As a Premodern player, I always wished Brainstorm was legal. I have been a Brainstorm lover since past extended times. I also don’t have the time to keep up with the hectic pace at which WotC releases new material, nor am I a lover of the FIRE design.
Pietro!, you know what? There’s a format for you! You should try Classic Legacy!
…And that kids, is how I got started playing Classic Legacy!
Given the fact that I never played Legacy before during my Pro MTG lifespan, I was more into limited and rotating formats, I had always been aware of what was going around; Miracles spread the recurring nightmare everywhere and it takes a little effort to get some knowledge from the past analyzing CounterTop: the engine was out there as soon as Coldsnap was released, people even won some nationals using it in Standard that summer too.
Since I didn’t have the nostalgia effect, I had, and I still have, the upside of a fresh mind on the format, in general it always made my life easier when needing to build or identify the best decks instead of tuning against the metagame, somehow this proved in formats familiar to me after some break too.
I don’t consider myself to have a specific playstyle or an archetype attached, I just tend to play anything that’s solid, good or that might break up the format; that’s how I found myself developing and playing Death Shadows on MTGO and I tested it lot against Tom Metelsky and his Canadian Threshold deck last summer. Overall, the feeling was good, but somehow, I felt something was missing or at least I couldn’t bring it further simply for the lack of other playtest opportunities on MTGO, I was throwing my decks against people with actual Legacy decks. I don’t like playing with proxies, but I wanted to play some paper events, so I built Canadian which was also very accessible to me on MTGO. Curiously I started demolishing contemporary Legacy decks with it and I felt ready to join the first paper tournament, a webcam one while the focus was on: Classic Legacy in Barcelona; I went to Spain several times, but I have never been there, so best excuse ever!
I really loved Barcelona, As a solo traveler, I avoided La Rambla on purpose but I did a quick and frenzied sightseeing of the main attractions the city offers for a whole day and since I flew there directly from work the night before I basically never had a stop or a break until I reached Barceloneta beach for the happy hours, what a crazy but amazing tour! Needless to say, it’s one of the best places to spend some vacation and “I played the Game and I saw the world” so trust me, you should visit it multiple times, exactly what I’m planning to do further this year hopefully.
I visited Camp Nou and its store so even though I’m not that much into football (or soccer if you are from the US), I felt blue and red were the theme of the weekend considering the format so I went for an official Barcelona Jersey:
As you can see, Brainstorm matches very well with it!
I apologize I won’t do an historic flashback on the deck, its origin and why it is called Canadian Threshold, but you can go digging old archives and find all sorts of information on it and what we could assume used to be the standard list here it is:
Creatures (8)
Nimble Mongoose
4
Tarmogoyf
4
Spells (34)
Rushing River
1
Wipe Away
1
Brainstorm
4
Ponder
4
Stifle
4
Daze
4
Force of Will
4
Lightning Bolt
4
Spell Snare
4
Fire/Ice
4
Lands (18)
Polluted Delta
3
Flooded Strand
3
Tropical Island
4
Volcanic Island
4
Wasteland
4
Compared to the old list I removed Fire/Ice and the two bouncers, cause despite some flexibility their %wr when played felt underwhelming. I increased the number of ways to interact against early Sensei’s Divining Top, Natural Orders, Counterbalance, Chalice of the Void, Infernal Tutor and most of any annoying spell from Storm decks, with the addition of Spell Pierce which is also good at supporting Tarmogoyf counterwars, usually combined with Spell Snare, in the end this is still a deck evolving around mana denying the opponent, the best deck at it and indeed it’s a great tempo deck.
Despite losing the final in the webcam event I decided to cut Chain Lightning from my list, which helped me a lot against Zoo, but the matchup is good so it might be a bit of an overkill. Instead I added Dispel and I wouldn’t mind playing even the second copy, with one mana it protects your Tarmogoyf from efficient removals like Swords to Plowshares and Snuff Out and it’s very good against Force of Will and sideboarded Hydroblast or Pyroblast.
I went with Sylvan Library in the last slot because I wanted to be a little greedy and 4 mana Jace, the Mind Sculptor seemed a bit too much; it was useful but most of the time I was already ahead during the game, I’m not sure about it. It feels a format full of key 2 mana cards so it should be probably the last copy of Spell Snare cause there is no efficient way to deal with opposing Tarmogoyf compared to other archetypes.
Creatures (10)
Vendilion Clique
2
Nimble Mongoose
4
Tarmogoyf
4
Spells (31)
Dispel
1
Spell Snare
3
Spell Pierce
3
Brainstorm
4
Ponder
4
Stifle
4
Daze
4
Force of Will
4
Lightning Bolt
4
Enchantments (1)
Sylvan Library
1
Lands (18)
Tropical Island
3
Volcanic Island
3
Scalding Tarn
4
Misty Rainforest
4
Wasteland
4
I simply applied modern Legacy theory in how I approached the sideboard: a toolbox of utilities with some flexibility given the ability to go deep with all the cards drawn.
Life from the Loam is amazing in the mirror and against a shaky mana base.
I’m not sure about Tormod’s Crypt because I never tested properly against Dredge.
Against CounterTop Krosan Grip would certainly help and it’s probably required: during the quarterfinals in Barcelona my opponent managed to lock me out of the game with its GWUB Baseruption/Zur variant, I don’t remember the exact chain of draws/odds but it did happen and that’s water under the bridge.
By the way, shout out to all my opponents and the Barcelona community, they are all great guys, the raffle was even kind to me with 2 Powder Keg; maybe the next occasion we will be able to spend extra time cause unfortunately I had to run to the airport.
I usually have a very well organized sideboard plan with all the slots optimized and some case flexible adaptation; this time instead I will give you some general insights on the deck and how to sideboard, cut/trim:
- Daze on the draw.
- Lightning Bolt and Force of Will in grindy matchups
- Stifle against non-combo decks
- Sylvan Library and Vendilion Clique against very aggressive decks
- Any card that doesn’t have at least 6+ targets
In the mirror use your mana sources carefully, pushing too early might make you fall behind on green mana, that’s how to pick an easy loss. Against decks with Countertop and Tarmogoyf assessing the correct use of Spell Snare it’s key to the outcome.
That’s all, I hope I gave you a quick, but still advanced insight on the deck.
It’s a very fun deck and a fun format to play or at least they are very joyful to me. I recommend you to simply spend some time, like 100 matches, to get a grip with it if you are completely new to the deck or the format. I might come back with a deeper article in the future since the more you are skilled and the more you are rewarded in the key matchups.
See you soon,
PDeS.