Welcome back everyone for another edition of From the Spice Cabinet!
We are in the middle of spoiler season for Eldritch Moon, and already we have seen some sweet goodies that have the potential to break into eternal formats. Easily, the card with the most buzz in the Legacy community right now is this one…
Now a quick side note on Thalia 2.0. Every armchair deck brewer is spouting off how they are going to jam four copies of new Thalia into Death & Taxes and promptly win every tournament within 100 square miles. This is simply not going to happen. I’m sorry, it’s just not.
You see, as a die hard Sneak & Show player, I have a very long, very spite filled, hate-hate relationship with Death & Taxes. I treat Death & Taxes the same way Liam Neeson treats French human traffickers who have kidnapped his daughter. That is to say, I have studied their every move, I know what makes them tick. In doing so I have gained a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for players like you. If you let my Griselbrand go now, that will be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will ki…. Whoa, sorry, went to a dark place there for a second. Death & Taxes will do that to a guy.
Anyways, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. Death & Taxes already has a glut of three drops vying for spots in a very tight deck list. Flickerwisp is an auto four-of as it is easily the best three drop in the deck. Mirran Crusader and Brimaz, King of Oreskos are far better aggro options than New Thalia. Mangara of Corondor and Eldrazi Displacer are the best options for long grindy games and inevitability. Even Vyrn Wingmare will protect you better from combo decks that look to abuse cheap mana spells.
The point is, Thalia, Heretic Cather does not replace any of these already very good cards. In Death and Taxes, Thalia shines in shutting down your opponents early turns and throwing their tempo off. Unfortunately, as a three drop she is not going to start taking effect until your opponent’s third or fourth turn at best. That is way too late as the decks you want this effect against will have already developed their board state and built up the mana they need. While we may see her pop up as a spicy one of now and then, I don’t think we are on the verge of a bold new world for Death & Taxes.
That is not to say that she is not very good…
Emrakul was the moon the whole time!!!
The Engine: Thalia, Goblin Welder, Winter Orb and Tangle Wire
Thalia, Heretic Cather is much better when the whole “your stuff comes into play tapped” thing turns into, “your stuff never gets to untap, so deal with it”. Winter Orb forces your opponent to be frugal with their untap choices and Tangle Wire prevents them from stockpiling lands in what will undoubtedly be a grindy match. Tangle Wire has the added bonus of tapping down any threats your opponent may have once all the lands are locked in the tapped position.
Goblin Welder is the real workhorse of the deck though. Welder allows you to break the symmetry of Tangle Wire and Winter Orb. Simply weld out your lock piece of choice on your opponent’s end step, untap your all permanents, then weld the lock piece back in before passing the turn back. Now you need two Goblin Welders in play (or a Thousand-Year Elixir and a Welder) in order to get the hard lock. But once you assemble the pieces your opponent will be pretty much locked out of the game.
Win Conditions: Painted Stone, Battlesphere and Wurms Oh My!!!!
Once we lock up the game, we are going to need a way to win it before the clock runs out. Wurmcoil Engine and Myr Battlesphere play great with Goblin Welder. Pitch them into your graveyard, weld them into play, weld them out again, make a bunch of tokens that can also be used to weld things in and out. Rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat. Painter’s Servant and Grindstone is more of a cheeky win condition. Sometimes you just want to win on the spot with minimum effort and these guys have your back for that.
Other Stuff: Swords, Loot, Sphere and Mox
These cards all help round out the deck and pull it together in areas we might be a little loose on. Swords to Plowshares keeps the early pressure off by dealing with super fast aggro starts. Faithless Looting gives us our only card selection and doubles as a method of dropping artifacts into our graveyard for Goblin Welder to make use of.
Sphere of Resistance adds to the board lock plan by making it next to impossible for our opponent to ever cast a spell. It also helps a lot against any combo deck that has the potential to kill us before we get our lock pieces in place. Mox Diamond helps fix our mana and lets us ramp out a turn one Sphere of Resistance, or a Thalia off an Ancient Tomb. That’s pretty damn good by my book.
The Spicy 61st
More like the spicy 54 to 61st am I right!? Eh!? Eh!?! Ok I’ll stop…
The nature of the deck allows us to run a lot of Spicy silver bullets for Goblin Welder to target. To save time I’m going to run down them in list form.
Spellskite—Keeps Thalia and Welder safe from any potential removal spells.
Ratchet Bomb—Catch all removal that can keep coming back as many times as you need it.
Crucible of Worlds—Plays great with Mox Diamond, plus anyone who has ever been under a Wasteland lock knows how miserable it can be.
Ensnaring Bridge—Keeps the big bad baddies off your back until you are ready to start getting aggressive.
Trading Post—It does a lot of stuff. Most times we are going to use the first ability to gain some life and get some artifacts in the graveyard. But who knows maybe those other abilities will come in handy.
Pithing Needle—Sometimes you just need a Pithing Needle. Planeswalkers, Thespian’s Stage, Pernicious Deed, Engineered Explosives. There are a lot of cards out there that can ruin our day, Pithing Needle takes care of those cards.
Thousand-Year Elixir—If I had to choose a 61st card it would be this one. It’s just such a funny card and basically allows you to double your Goblin Welder activations. The fact that it itself can be Welded as a target is just the cherry on top.
Until next time, keep your deck spicy!
Jerry Mee is a Boston Native who has been playing Magic since Onslaught Block. Primarily a Legacy player, he cohosts the weekly Leaving a Legacy Podcast found on Mtgcast.com. He can be reached on Twitter at @Jmee3rd