MTG Salvation

For sometime we had these two house rules about mulligan.

1. If opening hand has no lands, you can reveal it and be able to take a mulligan without decrease in hand size.
2. If opening hand has 6 or more land cards, you can reveal it and be able to take a mulligan without hand size decrease.

Those two rules eventually disappeared when we got more serious in playing Legacy.

For me it's Small Zoo. T1 Arid Mesa into Savannah and Loam Lion is my favourite opening move. Deck took more than 7 months to build because of expensive duals but it's worth the money. Really fun to play.

The Fluff, Sword of Light and Shadow is absolutely the sword I would run. I totally agree. I might give Sage Owl a try but there's just a couple things I don't like about it. If those top four cards are dump, it doesn't help me get rid of them and strengthen my draws. That said, if my top four cards are dump, not playing Sage Owl isn't going to help either. =P The only thing I'd miss is the awesomeness of Stormscape Familiar combined with Squadron Hawk. For a turn, you feel like you are a combo player with the way you can vomit birds on the field.

For example, a menacing 5/6 goyf is relentlessly attacking you. Stormscape Familiar can chump block for a turn. Sage Owl will block it for a turn and possibly get a removal to stop it for good.

@Madcat

If you're going the SFM package, I would like to suggest at least one Sword of Light and Shadow. The creature revival ability would be helpful against mass removal which seems to be a lot in your meta.

And how about replacing the Stormscape Familiars with Sage Owls?
I know you already have Augury Owl, but adding a little more library manipulation birds to the deck can make it more consistent - help find Island Sanctuary faster.

@Madcat

My opinion on Sigil of Sleep

One of the best case scenario: your opponent's creatures all walk on the ground and unable to block. Opponent also doesn't have removal for your creature enchanted with SoS.

In other situations, your opponent does have the removal and you get 2 for one'd. Or there are blockers which can kill your creature (example: Delver). The answer is playtest the idea. Who knows, it might just work in your meta.

You're welcome.

Oh, and one last thing in case you really decide to play Sac Land Tendrils. In my experience, it can sometimes be frustrating because the deck can fizzle even without interruption from opponents. And it's also more tiring - if you're used to playing aggro decks like me, you'll notice the mental exhaustion can kick in sooner with this deck than if you used an aggro deck.

Anyway, playing this deck and succesfully casting that lethal tendrils or ETW on T3 or T4. It feels good.
Just make sure to practice.

Quote from xanddra

After seeing this deck, figured give it a shot as a cheap way to migrate from Standard into Legacy. I did have a question about Thoughtseize/Duress. What about trying Distress? It's the same as a Thoughtseize, but doesn't cost you the two life at the expense of an extra black, and lets you grab more than Duress. It's also a better option money-wise, as Distress was reprinted in M12.

If you're planning on migrating to Legacy..
Would probably be helpful to look at spooky's thread too for other cheap but stll useful legacy decks.

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=280259

On the Distress vs Duress topic.. would just like to say that one more mana can be the difference between winning and losing in some games with this deck. That's why I prefer using Duress.

Voted for Legacy.

I like the variety of decks, and the cards are often worth the investment.

Approximately 500$ to 600$ (converted peso to dollar).
Costs mostly came from buying an Affinity deck, Mox Opals, various equipment, fetch lands, revised dual lands for Zoo, and Ultra Pro card sleeves.

Quote from MadcatSowega

Then came the second tourny with Angry Birds.

Any other suggestions?

How about having Revokers or Pithing Needle on your sideboard (instead of Rootwater Thief) as additional countermeasures against Deed and Explosives? Increasing Oblivion Ring by one more could also help.

Congratulations on your second day finish.
It's impressive how dedicated you are in making this deck work.

When I still used this deck, Red Elemental Blast is useful not only for countering.
It can also destroy Energy Flux .

The Wild Growths over the Arbor Elves look like an improvement.
WG also has the advantage of not having summoning sickness if attached to an untapped land.

I'm just wondering why you have 2 Dryad Arbor. Isn't one enough?
Drawing Dryad Arbor (or having it in opening hand) instead of finding it with GSZ isn't nice at all in my opinion.

Plateau - I like the art. And it's also the first dual I've ever owned so there's sort of sentimental value in it.

Kessig Wolf Run - sometimes it has caused me to lose because it can't tap for colored mana, but the strong ability is worth taking the risk (using one in my Zoo deck).

Quote from A Boss

round 2 vs uw stoneblade
Game 1 he couldn't answer a plating and died. Game 2 he spellsnared plating then cast mystic for batterskull, then turn 3 batter skull and turn 4 elspeth. Game 3 I had turn 1 ravager with 2 ornithopters and an opal.Turn 3 I floated blue with opal, cast opal to kill them with legend rule, then cast opal (not sure why I didnt sac to ravager) he spell pierced the opal, which I let resolve, I played a land and cast tezz. At this point batterskull had gained him 4,and I could "only" do 16 with all the artifacts I had on board. I used his +1 to get champion and passed turn. He attacked at tezz which I blocked with ornithopter and cast mystic for sword of feast and famine. On my next turn cast champion, used tezz +1 for another champion. Next turn I ulted tezz for 20, sacrificed 4 artifacts to ravager and sacrificed ravager to put counters on champion to swing for the win.

match 5 vs zoo
Game one was turn 2 tezzeret (lotus petal is insane here) for the win. Game 2 showed me exactly how powerful ravager is. I got a turn 1 ravager, turn 2 plating. He used natures claim on plating which I saced to ravager (maybe a bad play) I got out etched champion and he got double goyf followed by grim lavamacer which is generally game over. I started blocking and sacrificing all my zero drops to ravager swinging with etched champion everyturn. Facing leathal next turn I sacrificed my lands to ravager saced ravager to make a huge etched champion for the win.

Nice tournament report, and congratulations on making it to top 8.

Longest game I played was a casual game with my cousin. Both of us had homebrew decks. He had elves (Legion expansion), while I had a red black deck with Flametongue Kavu, Mortivores and terminates. At the start I was winning easily, having killed and used animate dead on his elf that produced a 1/1 insect each time an elf came to play. The tide turned when he cast Alpha Status on his Taunting Elf and killed nearly my entire team (only ones that survived are tapped creatures that attacked him the previous turn). I killed the Taunting elf with removal, and then discarded the Timberwatch elves in his hand with Void. But he came back into the game with Voice of the Woods, I nearly got overwhelmed by continuous 7/7 elementals. Removed his Voice of the woods just in time... nearly 2 1/2 hours pass of back and forth board position advantage.

Final board position was I'm at very low health, but have 2 Flametongue, a Royal Assassin, a 1/1 insect, 2 Timberwatch Elves Enchanted with animate dead, a 30/30 something Mortivore and a few other creatures I can't remember. His health points are above 100 due to Wellwisher , and he has as many creatures on the board including at least two 4/5's (the large elf that produce GGG) and two other large tramplers. I thought hard and decided that if I could survive his attack, then it would be a victory for my team. Managed to survive with my life single digit, by blocking his large creatures and killing the first trampler with Royal Assassin and the other blocked with my large Mortivore. He lost by running out of cards in his deck. Longest game I ever played. Arrived at his place at a little past 3 pm, already getting dark when I went home - and we played only one game.