Max Plays Phoenix with Callum Smith

March 14, 2021

1 minute read

Max Gilmore
Buried Phoenix

Once you consider unrecovered tournament entry fees, my paper and digital playsets of are probably the most expensive Magic cards I own.

I love everything about decks. They're high velocity, offer a ton of card selection, are decision-intensive, utilize the graveyard, and do all of that to put some s into play. The only problem when I play the deck is that I don't seem to win very much.

Callum "Whitefaces" Smith, one of the progenitors of Legacy Phoenix decks, took down the Lotus Box Legacy Octogon with Grixs Phoenix a few days ago, which is an 8 player single elimination tournament with a $20 entry, where the winner walks away with a cool $100 (and they pay $20 to 2nd place, too).

I lamented on Twitter that given Callum's success, I'd have to burn some playpoints trying to recreate the experience.

Graciously, Callum offered to jump onto Discord and play a Phoenix league with me, so we recorded it for you all to enjoy! The first 5 or so minutes of the video features a lot of great insight from Callum about the archetype, and the league matches follow. I hope you have half as much fun watching as I did playng!

Grixis Phoenix Decklist