Here is another great victory for a deck which has been coming and going with success over the past year. It is a very strong package of disruption which comes in the form of aggro beatdown allowing the deck to operate on a very powerful axis. For those of you unfamiliar with Death and Taxes it is at its core The White Weenie deck. It has evolved from a deck which worked to exile the opponents permanents for value into a mash up of hate bears and resource oppression. It has a pile of the best white creatures ever printed.
The journey up the mana curve is very important for this deck as it relies heavily upon Æther Vial to ‘cheat out’ it’s creatures around counter magic and as disruption. The ideal turn one play involves either Æther Vial or Mother of Runes to let the games begin. Once ‘mom’ is out it becomes increasingly more difficult for your opponent to use spot removal on your creatures. A great turn two play would be a follow up of either Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to actively disrupt the opponents plans or even Stoneforge Mystic to start building offensive to bring the beats. And while Thalia will affect your spells as well it is a minor cost as the spells we cast are one cost and the equipment is going to be cheated in with the Mystic. Speaking of equipment the Stoneforge package in the deck is rather robust including not only a Batterskull and an Umezawa’s Jitte but also a Sword of Fire and Ice, all of which are efficient tools to boost any of your creatures into lean and mean fighting machines. As for some straight-up beatsticks the deck packs a Brimaz, King of Oreskos for value and a trio of Serra Avenger which are able to skirt the turn it can be played restriction with an Æther Vial activation. Then for disruption we find a variety of answers with Phyrexian Revoker to shut down a pesky permanent especially in response to casting a planeswalker, Spirit of the Labyrinth which absolutely ruins players hands in response to a Brainstorm, and Aven Mindcensor that can come in response to a fetchland or Stoneforge trigger to try and force the opponent to whiff. The final creature in the deck is a trio of Flickerwisp which can be vialed into play in response to removal to save a permanent or used to reset a Revoker, rebuy a Mystic and even regerm a Batterskull, not to mention suit up with a Sword or Jitte to bring the beats. There is a heavy resource denial package within the manabase with not only a full set of Wasteland but also a full set of Rishadan Port to lockdown any hope of the opponent to have a fighting chance. Also, for spot removal we find Swords to Plowshares to rid the board of any nuisance creatures trying to stand in the way.
And there we have it the first Legacy winner is a deck that is rapidly becoming a staple deck at the top tables. Of course as Legacy is a huge wide open field there is always a brick wall that every deck will run into eventually, but this deck look not only to be resilient but also a great deal of fun. I would be not only happy but confident as well to sleeve up this deck for the next Legacy tournament.
15 sideboard cards
23 lands
27 creatures
