Drugged Cartel: Knight-Ware Legacy
or, “I heard you like Standard decks, so I put a Moat in your Caw Blade so you can Brainstorm while you Squadron Hawk.”
For the last year and a half, I’ve been playing 43 Lands in Legacy (with a short break to play Junk Depths during the Misstep era). I had a hell of a lot of fun playing it, even if my opponents often wanted to murder me, but it’s not actually that powerful a deck, it folds to most unfair linear strategies, and it just wasn’t putting up results. So, reluctantly, I put away the Tabernacle and started looking for something else.
I wanted three things: I wanted to play broken stuff, counter spells, and draw cards.
For a while I experimented with a Stoneblade shell. It didn’t draw enough cards, so obviously I jammed Ancestral Visions and Skeletal Scrying in there, because that’s what one does, right? As some of you may have already guessed, this is a terrible plan and it ends in tears.
Did some Counter-Thopters testing, but a significant majority of games came down to keeping an Ensnaring Bridge lock, and if I was going to do that, I might as well go back to Lands, because at least then you get to crush their hopes under a recurring Ghost Quarter. Also, seriously, cards. I want to draw them. All of them. Not sit there Topping and paying mana to make Flying Men.
Anyway, I did eventually find a deck I liked. The list is a straight copy of Carsten Kotter’s Caw Cartel, with some sideboard changes for local metagame reasons, and it does everything I want in a control deck.
Caw Cartel
| Permanents (17) 2 Snapcaster Mage 4 Squadron Hawk 2 Vendilion Clique 2 Moat 2 Oblivion Ring 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant 4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor Spells (24) 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 2 Preordain 4 Force of Will 3 Counterspell 3 Spell Snare 4 Swords to Plowshares Lands (20) 5 Island 2 Plains 4 Flooded Strand 1 Marsh Flats 4 Polluted Delta 3 Tundra 1 Karakas | Sideboard (15) 3 Path to Exile 2 Spell Pierce 2 Surgical Extraction 2 Wrath of God 1 Flusterstorm 1 Mindbreak Trap 1 Enlightened Tutor 1 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Back to Basics 1 Sword of Fire and Ice |
The loosest card in the board is Sword of Fire and Ice, which I admit is a pet card of mine, but it’s in there as attempt three in a series to improve the matchup versus Esper Stoneblade, because frankly, Lingering Souls has been giving me fits. As with previous attempts, it did not get the job done (we’ll get to that). I keep glancing suspiciously at my Underground Seas, because Engineered Plague and maybe Planar Void are starting to look really compelling. A third color would also make Engineered Explosives an option (I dislike EE with only two colors). The risk of destabilizing the mana base versus Wasteland decks is very real, though, and it makes Back to Basics a worse sideboard card, so I haven’t taken the plunge yet. If I did, it would probably be -2 Island, +1 Swamp, +1 Underground Sea.
This list has been pretty good to me the last few weeks at the small (usually 6-10 players) Saturday Legacy events Majestix runs, and it put me in the top 8 at a SCG Invitiation Qualifier at MonStore a few weeks back, where I punted the first round after the cut with the loosest one land, Brainstorm keep of all time, because, and this is an important fact to note, I am terrible. We’ll come back to that as well.
Anyway, off to LA.
Round 1: Eder, Sneak and Show
Game 1
I lose the roll, but I already know what deck he’s on. We both keep 7 and I lead with Island into Preordain, with a Force in hand and a grip full of blue spells. This turns out to be a dumb idea when he runs out a Sneak Attack with Daze backup, and I suffer a well-deserved thrashing at the hands of T2 Hentacle Attack and T3 Prog Rock. I scribble down “Play around Daze” and underline it a few times for good measure.
Sideboard: -4 Squadron Hawk, -1 Elspeth, +2 Spell Pierce, +1 Flusterstorm, +2 Surgical Extraction. Trading out the card advantage of the birds for more interaction on the stack. Extraction is to punish Intuition plays.
Game 2
We both keep 7, my hand has Karakas and a bunch of blue spells so I feel pretty good about it. We fight over an early Vendilion Clique, which I don’t actually care that much about but I want his hand empty, and he can’t let me have a Clique with Karakas on board. He goes for a Sneak Attack, which I stop with a Snapcast Pierce and start beating down. My first Jace gets binned when he Dazes it because I’d rather leave Karakas up; the second one sticks and I ride Jace and Snapcaster beats to victory.
Game 3
I keep 7 with Karakas, he goes to 6 and I just sit back and counter a lot of spells while playing lands and cantripping. He goes for a Show and Tell, I Clique in response and see the dynamic duo: Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Blightsteel Colossus. Karakas up, I don’t care about the Spaghetti Monster and and bottom Blighty. Obviously he rips the Blood Moon off the Clique. I sigh heavily and roll my eyes, but have two basic Islands to keep a Counterspell up against any further shenanigans, and Clique + Snapcaster beat down.
1-0 (2-1)
Round 2: Vidi, Esper Stoneblade
Game 1
I win the roll and but mull to five, he keeps 7 and makes Lingering Souls into Umezawa’s Jitte with countermagic backup all the way. Not winning this game.
Sideboard: -2 Force of Will, -1 Moat, -2 Oblivion Ring, -1 Elspeth, +2 Spell Pierce, +1 Wrath of God, +1 Enlightened Tutor, +1 Back to Basics, +1 Sword of Fire and Ice. I’m not certain that’s what I actually boarded, but it’s close. I’d rather have Pierce than Force in this match-up (-2 Force, +2 Pierce is something I like a lot in blue-blue fights) and I’m just sort of shotgunning answers to Lingering Souls to see what works.
Game 2
We both keep 7. Turn one Inquisition of Kozilek hits my Squadron Hawk, my cantrips brick, and he hits Lingering Souls into Jace on time. I never get back in the game and move to scoop phase after a few turns.
Stupid Lingering Souls.
1-1 (2-3)
I grab some caffeine and play some Vintage to recover.
Round 3: Ryan, Reanimator
Game 1
I go to 6 on the play, he keeps a slow 7. I run out a Clique at end of turn, and now there are two pages in my notebook with “play around DAZE” written in large, angry letters. One day I will stop walking into that stupid spell. He has infinite Thoughtseizes, but not only do I have infinite Brainstorms, my Brainstorms are fucking amazing. I rip another Clique and every possible counterspell right on time and the legendary fae troupe clocks him out.
Sideboard: -4 Squadron Hawks, -1 Elspeth, +2 Spell Pierce, +2 Surgical Extraction, +1 Flusterstorm
Game 2
I cantrip into a pile of counterspells, have the Swords for his turn two Jin-Gitaxias, and Jace him out of the game.
2-1 (5-3)
Round 4: Trevor, Maverick
Game 1
We both keep 7, I’m on the draw. I send a few Moms farming, but he forces down a Knight of the Reliquary and I start a phase of the game I call “Dear Merciful Card Gods, Find Me A Moat”. Spoiler: They don’t.
Sideboard: -1 Moat, -3 Spell Snare, -1 Jace, +3 Path to Exile, +2 Wrath of God
Game 2
We both keep 7. Having now stacked my deck with infinite removal, I proceed to play all of it — twice (Snapcaster) — and Jace him out.
Game 3
He goes to 5. I keep land, fetch, fetch, Brainstorm, Moat, Swords, Force, proving that I am good at Magic. Brainstorm finds me a Snapcaster Mage and a Counterspell, proving that it is a sweet, sweet card. I make my fourth land, drop the Moat on time, and hide behind it with a hand full of blue spells while Jace does what he does best.
I’m starting to think Moat is not a very fair card.
3-1 (7-4)
Round 5:
With four 9-pointers and four 12-pointers, everyone draws in. I go get some Poquito Mas.
3-1-1 (7-4)
Quarterfinals: Alex, UWR Stoneblade
Game 1
Game 1
On the play, he keeps seven and I have a loose, land-light 6. It’s a pretty sketchy keep, but it has blue land, Brainstorm, and a fetch, so it’s better than going to five. Predictably, I stall on land and get wrecked by a Grim Lavamancer and Jace.
Sideboard: -1 Moat, -2 Force of Will, -2 Oblivion Ring, -1 Jace, +2 Spell Pierce, +1 Flusterstorm, +1 Enlightened Tutor, +1 Back to Basics, +1 Sword of Fire and Ice.
Game 2
His turn to go to six, I keep the perfect 7. He goes for an early Stoneforge Mystic into Batterskull, I drop the Moat, along with an ET for Back to Basics (which he successfully Forces). He dials up Jace, I call in Elspeth to beat him down, and from that point Elspeth was racing the top of his deck as he fetched and cantripped to find an answer to Moat that was not forthcoming.
Game 3
What should have happened: We both do some early Pondering, then he goes for a Stoneforge Mystic. I Snare it, he has the Red Elemental Blast, so it resolves fetching Batterskull. I hit it with Swords end of turn, he Forces. I untap, draw the Spell Pierce I’d skillfully left atop my deck, run out a main phase Snapcaster for StP with Spell Pierce backup, strand the Batterskull in his hand, and ride a Jace to victory.
What actually happened: We both do some early Pondering, then he goes for a Stoneforge Mystic. I look at my hand, look at the top of my deck, look at my hand, and realize I’d taken the wrong card off Ponder for no reason except that I’m terrible, and this Spell Pierce I’m glaring at cannot counter a Stoneforge Mystic. So I go for the Swords, which he Forces, untap, draw the Spell Snare I’d skillfully left atop my deck, run out a main phase Snapcaster which gets Red Blasted, and die to a Batterskull.
3-2-1 (8-6)
Another top 8 punt. Eventually I’ll stop forgetting how to play Magic the moment the Swiss rounds are over. I spent the rest of the top 8 playing Vintage, so really, we both won. Granted, Alex won in the sense of finishing higher and getting better prizes, which I think is probably a superior form of winning even though Vintage is always totally sweet, but I finished my set of Intuitions, so I won’t complain too much.
As always, big thanks to Lori and the Knight-Ware regulars for being awesome and promoting eternal in SoCal.
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