This week we have an interesting take on an old Legacy favorite, Sea Stompy. I wanted to try brewing something with Hedron Alignment. Yes, that terrible card that led everyone to think of the 100 ways that setting up a win could go wrong. The options that I considered when deck building were Omni-Show, Miracles, Stoneblade and Blue Moon (Legacy port of the Modern Variant) and Mono U Sea Stompy.
The two decklists that I decided would work the best were Sea Stompy and Blue Moon. Blue Moon seemed like it just did not want Hedron Alignment, there were too many three mana enchantments that would be going into that deck. Omni-Show had much better ways to win but isn’t the deck it used to be without Dig Through Time. Miracles, while able to creature the window you need to successfully set up the combo, just became too watered down and required losing a lot of one and two mana spells in favor of Alignment and ways to find them (i.e. Intuition) even though you did get Enlightened Tutor added to hunt Alignment down easier as well as help with your Counterbalance lock. Stoneblade was definitely the wrong way to go as it becomes a bad variant of an already successful deck.
Sea Stompy is a fringe strategy at best as of right now, and needed something to hopefully revitalize it. This is what I came up with in hopes that we could make a deck that profitably runs Hedron Alignment for the win.
Hedron Stompy
| Lands (18) 4 Ancient Tomb 4 City of Traitors 10 Island Creatures (10) 3 Misthollow Griffin 4 Mulldrifter 3 Sea Drake Spells (32) 4 Chalice of the Void 4 Chrome Mox 4 Force of Will 4 Hedron Alignment 3 Intuition 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 2 Manipulate Fate 1 Misdirection 2 Rite of Undoing 1 Sword of Fire and Ice 3 Trinisphere 2 Umezawa’s Jitte | Sideboard (15) 3 Back to Basics 2 Misdirection 4 Sower of Temptation 3 Tormod’s Crypt 3 Winter Orb |
Sea Stompy is similar to its Red counterpart in Dragon/Goblin Stompy explained here on The Source. The main different is that we are solely relying Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere to lock down the early game while we drop our threats and attempt to close out a game, whereas Red Stompy decks rely on Blood Moon and Chalice to lock an opponent out of the game while they drop their threats to close it out.
In the Blue lists we also get cards like Force of Will to combat fast combo decks while on the draw, Jace, the Mind Sculptor for some card selection, control and an alternate win condition, equipment to make the creatures a bit faster of a clock and I have added Hedron Alignment as another win condition with efficient ways to find them that also shuffle the library in order to help reset after Jace’s zero ability.
Mana
For the mana base we have ten Islands which can help to keep us safe versus Wasteland as well as Blood Moon. On the other hand it also does leave us very vulnerable to Choke, a card that is seeing more play as of late with Trini-Choke decks. We have Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors for the possible turn one Chalice at one and the possible turn one Trinisphere in combination with Chrome Mox. Chrome Mox can play two roles in the deck—mana ramp and an additional way to exile a copy of Hedron Alignment if that is all we require to complete the combo.
Spells—Lock/Stall Pieces
Here we have Chalice of the Void to lock out spells which alone can lead to a concession from an opponent. A Chalice at one generally can lock out 16-24 spells from many decks in addition to another 8-12 spells if you can also set a Chalice at two. Thinking about RUG Delver and other Delver Variants we can generally lock out every card in their deck (aside from Force of Will) with Chalices at one and two. In addition to Chalice of the Void we also have Trinisphere. Making every spell cost three can be a lot for many of the decks to achieve.
Many Legacy decks, especially Blue based decks with a lot of cantrips, rely on cheap spells that they can chain together in order to control the game and find the cards necessary to win, naturally Trinisphere makes this near impossible. It was widely considered one of the best ways to combat Omni-Show since it requires people to actually pay mana or delve cards (if the card has delve) in order to cast every spell they would like to cast. Between these two cards we can hopefully draw out the game long enough to assemble the combo, or beat down with our creatures. Rite of Undoing can help us buy turns by bouncing anything our opponent it using to try and kill us, as well as protect our creatures, reset Chalice if we need to and pick up a Mulldrifter to recast and get deeper into our deck.
Spells—Combo
Naturally we have the four Hedron Alignment which is necessary to actually win with that card. Aside from that we have three Intuition and two Manipulate Fate which can both dig efficiently and tutor for combo pieces or win conditions as well as shuffle our library and remove cards that we may not want to draw. Intuition allows us to get the remaining 3 copies should we already have one in hand as well as dump two into our yard.
I have included Rite of Undoing to give us the ability to exile a copy of Hedron Alignment from our graveyard should two copies end up there, which was my original issue during theory crafting and deck designing. The main argument that we could have and is also a suggestion as to why Alignment isn’t viable—graveyard replacement effects. Cards like Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace create an replacement effect that is almost impossible to combo through. Rite of Undoing can give us a window to win through them, we also have the ability to bounce a Rest in Peace and a Chalice in order to give us the ability to keep Rest in Peace off the table. There is the potential versus Leyline of the Void that if it is not in play when we get a copy into our yard, that we could use it to get a copy exiled since unlike Rest in Peace, it only affects future cards going to the graveyard.
Creatures
Misthollow Griffin works very well as a back up win condition. It is a 3/3 evasive beater that has a mana cost of four (Abrupt Decay proof) and can be cast from exile, over and over again. We have the two Manipulate Fate if we need to change gears or are better off on the beat down plan versus another deck. It also pitches just fine to a Chrome Mox early in the game, ready to be cast later in the game if needed. Sea Drake is a staple of many Sea Stompy lists as it is a four power evasive beater. It does only cost three mana so it is not immune to Abrupt Decay. The fact that it returns lands to our hand does allow us to play around the City of Traitors trigger when you want to play additional lands later in the game. Our last creature to discuss is Mulldrifter. As a measly 2/2 flyer for five we may usually evoke it for three just to get its trigger and draw two cards. After a Chalice for one Mulldrifter is a fine evasive beater that can carry equipment well and after all it does still trade with a Delver of Secrets.
Sideboard
I have put three Back to Basics into the board as a bit of hate on decks with greedy mana bases, as well as a way to get past disruptive lands like Rishadan Port, Maze of Ith and the like. Winter Orb is another early form of disruption to slow down other decks and keep them at a low mana count to keep our opponents locked under a Trinisphere. Misdirection is a way to protect us from discard as well as be another exile effect for Alignment when we have found too many. The Sower of Temptation is there to compete with big creature decks such as Sneak and Show, Reanimator and most anything with a Tarmgoyf that this deck can’t race. Naturally Tormod’s Crypt are there as a way to compete with fast graveyard based strategy, which is relevant with Storm rising up the competitive ladder and Reanimator beginning to climb back up as well.
Happy brewing to each and every one of you. If anyone has an idea for a brew that they would like to see, I will gladly take requests and challenges in the comments. 🙂
Aaron Gazzaniga manages a restaurant and in his off time has been an avid magic player/brewer since 2003. Having begun in Odyssey Standard Block and always favoring control and prison style decks, we come to this moment in time where Aaron finally gets to talk about and share his ideas.