MTGO Legacy MCQ and GP Niagra Falls
Two weekends ago there was a Legacy Mythic Championship Qualifier (MCQ) on Magic Online that I participated in. I was looking to get more testing in for Grand Prix Niagara Falls, and a chance to play in a MC is something I would love.
This week i’m going to discuss how that event went, where I’m at for Niagara Falls, and then briefly touch on the new London Mulligan which has been in place Online for a few days now.
The MCQ
I was still pretty high on the Grixis Delver list I wrote about last week:
I was pretty concerned about Maverick’s recent resurgence, as well as the Death and Taxes matchup, so I cut the Winter Orb and Dismember from the sideboard for Dread of Night and Electrickery. These matchups aren’t impossible to win, but the tools they have access to can really make a Delver players life quite difficult.
Maverick, in particular, can be difficult to win without stealing a win with an early Delver of Secrets due to the size of Knight of the Reliquary. While neither of the cards I added kill the Knight, they do a reasonable job at stunting their development which can often translate well into the late-game.
The rest of the list is the same from my last article in which I went over some of my specific choices, so I won’t go into too many details about that here.
Here’s a breakdown of the event:
Humans 2-1 Win
UW Stoneblade 2-1 Win
Temur Midrange 2-0 Win
*something I don’t remember* 2-0 Win
Eldrazi Aggro 2-1 Win
Dredge 0-2 Loss
Maverick 2-1 Win
Eldrazi Post 2-0 Win
Esper Rector 1-2 Loss
My final record was 7-2, which was good for 10th place. It’s difficult to feel too bad with a solid record like this, but in an event where the stakes were not only quite high, but completely top-heavy, I was a bit disappointed to lose my last round and miss top 8.
I don’t know exactly what metagame I was expecting, but only playing against fair blue decks 3 times isn’t exactly what I signed up for. One of the reasons I like Grixis, though, is because I find it to be the best positioned Delver deck against Chalice decks. Even though my games against Eldrazi were pretty close, I’d rather be playing Grixis in that context than Izzet, for instance (although, I don’t hate how Izzet is positioned there).
This was a pretty poor field for Stifle in hindsight, though. It certainly had some function against these decks, but I would not have included it if you told me i’d play against Eldrazi twice. If you do expect that, I would recommend adding an extra Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, and Dismember.
While I made some sideboard concessions to the increased popularity of Maverick, I still don’t really like how the deck is situated in that matchup. Stifle isn’t perfect there, but isn’t the worst honestly (stopping Wasteland is actually pretty meaningful), but having more removal would probably help. Scavenging Ooze tends to be a pretty substantial problem, so I might consider adding in a second Fatal Push to the board, which basically answers all of their creatures.
Finally, I want to talk about my last match, and in particular a judgment call I made on turn 4 of game 3 that likely cost me the match against the Arena Rector deck.
I had a hand without a red source or an early threat, but was pretty high on disruption and had a True-Name Nemesis. After we both cast some cantrips, I cast a Dread of Night to deal with potential Monk tokens and my opponent cast a Cabal Therapy and missed. I had the option on turn 4 to play out a True-Name with a couple of Forces as back-up or hold up Stifle and wait for another land.
While I would definitely rely on double Force + True-Name against almost any known deck in that spot, my opponent wasn’t playing a known list, so I didn’t know what his exact configuration looked like. In fact, in game 2 he played a Cavern of Souls, which I wasn’t expecting. With the Cabal Therapy in the yard if I played True-Name he could get Ugin in play and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t know how many Caverns he was playing, and seeing as holding up Stifle prevented this outcome, I played conservatively and didn’t play the True-Name. Ultimately, this certainly cost me a lot of percentage points as my True-Name ended up getting Therapied out and I lost many turns later.
In hindsight, I’m pretty confident this is a case of fear leading me to play safer than I needed to. The stakes of that game were pretty high, and the nerves started kicking in around the start of the match. I think I have a pretty solid mental game in general, but I don’t actually get to play really high stakes matches all that often. When thinking through that choice I caught myself considering that I didn’t want to lose to something that I could have prevented, which is actually the opposite of how I usually play. I tend to employ the limited strategy of “Force them to have it,” all the time, and with double Force, I should have just shrugged and let them kill me if they could.
I learned a lot about myself from that choice and that match, so i’m going to work on that aspect of my mental game. I think I need to force myself into situations that require higher stakes matches and really get used to the situation.
The London Mulligan
I don’t have too much experience with this rule yet, but so far I’ve been happy with it. At first, I was terrified: Reanimator and Chalice decks seemed like they’d be way too much to deal with. However, in practice this really does help fair decks in those matchups quite a bit. Post-board, most fair decks have a lot of really powerful single-cards against those types of strategies and you are much more likely to find them.
On top of this, I have had way less non-games when one player mulligans. Legacy is a brutal format, and mulliganing to 5 can often lead to hands that are really cold to cards like Wasteland. With the new rule, it feels far more likely that you’ll be able to keep a hand that will at least get to develop its mana and play a real game.
I don’t know exactly how decklists should be changed to accomodate not only the rule, but any metagame shifts surrounding the rule change, but i’m actually starting to become accustomed to it. It’s always quite difficult to make mulligan decisions now, and adding a new puzzle to figure out in every game is A-OK with me.
Niagara Falls
Because the new rule has been implemented online, testing online for Niagara Falls isn’t going to work. Due to my current schedule, testing in other ways might be tough so i’m just going to run back the list. I liked it in the MCQ, and honestly expect more fair Blue decks at the GP (which would make my list more well-positioned) so I feel comfortable with this choice.
I am excited to make the trek out there, as Legacy GPs aren’t a common occurrence, and if you see me feel free to stop by and say hello!
