We were originally inspired by this list from several months ago. It needs some changes based on the current metagame, and there are a few things we'd like to do differently just because we think they'll work better, but that's where we started.
I'll explain some of our choices after the break, but here is our current list.
Legacy Valakut v1.0Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards | ||
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Enchantments (9) 4x Exploration 3x Prismatic Omen 2x Seismic Assault Instants (12) 4x Intuition 4x Force of Will 4x Brainstorm 1x Noxious Revival Sorceries (6) 3x Burning Wish 2x Ponder 1x Life from the Loam Planeswalkers (2) 2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor | Land (30) 4x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle 4x Maze of Ith 4x Taiga 4x Volcanic Island 1x Tropical Island 1x Stomping Ground 1x Steam Vents 1x Forgotten Cave 2x Wasteland 1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale 3x Scalding Tarn 4x Misty Rainforest | Sideboard (15) 4x Pyroblast 4x Hydroblast 2x Slagstorm 1x Pyroclasm 1x Scapeshift 1x Life from the Loam 1x Hull Breach 1x Devil's Play |
Deck Identity
The best part of this deck, in my opinion, is the versatility of the ways it can win. This is not a Scapeshift deck, simply because resolving a 4 mana sorcery with 7 lands in play isn't the best plan for winning a legacy match. Sure, you can do it, and we have the Forces and Pyroblasts to back it up, but counting on that seems like a horrible plan.
The first comment by many people seems to be to point me towards lands builds and suggesting I build from there. To be honest, I think Lands is a good deck, and that adding scapeshift, omen, or valakut won't make it better. It'll just end up being a bad lands deck. I don't want to build a bad lands deck, I want to build a good Valakut deck.
There are 4 ways to win with the deck.
- Burning Wish for Scapeshift, cast Scapeshift
- Use Life from the Loam to constantly replay lots of lands with Valakut in play. Works best with Prismatic Omen also in play
- Use Life from the Loam with Seismic Assault to do damage direct to an opponent
- Burning Wish for Devil's Play. Will probably have to cast Devil's Play twice. Generally a way to win once other ways of winning have been nullified, but hopefully after they've already done some damage.
Importantly, I do not consider Jace a way to win with the deck. Sure, you could do it, but it's pretty unlikely. This deck simply doesn't have the means to protect him for a protracted length of time while he ticks all the way up. He's there because he can do things like dig for pieces, bounce goyfs and kotrs, and slow down opponents by filtering their draws. Also, he pitches to force.
Winning through hate
The biggest problem we had to consider initially was that the list we built from had absolutely no way to win against a Leyline of Sanctity. Beyond that, we also had to consider that with Surgical Extraction's popularity, we needed a way to win with no Valakuts in the deck. The original deck ran 4 Jaces and the punishing fire combo, but this deck doesn't run enough permission or removal to really make that an effective winning strategy. It takes way more time to win with fire/grove than this deck can legitimately buy, and protecting jace is much harder than you'd think.
Our current plans for winning with Valakut invalidated (through surgical, or runed halo, etc) involve Seismic Assault or Devil's Play. We've also considered Worm Harvest for the spot Devil's Play is in, but the mana cost is actually a little awkward, and it isn't exactly a reliable win condition.
The other big hate card we have to consider is Price of Progress. With this card gaining in popularity following Andrew Shrout's U/R delver deck, we absolutely have to be able to interact with it. The four Forces maindeck hopefully fight the maindeck copies, and postboard we're currently experimenting with Hydroblast in that role.
The Burning Wish Package
We're currently testing Burning Wish, but we're not absolutely sold on it. The main reasons for testing it are below
- Hull Breach gives us an out to troublesome things like Leyline of Sanctity without having to anticipate the hate during the sideboarding process.
- Moving Scapeshift to the board when we don't consider it a reliable win condition means we're never drawing it when we don't want it. It's great against zoo and maverick, but not nearly as good against anything running blue, because we're unlikely to win many counter wars.
- More ways to access life from the loam without having to play 4 of them is nice. Plus, having one in the board means it's protected from Surgical Extraction
- We've chosen to run Slagstorm over Firespout because RR isn't an issue, and being able to hit an opposing Jace if necessary is better than Firespouts irrelevent options in this deck. We're testing a singleton Pyroclasm because it's better against every aggressive deck except zoo
The Intuition Package
Intuition typically tutors for Loam plus two cards (often the singleton cave or the singleton tabernacle), but with Noxious Revival, we can actually tutor for Seismic Assault or Jace when we haven't drawn them, or it helps tutoring for Prismatic Omen or Exploration when some of them have been countered or dredged away. Still not sure about the revival, but it seems worthy of consideration.
The Sideboard
Right now half the sideboard is the burning wish package. The rest is more creature kill (extra slagstorm/pyroclasm that can be sided in), and the playsets of Hydroblasts and Pyroblasts. We're testing right now to see whether we actually need all of the pyros and hydros. I expect we'll probably cut a Pyroblast or two, but the Hydroblasts are probably vital to counter Price of Progress and deal with some of the red creatures in zoo.
Remaining Issues and Closing Thoughts
The biggest remaining issue is our complete absence of resilience to Blood Moon. Because of timestamping, we can't make Prismatic Omen beat Blood Moon, since we can't ever cast Prismatic Omen once Blood Moon is in play. Fortunately, Blood Moon isn't seeing much play right now, and we're building this deck to be good now, not to be good forever. Still, if we could come up with some way to beat blood moon, it'd be pretty awesome. Right now we have to counter it (postboard if we have Hydros we have 8 ways to do that).
This is absolutely a work in progress. Here's what we're currently looking at.
- The Burning Wish package is a work in progress, and may go away entirely. Still, the ability to have Hull Breach available without ever needing to side it in seems huge for this deck
- We've gone back and forth between 4 ponders and a 2/2 split between Ponder and Jace. I don't know if Jace is worth it, but we're currently testing him
- The Noxious Revival is a new card we're looking at. It provides options, but the deck is so tight I don't know if we wouldn't rather have a blue card in there.
- Is Devil's Play actually worth it? How many games will we have where Valakut is gone, Seismic is gone, and we're actually able to win with Devil's Play? It seems like that's not a particularly high number of games, but I could be wrong.
- Should we have a Regrowth in the wishboard?
- How many REBs do we actually need? We're testing vesus U/W stoneforge now, hopefully we'll get answers to that question soon.
I'll be back later with some more results! If we're able to make this competitive, Sarah may play it at SCG: DC, so we'll be playing multiple weekly legacy events with it leading up to that. Here's hoping it does good things.
Jeff
We're also considering a living wish build, which will probably be just as clunky, but might be a little faster. We can put Azusa, Lost but Seeking or Oracle of Mul Daya in the board, with maybe a Primeval Titan for acceleration, but we can also move things like the Tabernacle to the board so we don't draw it when we don't need it, and put the 4th Valakut in the board.
Thoughts.
Thanks for the comment!