Hi, and welcome to a new series I'm calling Deck of the Moment. I like finding and/or brewing decks that I think are good, sweet, and sometimes both, and what I'm looking to do here is share them with you in a quick, easy-to-digest format. I'm looking at a pretty simple formula:
Decklist (download link too)
Why I'm playing it
Anything particularly cool about it
We all love a good quickie.
Today's Deck of the Moment is Esper , but a twist. Instead of playing discard effects, we're running a full playset of in the maindeck!
Decklist
Download link via MTGGoldfish: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4249502#online
Why I'm Playing It
Up until relatively recently, playing used to be relatively simple. Use countermagic and discard to resolve a , and then put a into play with an empty library. Against blue decks, tended to make the latter half of this plan pretty trivial, since the only commonly-played card that could interact with that plan was . Now, with and being played everywhere, things aren't so simple.
Why worry about opposing s post-combo as I try to cast ? Why have to fight through every single and ? I'd rather not, to be honest.
The plan here is simple: Resolve , Cast , and win in the same turn. This is pretty trivial if you make a pile with as your top card, and you can draw into it with the mana to cast it (and 1 extra card left over in your hand). You can make your pile: , , , , and your bottom card doesn't matter. Draw and cast it. Put back with your fodder card from hand below it. Play , and whole holding priority, cycle and crack the LED for UUU. Draw the and cast it with 2 cards in library. Since your opponent can't cast anything, it's unlikely they can answer the Oracle, making the 2-card library pretty safe.
For those not in the know, the "cleanest" win with a Brainstorm in hand, the blue mana to cast it, and an extra card in hand, is to make a pile of , , , , and . You cast , draw the top 3, and put on top with the fodder card underneath. From here, the plan is just like above, just cleaner. Play LED, Cycle, hold priority, crack for UUU, draw . Cast it with U floating, drawing the fodder card, , and . Perfect mana, empty library.
Other Cool Stuff
can be great against nonblue decks too. By kicking it on your opponent's upkeep after you resolve , you can fade an attack step, keeping your life total safe when you had to wait a turn to draw the top card of your library. It's also quite annoying for opposing combo decks to deal with.
Another fun thing is that this deck is about to get a lot better. There's a new Instant in the Innistrad set coming out in September called .
With a Consider in the deck, you can make a pile of , , , , . Draw and cast , bin the , draw LED. Crack for UUU, cast , draw and . With in hand, you can put the on top, the one below it, and throw a Cycler down with the and . Clean wins with no extra resources needed!
Hope you enjoyed the first installment of Deck of the Moment, and I'll see you next time! Also, thanks to Cardhoarder for sponsoring the site and helping me explore all the sweet decks that Legacy has to offer. If you have questions, feel free to hit me up on Twitter: @maxtortion