Conley Woods crazy legacy brew....

Conley Woods is known for coming up with some crazy decks, so you never know what you're going to get from him.  Legacy is a format where almost anything goes.  You can die on turn two, or get your winning spell countered when your opponent has no land untapped (or even in play potentially).  Turn 4-6 wins are prevalent, and all (successful) decks are a mix of the most powerful spells in magic.

Round one of a legacy tournament on GGSLive, which shows live tournaments pretty much every weekend (Saturday = Constructed, Sunday = Legacy)
http://www.ggslive.com/

He's playing against a "Junk" (Green-White-Black, discard + removal + big creatures deck)
His opponent goes first in game one, and goes Land -> Dark Ritual (BBB) -> Hypnotic Specter.

This is one of the most feared plays from the good old days of black aggro.  The discard is random, if you don't answer it right away, you're probably dead.

So Conley goes some land that taps for colorless, and eventually loses to cards like Vindicate (BW1 -> destroy target permanent), Wasteland (Land, T, Sac, destroy target nonbasic land), Hymn to Tourach (BB Sorcery -> Target player discards two cards at random), and so on.








Game two, he is on the play, and mulligans to 6.
He plays an Inkmoth Nexus (wtf?), a Chrome Mox (0, artifact, taps for any color if you discard a land when you play it, which he does), taps both for a Arcbound Ravager.

Now, Arcbound Ravager is a pretty good card, but he hasn't played any of the artifact land from original mirrodin, or really any other card that you'd expect to see out of a "affinity" deck.


His opponent plays a land (some dual land that taps for two of Green, Black, and White, for no penalty) and passes.

Conley Plays an Ancient Tomb (Land, Taps for (2), but does 2 damage to you when you tap it), plays another ravager.  He animates his Inkmoth nexus, and attacks for 1 poison, and 1 normal damage. (rut roh?).






His opponent does something terrible (for Conley, and passes the turn back.

Conley animates the Inkmoth Nexus and attacks with it, and his two Arcbound Ravagers.  His opponent casts Swords to Plowshares (W, Instant, Remove target creature from the game, its owner gains some irrelevant life).  Conley sacrifices the targetted ravager to the other ravager, and puts the counter on the Inkmoth.  His opponent takes two poison, and two damage.  (17, 3 poison)  Conley plays a Blinkmoth Nexus (one of each now!) and passes the turn.

His opponent plays a Wasteland (Land, T, Sac, destroy a nonbasic land) and casts Pernicious Deed.

Now, this is really bad.  Deed kills basically anything that isn't a pure land (it kills artifact lands and creature lands, unlike most anything that would be printed lately, like Into the Roil, or Ratchet Bomb)

The Wasteland also threatens his only other threat, the Inkmoth, even if he doesn't animate it.

Conley plays a City of Traitors (another land with a drawback that taps for (2))

He does not animate his Inkmoth (Deed can be sacced for 0 to kill lands that are animated/artifacts), and swings in for 2 damage with the ravager.

His opponent plays a land, and passes the turn.

When Conley goes to attack with the Ravager, his opponent casts Swords to Plowshares on it.  Conley could have activated his Inkmoth, to take the counters, but he didn't playing around the deed getting that as well "for free".  But things are looking pretty bad.

Conley passes the turn, and his opponent plays a land, and casts a Hymn to Tourach, getting rid of the last card(s) in Conleys hand, and uses the Wasteland to kill Conley's Ancient Tomb, leaving him only with a land that is destroyed if he plays another land. He passes the turn.

Conley activates the Inkmoth and attacks.  His opponent pops the Deed, killing the Inkmoth and Conleys Chrome Mox.

Conley plays a Chalice of the Void for 1  (Preventing Swords, Dark Ritual, Thoughtseize?).  His opponent Vindicates it on his turn.

Conley draws, and plays...  Plague Myr.  What the heck?

Even more disturbing, his opponent casts a Krosan Grip on it.  The commentators remark that this may be the first time a Plague Myr has ever been Krosan Gripped in this history of magic.

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Conley draws, and plays a Ichorclaw Myr.  What the heck is going on here?

His opponent plays a land and passes.  He appears to have two land in hand.

Conley drops a Necropede, and attacks for a point of poison, Take that!  (4 total poison for his opponent, and he's at like 12 life from fetchlands, and Ravager attacks)

His opponent plays a land and passes.

Conley plays a Cranial Plating, Equips it to the Ichorclaw myr and attacks for something like 5 poison.  His opponent has no answer, and dies on the next turn.

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On to game 3, with the "Junk" deck on the play.
The Junk deck keeps their 7, and Conley looks sad, and mulligans to 6 again. (as in game 2)

He keeps his 6, and we're off to the races.

The Junk deck leads with Fetch -> Swamp -> Ritual -> Hypnotic Spectre.  Conley has no spell in his deck that can kill it outside combat. (His opponent may not know that though) That's really bad.

Conley drops a BLINKmoth Nexus, and passes the turn.  The announcers comment that he should have played the INKmoth Nexus, in the face of the random discard from the Hippie.

His opponent attacks, conley discards a land at random.  His opponent plays a land, and casts Hymn to Tourach, hitting an artifact and a creature.

So, Mull to 6, discard 3 random cards, and your opponent still has a Hypnotic Spectre in play.

Conley plays an Ancient Tomb, taps it for 2 (goes to 16) and slaps down a Crucible of Worlds.

His opponent notably doesn't play a land this time, and attacks with the Hypnotic Specter.  (The junk deck has a ton of ways to kill any perminant at 3 mana)  Conley discards one of his two last cards., which was a wasteland.

Conley plays the Wasteland from his graveyard using the Crucible, and uses it to destroy his opponent's dual land.  He passes the turn back.

His opponent swings in with the Hippie.  Conley taps the Ancient Tomb (going to 12 or something), and animates the BLINKmoth Nexus.  He blocks the Hippie, and taps the Nexus to pump itself, trading with the Specter!

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His opponent bins the Hippie, and passes the turn back.  If Conley had played the INK turn one, he would have not been able to kill the Hippie turn 3, and would have been just as dead to a 1/1 Specter (with a -1/-1 counter on it) as a 2/2.

Conley recurs the Wasteland with the Crucible, taps the Tomb (going to 10?), and drops a Necropede.

 His opponent finds a second land, and drops a Dark Confidant, an incredibly powerful card drawing tool/threat.  Conley uses the Wasteland end of turn, to kill the new land.

Conley uses the crucible to play a City of Traitors from his graveyard, taps for 4 mana, to play and equip Umezawa's Jitte.  This may very well be the first time a Necropede has held this legendary equipment.

He swings in with the Necropede, and when his opponent doesn't block, he uses one of the counters generated from that combat to put a -1/-1 counter on the Human Wizard.

On the Junk players next turn, he finds another land, and plays another Dark Confidant, but he Jitte-equipped Necropede kills it, swings in, and picks up a twin on Conley's next turn. (Along with Wasteland Recursion?)




Turn 1 Hypnotic, Turn 2 Hymn, off a mull to 6, with no removal for it in your deck?  No problem.  Just play your Scars of Mirrodin block limited deck, with some fancy lands, and you're fine!

Why people are misevaluating Lead the Stampede

There has been a lot of negative press lately about this card from people I would consider to be good magic players.  It has been bugging me for quite some time, so I feel like I have to say something about it.


People say that when it gets two creatures (when you have 20-30 creatures in your deck), that is "Divination at best".

The reason I think this is flawed logic, is the same reason I think Foresee is better than Jace's Ingenuity.

Foresee says "draw two".  Jace's Ingenuity says "Draw 3", and is an instant.  How can Foresee be better?

Well, Foresee actually lets you see 6 cards, for one less mana, and you DON'T HAVE TO DRAW the bad ones.  If you ship two cards with Foresee, which is common lategame, shipping two lands, you effectively drew FOUR cards.

Call to Mind is NOT "draw two", it is "draw two CREATURES". (at it's worst)

Lets say you didn't have any creatures in the top 5 cards of your deck.  Would you rather put all 5 of those cards on the bottom of your deck, or draw two lands?  In the first case, you effectively drew 3 MORE cards, just by not drawing the cards at all.

Think about Fact or Fiction.

You always get a 3/2 or 4/1 split.  You can often take the two, or the one, and that is the right decision.  Would anyone argue from this data that Fact or Fiction is a more expensive (4 vs 3) Divination?

If the best cards in your deck are creatures (often true in a green deck?), Lead the Stampede seems like a poor card to underestimate.

Morbid Plunder is a card that is often considered good (in limited), but it does roughly the same thing as Lead the Stampede, except you have to have already drawn, cast, and had killed, your good creatures.  Lead the Stampede does a very similar thing, but it uses the top of your deck, instead of your graveyard.

See Beyond vs Treasure Hunt is a similar debate.

Now, Lead the Stampede can't draw you land.  It can't draw you removal (unless it is creature based, like Acidic Slime, Gatekeeper, War Priest of Thune, or the like).  It can't draw you alternative creatures, like Living Weapons, Planeswalkers, or Manlands.  It can't draw into more of itself (which I presume is some of the better FoF options).  It doesn't do everything.

But it does draw you "the business".

Like Foresee, like Fact or Fiction, make sure you don't get caught up in the pure card advantage ("I drew two cards off this").  Make sure you consider the fact that you don't need to draw those other cards, and that the cards you drew were not terrible.

Play utility creatures.  Play good creatures.  Play a moderate amount of creatures (20-30?), and Lead the Stampede isn't just "the Green Divination".  It is the Green Fact or Fiction, where YOU get to split the cards.