MTG Salvation

Have tuned in right now and it's great episode so far. You're a really likeable guy, and I always enjoy listening to you. Please keep it up

What's missing from the "history section" for me personally was the great upheaval that the M10 rules change (combat damage NOT going on the stack any more) stirred up, which was what broke Stonecloaker's neck for making the list in first place, and also played a part in dimishing the (limited, but we didn't have much else to choose from back then :)) power and utility of Isamaru, Hound of Konda, since bouncing after assigning, but before dealing damage was not a thing any more. The deck was declared dead back then by many - if only they had known that its greatest feats were yet to come...

Edit: In case you need additional assistance with/advice on building that streaming PC, I'd be very happy to help.

If Enchantress is a huge factor in your meta, consider running Aura of Silence and/or Serenity in a tutor-board.

Usually, the splash-damage that other strong cards (Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Ethersworn Canonist, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Orzhov Pontiff, Council's Judgment, Leonin Relic-Warder) inflict should be enough to take them down without special preparation.

I do that in a Cavern-heavy build (no fetchlands though, just Magus of the Moon and Orzhov Pontiff in the main, and I run a playset of recruiters), and it's been a while since I last lost to TNN. You can definitely make this work.

Since I recently stumbled across it, what do you think of Flickering Ward? Seems like a very flexible tool for a critter-heavy deck like ours.

Magus saved my butt from Elves a number of times by defusing their Gaea's Cradle - there are situations in which it is very relevant.

I'm not sure I follow on all these "wins the game"-comments - is there ANY competitive deck in Legacy that doesn't have the means to handle a measly 3-mana, 3-loyalty walker? I'm sure it has applications and can be a show-stopper for a very narrow share of the metagame, but I can't see this card being played anywhere except for the SB. If that.

In my experience, Palace Jailer is the bee's knees. I've been playing it as a recruitable (as I said, I play 4 Recruiters main) 1-of since maybe three weeks after it was released, and I've drawn INSANE amounts of cards off of being Monarch since then. I also have to note that I have lost zero games due to it so far; heck, I don't even recall my opponents actually stealing my crown even once so far - and I play in a fairly TNN-heavy meta, where I tend to just board it out for G2.

I heartily recommend re-evaluating this card. There are many matchups where its power level approaches "broken".

Sorry for causing confusion - the first paragraph of my post was intended as a response to Enevoldson's decklist that got posted

It should be noted that this is a list for MTGO. I think they don't have True-Name Nemesis, do they?


I went 4-0 yesterday at my LGS' weekly Legacy tournament with my usual 4-Recruiter list, beating Coiling Oracle Nic Fit (2-1), Doomsday (2-0), TNN Esper Deathblade (2-0), and UR Delver (2-0).

... so the more beautiful basic Plains won that game?

Thanks for the reports - and I'm glad you made it out of that car crash relatively unscathed, Medea!

So after a rather frustrating time at a tournament a few weeks back where I lost hard to multiple True-Name Nemesis, I decided to try fighting dirty for yesterday's local Friday Night Legacy, and piloted this rather uninspired list to a 4th place out of 22 with a 3-0-2 record:



The rationale when building it was that I evaluated my previous, more fancy list (I am a firm believer in a tutor-toolbox with 4 Recruiter of the Guard which lessens the impotance of Stoneforge Mystic and equipment) running Magus of the Moon, Mirran Crusader, 3 Cavern of Souls, Epochrasite, Stillmoon Cavalier, 2 Orzhov Pontiff and a Fiendslayer Paladin all at least in the 75, and replace the unique and playful gimmicks that make Legacy fun and enjoyable with what probably are the most degenerated, nasty and plain un-fun creatures ever printed in U and W. This plan worked, and the list did deliver. Unfortunately, sitting on the table with any number of True-Name Nemesis on your side is only very slightly more fun than with that card on the opposing side, and I can't really say I enjoyed the evening as much as other tournaments, where you have to actually play decent and be clever to win games. I think I ended all games that I won with one or two TNN on my side, and even though I faced opposing Nemesis in three matches, I had the upper hand against them in the end. Apparently, it's just a matter of drawing/tutoring up more of them, and then reliably sticking one or more - with optional bonus points for also having equipment on them. Oh and yes, on occasion removing them (Council's Judgment) is also important.

My matchups were Mono-W D&T (1-1), BUG Aluren (1-1), Collected Company Band w/ TNN (2-1), BUG Aluren (2-1), BWU Nemesis Stoneblade Younameit (2-1). I never even goldfished with my list before I had it built two hours before the tournament was set to start, and it took a while until I got the right feeling for how to handle the subtleties of when to really get aggressive and all that. However, after the first two matches, it dawned on me that just fetching TNN and stopping worrying is _usually_ the right play, that will also reduce the cognitive load in the turns to come. THe only event that seriously made me struggle was my round 2 opponent's landing of Night of Soul's Betrayal, which would, if I ever chose to pilot this list again, make me switch one mainboard TNN out for a second Geist of Saint Traft. The neat thing about Geist that I only actually noticed while playing round 2 is that it shares a creature subtype with both Mother of Runes and Sanctum Prelate, which can be kinda important with Cavern of Souls.

Now I guess it's time to lean back until someone at the DCI/WotC wakes up and exiled True-Name Nemesis from the Legacy metagame, because that card is just oh so f***ing boring.

Fwiw, I just noticed that you can exile True-Name Nemesis if it is blocking a creature equipped with Godsend.

Yes, but it's a 4 (often 5) mana investment, and can be countered (which is a problem more so than with other potential options, since few people can actually run multiples :))

I've been running without Batterskull for more than a year now, and never missed it - though we have VERY little Eldrazi around here.

That said, I don't believe the right equipment is going to save the day against TNN, Abrupt Decay, and all that Leovold BUG shanenigans. I don't really have a solid idea yet on how to tackle this - Holy Light, Orzhov Pontiff et al. only solve a rather limited part of the problem. If only there were a Virtue's Ruin or Perish available to hose U... and even then, stack interaction would still pose a huge problem.

If 1CMC spot-removal without any kind of recursion or other bundled nasties were a real problem for this deck, it would never have begun to exist in the first place. Still a good card, obviously.