Second Place with Green-White Depths in UOL’s Legacy League

The Untap Open League’s Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty league cycle is finishing up, with only the Pauper Top 4 left to be played. Today, I wanted to talk about my experience in the league I did the best in: Legacy.

Legacy has been one of my favorite formats since basically forever, and I’ve been loving it even more than usual recently. Coming into this league, I was fresh off a win in our Crimson Vow cycle with RB Reanimator. As I said in the interview I gave at the time, I was very excited to have won with a deck I love so much, but I wanted to switch it up a bit. I wasn’t super excited about Reanimator’s place in the metagame, and I wanted to do well on another deck. I also feel like Reanimator is a deck I can sometimes get a little burned out on, given that most games play out relatively similarly, so I don’t love playing it all the time.

I was looking at a few different decks, including GW Depths, Mono-Red Painter, 8-Cast, and Delver. I wound up landing on GW Depths, after putting up an ~73% winrate with it in my test matches (admittedly with a smaller sample size than I’d like). The deck felt like it could answer most threats out of fair decks and grind well but also get fast kills when it wanted to;  with the traditionally combo-light UOL meta, I was very confident in my deck choice. I found a great, in-depth guide to Depths and felt that I was mostly good enough with the deck to do well in the UOL League. I ended up playing a fairly stock list:

I don’t think this list is perfect, but I’m overall pretty happy with it. My main complaint is that I wish I had Gaddock Teeg in the sideboard. I also wouldn’t have minded having a red splash for Prismatic Ending, but it didn’t actually come up in the league, so I can’t complain (I made both of these changes for my UOL Team Series list).

I don’t want this to be a primer. I don’t feel like I’m qualified to write a good primer on Depths yet. The one I linked was a fantastic resource for me, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn the deck. With that said, I want to talk a bit about the deck and card choices.

The Deck

I’ll start with the manabase. My deck has 29 lands. A few key players include:

Flagstones of Trokair, which is just a free land so often and has become maybe my favorite Magic card over the course of the league.

Maze of Ith and Karakas, which are mostly defensive options I can tutor for if, say, someone did something crazy like attacking with Griselbrand. Maze of Ith in particular has additional utility in this deck since it can untap Knight of the Reliquary and Elvish Reclaimer after damage has been dealt to give them pseudo-vigilance.

Bojuka Bog, which, ideally, can be tutored to stop someone from putting Griselbrand into play in the first place. Also, it’s a third color of mana for Prismatic Ending.

My combo, Thespian's Stage and Dark Depths, which, assisted by Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, allows the deck to get consistent, (relatively) fast kills.

Sejiri Steppe, which stops opposing removal and allows me to push big creatures through chump blockers.

And Wasteland, which is used to remove an opposing Karakas or Maze of Ith, cut my opponents off mana, or occasionally even remove an opposing Wasteland to clear the path for me to make a 20/20.

In terms of creatures, I have playsets of Knight of the Reliquary and Elvish Reclaimer. Both of these creatures are unbelievable in my deck, as they let me grab whatever land I could ever need to respond to what my opponent is doing, or just let me make a Marit Lage and win the game. Knight isn’t too bad to attack with either.

I have a suite of targets for Green Sun's Zenith, including Dryad Arbor, Sylvan Safekeeper, Endurance, and Ramunap Excavator.

I have six removal spells in total, four Crop Rotations to help find my lands, Sylvan Librarys to draw a perfect hand every game, and Mox Diamonds to cast my Libraries on turn one.

My sideboard mostly continues with the toolbox packages, adding creatures such as Collector Ouphe and lands such as The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, as well as extra artifact and enchantment removal in Force of Vigor. Finally, I have graveyard and combo hate to round out the sideboard. As I said, I wish I had Gaddock Teeg, but I was overall very happy with my list.

The League

GlassNinja wrote a great breakdown of our metagame, so I’ll just say there were a few matchups I was very scared of—in particular, my opponent from the finals of the last Legacy League, Zachinflames, brought TES, which I was terrified of running into. My plan for this league was to try to get paired against mostly fair decks or graveyard-based combo decks like Dredge. So how did this work out?

My first match was against Dustrat on Esper Stoneblade.

Going into this match, I was pretty confident, but a little worried about Opposition Agent. Agent shuts off a good chunk of my deck and, if not answered, could win the game by itself. Thankfully, it’s only a one-of, and I was able to play around it pretty well. I blew up black lands with Wasteland and made sure to hold up removal spells whenever I could. My opponent wound up stumbling a bit on mana in game three—ok, that might partially be because I resolved a Ramunap Excavator and locked him out with Wasteland—and I got there 2-1.

2-1, 1-0 overall

My second match was against Sefir on Dredge.

Honestly, I had never played the GW Depths vs LED Dredge matchup going into this. I had played against one Manaless Dredge deck and completely destroyed it, so I was feeling pretty confident, but wasn’t fully sure.

Game one was pretty close. I wound up making a Marit Lage facing down a Narcomoeba with lethal damage ready to come my way next turn. Thankfully, I topdecked a Swords to Plowshares right on time and managed to win. Game two was much less tense, as I mostly just fired off a bunch of graveyard hate and won a relatively uneventful game.

2-0, 2-0 overall

My third match was against AwesomeMrJ on Death and Taxes.

Of all the fair decks in this league, I think Death and Taxes might be the one I was most scared of. Between Swords to Plowshares and Solitude they have a fair amount of answers to the combo, plus they could potentially use instant speed Flickerwisp to answer a Marit Lage. That’s all without mentioning the Wastelands and Karakas that they play, and their ability to present a fast enough clock to kill you before you can force a Lage through.

I think AwesomeMrJ got a bit unlucky here. I managed to get a Wasteland lock going in one of our games, and I just managed to outgrind him with Sylvan Library and Knight of the Reliquary in the other game. 

2-0, 3-0 overall

At this point I was able to ID my next two matches to make it into the top 8 at 3-0-2 and in the 3rd seed.

The Top 8

The Top 8 was made of: two Death and Taxes decks, Aluren, Trinket Stompy, Jeskai Delver, TES, and Burn. I was paired against the 6th seed, Zachinflames, on TES.

I prepared myself to collect my 0-3.

Our game one was uneventful. I got a fast draw with my combo and got stormed off on before I could manage to win. Down 0-1

Game two was a bit more interesting. I assembled my combo quickly again, forcing Zach to go off that turn, but I had a Swords to Plowshares in my hand to put myself up to possibly 40 life. It wasn’t entirely clear if Zach would be able to get there, and I hoped I would be able to survive. He got there. Down 0-2

For game three, I brought in all my hate. I opened a hand with Deafening Silence and a fast kill. Snap keep. Drew another Silence. Zach answered the first, but couldn’t answer the second until after I killed him. Down 1-2

Game four was completely brutal. Zach played Chrome Mox, Lotus Petal, Mox Opal, and two Wishclaw Talismans with no lands. I untapped on my second turn and played a Collector Ouphe, prompting a quick concession. Tied at 2-2

I honestly don’t remember game five very well. My memory is that Zach mulliganed to five, took a lot of damage off an Ad Nauseam without finding the cards he needed, and I managed to get there with a Knight of the Reliquary attack. With that said I could be completely wrong. Anyway, I got pretty lucky and managed to move on to the semifinals. 3-2

Semifinals

My semifinals match was against UncleFlacco on Aluren. I’m gonna be 100% honest: I had never played this matchup before. I’m gonna be even more honest: I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve played against Aluren in my life. Truth be told, I’m still not even sure I could explain how the combo works, but Flacco is a great player and has spent a lot of time on Aluren, so I was worried.

Again, game one was uneventful. I got a quick Lage off and started up 1-0. Game two was a bit of a surprise; I mulliganed to 5 cards with a quick combo but not much else going on, but my opponent apparently couldn’t answer me and conceded. Up 2-0

I think I might have punted away game three, but again, I have no clue how this deck works, so I don’t really know. I sideboarded in Force of Vigor and I believe I used them at the wrong time and was unable to stop my opponent from comboing off. Anyway, I got killed very easily. Up 2-1

Game four was rough. I set up for a Dark Depths kill but couldn’t answer the combo, and Flacco had to go for it. He played out his Aluren, his Baleful Strix, Cavern Harpy, and drew, well, a lot of cards. In the end, though, he just couldn’t find an Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. He went down to 4 life and I untapped, cast Crop Rotation to find a Sejiri Steppe, gave Knight pro-blue, and attacked for lethal. 3-1, and on to the finals!

Finals

My final match was against Arsteel on Jeskai Delver. I felt that UR Delver was a good matchup, and although Swords to Plowshares makes Jeskai Delver a bit worse, this was definitely the Top 8 matchup I was most confident going into.

In game one I mulliganed to five but managed to answer my opponent’s threats and play Endurance, gaining me enough time to force through a Marit Lage for a win. I lost a quick game two after running low on removal and getting beaten down by flying creatures, and went on to sideboarded games. 1-1

Postboard I won an easy game three even with another mull to 5, exiling my opponent’s graveyard with Bojuka Bog, locking him off mana, and playing a Knight of the Reliquary and two Elvish Reclaimers. I don’t remember game four very well, but I think I lost to a Murktide Regent after getting my Maze of Ith blown up. 2-2, and on to game five.

Game five was rough. I mulliganed to five again, and kept a hand with two lands, Crop Rotation, Endurance, and Knight of the Reliquary. Ok, this hand was rough, but Endurance could put in some work and maybe I could still get there, right? Well, maybe. 

I drew a Dark Depths on turn four as my third land. At this point I think I punted away the game. My opponent had a Wasteland in play, and I decided to pass the turn, holding up Crop Rotation to play around getting my land blown up and potentially tutor for Bojuka Bog and shrink my opponent’s Dragon's Rage Channelers or find a Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth and cast my Endurance. 

I think in retrospect the correct line was probably to crack my Forest at sorcery speed to find Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth and play Endurance, but I chose to pass instead and was immediately punished by a Murktide Regent coming down. I exiled my opponent’s graveyard with Bojuka Bog, got my Bog Wastelanded, found a Maze of Ith, and got beaten down by a bunch of flying creatures and an Esper Sentinel. Eventually, my opponent found a Lightning Bolt to burn me out for the win.

2-3, and second place in the league.

Wrap up

So, what did I think about Depths? The deck is very powerful, and I really enjoy playing it. I feel like, with the exception of my last game, I mostly played it pretty well, and got very lucky to beat some bad matchups. I’m definitely considering GW Depths for the next season; the deck is powerful, functions on multiple axes, and I had a lot of fun this season. Plus I want to get revenge for my loss this time around. I’ll probably play a slightly updated build with red lands for Prismatic Ending, Gaddock Teeg in my sideboard, and possibly Pyroblast in the sideboard as well. Overall, though, I’m a big fan of the deck.

Finally, some props and slops:

Props: Ramunap Excavator for carrying me through about half of my matches. Flagstones of Trokair for being the best land of all time. My luck for letting me win unfavorable matchups like TES. Endurance for soloing my Delver opponent in game one. My opponents, for being fun to play against. The primer I linked at greensunszenith.com, for helping me to learn the deck. Most importantly the tournament organizer, Dank_confidant, for running a fantastic league. It’s his last season running Legacy, and I know we’ll all miss him.

Slops: Me, for letting my opponent resolve Murktide Regent. My opening hands in the finals, when I mulliganed to 5 in over half of the games. Me, for not putting Gaddock Teeg in my sideboard.

Congratulations to Arsteel for winning the league, and I can’t wait to beat you in the Invitational coming up soon!

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