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Recently I played a rogue deck featuring Leyline of the Void and Helm of Obedience at a Starcity Games Open Series Legacy event. Here is the list I registered.
"Obeyline"
- Creatures (6)
- 4 Dark Confidant
- 2 Gatekeeper of Malakir
- Spells (31)
- 4 Dark Ritual
- 4 Thoughtseize
- 4 Hymn to Tourach
- 4 Leyline of the Void
- 3 Enlightened Tutor
- 3 Sword to Plowshares
- 2 Helm of Obedience
- 2 Sensei's Divining Top
- 1 Diabolic Edict
- 1 Oblivion Ring
- 1 Moat
- 1 Engineered Plague
- 1 Humility
- Land (23)
- 4 Marsh Flats
- 4 Scrubland
- 2 Fetid Heath
- 2 Plains
- 2 City of Traitors
- 9 Swamp
- Sideboard (15)
- 3 Perish
- 3 Engineered Plague
- 2 Duress
- 1 Gerrard's Verdict
- 1 Pithing Needle
- 1 Runed Halo
- 1 Luminarch Asencsion
- 1 Ethersworn Canonist
- 1 Tormod's Crypt
- 1 Sacred Ground
I almost made Top 8 with this deck; I lost my match in the last round (dropping me to 19th.) Unfortunately, my opponent had the turn one, "you lose" hand. This deck is good against any deck that uses its graveyard to win. Decks like Dredge, Reanimator and Survival of the Fittest are all decks you don't mind facing. Leyline of the Void is surprisingly good vs other decks too. It helps against Ad Nausem by shutting down their Rite of Flames, Cabal Rituals and Ill-Gotten Gains. The deck also has other enchantments that can win you the game by themselves. Cards like Moat, Humility and Engineered Plague can all be extremely useful against a handful of legacy decks.
I played Oblivion Ring over Vindicate because I could tutor up the Oblivion Ring. The same can't be said about Vindicate. The deck as a lot of neat interactions - for example, if you control a Dark Confidant and you want to avoid taking damage, you can let Dark Confidant's triggers resolve and then tutor for your more expensive artifact/enchantment. The deck is pretty simple, just get a Leyline of the Void in play and activate a Helm of Obedience for at least one. This will take your opponents whole deck and exile it. Even if they have an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Progenitius it will still exile their whole library since a player is required stop an infinite loop if possible. Also, cards like Wheel of Sun and Moon don't stop your combo as long as you have Leyline of the Void on the battlefield. You can also lock out goblins/fish with an Engineered Plague and Humility. I've been thinking of replacing Engineered Plague with Night of Soul's Betrayal so I can lock out all creature decks with that 2 card combo. That combo might be too cute though.
There has to be a few quality enchantments/artifacts that I am missing in Legacy. I don't possess an extensive knowledge of legacy cards; I'm sure there are better ones out there that I just haven't seen yet. There are also some definite changes that I would make to the deck now too. I'm going to add Sphere of Resistance to help my match up with combo. I'm also going to play more hand disruption in the 75. Adding an Urborg could help some mana issues that I had during a few matches too.
Some of the sideboard cards are solid, while others are very lackluster. Luminarch Ascension won me a couple of games vs Counterbalance and it seems pretty good vs 43 lands. On the other hand though, I never used Tormod's Crypt or Sacred Ground – these could be replaced for Sphere of Resistance and more disruption.
This deck has a lot of potential to be rebuilt in different ways. I was thinking about making a stronger hand disruption package while playing a handful of Nyxathids with a one of Umezawa's Jitte.
Gatekeeper of Malakir was underwhelming and I boarded him out a lot. Another option is adding Tombstalker; it gives you a big body and makes Tarmogoyf smaller. I originally decided against it because I was scared of hitting it with Dark Confidant, but maybe it's worth it. These are a few variations I'm going to test.
A more control based list.
[cardlist]
[Creatures]
4 Dark Confidant
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Sword to Plowshares
2 Helm of Obedience
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Moat
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal
1 Humility
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Marsh Flats
4 Scrubland
2 Fetid Heath
2 Plains
2 City of Traitors
7 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Perish
2 Engineered Plague
1 Swords to Plowshares
4 Duress
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Pithing Needle
1 Runed Halo
1 Luminarch Asencsion
1 Ethersworn Canonist
[/Sideboard]
[/cardlist]
I added a lot more hand disruption in this list. This would be the type of list I'd use if I were expecting a lot of combo or counter-top decks. Be careful to keep in a decent amount of ways to deal with creatures though. You can't rely on Moat, Humility or Night of Soul's betrayal to keep you alive by themselves. A lot of the legacy aggro decks are too fast to rely solely on those enchantments.
Inquisition of Kozilek is something that I've wanted to try in legacy. The format is extremely aggressive and Inquisition of Kozilek is really live against a lot of different decks. It has its obvious uses against combo and counter-top; it's good a very good disruption spell grabbing almost everything that a Thoughtseize would get. Against more aggressive decks, it can hit their lords, their vials and even their disruption spells, like Krosan Grip.
[cardlist]
[Creatures]
4 Dark Confidant
3 Nyxathid
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Sword to Plowshares
2 Helm of Obedience
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Moat
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal
1 Humility
[/Spells]
[Lands]
4 Marsh Flats
4 Scrubland
2 Fetid Heath
2 Plains
2 City of Traitors
7 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
3 Perish
2 Engineered Plague
1 Sphere of Resistance
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Pithing Needle
1 Runed Halo
1 Luminarch Asencsion
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Tombstalker
[/Sideboard]
[/cardlist]
This is a more aggressive take on the deck. It has a beat-down plan as well as the helm combo. I put the Tombstalkers in the sideboard so I wouldn't have to worry about reveling them off a Dark Confidant in matches that I was worried about dying quickly.
I also cut the one of Gerrard's Verdict in the sideboard. I feel like giving your opponent the opportunity to pick what they discard is too much of a disadvantage.
This deck, like other combo decks requires a lot of practice. I felt that I made a lot of play mistakes throughout the day. I built the deck six hours before the tournament and I'm not very familiar with legacy. I very rarely test legacy. This deck has a lot of room to grow. I've been testing a lot for standard recently and between that and school, there isn't enough time for legacy testing. I won't be able to make Nashville Open Series this weekend; instead I will be celebrating the love of my life's birthday! Ideally, I'll have a more solid list ready to go by the Charlotte 5k.
That's it for me folks hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading!
