Two weeks ago I wrote about Pyschatog in Legacy out of a Sultai control build, which I ended up playing at my LGS to a 2-2 finish. Overall the deck seemed viable and reasonable. Unfortunately I lost to Grixis Delver due to mana screw, and against Lands due to a lack of graveyard interaction. I likely could have beaten Lands with some interaction but it was an incredible blast from the past nonetheless. I’m looking forward to attempting it again which an updated sideboard.
This week we are sticking to control but we are going to out of my comfort zone and into the Jeskai color scheme and here we are looking for value from Soulfire Grand Master. Here is the decklist:
Patriot Control
Here we are looking to control the game and win through maximum value in the long game. The main match ups that we are prepared for in the maindeck are creature based decks like Death and Taxes and Delver variants. We have eight removal spells at one mana, plus Snapcaster Mage to flash them all back. Here we come to the fun part where we discuss card choices.
Creatures
Snapcaster Mage naturally comes in for the card advantage through utilizing our graveyard as well as acting like an Ambush Viper for some attackers.
Our next creature on the list is Soulfire Grand Master. Between the buyback it provides us for our spells as well as the lifelink with Lightning Bolt and Price of Progress, we have a great set up to never lose to aggressive strategies. Something fun that we are pairing with him is Bonfire of the Damned. We can easily set it up for a Miracle and all that damage equates to a huge padding of our life total. Much of this deck has been designed around not only being efficient, but later in the game being able to get multiple uses by paying the four mana for Grand Master’s buyback ability.
Our last creature on the list is Vendilion Clique, a great disruptive and aggressive creature at three power. Clique is a key part to gain information and provide disruption against any opponent. Paired with Karakas you can potentially lock an opponent out of their draw step.
Spells—Burn
Starting with Bonfire of the Damned we have our first burn spell which also works as a sweeper capable of not only clearing our opponent’s board, but also getting some damage through to our opponent or any Planeswalker they might have.
Lightning Bolt gives us reach as well as some removal for many of Legacy’s most common threats.
The last piece of burn is one of the most feared cards in Legacy, Price of Progress. Price is a card that every Legacy deck with a greedy mana base is very familiar with and fears. Price of Progress late in the game is especially fearsome. If your opponent has great mana off of maybe two Underground Sea, two Tropical Island and perhaps one Bayou. That is five non basic lands and therefore ten damage to the face all for two mana. That exchange rate is pretty tough to beat. For us, the mana base includes many basic lands so we can play around the damage that we could potentially receive off Price. I guess that is where the term, “The Price of Progress” comes from.
Spells—Removal
Here we are abundantly well endowed. As mentioned previously under the burn section, we have Bonfire of the Damned and Lightning Bolt. Bolt being an efficient one for one and Bonfire being a potential sweeper where necessary.
Under removal we follow up with Council’s Judgment as a way to answer any problem non-land permanent that our opponent may be able to muster up. I can’t wait to hopefully get in a game with seven mana and be able to cast this every turn.
Engineered Explosives is our next spell for removal. We also have the ability to pair it with Academy Ruins for a repeatable answer to most anything that hits the board.
Swords to Plowshares is our last key removal spell. An additional answer to creatures that is efficient and certain should it resolve. The life gain is somewhat irrelevant given that we are designed to go the long game while we are also potentially able to kill without having to deal damage through a Jace ultimate.
Spells—Planeswalkers
To start off we have Jace, the Mind Sculptor. As mentioned in my previous articles Jace is an extremely powerful card to have on board. He protects himself, cleans up our draws, locks our opponent out and then puts our opponent on a very tight clock when he exiles graveyards and libraries replacing the library with their hand.
Narset Transcendent is a Planeswalker that I have been trying to fit into some strategy for a while now. Although she does not perfectly interact with Soulfire Grand Master, she does in effect give us card advantage through her +1 loyalty and she allows us to use high impact spells like Price of Progress and Council’s Judgment multiple turns in a row with her -2 loyalty ability. Her ultimate can shut many decks completely out and other decks off a great majority of their spells.
Sideboard
In the sideboard we have a lot of random answers to many different things. Designed similar to the sideboard of a Miracles deck list since we are a dedicated control deck of a similar fashion.
Against creature strategies we have two Electrickery, Engineered Explosives, Supreme Verdict and an additional Council’s Judgment. Against Death and Taxes we also have a Sulfur Elemental.
Against combo we have a pair of Flusterstorm, an additional Vendilion Clique and for graveyard based combo we have Containment Priest and Surgical Extraction. Against Sneak and Show we have the Priest, Council’s Judgment and Flusterstorm.
Against decks with problem artifacts and enchantments we have access to Wear/Tear and an additional Council’s Judgment and Engineered Explosives.
Initial Thoughts
I really have high hopes for this deck and I plan to get testing the night that this article goes live. I will be tweeting the progress of the deck as well as some key interactions and fun that is had. Because I am not familiar with Jeskai control strategies I will likely be passing this one off to my friend Driscoll who is familiar with Miracles in Legacy and Splinter Twin and Jeskai control in Modern. He should have a better understanding than myself to run this deck efficiently and correctly and therefore be able to show the viability of the deck. I will be updated the progress on Twitter as the night progresses.
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 on twitter @aarongazzaniga 🙂
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. If you want to contact Aaron tweet @aarongazzaniga