread. My development was independent from this and pretty clearly went in a wildly different direction. Nonetheless, I think it is worth checking out. (Also, this thread is distinct from that thread due to the wild difference in direction.)
This deck draws strongly from the same metagame attack vector as Aluren -- If you can present a reasonable fair gameplan alongside a game-ending
combo, opponents find themselves fighting each battle with mismatched resources.
The card choices are a tad eccentric, but they each fulfill a dedicated role that was demonstrated through testing, and many serve multiple roles. This is not a full primer, so I won't go into every choice, but I will go into some of the bigger surprises.
Cloudthresher -- This serves a couple roles. First, it lets you execute a kill off of 3 mana and double Fierce Empath by evoking cloudthresher and then exiling it for food chain in response to the sacrifice trigger. This puts you up to 7 mana, and Fierce Empath --> Woodland Bellower --> Fierce Empath terminates at 13 mana. This doesn't come up that often, but it does come up and specific contexts make it relevant. The second role, and the main role that pushed it into the deck was its ability for Fierce Empath to search for an answer to Delvers and Flickerwisps. A tertiary use is just as a way to answer planeswalkers (hard-to-answer flash threat in endstep that also can shock the planeswalker as it comes into play).
Skylasher -- Flyers were a really big problem. Also, it can ambush DRS and the like (and keep JTMS in check). I decided I needed this maindeck to actually fix the problem. It obviously is sided out very frequently.
Veteran Explorer -- I like to say that this is here just to block Tarmogoyf. Essentially this is only here to tutor to block on the ground or to sacrifice if the opponent has a Tabernacle in play. Sideboard it out if you don't expect it to die in the match-up.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary -- This card is a hell of a lightning rod, and for good reason. You pretty much don't lose any game where you untap with it. It's a reasonable card to naturally draw and cast or to Green Sun's Zenith for. I added it as a tester following a brainstorming session and it quickly proved its worth.
For the past couple months I have been toying around with GW Food Chain.
[b]Origins:[b]
Awhile back a fellow mod and friend asked me to help them come up with a deck for Legacy. The criteria for the deck included fitting his budget while not being a "budget deck". This meant that there should be no card sacrifices made on cost. If the deck would want to run something, that card was getting played, regardless of cost. There was a secondary objective that any fetches and duals would be replaceable with shocks and cheaper fetches with minimal impact on the ultimate playability of the deck. This would allow the deck to be played sooner and then grow to full ideal form as they slowly invested money. I spent a long time thinking on the problem and after sketching out a good number of brew options, I settled on an early prototype of this list to try to tune into a competitive state. This list is the result of the tuning that followed.
Current tournament results have been promising with a number of pilots performing well in smaller events (for example, I went undefeated with it in two 4-rounder side events at GP San Jose at the end of January).
[b]Parallel Attempts:[/b]
I know that a user on our very site has attempted a similar Bellower engine in the past in this thread. My development was independent from this and pretty clearly went in a wildly different direction. Nonetheless, I think it is worth checking out. (Also, this thread is distinct from that thread due to the wild difference in direction.)
This deck draws strongly from the same metagame attack vector as Aluren -- If you can present a reasonable fair gameplan alongside a game-ending
combo, opponents find themselves fighting each battle with mismatched resources.
The card choices are a tad eccentric, but they each fulfill a dedicated role that was demonstrated through testing, and many serve multiple roles. This is not a full primer, so I won't go into every choice, but I will go into some of the bigger surprises.
[b]Cloudthresher --[/b] This serves a couple roles. First, it lets you execute a kill off of 3 mana and double Fierce Empath by evoking cloudthresher and then exiling it for food chain in response to the sacrifice trigger. This puts you up to 7 mana, and Fierce Empath --> Woodland Bellower --> Fierce Empath terminates at 13 mana. This doesn't come up that often, but it does come up and specific contexts make it relevant. The second role, and the main role that pushed it into the deck was its ability for Fierce Empath to search for an answer to Delvers and Flickerwisps. A tertiary use is just as a way to answer planeswalkers (hard-to-answer flash threat in endstep that also can shock the planeswalker as it comes into play).
[b]Skylasher --[/b] Flyers were a really big problem. Also, it can ambush DRS and the like (and keep JTMS in check). I decided I needed this maindeck to actually fix the problem. It obviously is sided out very frequently.
[b]Veteran Explorer --[/b] I like to say that this is here just to block Tarmogoyf. Essentially this is only here to tutor to block on the ground or to sacrifice if the opponent has a Tabernacle in play. Sideboard it out if you don't expect it to die in the match-up.
[b]Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary --[/b] This card is a hell of a lightning rod, and for good reason. You pretty much don't lose any game where you untap with it. It's a reasonable card to naturally draw and cast or to Green Sun's Zenith for. I added it as a tester following a brainstorming session and it quickly proved its worth.
I wouldn't recommend D&T -- you need to lean super hard on SB options to beat Oops All Spells with D&T. It's just not a good option for beating that kind of all-in deck imo.
I think I would recommend Tezzerator. I've seen Tez lists with maindeck Leyline of the Void (to pair with Helm of Obedience). I don't know enough about its burn match-up, but I presume that Chalice of the Void and the Thopter-Sword combo at the very least allow it to make a game of the match-up. Bonus points for having a great Miracles match-up if you go to events outside your meta.
How well do you guys think Trophy mage would fit here?
Poorly. The only things you're grabbing in most of the current lists are Parasitic Strix, which is good, and Shardless Agent, which isn't really there as a tutor target. I know some of the straight BUG builds that are coming into vogue thanks to MTGO/Sourcer Cartesian are running a couple Glint-Nest Crane as a way to turn Cascades and Harpy bounces into Strix for the kill or find hateful artifacts post-SB. That seems like a better plan unless you're going to weight your sideboard towards 3-drop artifacts, which is super awkward. In a Recruiter build (either flavor), I don't see the point at all.
I think the card has some potential and could be playable somewhere, but Aluren is not the deck for it.
I agree with everything here, but I think there's a final angle that we're not considering. I think we need to consider that this is quite close to a blue Stoneforge Mystic as far as our deck is concerned (We would never care about batterskull shenanigans, but both Umezawa's Jitte and Manriki-Gusari are relevant misses). So if you decided that you really wanted a sword in a certain matchup (And I could actually make a case for any of the 5 swords), this can tutor your sword or it could tutor another dude (Shardless Agent or Parasitic Strix) if you already had the sword or more immediately needed a dude. I think that might be relevant enough with testing.
Also, if it did turn out good, I'd be looking pretty hard at Culling Scales and maybe even Vedalken Shackles as possible SB options for a version packing the Trophy Mage.
I think UW Miracles with Back to Basics is probably the best option. It only needs KTK fetches and 2 tundra in terms of lands. This is an example of what it might look like. Trimming one force to go down to three and a multiple of other options exist in how to sculpt your own list. I would also add that I consider the listed prices to be significantly higher than the reality that is experienced when assembling a deck like this. In practice, I would expect this deck to be able to come in just about at your price limit. I'm linking out to provide pricing context in conjunction with the list: https://deckstats.net/decks/52771/645340-example-back-to-basics-miracle
I think Fatal Push is due to replace pretty much all remaining instances of Disfigure. While Disfigure has some potential upside verses Marit Lage and Gurmag Angler, in almost all other cases this card will be more powerful (especially aince it is a clean kill on large Goyfs and isn't all that hard for it to upscale to kill things like Leovold).
My read on this card is that it's the most relevant removal spell for legacy since the printing of Council's Judgement, or even potentially since Abrupt Decay (I will be surprised if/when Decay ever gets topped).
The lowest I've mulled is 3 cards. At 3, you keep whatever you get. At 4, it depends on the deck. I would say that your specific deck needs to have a desirable 3 card hand to mull below 4, especially with the scry rule. Spanish Inquisition and Restore Balance (in Legacy and Modern respectively) can have strong 3-card hands for example. A deck in Standard probably can't.
If you loan out a deck, you definitely should not be expecting (or asking) for a concession on those grounds. If the person borrowing the deck decides to scoop, that's fine and that's on them. Loaning out decks happens a ton in the main constructed format I play (Legacy), since the people who have decks often have multiple and the community tends to come together to make sure everyone gets to play. This doesn't really work if there's an expectation that you will be granted wins by the three other players piloting your cards in the event. It sucks to lose to your loaner, but losing to your loaner is a hell of a lot better than not playing at all.
Now, the other issue is that this was a store employee. In most stores I've been to, there's been a kind status quo (either by etiquette or time commitment, it's unclear) that when they hop in to help fire an event that they'll be in for a round or two and then drop, maybe conceding the last round that they play. I don't think you can count on it though, and I don't fault the employee at all for continuing to compete rather than concede/drop.
Is it just me, or have a lot of judge foils been very EDH oriented lately? I prefer it when judges get valuable cards that are easier to move, so that they can get a proper reward. Not a judge myself, but they are often the backbones of their local MTG communities. They often put in a lot of work for players and deserve to get properly rewarded, and handing them expensive foil reprints of cards such as FoW, Wasteland, hyper-pimp basics and Port is an excellent way to give them some compensation that isn`t strictly speaking salary. This, however, seems more of a friendly pat on the back. It`s a cool card, but it`s niche and will not be very valuable.
They've been following a pattern of one low value card and one high value card per wave increment (each exemplar mailing is two wave increments which rotate much like blocks do in standard). Normally this ends up being a terrible EDH card and a decent value Legacy card. Some have flipped this in the past (Shardless Agent was the cheap card in the increment with temporal manipulation) and some have been full EDH (this one is either full edh or EDH + vintage depending on your opinion on Imperial Seal).
I do agree with you that that I'm not very happy with Mystic Confluence here. I'm receiving two of these packets this wave and I can't imagine getting any use of two of the damn thing since I'm not very active in EDH (one probably goes into Patron of the Moon, and the other one will rot, wishing it was relevant to Legacy). Like, this isn't as bad as the Command Beacon promo (which is impossible to sell or trade because literally nobody wants them), but it's still a bit of a disappointment. I had been hoping that WotC would buck the trend and do something useful like Deathrite Shaman in the low value slot.
I've been playing storm, elves and ad nauseam in modern for a while and I've fallen in love with combo decks, so I was wondering which legacy combo deck would be better for someone who has never played a sinle legacy game. I like it when I can change my sideboard and put some interaction or change the combo to play around hate cards. I've watched some legacy videos and storm, aluren and Elves stand out as my favourites, but I don't know how hard the graveyard hate is in legacy, I'm really tired of losing games in modern due to my reliance in my graveyard and would like ways to play around it if possible. I'm not a huge fan of the elves alternate wincon being beatdown, but I do like Leovold a lot.
Edit: Forgot to mention high tide, I've heard from various people that it's an underpowered deck, but the control-combo shell seems quite appealing to me.
Both Elves and Aluren very often fall back a lot on the beatdown, but it's very much an anemic beatdown plan (especially for Aluren). Aluren is pretty comparable to Splinter Twin (pre-banning) and Kiki-Chord from modern.
I love Aluren and will always recommend it (especially given a stated preference of not wanting to be just dead to a single line of hate), but it does capitalize on format knowledge more than a deck like Elves (maindeck Cabal Therapy that you need to cast blind really pressures you to have solid format knowledge). Aluren also has the issue that it requires greater start-up investment than almost any other deck in the format (take a look at this post for my advised list).
Elves does a good job of letting your mastery of your own deck assist you as you learn the format while not having an absurd learning curve. The downside is that all the expensive pieces don't really get used in other decks.
Storm is the most pure combo deck on that list. It's deceptively resilient and versatile, but it takes quite a bit to get to that point (watch storm masters play through absurd amounts of hate or watch them walk opponents into helping them hit lethal storm -- this skillset comes with a lot of practice.)
Depending on your precise expectations and requirements on getting into the format, I think each of the above three are good choices in legacy. If you'll be playing your selection for awhile, I'd probably do Storm or Aluren. I strongly advise against High Tide though. I actually have the deck built (including candels), and it is quite the faded glory. D&T's new tools and the proliferation of Cavern of Souls have been bad news for a deck that was already fighting an uphill battle. I think it's a fun deck to mess around with, but I can't advise anyone buying into the deck if they don't already have the pieces.
Windswept Heath is indeed as cheap as it gets, but in case of the budget substitutions mentioned in the OP, the substitution would be a temporary replacement of Verdant Catacombs with Wooded Foothills.
Similarly, remember that Veteran Explorer is there solely to interact. It makes every GSZ an opportunity to set up a blocker that rockets you ahead to functional mana. It's not going to do much when your opponent isn't there.
On the topic of Visionary though, I'm unsure. Scourge goes infinite, sure, but you don't have a way to tutor it and it's not as good as your other critters in the absence of chain, and I include Visionary in that statement. As an example, vs Miracles you'd rather have visionary than scourge against terminus (doubly so if you have a gavony township running). Also, it's not super obvious, but the deck is a bit light in the 2-drop slot, and each 2-drop cut both weakens us to mana denial and lessens our explosiveness off of tight mana food chains (consider that a turn2 food chain cast off of DRS is only lethal if you have a 1-drop or a 2-drop to chain through to hit 3 mana to leverage your tutor dudes). I will mention however that even with all that said, I'm actually in the process of testing whether to cut the Visionary altogether (thus dropping the maindeck to 60).
Also this.
Origins:
Awhile back a fellow mod and friend asked me to help them come up with a deck for Legacy. The criteria for the deck included fitting his budget while not being a "budget deck". This meant that there should be no card sacrifices made on cost. If the deck would want to run something, that card was getting played, regardless of cost. There was a secondary objective that any fetches and duals would be replaceable with shocks and cheaper fetches with minimal impact on the ultimate playability of the deck. This would allow the deck to be played sooner and then grow to full ideal form as they slowly invested money. I spent a long time thinking on the problem and after sketching out a good number of brew options, I settled on an early prototype of this list to try to tune into a competitive state. This list is the result of the tuning that followed.
Current tournament results have been promising with a number of pilots performing well in smaller events (for example, I went undefeated with it in two 4-rounder side events at GP San Jose at the end of January).
Parallel Attempts:
I know that a user on our very site has attempted a similar Bellower engine in the past in this thread. My development was independent from this and pretty clearly went in a wildly different direction. Nonetheless, I think it is worth checking out. (Also, this thread is distinct from that thread due to the wild difference in direction.)
Decklist and Explanations:
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Veteran Explorer
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Skylasher
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Recruiter of the Guard
3 Fierce Empath
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Woodland Bellower
1 Sun Titan
1 Cloudthresher
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Food Chain
Spells: 7
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
Lands: 23
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Gavony Township
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Scrubland
2 Savannah
2 Bayou
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Plains
7 Forest
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Qasali Ambusher
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Rest in Peace
1 Stony Silence
This deck draws strongly from the same metagame attack vector as Aluren -- If you can present a reasonable fair gameplan alongside a game-ending
combo, opponents find themselves fighting each battle with mismatched resources.
The basic combo is as follows. Depending on board state, any number of the initial steps may be shaved off (not counting step 0) and other intermediate steps may be added in (such as casting Ulamog before Emrakul to exile an opposing Karakas).
0. Resolve Food Chain.
1. Cast Recruiter of the Guard, find Recruiter of the Guard.
2. Exile Recruiter of the Guard, cast Recruiter of the Guard, find Fierce Empath. Floating mana is now 1.
3. Exile Recruiter of the Guard, cast Fierce Empath, find Woodland Bellower. Floating mana is now 2.
4. Exile Fierce Empath, cast Woodland Bellower, search for a Fierce Empath and put it into play. Find a Woodland Bellower with the Fierce Empath trigger. Floating mana is now 0.
4. Exile Woodland Bellower, cast Woodland Bellower, search for a Fierce Empath and put it into play. Find an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn with the Fierce Empath trigger. Floating mana is now 1.
5. Exile the Woodland Bellower and the two Fierce Empaths. Floating mana is now 16. Cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
The card choices are a tad eccentric, but they each fulfill a dedicated role that was demonstrated through testing, and many serve multiple roles. This is not a full primer, so I won't go into every choice, but I will go into some of the bigger surprises.
Cloudthresher -- This serves a couple roles. First, it lets you execute a kill off of 3 mana and double Fierce Empath by evoking cloudthresher and then exiling it for food chain in response to the sacrifice trigger. This puts you up to 7 mana, and Fierce Empath --> Woodland Bellower --> Fierce Empath terminates at 13 mana. This doesn't come up that often, but it does come up and specific contexts make it relevant. The second role, and the main role that pushed it into the deck was its ability for Fierce Empath to search for an answer to Delvers and Flickerwisps. A tertiary use is just as a way to answer planeswalkers (hard-to-answer flash threat in endstep that also can shock the planeswalker as it comes into play).
Skylasher -- Flyers were a really big problem. Also, it can ambush DRS and the like (and keep JTMS in check). I decided I needed this maindeck to actually fix the problem. It obviously is sided out very frequently.
Knight of the Reliquary -- This is the largest body that a "fair" (non-combo) Woodland Bellower can put into play. Bonus points for being able to tap for mana (essentially) and tutor Dryad Arbor, Gavony Township, and Bojuka Bog as the need arises. Also tutorable by Green Sun's Zenith and Recruiter of the Guard of course.
Veteran Explorer -- I like to say that this is here just to block Tarmogoyf. Essentially this is only here to tutor to block on the ground or to sacrifice if the opponent has a Tabernacle in play. Sideboard it out if you don't expect it to die in the match-up.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary -- This card is a hell of a lightning rod, and for good reason. You pretty much don't lose any game where you untap with it. It's a reasonable card to naturally draw and cast or to Green Sun's Zenith for. I added it as a tester following a brainstorming session and it quickly proved its worth.
[b]Origins:[b]
Awhile back a fellow mod and friend asked me to help them come up with a deck for Legacy. The criteria for the deck included fitting his budget while not being a "budget deck". This meant that there should be no card sacrifices made on cost. If the deck would want to run something, that card was getting played, regardless of cost. There was a secondary objective that any fetches and duals would be replaceable with shocks and cheaper fetches with minimal impact on the ultimate playability of the deck. This would allow the deck to be played sooner and then grow to full ideal form as they slowly invested money. I spent a long time thinking on the problem and after sketching out a good number of brew options, I settled on an early prototype of this list to try to tune into a competitive state. This list is the result of the tuning that followed.
Current tournament results have been promising with a number of pilots performing well in smaller events (for example, I went undefeated with it in two 4-rounder side events at GP San Jose at the end of January).
[b]Parallel Attempts:[/b]
I know that a user on our very site has attempted a similar Bellower engine in the past in this thread. My development was independent from this and pretty clearly went in a wildly different direction. Nonetheless, I think it is worth checking out. (Also, this thread is distinct from that thread due to the wild difference in direction.)
[b]Decklist and Explanations:[/b]
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Veteran Explorer
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Skylasher
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Recruiter of the Guard
3 Fierce Empath
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Woodland Bellower
1 Sun Titan
1 Cloudthresher
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Food Chain
Spells: 7
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
Lands: 23
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Gavony Township
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Scrubland
2 Savannah
2 Bayou
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Plains
7 Forest
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Qasali Ambusher
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Rest in Peace
1 Stony Silence
This deck draws strongly from the same metagame attack vector as Aluren -- If you can present a reasonable fair gameplan alongside a game-ending
combo, opponents find themselves fighting each battle with mismatched resources.
The basic combo is as follows. Depending on board state, any number of the initial steps may be shaved off (not counting step 0) and other intermediate steps may be added in (such as casting Ulamog before Emrakul to exile an opposing Karakas).
0. Resolve Food Chain.
1. Cast Recruiter of the Guard, find Recruiter of the Guard.
2. Exile Recruiter of the Guard, cast Recruiter of the Guard, find Fierce Empath. Floating mana is now 1.
3. Exile Recruiter of the Guard, cast Fierce Empath, find Woodland Bellower. Floating mana is now 2.
4. Exile Fierce Empath, cast Woodland Bellower, search for a Fierce Empath and put it into play. Find a Woodland Bellower with the Fierce Empath trigger. Floating mana is now 0.
4. Exile Woodland Bellower, cast Woodland Bellower, search for a Fierce Empath and put it into play. Find an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn with the Fierce Empath trigger. Floating mana is now 1.
5. Exile the Woodland Bellower and the two Fierce Empaths. Floating mana is now 16. Cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
The card choices are a tad eccentric, but they each fulfill a dedicated role that was demonstrated through testing, and many serve multiple roles. This is not a full primer, so I won't go into every choice, but I will go into some of the bigger surprises.
[b]Cloudthresher --[/b] This serves a couple roles. First, it lets you execute a kill off of 3 mana and double Fierce Empath by evoking cloudthresher and then exiling it for food chain in response to the sacrifice trigger. This puts you up to 7 mana, and Fierce Empath --> Woodland Bellower --> Fierce Empath terminates at 13 mana. This doesn't come up that often, but it does come up and specific contexts make it relevant. The second role, and the main role that pushed it into the deck was its ability for Fierce Empath to search for an answer to Delvers and Flickerwisps. A tertiary use is just as a way to answer planeswalkers (hard-to-answer flash threat in endstep that also can shock the planeswalker as it comes into play).
[b]Skylasher --[/b] Flyers were a really big problem. Also, it can ambush DRS and the like (and keep JTMS in check). I decided I needed this maindeck to actually fix the problem. It obviously is sided out very frequently.
[b]Knight of the Reliquary --[/b] This is the largest body that a "fair" (non-combo) Woodland Bellower can put into play. Bonus points for being able to tap for mana (essentially) and tutor Dryad Arbor, Gavony Township, and Bojuka Bog as the need arises. Also tutorable by Green Sun's Zenith and Recruiter of the Guard of course.
[b]Veteran Explorer --[/b] I like to say that this is here just to block Tarmogoyf. Essentially this is only here to tutor to block on the ground or to sacrifice if the opponent has a Tabernacle in play. Sideboard it out if you don't expect it to die in the match-up.
[b]Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary --[/b] This card is a hell of a lightning rod, and for good reason. You pretty much don't lose any game where you untap with it. It's a reasonable card to naturally draw and cast or to Green Sun's Zenith for. I added it as a tester following a brainstorming session and it quickly proved its worth.
I think I would recommend Tezzerator. I've seen Tez lists with maindeck Leyline of the Void (to pair with Helm of Obedience). I don't know enough about its burn match-up, but I presume that Chalice of the Void and the Thopter-Sword combo at the very least allow it to make a game of the match-up. Bonus points for having a great Miracles match-up if you go to events outside your meta.
Also, if it did turn out good, I'd be looking pretty hard at Culling Scales and maybe even Vedalken Shackles as possible SB options for a version packing the Trophy Mage.
Might we convince you to post your list?
https://deckstats.net/decks/52771/645340-example-back-to-basics-miracle
My read on this card is that it's the most relevant removal spell for legacy since the printing of Council's Judgement, or even potentially since Abrupt Decay (I will be surprised if/when Decay ever gets topped).
If you loan out a deck, you definitely should not be expecting (or asking) for a concession on those grounds. If the person borrowing the deck decides to scoop, that's fine and that's on them. Loaning out decks happens a ton in the main constructed format I play (Legacy), since the people who have decks often have multiple and the community tends to come together to make sure everyone gets to play. This doesn't really work if there's an expectation that you will be granted wins by the three other players piloting your cards in the event. It sucks to lose to your loaner, but losing to your loaner is a hell of a lot better than not playing at all.
Now, the other issue is that this was a store employee. In most stores I've been to, there's been a kind status quo (either by etiquette or time commitment, it's unclear) that when they hop in to help fire an event that they'll be in for a round or two and then drop, maybe conceding the last round that they play. I don't think you can count on it though, and I don't fault the employee at all for continuing to compete rather than concede/drop.
I... may have found the line though. I'm at point where Qasali Ambusher is starting to look almost good in the context of a specific deck.
I do agree with you that that I'm not very happy with Mystic Confluence here. I'm receiving two of these packets this wave and I can't imagine getting any use of two of the damn thing since I'm not very active in EDH (one probably goes into Patron of the Moon, and the other one will rot, wishing it was relevant to Legacy). Like, this isn't as bad as the Command Beacon promo (which is impossible to sell or trade because literally nobody wants them), but it's still a bit of a disappointment. I had been hoping that WotC would buck the trend and do something useful like Deathrite Shaman in the low value slot.
When you're ready to post, let me know and we can phase out the old one.
I love Aluren and will always recommend it (especially given a stated preference of not wanting to be just dead to a single line of hate), but it does capitalize on format knowledge more than a deck like Elves (maindeck Cabal Therapy that you need to cast blind really pressures you to have solid format knowledge). Aluren also has the issue that it requires greater start-up investment than almost any other deck in the format (take a look at this post for my advised list).
Elves does a good job of letting your mastery of your own deck assist you as you learn the format while not having an absurd learning curve. The downside is that all the expensive pieces don't really get used in other decks.
Storm is the most pure combo deck on that list. It's deceptively resilient and versatile, but it takes quite a bit to get to that point (watch storm masters play through absurd amounts of hate or watch them walk opponents into helping them hit lethal storm -- this skillset comes with a lot of practice.)
Depending on your precise expectations and requirements on getting into the format, I think each of the above three are good choices in legacy. If you'll be playing your selection for awhile, I'd probably do Storm or Aluren. I strongly advise against High Tide though. I actually have the deck built (including candels), and it is quite the faded glory. D&T's new tools and the proliferation of Cavern of Souls have been bad news for a deck that was already fighting an uphill battle. I think it's a fun deck to mess around with, but I can't advise anyone buying into the deck if they don't already have the pieces.