This week I am taking a step back from the usual brew discussion and will be providing a bit of an update, reflections, and chat about streaming.
As many of you may be aware I have been pretty hot on Stand and Replenish and trying to improve the deck as much as possible hoping to make it competitive. Overall in paper my finishes have been fairly positive. Multiple x-1 finishes at my LGS and a 3-1-1 as well. I have also had some poor results with the deck at 1-4 both in paper and on MTGO. In case you didn’t get a chance to check out the stream, it is currently saved on twitch.tv/aarongazzaniga and should hopefully be edited and uploaded to the Hipsters of the Coast YouTube channel for easy viewing of specific rounds.
Updating Stand and Replenish
This is where the deck list was followed by where it currently stands.
Before
| Lands (24) 1 Faerie Conclave 4 Flooded Strand 4 Island 1 Karakas 2 Mishra’s Factory 2 Plains 3 Polluted Delta 4 Tundra 3 Wasteland Creatures (3) 3 Snapcaster Mage Spells (34) 4 Brainstorm 2 Compulsion 2 Counterspell 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Elixir of Immortality 4 Force of Will 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 2 Moat 1 Porphyry Nodes 2 Replenish 2 Spell Pierce 1 Spell Snare 4 Standstill 1 Starfield of Nyx 4 Swords to Plowshares | Sideboard (15) 1 Aura of Silence 1 Council’s Judgment 2 Flusterstorm 3 Leyline of Sanctity 1 Porphyry Nodes 2 Seal of Cleansing 2 Supreme Verdict 3 Surgical Extraction |
After
Not a lot has changed as you can see we are still running a fairly standard UW Standstill list with some spice added.
Search for Azcanta has been the real all-star replacing Compulsion. The filtering that it provides early has helped set up the long game and the mana ramp as well as card advantage that it provides later have basically won many games.
Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy has been fairly good so far. Having two Jace on board in this deck which both have relevant abilities has definitely been strong; and I have found that milling seems to be the fastest win condition. Many of my games come down to ultimate Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Replenish for three or more Standstill, and then cast a spell to force my opponent to draw too many cards. It is certainly mean, but I never claimed to be nice.
For the mana base I ended up removing the pair of Mishra’s Factory in favor of a Celestial Colonnade and then dropping a land down to twenty three. Overall it feels like it has worked out well and outside some variance on occasion the deck feels smooth.
Reflections on the Deck
I am certainly not a pro player and likely won’t ever create a new top tier deck, but this deck certainly seems to be coming together. It has a lot of game against midrange, delver and combo. Czech Pile has so far proven to be very favorable and I hope that it continues to prove favorable since it is very popular.
The main struggles that I have found with this deck have been Soldier Stompy and Burn to a lesser extent. Burn overall has been close having access to Leyline of Sanctity, a fairly honest mana base, and plenty of card advantage to compliment the permission.
Soldier Stompy is basically a nightmare. I have access to Moat as well as Jace, which when played together should be more than enough to take over that match. The main problem has been Cavern of Souls alongside team Thalia coming down turns early. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben taxing my deck has been miserable to say the least, and when paired with Thalia, Heretic Cathar now my non-basic lands are no longer able to squeeze out spells fast enough.
I am fine having the less likely matches be the ones that I struggle with most as I don’t expect to run into them as much. Naturally with time I will find the correct sideboard strategy as well as having a much better idea of which hands are keeps and which should be a mulligan.
Streaming News
As brought up at the very beginning you can expect to see my face more readily available than it currently is—I will be streaming regularly. My current plan is to stream both Sunday and Thursday at 8pm. At the moment the idea will be to stream a brew on Thursday to be paired with an article on the following Tuesday, which means you will get a sneak peak every couple weeks on what I am working on. On Sunday night I will likely stream something that has been more established such as Astral Slide, Twelve Post, or Standstill. Pox has been requested as a deck to stream soon and I will likely do that this coming Sunday night.
I don’t plan on sticking to only Legacy, though. There will be some Modern streaming as well. Here are the decks I will likely pick up in my Modern streaming sessions:
3. Assault Loam
While it is likely that I may on occasion pick up something tier one such as Czech Pile in Legacy or Grixis Shadow in Modern, I want to really focus on things I have designed in the past or sweet tier not one decks that people may not be completely familiar with either because they aren’t very good or they just kind of fell out of peoples minds.
Cardhoarder
I wanted to make a special section to thank the folks at Cardhoarder for their recent partnership with those of us here at Hipsters of the Coast. If it weren’t for them I wouldn’t already have the ability to start providing all of you with new content. Thank you very much Cardhoarder for your faith in us and I hope this partnership ensures that the viewers who want as much content as possible can join us and be entertained.
Be sure to follow and check out the stream Sunday and Thursday at 8pm on twitch.tv/aarongazzaniga
Don’t forget to follow and check out Shawn Massak doing Modern Hero Monday at 7pm on https://go.twitch.tv/dusktoshawn
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 or in email at brewmesomespice@gmail.com.
Aaron Gazzaniga works part time at a game store 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