I still have no idea what I am going to play at the Legacy Pit open. Let me say this as well- I am HIGHLY likely not even make day 2 at the event. So, lets go in with something I like to play currently, at least understand the play patterns for, and can make reasonable sideboard decisions.
Current stable of decks I am considering:
- R/U Sneak and Show with Omniscience
- Mono Green Post
- Death and Taxes
- Mono Red Stompy
Practical considerations for each deck-
- Do I need to borrow cards?
- Yes, this is a thing.
- How mentally taxing is it to play for 5 rounds in one day?
- Do I want to go to time most rounds? Do I want to be bored for hours waiting for people?
- How high is the variance?
- Should I rely on chance, or some skill for the outcome?
- Practice issues like shuffling, depending on tokens/dice, remembering triggers, etc
- 80 cards is harder to shuffle than 60, needing a lot of tokens is a pain, etc
One factor I would like to consider is the "fun" factor... but too much of that relies on the outcome of matches. Sure I could have some really tight/interesting games, and lose... but results from play are a 0 sum result. Example- I think S&S is fun, but the results are very much in the "lets see what happens" camp of things. Where as D&T can be highly interesting and tool belty, games tend to be grindy and mentally taxing. Is that fun for 5 rounds?
Slotting those various versus considerations my current decks makes my decision non-too-easy. To the point that well- I don't have a clue what to run. So off to playing and testing to get a feel for each deck.
A few weeks ago I took S&S to the weekly and caught a heater. It was like I could do no wrong. It was the best I had felt with that deck.
I took it again this past week and it couldn't do anything. Nothing felt good, no decision I made mattered, the deck just pooped on me.
This is variance. While I like jamming friendly games of S&S, I don't think it is a practical consideration for something I want to complain about for 5 rounds.
NEXT.
Mono-Green post- while I like the big fat decisions of Eldrazi titans, it can feel less than good when the wrong sides of the deck show up. I've played it at the weekly where it folds to slight pressure, but any control match-ups feels extra good against.
I took it to test with Andy last night and it just fell on its face. It wasn't like Andy played his style deck only against me, we had a battle box of decks that it fell prey to round after round.
One other consideration is that I could borrow a (Italian) Tabernacle for the event, that single card is worth double of the rest of the deck. (even with signed beta Forests) Makes me nervous as heck.
MAYBE
Death and Taxes has been the one deck I have consistently kept the cards up to date on. It was the reason I got 3 Plateuas. Its the reason I have a fairly large stack of "slightly playable" white cards in a box. Its the reason I bought extra Beta Plains, a 4th Karakas, got Solitudes, got Urza's Saga, and own two sets of Wastelands. You get the point.... its been a very consistent deck with very little drama.
It performs fairly well vs most decks, and beats up on Delver enough that it really can hold its own. It makes a very strong statement, and is a deck you need a lot of time and effort to not lose with for a while. There are SO many different lines to it, and tricks that to be a D&T player, you just have to play it- A LOT.
BETTER
Lastly the Mono Red stompy has always been something interesting because of the shear amount of pressure it brings to the table. It comes out swinging, has some soft locks in Chalice, Trinispehere, and Moon. It can really take it to Delver and control decks to the point that the fear of god has been applied at times.
I don't own Chrome Mox, but thats the worst cards I would need to borrow for this. Dead simple deck to play, and gives game vs most of the field. Its a contender for sure.
So what to do?
Over the next two weeks I plan to update both Stompy and D&T and run them at the weekly to see how I feel about them. I found it surprising D&T people are off the red splash for Saga again. I never really thought the moon plan felt great... But thats neither here nor there. The point being- I need to test options still.
