manascrwd

[manascrwd]

Playing Legacy Twice a Month is a Game-Changer

Our LGS recently replaced its Pauper event with another Legacy night, and honestly, it’s refreshing to be able to jam Brainstorm twice a month. That said, I must admit I’ve been enjoying the format a little less than I used to. It’s a mix of things: the endless complaints about Legacy, my recent streak of rough pairings, and the rise of Slow Neoform in Modern—honestly, the balance has started to shift.

Legacy FNMs: The Journey So Far

Three weeks ago, I decided to cross a deck off my bingo list and brought Arclight Phoenix to Legacy. I ended 2-2. Swinging with birds was fun, but facing nothing but UBx decks made for a pretty dull evening.

Two weeks ago, I tried out Nic Fit using a list from Alieldrazi (MTGTop8). I had high hopes, but the results were disastrous. Still, it was a deck I really wanted to try, so no regrets. From what I see in the Nicfit discord, Oricish Bowmasters is not that strong right now (in that deck at least)

Last week went a bit better: I played Mono-Blue Omnitell and finished 3-1 (including a bye). I sleeved up this version mainly out of convenience—I didn’t want to dig through all my binders for duals and fetches. Mono-blue + a few proxied fetchlands meant I could leave my Modern decks untouched, which is great for my sanity.

Reflections on BOB 15

Looking back at the BOB 15 event, Stock Up impressed me the most. A lot of players were on Show and Tell or Sneak and Show, and the deck definitely proved its place in the meta. I had prepped for a sea of Reanimator, but only faced one UB Tempo deck in Round 1—something that’s reflected in my sideboard choices.

The tournament went well overall, though I lost to Sneak and Show—a matchup I still find pretty tricky. My other two losses came from a major misplay against Cephalid Breakfast, and a frustrating draw against Sudden Substitution. That match left a sour taste: my opponent played slowly and then had the nerve to tell me to speed up. One of us might have ended in the prizes, but I wasn’t about to concede to someone being unfriendly, our last match wasn't decided and it could have gone either way!

Despite those setbacks, I’m really proud of my performance. A Top 16 finish would’ve been great, but I still learned a lot.

Takeaways

After five rounds, I definitely started to lose focus, and I started making many mistakes. As for my sideboarding, I still hadn't prepared much. But this is something I already mentioned so I'll definitely try to improve on that!

See you slamming Ghalta's around

[manascrwd]

What to play, what to play ...

Once a month is really too little to play legacy if you want to follow what happens. With the banning and then the release of Tarkirs, it's as if we've had 2 metagame shifts already. There are other events but I'm not always available on Sundays or when the impromptu meetings happen.

Preparing for BOB

I really wanted to tick some brews off my list and decided to play colorless post with the new Ugin for the last legacy FNM (11/4). It was actually quite fun to play but my manabase was attacked a lot. I've seen TrueFuturism packing 4 disrupting flutes main and that is probably what colorless cloudpost should do! As for Ugin, it won me a game from 1 life but it feels a little winmore to mee and often had no exile target upon entering. That's maybe variance but that's how it felt.

I'm still debating if I will go to Bob 15 and I was considering taking Cephalid Breakfast as it had an okay game accross the field but it seems that with Beanstalk being present again it might be a bad choice. Omnitell is a strong contender. Stock Up brings a lot of consistency to the deck apparently but I think people are prepping against it.

A deck that's difficult to disrupt and has little incidental hate right now is Ruby Storm so I might try that if I decide to go. There are not that many new cards for the deck but the guys from TheEpicStorm are testing Will of the Jeskai.

Modern FNMs

As for modern I tend to change deck every once in a while but I've built Slow Neoform and have been having a blast jamming Griselbrands turn one. It's unprotected but it feels like cheating. I must say that many of my opponents have managed to either kill it or out-combo me the next turn (amulet, yawg and samwise among other). That's a little bit unlucky on my side but the deck is still great. Oh yeah, decks that pack FoN and Subtlelty are horrendous!

[manascrwd]

Ruby Storm at FNM: First Place Finish!

~ Ruby storm list builds itself

I’ve been a long-time fan of Bryant Cook and Tony Scapone from The Epic Storm. They’re always cooking up something new when it comes to storm strategies! There are less opportunities to play storm in modern before MH3 but I played a little with twiddle storm a few years back.

After the Nadu ban I finished building Ruby Storm. I had already been playing a few FNM events with Gifts Storm and then Ruby Storm, but as I mentioned before, my results weren’t great. In Legacy, my heart lies in the Cephalid Illusionist but I love to mix it up and I have a soft spot for Ruby Storm—it sidesteps most classic storm hate and can perform surprisingly well.

There are basically two builds: with or without Bonus Round. It’s funny how Tony Scapone swears by it, while Bryant Cook considers it a "win-more" card. Either way, getting the missing pieces for the Legacy version wasn’t too difficult. Thanks to our proxy-friendly policy, 2 Jeska’s Wills later, and I was ready to go! The rest of the deck is pretty much 4 ofs.

First Place!

I brought Ruby Storm to FNM on the 14th of Februray, and despite getting absolutely smashed by Dimir in the final round, I still managed to take first place! What a feat!

~ Post on our LGS wall, I was happy!

My matchups were 2-0 Food Chain, 2-0 UWx Control, 2-0 Eldrazi and 0-2 Dimir. Eldrazi was especially fun because there was quite a few interaction in both games we played but I managed a win none the less. I was lucky this time as a won all my matches before the final, so that's varince for you. But I also managed to navigate through quite some hate so there is that.

What really amazed me about Ruby Storm is its resilience. It can push through a lot of hate, rebuild when needed, and even pull off turn 1 kills. The deck feels powerful and rewarding, but I still have some work to do, especially against Food Chain.

I didn't like Leyline too much and would probably change them. The two Defence Grid on the other hand where the MVP of the show!

I’ll be back at Legacy FNM next Friday—let’s see if I can bring some fun deck to the party!

[manascrwd]

Bazaar of Boxes 14

Last month, I headed to the Netherlands for Bazaar of Boxes 14, piloting Cephalid Breakfast to a 3-3-1 finish. While it's not the result I was hoping for, I adopted Reid Duke's strategy of playing the tourney until the end! This was a big changer wrt my normal way of heading to a tourney. I learned quite a few things and this is positive overall. As always, the event was really well put togheter and this is really a shoutout to the guys from Bazaar of Boxes!

~ Little montage to prove I was there as I didn't take pictures!

Let’s dive into the day’s rounds!

The Matches:

Round 1 – BG Reanimator (Win 2-0) I was directly facing the boogeyman in reanimatore. I managed to win the match. In the first game, I had a very good hand that protected me from discard and could present the combo. G2 his clock was really slow and I managed to go off after some back and forth. He managed to reanimate a troll but that was really not enough!

Round 2 – UB Reanimator (Loss 0-2) Here I did quite some missplays but I noted them down to improve next time!! In Game 1, I completely blanked on using Orim’s Chant to stop my opponent’s turn 2 Atraxa. After the angel resolved there wasn't much I could do but I played it out to see more of his deck. I had to mulligan a lot game 2 and lost in the same fashion.

Lesson learned: pay attention and map out plays ahead of time.

Round 3 – RB Reanimator (Loss 0-2) This was a brutal match. On the draw in Game 1, I essentially died on turn 1—classic Reanimator things. This was another variation of the deck and I probably didn't sideboard correctly: I did not expect the magus of the moons. I also did not fetch correctly. I managed to force the first magus but not the second. He killed me 10 turns later!

Round 4 – Mardu Tokens (Win 2-1) Finally, some fun! My opponent was a delight to play against, and the match had a lot of interesting back-and-forth. It’s always refreshing to have a round where the social aspect of Magic really shines. All in all I died quickly G1 and played around a lot of hate he didn't really have G2 but managed to present the combo. G3 was also really back and forth with a lot of interaction on both sides and as we faced time I secured my draw, by blocking and keeping myself alive as much as possible. I can combo out of nowhere as long as I have points of life but it did not happen this time. His teck was price of progress but I played around it thinking he was going to blood moon me so that was nice!

Round 5 – Boros Initiative (Loss 1-2) Game 1 he did the thing, not too fast but I got a lot of pressure early on and he managed to remove a piece of combo with solitude. Game 2 was not too fast of a start from him and I managed to keep the pressure off. He wasn't aware that I could combo on my turn and left the Nomads too long but it cost him! Game 3 here was entirely on me. I should’ve mulliganed to five, but I got greedy and kept a shaky six. That decision let my opponent lock me out of the game with a Chalice on 1. Definitely a learning moment there: I bet on him not having turn 1 chalice, sometimes it pays out, semetimes it doesn't!

Round 6 – Jewels Combo (Win 2-0) This match was… not my favorite. My opponent wasn’t particularly fun to play against, but the games themselves were fine. I comboed off quickly in Game 1 and managed to close Game 2 through combat damage after enduring some painfully long turns of nothingness. A win is a win, but this one felt more like a chore than a celebration. As I was winning the game, I didn't call the judges but there was definitely some slow play that could have been called there!

Round 7 – Cloudpost (Win 2-0) I ended the day on a high note against Cloudpost. Game 1 was a quick turn 2 win after a mulligan to five, showing just how explosive Cephalid Breakfast can be. Game 2 was grindier; I had to mulligan to five again but navigated carefully around my opponent’s potential hate. Nadu helped me stabilize, and after some durdling, I was able to close out the game.

Takeaways:

Sideboarding Needs Work: I noticed my sideboarding decisions were inconsistent. Some plans worked, but I need to map out better strategies for common matchups before heading into a competition.

Mental Mapping is Key: A few matches highlighted how important it is to visualize plays and think several turns ahead. Small oversights—like forgetting an Orim’s Chant—can be costly.

Final Thoughts:

I love my version of Cephalid Breakfastt:

Leylines? No problem—I barely cared about them.

Step Through makes fetching Thassa’s Oracle easy, which is a huge plus.

Memory’s Journey was clutch as a hedge against Faerie Macabre (though it didn’t come up).

Consign to Memory remains a threat. Always keep an eye out for it!

While 3-3-1 is less than I hoped for, the tournament was a good learning experience. Cephalid Breakfast is still one of my favorite decks, and I’m excited to refine my gameplay for the next event. Plus, there’s always a silver lining when you manage to combo off a few times and remind your opponents that breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

[manascrwd]

Lotus Breach 2025

I'm a sucker for twiddle storm. The deck has evolved to play Underworld Breach and then The One Ring to draw an obscene amount of cards. Now that The One Ring is banned, lists are popping up and this one is quite interesting as it makes use of Faithless Looting:

Izzet Charm is an answer to early threats or to Karn, The Great Creator. This deck goes off by looping Tome Scour and Twiddle netting one card in the graveyard each loop. You finish by wishing for Thassa's Oracle once you milled your deck and cast it for the win!

[manascrwd]

Last FNM of 2024

For the last FNM of the year, I brought Ruby Storm again—only to meet a spectacularly unfortunate finish. After a first-round bye, I didn’t manage to combo off in any of my games. I’m sure I’m making mistakes somewhere along the way, but for now, I can’t quite pinpoint what I’m doing wrong.

Since Faithless Looting was recently unbanned, I decided to give it a try but I wasn’t too impressed. The card disadvantage feels rough, so I’ll probably swap it out for Glimpse again next time.

On the bright side, I picked up Phlage, which sometimes sees play in the white-splash version. I’m excited to test it, though I’m still figuring out the best situations to bring it in.

I also brought a little Carth the Lion brew to experiment with now that Green Sun’s Zenith (GSZ) is unbanned in Modern.

Landing planeswalkers turn after turn is a blast and surprisingly tricky for many Modern decks to deal with. However, spending 4-5 mana on a creature that doesn’t do much on its own feels underwhelming. The planeswalker axis has potential, though, and I’ll keep tinkering with the list when I have the time.

Looking Back at 2024

As 2024 wraps up, I can see a mix of highs and lows in my Magic journey. One of my proudest moments was achieving my first-ever 4-0 finish with Kappa Cannoneer.

The matches were engaging, and I think Kappa is incredibly strong in Modern—both unblockable and tough to remove. I’d love to try Aspiring Spike’s list with Kappas, Trolls, and Phoenixes, but there’s so little time to test all these brews in paper!

As I decided to be more serious about modern magic, I invested in a real deck only for it to be banned!

But I sill get to play Nadu in legacy!

And most of my Modern FNMs ended on a negative record 🧙

On the Legacy side, I didn’t participate in as many tournaments this year. I made my debut at Bazaar of Boxes (BOB) in March with Breakfast 🐙, though my performance was underwhelming.

Later in November, I went to the Belgian Legacy Cup (BLC), again with Breakfast, finishing 2-3.

I know I punted several games, so there’s definitely room to improve. Breakfast remains my go-to Legacy deck, especially since Legacy events are rare, but I did enjoy a mid-year experiment with Miracles and Jeskai Control, even if my results weren’t great (for instance when I sleeved it for Sunday Legacy @VrolijkeViking and ended 0-4).

Plans for 2025

While I love Magic, it’s always a little bittersweet coming back from FNM with a losing record. I’m the kind of player who enjoys exploring new decks, so sticking to a single strategy can be difficult. That said, Ruby Storm is well-positioned in Modern right now, and it’s going to be my default deck moving forward. If I have the opportunity I would also like to play with the Broodscale combo although this one is on the downtick! On the fun side of things there is Arclight Phoenix waiting for me. Portent of Calamity Tron, Ponza and As Foretold are also card that are still on my bingo card!

My goal is to attend three competitions in 2025 (probably legacy) with the intent to play out all my games, learn as much as I can, and deepen my understanding of Breakfast and the legacy format.

For Legacy FNM, I’ll be switching between Breakfast and Turbo Depths. I recently acquired the pieces for the green black depths version, and I’m looking forward to having a little variation in what I bring to the table.

Finally, I notice that there is a big gap between my posts on this blog so I'll make it a little bit more consistent this year.

Here’s to another year of Magic—learning, improving, and most importantly, having fun!

[manascrwd]

Colorless cloudpost

I started playing Legacy during the COVID pandemic. Around that time, Time Spiral Remastered was released, and after acquiring my first dual lands, I began acquiring some Legacy staples. Among the decks within my reach were Cloudpost, Nic Fit, and Standstill. At the time, I wasn't entirely sure how Cloudpost operated, so I ended up gathering cards for both a colorless version and a mono-green version.

While I played a lot of Nic Fit during this time, I didn't play much Cloudpost. My former LGS often had a very combo-heavy meta, which made me hesitant to bring a slower, big-mana deck like Cloudpost. Additionally, I always seemed to find something else that piqued my interest more when deciding on a deck to play (often Chain of Smog decks).

Cloudpost decks are great at generating huge mana for powerful threats, making them strong against control and midrange decks. However, they struggle against fast combo and aggressive strategies that can overwhelm them early.

While browsing through some 5-0 deck lists today, I stumbled upon a fun list I would love to try:

~ https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/6498047#paper

It dates back to June, so I wonder if it's still playable today. Right now, all big mana decks are running Sowing Mycospawn, which is a beast of a card for your opponent to deal with if you manage to kick it. Planar Nexus + Urza's Tower gives you 4 mana turn two, which is a very powerfull play. Also Consign to Memory is in every blue sideboard to counter the Eldrazi menace!

It's still fun to see this list that reminds me of all those colorless cards I acquired for playing that deck and see it posting results!

See you at FNM!

[manascrwd]

Budget legacy magic

There are quite a few topics about legacy on a budget but more and more LGS are proxy friendly - which I think is positive for the health of the format -. It wasn't the case in my previous LGS and this also changed the way people played. Budget was often a topic of discussion and a budget compedium was built.

One deck that doesn’t always come up in these discussions is GB depths. The deck used to be rainbow depths but the disadvantage of that was that the manabase did not help you growing your legacy collection. IMOH it's the same for a few other decks like Burn or MonoBlack reanimator and somtimes shoving a few shocks is still playabe.

In a pinch, GB Depths is a combo deck that revolves around assembling Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage to create a 20/20 flying indestructible Marit Lage token. It’s a classic “one big threat” strategy. It's possible to play the midrange version with cards like Swords to Plowshares and Elvish Reclaimer to slow opponents down. This version is full out combo with black discard to clear the coast and just go for it.

Notheless, I stumbled upon this post on reddit and as I have most of the cards laying in a binder I thought it was time to add a new project to my tsundoku:

~ decklist

I miss the following cards for the deck:

3 Urborgs

4 Into the north

4 Not of this world

What still amazes me after all these years is the acquisition cost of the Urborgs. The Lotus Petals are also not cheap today. Other than that, the cards are pretty damn cheap and I'd love to have this around for an impromptu legacy FNM when on the road.

Crucible of Worlds produces great content for that deck on his youtube channel if you need more gameplay info. He also has great budget depth article here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/89468003?pr=true

That's all for today, see you at FNM!

[manascrwd]

Decks I Loved from Prague

Before diving into my favorite decks from Eternal Weekend Prague, I want to address why I’m not sharing my own results. Simply put, it’s been rough lately. My Modern performances have been pretty dismal—I’m often finishing near the bottom—and my last Legacy competition, the Belgian Legacy Cup, didn’t go much better. It’s been frustrating, but that hasn’t stopped me from digging through decklists and finding inspiration. So, here’s a look at the decks that stood out to me this time around.

Modern

The deck diversity was kind of boring—mostly Boros, Dimir, or Scales Combo, with a few Eldrazi decks thrown in. Storm didn’t perform well at all. That said, one Jeskai Nulldrifter deck managed to snag #3, which caught my eye.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460524

Of course, the list runs four copies of The One Ring (TOR), and I’m sure it’ll look very different in a week or two. Still, it gives me a good starting point for improving my mana base.

At #23, there was a Ruby Storm deck with a really clean list. It had a green splash for Veil of Summer and a white splash for Prismatic Ending.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460741

I love how streamlined it is while still having those options.

Another thing that stood out was how Broodscale Combo dropped all the Eldrazi cards and instead focused on +1/+1 counter synergies. It runs playsets of Walking Ballista and all sorts of +1/+1-themed cards, often in small numbers.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/459548

No Halfling cards at all! The #4 list is super lean and worth taking a closer look at.

Legacy

I saw via twitter that someone brought BUG Chain of Smog combo and was very excited. Unfortunately, the deck didn’t do well overall, but I’ve kind of built a reputation as the Smog guy, so I have to mention it. 😊

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/459682

On the brighter side, Breakfast won the whole thing, piloted by a really strong player.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460449

That is awesome to see! It’s a solid reference for me, and now I’m on the hunt for footage of the deck in action so I can level up my own gameplay.

Another deck that grabbed my attention is Omnitell running Borne Upon a Wind. It’s a clever way to get Show and Tell into play, but I wonder how often you can hit five mana consistently?

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460426

It’s an idea I’d like to explore further.

Vintage

Of course, I couldn’t resist checking out the Vintage results, especially the unpowered decks (since they have their own prizing). The strongest option is probably Dredge, though you’ll need four Bazaar of Baghdad to build it*. Even though it’s not part of the Power Nine, it’s still a pricey card.

The next best thing is Stompy variants, and this time Mono-White Stompy did pretty well.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/459886

It uses three Elvish Spirit Guides and a playset of Null Rod. It’s less expensive than Dredge, but still not exactly cheap.

One deck I’d love to try is a Frog Midrange build in a Sultai shell.

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460827

It looks pretty solid, running the usual suspects like Collector Ouphe (x4) and Oko, Thief of Crowns (x3), but surprisingly no Deathrite Shaman. The Thinker target is effing Blighttseel Collossus! Unfortunately, I’m missing way too many cards to even think about building it.

For those lucky enough to have Power Nine cards, the first Oath deck on the standings was really fun to see. It’s running some old-school tech: 2x Spaghetti Monster, Dragon’s Breath, and Channel to hard-cast la nonna!

https://melee.gg/Decklist/View/460857

It’s a blast from the past, and now I’m tempted to rebuild that version of the deck. I would be pissed, ending #9 but that's life!

That's all this time around for me. Catch you at FNM!

*Apparently, Bazaar of Baghdad and Mishra's Workshop are considered power as well for this ranking

[manascrwd]

Mailday / Work in progress

I always keep a few wishlists in my Cardmarket account for when I order cards. It’s a great way to grab some inexpensive but juicy extras. Little by little, this approach has helped me build 3 old-school and a few premodern decks, and it’s been a lot of fun!

Now, my latest project is to put together a few $30 budget vintage decks (value vintage), a format I find fascinating for playing with non-hardcore Magic friends. It’s accessble but allows for a very big card pool.

I’ve chosen three decks to build:

High Tide – A combo deck that can generate ridiculous amounts of mana for powerful turns.

Thopter Swords – A control deck built around assembling an infinite life-gain and token loop.

Cascade/Initiative – A ridiculously fast aggro deck that slams threat after threat.

High Tide is already complete, and Cascade/Initiative is nearly there—I just need to track down a few missing cards in my collection, which I’m currently sorting.

Thopter Swords, on the other hand, is still a work in progress. I have most of the cards, but they’re scattered across various binders, and I’d rather these decks not exist in a quantum state!

The most challenging part of this project is figuring out the sideboards. Online lists tend to cater to very specific metagames and often rely on situational cards. In past projects, I’ve found this part tricky, and many decks stalled after assembling the initial 60 cards and a small sideboard.

How should I approach building sideboards for projects like this?

I’ll make an update on my progress and hope to start playtesting soon. It’ll be great to see how these decks come to life!

[manascrwd]

Ponza in 2024 Modern

I finally pulled the plug* on a purchase I was looking at for a long time:

I acquired my playset of Blood Moon. I chose this print so that I can also use them in oldschool decks. But this was also the perfect time to use them in modern!

Ponza

Ponza is a very old land destruction deck that's faded away. I decided to play it again because my FNM scene is very favourable to it:

There are always Tron players

There are always Amulet players

I like old school decks

The deck

The first build I tried is a mix of different lists I saw and I decided to include the following cards:

4 Questing Druid: This is a very versatile card that you can cast off cascade and dodges the "draw" close of cards like Bowmaster or Narset.

4 Bloodbraid Elf: The hate for Cascade decks is gone so this card is often a 2 for 1.

3 Stormbreath Dragon: Removal is mainly white with Solitude and Leyline Bindings, this card dodges both as well as Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push off other colors.

3 Karn, the great creato: Shuts down opposing artifacts and allows you to have a whishboard for each situation. I opted for 3 as I do not want to have too many clogging up in my hand. It's also not a slam dunk as it used to be, so I'm happy to see it but it's not my main finisher.

FNM week 21

So I took this ponza list to FNM and was immediately greeted with 2 great news: There were 3 titan players and one of them was my first opponent. I was in disbelief as he saw me play an arbor elf turn one but the remainder of the evening didn't pan out great.

0-2: Amulet

2-1: Yawgmoth

2-1: Esper Goryo

0-2: Scam

VS Amulet My two games were over quite fast. First game I draw only lands, second game, I mul to 4 and draw no lands. GG

VS Yawgmoth Game 1 is interesting as we exchange back and forth but I manage to stick a Dragon and kill him. Game 2 I have the control of the game but he manages to do the combo facing lethal so we go to game 3. He left the party for some personal matters and so I take the win.

VS Esper Goryo This was a very disputed game (except game 2 where he did the thing on turn 2 and I had no answer to Atraxa). We exchanged threats all game and Klothys was a beast in those games. G3 we were on time in a staredown contest, and he gave me the win. I could have won with a topdeck bolt but the Ponza gods were not we me that night. (After some debate he probably could have got me if we played longer but my dragons and Klothys were keeping my life total healty).

VS Scam Game 1 I get ragavaned and my opponent took my klothys and a bloodbraid after he bolted my bird T1. Difficult to come back from such a start! Game 2 we exchanged some threats but he got better cards in the topdeck war and I couldn't manage his Dauthi's on board.

Time to go home!

Takeways

It was a very lackluster FNM with wins due to my opponents. I won some matches but it could have been a 0-4 as well!

Ponza is very dependent on your starting hand, and it has to pan out favourably vs what your opponent does. This time, I stuck no blood moons and did not manage to disrupt my opponents' manabase too much. The rest of the deck did its thing, but Bloodbraid elf is not backbreaking in 2024. The two stars of the show where Stormy-D and Klothys which kept me in many games I would have lost otherwise.

For the changes, I would remove Polis Crusher for now and maybe replace it with a Chandra main. I will also play the 4 blood moons and replace the pillages with Charmaws in the side.

*I originally wrote this blog post on 29/05/2024 but got carried away and never actually posted it!

[manascrwd]

Premodern is fun!

I haven't had the opportunity to play a lot of Premodern lately, although I absolutely love the format for its nostalgia. My LGS is centered around Modern, with a monthly Pauper and a monthly Legacy event. The Legacy players are kind of my age, but with children and other commitments, they can't always be available for more gameplay.

Last year, there was some traction around Premodern, but that faded away quickly. Nonetheless, I keep an eye peeled on what happens in the community, and I'm excited to share these two decks I'm currently building. They’re close to being finished, and I can’t wait to see how they perform!

What are your thoughts on the Premodern format? Have you built any fun decks recently?

https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=58363&d=636501&f=PREM

First is a suicide black deck with the awsome shadow creatures. These bring back great memories! When I was a kid, those creatures where bonkers! I haven't played suicide black back then but lately I love monoblack decks for what they represent. There is something about having just swamps and evil spells that other decks can't replicate. Just slash your opponent for lethal as fast as possible before you die yourself.

https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=58363&d=636502&f=PREM

Second is the only storm deck of the format: mono blue storm where your wincon is brain freeze! With the re-print of sapphire medaillion on mh3, this deck has really become affordable and the only other expensive cards are actually the lotus petals if you do not have them yet!

[manascrwd]

The last flight of Nadu

This summer will probably be remembered in the MTG annals as the "Nadu Summer," and for once, I was part of the bandwagon.

I ordered my playset early on, knowing that I would at least play them in Cephalid Breakfast. I even pulled the trigger for Modern as well:

I settled on an SFM package that I liked when I played the deck. There were some lines where you could Chord for SFM, get the Shuko, and start the loop.

Here’s one of the first versions of the deck I played:

This deck featured 2 SFM, which was all the space I had, and the rest of the list was pretty stock. I also included 2 Cavern of Souls that I could set to 'Bird' or 'Wizard' for a mega combo!

I didn’t purchase the Halflings because I thought the deck was going to be banned, so I went with what I had. After a month, I decided to also get Outrider en-Kor. It took a while to arrive, and I only managed to play the card once:

This version included the Malevolent Rumble tech. The theory was that it would help me dig through the deck. However, I found that the deck wants to do a lot on Turn 2, and this card wasn’t what I wanted to play at that point. It was also a little too expensive compared to Pact (which is free).

I experimented with more or fewer lands as well. I found that 26 lands flooded a lot (though I admit, I’m not particularly lucky). In this second deck version, I missed Teferi in the main as an out to a lot of things, especially counterspells. Without the Caverns, it was even worse — though the Halflings should help with that.

My Nadu showings were quite abysmal, as I never managed to pull a positive record in Modern FNM with the different lists I played. This was the first time I invested heavily in cards on day one for Modern, and I realized two things:

It sucks when you purchase cards for a deck that gets banned.

If you're a casual player, you don’t get to sling your deck that many times in one season.

I now have quite a few extra cards to add to my modern tsundoku:

A playset of SFM

A playset of Nantuko

A playset of Wall of Roots

A playset of Nadu

But at least I got to play with my Birds of Paradise, and that was nice 😄

This experience also made me think more deeply about what I want to play next.

I've been considering Modern a lot since I moved to Ghent, but I’ve never quite liked it as much as Legacy. My favorite decks are combo and spellslinging, so I’ll have to test a few new strategies. I really enjoyed playing "Twiddle Storm" and "Ad Nauseam," but they are a little slow and folds to the hyper aggro boros build of the current meta. My peregrinations with "Asmo" where nice but it gets wrecked by Wrath of the Skies. I think storm is well-positioned. Because of the current storm hate I'm leaning towards an Gifts Storm deck that’s slightly more fringe and can avoid the current hate against traditional Storm builds.

Reflecting on the last three months I’m leaning towards sticking with one deck or a specific type of deck. What's difficult is that I have a few different decks and each has many possible builds with new cards coming out at a very fast pace. There is a lot of FOMO as well and only so little time to play and tune a deck.

I'll probably keep buying modern decks for my fantasy self, but I'll focus on one deck for the next modern season now that I acquired most of them (I played Ponza last FNM!).

What are you going to play now ?

Happy card slinging!

[manascrwd]

Mailday this summer

I’ve ordered quite a few cards from june 'til now (basically MH3 season). As usual, some finish in the tsundoku  (積ん読) - my pile of shame - and some are pure fomo buying. Many will not be played in the forseable future, but its fun to look back at them every once in a while.

Probably my favourite to play with was Pre-War Formalwear. It was really good with SFM and I was positivly surprised when I tutored for it. I love jamming my newly acquired playset of Blood Moon wich I happily jam in my ponza deck at FNM when I do not know what to play.

I’ll be back with some more detailed reports and also what I do to cope with my tsundoku.

May your deck crumble and your spells falter!

[manascrwd]

MH3 Deck pics

I didn’t take a pic of each but here are afew decks I played during the last season (mh3 season)

[manascrwd]

Legacy Battle for bling

De Vrolijke Vinking is a gaming café that organises Legacy events in Ghent once a month. Because of life, no events fired since I live here but it finally came back last sunday.

This time it was a battle for bling with a hefty entry fee of 20€ but I was eager to cardsling so I joined the party. 12 other players had the same idea and the merry group battled at it. Not too shabby for a low key sunday afternoon. I decided to upgrade and test 40k bant control again after a not too bad FNM run with the deck.

This time it really did not pan out for me.

I went:

0-1-time against rhinos

0-2 against ninjas

1-2 against lands

1-2 agains 4c delver

Against my 2 first opponents I durdled to establish my mana as well, leading in long games or my sudden death. From the games I remember, I had 2 wastelands against my ninja opponents on basics or 5 cantrips cast and 2 mana in play against my rhino oppo. What I noticed from the other games is that Triumph of Saint Katherine was not strong enough to close games and my Beans 🫘 engine was not often online. There are many things I would change if I had to re-play the deck but my most common complain is always the same with control. Why durdle if you can just cheat an Emrakul 👾 into play or win with Thassa's oracle 🔮.

Takeways

I'm guess I'm not gandalf yet 🧙‍♂️ and I'll have to hone my skills more before I can make my ennemies fold into submission by sheer boredom ^^' ... still love legacy though 😘

Happy card slinging!

[manascrwd]

30$ budget vintage

This high tide deck on twitter piqued my interest as I first thought it was kind of a real vintage deck on a budget.

I discovered a whole new format: 30$ budget vintage. I quickly jumped onto the discord and discovered that it's a thriving community and I just can't stop thinking about it. I love the idea of an "entry level" step into the game with some interesting and powerful archetypes to chose from. I'm always in the process of acquiring decks for battle boxes. My idea was to first build pioneer decks then modern decks but 30$ vintage seems even better as this reduces the price a lot.

I have a lot of cards for high tide, dark depth and initiative anyways so I think I'll give it a try.

My fear is that it's not only just another format to pick up but moreover, there seem to be no traction in Europe ?! I'm not sure people will be enthousiastic when you can already play pauper that's waaay easier to track or premodern that's also quite affordable.

Anyway, I'll build those 3 decks and bring them with me, time will tell :)

Happy card slinging!