Somethings Never Die: Death & Taxes & White Weenie
Legacy has undergone a fair amount of ebb and flow over the past few years. Powerful cards have been printed, bannings have occurred, and the rise of Legacy on MTGO has really allowed the format to develop much more quickly. No matter the change, there has been one constant that has only gotten better and better through every metagame: Death and Taxes. Whether the top dog is a fair Brainstorm deck, a combo deck, or a Chalice deck, Death and Taxes always seems to put up real results. This deck really lives up to its name, and has been a fixture in Legacy for years at this point.
For the longest time, this has seemed like nonsense to me. Cutting Brainstorm for Mother of Runes? What is this madness! While this still seems absurd to me and I might not have understood what drove people to choose the deck in the past, now I totally get it:
The deck is excellent.
I think it happened slowly. A new card here, a metagame shift there, and Death and Taxes got a little better each time. People always knew they had to be aware of it, but it was just a creature deck. Everyone can kill creatures or ignore them entirely, what’s there to fear? It turns out that there’s a lot to fear, and white creatures + Aether Vial + mana denial has always been good. It’s just that now the deck is both fundamentally better and more well positioned. So what specifically took the deck from a solid choice to one of the best decks? A few things, it turns out.
Recruiter of the Guard
The printing of this card was not only the point that I personally starting loving the way the deck was built, but it also greatly pushed the power level upwards. Before, people were playing Plateaus to splash Imperial Recruiter to get the same effect. With Recruiter of the Guard in the fray the manabase can remain untouched and the deck can become so much more consistent.
The consistency of the deck was always a large complaint that I had with it. Brainstorm and Ponder allow every deck around it to have the right part of their decks at the right time. Meanwhile, Death and Taxes was always the victim of its drawstep, a common issue of the non-blue decks in Legacy. Recruiter of the Guard completely turns that upside down, acting as redundant copies of grindy cards, like Stoneforge Mystic and Flickerwisp, and first copies of absolutely key cards, like Thalia and sideboard Ethersworn Canonists.
Let’s look at the Pro Tour winning deck that Allen Wu played:
This deck is the exemplar of this concept, and is one of the best looking Death and Taxes lists I have ever seen. He maximizes his core cards that make the deck function, and because he plays 2 Recruiters, he essentially has 3 copies of some very specific, devastating cards. This transfers into how he built his sideboard and he can run 1 copy of each narrow creature because of the presence of the 2 Recruiters. Recruiter, in essence, has both made his deck a tool box and a consistent, tuned beast.
This is excellent deck building, but doesn’t even really scratch the surface of what Recruiter can do. There are endless directions to take it based on an expected metagame, and I think this is one of the most important reasons Death and Taxes has become a powerhouse in modern-day Legacy.
Sanctum Prelate and Palace Jailer
In a way this section is an extension of the last because these cards are only so good in the deck because of Recruiter. However, each of them are so unbelievably devastating that they at least warrant specific mention. The fact that these 2 cards get to be maindecked in any quantity, and found with regularity, is absurd.
Palace Jailer is a house, and that card felt like the card of the tournament at the Pro Tour every time I saw it in play. The ability to grant yourself a personal Howling Mine while removing their best threat is incredible. The fact that this effect is often uncounterable, and combos with Flickerwisp? Yeah, that’s hardly a fair card. The added utility of being able to grind out Miracles or answer an Emrakul put into play really makes this the perfect 1 or 2 of in the deck.
Sanctum Prelate feels the same way a lot of the time. Sure, a turn 3 or 4 Chalice effect doesn’t quite have the impact that it does on turn 1, but the fact that that against fair decks it is mostly turning off their removal spells and against unfair decks it is shutting them down completely makes Prelate insane.
All 3 of these cards have really bumped the power of this deck over the top. Adding versatility, consistency, and power is an incredible trifecta for a deck to gain, and it makes every potentially good creature printed in the future even better.
It’s Matchups are Legitimately Good
This is the point that I think has been creeping up the slowest of them all. The decks that have become popular in Legacy since the banning kind of have a tough time against D&T. Delver decks have always been a great pairing for the deck, and that has only become more linear since Deathrite has left the format. All of the Dark Depths decks have trouble dealing with the Sword to Plowshares + Karakas deck, and the pieces surrounding the removal can do a great job disrupting them. Sneak and Show has a historically bad matchup against Death and Taxes because of Karakas + Phyrexian Revoker. The deck has more game because of Omniscience these days, but with the presence of Sanctum Prelate, Death and Taxes still has clear routes to locking them out of the game. Even Eldrazi has trouble dealing with the white creatures and Swords to Plowshares, even if Mother of Runes does nothing.
While Death and Taxes will always be a creature + artifacts deck which makes them vulnerable to both broad and narrow answers (think Toxic Deluge and Dread of Night, respectively), the deck has a ton of tools and versatility in how it is built and played to defeat this. UW Stoneblade, for example, has a solid manabase, repeatable removal, spot removal, and unstoppable creatures. This can be a tough matchup for D&T, but in reality it isn’t that bad. The secret to Death and Taxes isn’t that white creatures are actually good (which is true), it’s that Vial + mana denial gives them the ability to ruin any decks day. This is a classic principle that Delver decks have employed since their inception (although that’s more like Delver + mana denial), and the same applies here.
Beyond that, this deck gets to play some incredible sideboard cards which can either lock decks out, like Rest in Peace, or add a new dimension to the deck to combat hate, like Gideon. The deck does have some truly awful matchups, Belcher being the worst and Elves not being far behind (that may have changed a little bit recently, but I doubt it was by that much), but even they can be assisted by including dedicated hate cards to those matchups in the sideboard.
I Actually Highly Recommend This Deck
I have disliked this deck for so long, but I can’t deny that it seems incredible right now. The decklists are well built, the strategies are diverse and difficult to break up, and it has access to so many good cards in the 75. Underestimating the power of the white creatures is not a winning strategy in Legacy these days, and if you don’t want to pick the deck up, I recommend dedicating some time to come up with a real plan against them.
If you want to play the deck, there are some great resources online to read and watch to learn how to master the deck (shoutout to Thraben University and his work on the archetype). I might even jump into the fray myself, but the allure of Brainstorm will likely be too strong...
