Legacy

All Suns’ Dawn: The Anatomy of a Force of Will

Hi everyone, my name is Mark Sun. I’m a 23 year old student from central Ohio. I’ve been playing Magic competitively since the summer of 2009 and have developed quite an interest in Legacy. KYT has given me a great opportunity to write here on Mana Deprived and my goal is to provide content using my perspectives and theories on the game. Contrary to what KYT might imply, I’m definitely no Legacy legend, but rather an eager student who wants to progress as high as he can. I haven’t quite gotten there, but one of the best tools of development is the idea of constructive criticism and discussion, which leads to all involved parties learning and growing.

I have only written a few blogs about my personal experiences in tournaments, so this is officially my first “article.” I did happen to attend GP: Providence to try to fight amongst the ranks of the best, but unfortunately for me, I’ve been on a Legacy cold streak lately and went into battle armed with a grand total of zero byes. So today’s article will not be about how I sleeved up B/W Discard and got crushed by Fast Zoo on the draw. Twice. I’m still hurting from it. What I do want to talk about a little bit, however, is the first place list from James Rynkiewicz, listed on most sites as Bant Aggro.

As an occasional poster on mtgthesource.com, I’ve received a lot of exposure to bits and pieces of various Legacy communities, from the Starcitygames.com Open Series in our own backyards all the way to the Bazaar of Moxen tournament across the pond in Europe. Legacy is a huge world, but even as someone who joined the party a little late, one of the gems is Jupiter Games in Vestal, NY. The saturation of high caliber players from there is very high and it was no surprise that James, a regular there and Player of the Year in Jupiter Games’ own championship series, was able to take it all down. As a side note, I went there last November for a Power 9/Dual/Fetch draft and the venue was amazing.

Anyways, for reference and convenience, this is James’ List:

[deck title=Bant Aggro by James Rynkiewicz]
[Lands]
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
2 Savannah
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Wasteland
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Brainstorm
3 Mental Misstep
3 Daze
4 Green Suns Zenith
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Sylvan Library
1 Umezawas Jitte
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Dispel
1 Mental Misstep
1 Path to Exile
3 Spell Pierce
2 Krosan Grip
2 Rhox War Monk
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Umezawas Jitte
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

The Anatomy of a Force of Will

The first and most popular point of discussion that I’ve been hearing so far is the lack of Force of Will. A lot of people are amazed at the fact that a blue deck could have gotten there without one of the most iconic counterspells in the format. I was a little surprised at first, but after letting it sink in, it made sense. There are various ways to “dissect” a Force of Will. After all, what is its most important attribute? Different cards will have different ways of impacting a game. Consider further, then, the anatomy of a game. What makes up a game of Magic?

In a fair game of Magic, threats are deployed with the idea of winning the game in mind. Threats can be anything, from [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] to [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] to a [card]Mountain Goat[/card]. Any of these, given time, has the potential to end the game. Subsequently, the player on the opposing side may choose to interact by playing anything from a similar threat (one [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] can sometimes negate an opposing one), removal, countermagic, or simply not care (the concept of outracing). Whatever each of these players do is also dictated by the amount of resources they have available: card advantage, mana, life, and so forth.

I do apologize on the generic example, but the idea is to set a baseline. All of the factors listed above are almost always going to have some type of effect on the game. The one that I neglected to mention, of course, is the idea of tempo. When I ask someone how [card]Force of Will[/card] impacts the game, they generally answer, “well, it counters stuff for free.” No one has ever answered that question with, “it generates positive tempo.” A wise mentor once showed me this perspective. In my opinion, the most important influence that [card]Force of Will[/card] has on the game is its ability to generate positive tempo. For the aggro-control aspect of this deck, tempo is one of the linchpins to victory.

The only downside, however, is the fact that everything comes at a price. In order to play [card]Force of Will[/card] or rather, in order to generate positive tempo with [card]Force of Will[/card] not only is there a constraint of having a blue card (and good reason to pitch it), but also extends further into deckbuilding as well. The card advantage aspect is not easy for an aggro-control deck to neutralize either. [card]Force of Will[/card] is generally castable in the early game but gets harder to cast as the game drags on; in a way, the same can be said for its usefulness. In the early game, some of the most dangerous spells to counter are the 1cc cards. Aether Vial, [card]Grim Lavamancer[/card], [card]Brainstorm[/card]/[card]Ponder[/card], and so forth. Conveniently, we have a New Phyrexia addition that answers that. While you won’t always have the versatility of [card]Force of Will[/card] especially later in the game, be assured that [card]Mental Misstep[/card] is doing its best impression. How similar are they? Take a look for yourself from an early game perspective.

By eliminating [card]Force of Will[/card] from the equation, the deck can open up its slots. Where you see blue decks that play cantrips on top of [card]Brainstorm[/card] and sometimes additional countermagic, this deck features a whole 14 blue cards. When I see numbers like this, I focus on the design space that was vacated to make room for… well, just about anything. The [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card]s, white cards, can be added to fetch equipment, colorless cards, without concerns of color consistency. Finally, because there is a higher redundancy factor in the deck, increased threats and more business spells, the biggest benefactor of the deck becomes [card]Brainstorm[/card]. In essence, removing [card]Force of Will[/card] strengthened this deck. I’ll touch up on that soon.

Metagaming Against Each Other… Eh?

Okay, so maybe the entire Eh Team didn’t just show up and check out peoples’ decks, but certainly, a lot of interesting card choices were made in this list to fight what the projected metagame was. I’ll run through the ones that intrigued me the most.

1 [card]Birds of Paradise[/card]: Okay, fair, maybe not a newcomer to Bant lists, but definitely attracts some interest as the fourth [card]Noble Hierarch[/card]. I had originally guessed that it was used to carry equipment over enemy lines when the ground was clogged, and James wound up confirming that. Usually having access to [card]Vendilion Clique[/card] as another way to fly over is great, but this one can be found with [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card]. I do like [card]Scryb Ranger[/card] and its interactions with the manabugs, though, and its added bonus against Merfolk. That said, you haven’t lived until you’ve [card]Sword of Fire and Ice[/card]’d someone with a [card]Birds of Paradise[/card]…

2 [card]Sylvan Library[/card]: Not a new concept to avid players of Zoo, but definitely a concept that wasn’t accepted by many players of Bant. [card]Sylvan Library[/card] is hands down one of the best cards for a non-blue deck (uh-oh) to generate card advantage and is an absolute bomb against Hymn decks with a slower clock like Junk or even Team America. It’s also a must-answer against any control deck; when the aggressor generates more advantage than you, there is a problem.

1 [card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card] (Maindeck): I’ve been playing Stoneforge-based decks for a while now (Bant Stoneforge and B/W Discard), and I generally start my decklists with X [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card], 1-2 [card]Umezawa’s Jitte[/card], 1 [card]Sword of Fire and Ice[/card] and save the rest for the sideboard. [card]Sword of Feast and Famine[/card] in the maindeck gives an edge over Team America, which I feel had a target on its back coming into this tournament, that it likely stole Game 1’s easily. Team America runs almost no answers to artifacts in its maindeck. As with [card]Sylvan Library[/card], there is the added advantage of fighting against control decks with this card as well. [card]Sword of Fire and Ice[/card] while great, is supplemented with Jitte, which has a similar (and sometimes more devastating) impact against tribal. Drawing a card cannot be replaced by making your opponent discard a card, but card advantage engines like [card]Sylvan Library[/card] and Jace make up for it.

1 [card]Sylvan Safekeeper[/card] (Sideboard): Wow. We seemed to all know that it was a real card, but I don’t think many people thought it would see play here. It was probably never cast for G, instead 1G using [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card] and the basic way of describing it is to call it the green [card]Mother of Runes[/card]. Except this one can come online the turn it comes into play. It negates general removal, but more importantly counters abilities from [card]Gilded Drake[/card], [card]Sower of Temptation[/card], even an opposing Jace. I’ve also never seen a giant shrouded [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card] attack before, but this guy should be making it in sideboards from now on if you play Green Sun’s Zenith.

0 [card]Force of Will[/card]: Still talking about this? Sure am. Next section 🙂

Unfair Decks Take a (Mis)Step Back

In my generic example I mention a “fair” game of Magic and the possible factors that could influence its outcome. I can think of a couple of situations where these factors do not matter. The first is when a player is on the brink of death in a game; it can be life-based or library-based. While resources can be used and sometimes stretched, the magical numbers are still 0 and 0, life and number of cards in your library at your draw step. If you flip a [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card] from [card]Dark Confidant[/card] while you’re at 2 life, the card advantage doesn’t matter. In the same breath, and a likely second situation, if your opponent topdecks an [card]Ad Nauseam[/card] and your grip of seven can’t interact, card advantage doesn’t matter. Why do I bring these two situations up? The games had the same ending, but the idea to take note is that the fair rules of Magic we were just discussing no longer apply in both scenarios.

When playing against unfair decks, you had to play against their rules. But [card]Mental Misstep[/card] was the missing link for Blue decks to mount a comeback. Its presence can be felt all around the Top 8, where each blue deck played at least three copies, and there were 27 [card]Mental Misstep[/card]s out of a possible 28 slots in blue decks. Last year at GP Columbus, the Top 8 featured four unfair decks: UG Survival, [card]Doomsday[/card], The Epic Storm, and [card]Sneak Attack[/card]. This year at GP Providence, there were only two, and they had to also have their own [card]Mental Misstep[/card]s and [card]Force of Will[/card]s to succeed. With these other six Blue-based decks playing 4 [card]Force of Will[/card] to compliment Mental Missteps, the non-blue degenerate decks were held in check.

So what does the immediate future of the format look like? What does the immediate future of this deck look like? For one, as long as decks are playing 4 [card]Mental Misstep[/card]s and 4 [card]Force of Will[/card] the unfair decks that rely on 1cc cards and not a blue shell ([card]Dark Ritual[/card], [card]Rite of Flame[/card], [card]Duress[/card], [card]Orim’s Chant[/card] come to mind) will be at a serious disadvantage. That means that the format is likely to stay fair, and that playing zero Force of Wills in your deck will probably be okay. An additional view on [card]Force of Will[/card] in interactive decks that I’ve exercised throughout my Magic career is that unless you’re playing a deck like Merfolk (which runs little to no removal), [card]Force of Will[/card] should be reserved almost exclusively for these unfair decks. As long as these decks do not kill you in the early game, where your mana resources are likely to be low, it is acceptable to be board them out in the interest of card advantage. It makes little sense to me to keep in [card]Force of Will[/card] against a deck with high threat density like Zoo if you can bring in additional countermagic or removal. To reiterate my previous sections highlighting zero [card]Force of Will[/card], it’s similar to preboarding your deck for the room.

The one caveat, however, is to not take your eyes off the road with playing zero Force of Will. The last thought that I will leave you with is the idea of a prisoner’s dilemma with the amount of [card]Force of Will[/card]s that you play in your blue decks. There must be a nonzero number of blue decks packing [card]Force of Will[/card] to keep the degenerate decks in check. James did a great job in the finals of the Grand Prix by using [card]Mental Misstep[/card] aggressively to control his opponent’s card quality but with variance it may not have done the job every time. Combo always seems to find a way to adjust and make a comeback.


“No, no, it’s cool. I’m playing Goblins or something.”

Closing Thoughts

All right, I hope I did my best to break to reflect some of my theories towards the Grand Prix winning list. It will be very interesting to watch where the metagame goes in the upcoming months. Legacy Stone-Blade made a solid appearance at the GP and looks to take over the revitalized traditional Landstill shell as the premiere control deck of the format. Goblins and Zoo both managed to send in representatives to Day 2 with undefeated records, and proved that they may not have been so bad in a world of blue. Regardless, Legacy will always have a surprise in store.

If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot me an email or follow me on Twitter!

–Mark Sun

chbe.sun@gmail.com
@AllSunsDawn on Twitter

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