@the-burnished-hart / the-burnished-hart.tumblr.com
Clumsily trying to capture some of the majesty of the beautiful @chrisrahnart Lyra Dawnbringer. My Beloved Minions had a ton of great ideas for alters at GP Vegas this year. Which I often and eagerly steal credit for. ;)
A number of bird-themed MTG tokens I’ll be selling at GP’s. They’re redesigns from old tokens I did back in 2014! 1/1 Bird, 5/5 Dragon and 4/4 Angel.
It’s more of a like…graphic-ish style than I normally do, they’re fun and don’t take super long to do, which is nice :D
The Elder Dragons, then and now.
Damn, Arcades
Be careful who you call ugly in middle school.
Hello & welcome to this weekly deck tech! This week it’s time to talk about some Legacy & I thought I’d bring something very special to the table. I was looking at all the Masterpiece series, Expeditions & Invocations to see if you could actually make a deck with them; turns out you can! There’s this deck called Painter’s Servant in Legacy which is pretty fringe and most deck lists vary a lot depending on the user, but all of the key cards have been printed as those special series so it’s entirely possible to make a deck with them. Now, a regular version of this deck is probably around 2000$, mostly since you need some dual lands, but this Masterpiece deck is…a bit more expensive…
So yeah, BY NO MEANS do I recommend you guys to buy this deck, please don’t hold me responsible if you decide to spend 12k on a deck…Though I know there are some people out there collecting Masterpiece series cards, so by all means if you already have those cards lying around like some sort of rich aristocrat, please try out this deck since it’s really really fun. Let’s get right to it.
This card lends it’s name to the deck because it’s your main win condition. The goal of the deck is to play Painter’s Servant and hopefully win on the same turn. We’ll see how in a second, but basically this card turns EVERY card the colour of your choice, including lands, cards in libraries, graveyards, hands, stack, you name it! The colour you’ll choose won’t matter, I personally like naming Green, but that’s entirely up to you!
And this is how the deck wins. It’s really simple, you play the Painter’s Servant, name a colour and with Grindstone you target your opponent once and they’ll mill their entire deck out since the cards will always share a colour! The only card that completely shuts down your deck is Emrakul…so if you end up playing against a Show & Tell deck you’ve probably already lost…Other than that the deck has some really good match-ups all around though!
The deck is a combo deck, and because of that the plan is to go off as fast as you possibly can. For that you NEED mana rocks, so I’d recommend going with full playsets of Lotus Petal, Mox Opal & Chrome Mox. With enough of those cheap rocks you can potentially win on turn 1 (though it requires you a perfect hand and for your opponent to not have a Force of Will…) but it’s realistic to win on turn 3 fairly easily.
As any combo deck should, you need to have some ways of protecting your stuff. The go-to cards are Force of Will & Daze, you need to play both of them to really make sure you can do your stuff without any problems. Plus, having those cards really help you fend off other combo decks that would otherwise be a problem for you.
Another great way to protect your combo is to prevent your opponent from playing anything on your turn! Honestly I think Defense Grid is really underrated in Legacy, since it completely prevents your opponent from using Force of Will which is one of the most played card of the format, and it also forces them to play everything at sorcery speed, including Brainstorm, another one of the most played cards of the format. Just be careful, if you play this against another combo deck you just shot yourself in the foot…
I’ve said this a lot over the past decade or so, Chalice of the Void is one of the best magic cards ever printed, and it’s even more true in Legacy. Most decks will play cards of CMC 1 & 2, with some rare 3 here & there; but playing a Chalice on 1 will turn off SO MANY DECKS. I’ve played a Pox deck for a while and you’d be surprised how many people have straight up conceded because of a Chalice on turn 1. Just be careful not to hinder yourself when playing this.
While this card shines more in Modern, Blood Moon still sees it’s fair share of play in Legacy and is really good in this deck. Your deck is mostly colourless and your only blue cards can be cast for free, so honestly Blood Moon doesn’t affect you. On the other hand this card is a massive pain in the ass for a lot of decks, including control & tempo, which are the majority of the meta. Oh, and the Lands deck also HATES this card.
Oh hey look another amazing card across all the formats! Ensnaring Bridge is just so good against so many decks. If you’re able to get this down with a Blood Moon & Defense Grid I honestly don’t know what your opponent can do to get out of this, at least before sideboard. This card can buy you so many turns.
Normally the deck would play a mix of fetches & duals with a playset of Ancient Tomb for some extra fast first turns and some good fixing, but since the deck is Masterpiece only duals are a no-go. I’d recommend playing some Scalding Tarns, Steam Vents, Wasteland & Cascade Bluffs; 18 lands should be enough sicne you have a lot of mana rocks at 0cmc. I’ve tested a bit and the curve is really smooth with these lands.
You have some decent sideboard options but I HIGHLY recommend going with Engineered Explosives, Pithing Needle, Sphere of Resistance & Trinisphere. Those cards all offer some really nice utility against different decks, as well as some ways to keep some decks in check. You just need to learn what cards are in your opponent’s deck to know which card to bring in, but all those sideboard cards should cover most decks, except maybe Reanimator, but you already have Ensnaring Bridge which kind of shuts down Griselbrand so…
That’s it for this week! I hope you guys enjoyed this deck tech as much as I did. Again, BY NO MEANS am I recommending you buy this deck, for god’s sake it’s worth 12k! I’m just saying it’s possible to make a viable Legacy deck with only Masterpiece cards and that the deck is really fun! The deck functions as a prison-type deck, preventing your opponent from doing anything while you assemble your combo. You can either win on turn 2 or 3, or go the prison route, play it safe, and win on turn 10-12, it depends on your match-up. In any case, if I missed anything please let me know. I’ll see you guys next week for a Pauper deck tech!
As I started to read this, my wallet burned red hot in my pocket.
I opened it. My credit card was on fire. My eyes bled. Legacy Magic has claimed another victim.
Heard some people complaining that Colossal Dreadmaw is in every set now and I thought, what if Colossal Dreadmaw WAS in every set?
Wasn’t it a special Archenemy card too?
Iirc, Colossal Dreadmaw is one of the Phenomenon cards from Planechase too
I have some additions! @fresh-prince-of-beleren
Apex of Power MTG: CORE 2019 Ad: Cynthia Sheppard ©2018 Wizards of the Coast LLC . #mtg #magicthegathering #CORE2019 #illustration #fantasy #wizards #wotc #game #cardgame #gamer #bolas #art #digital #digitalart
Kill me once, shame on you. Kill me twice, shame on my agent.
My art for “ Mistcaller “ for MTG Core 19! This was a especially difficult card for me with so many figures in the background. I am happy with how it came out, thanks for checking it out!! 📞💨💙 Art prints are now on my website!
Art Direction - Cynthia Sheppard . . . . . #mtg #magicthegathering #mtgdaily#mtgaddicts #mtgcommunity #funko#funkopop #gamer #tcg #tabletopgames#standard #modern #legacy #pauper#commander #edh #vintage #tinyleaders#wizardsofthecoast #wotc #hasbro #gppittsburgh #mtggp #pittsburghgp #mistcaller (at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
ウルザの後継、カーン/Karn, Scion of Urza
Isn’t she beautiful? 14/10
Definition: Trace or sign of something that once existed
Usage: They hadn’t officially broken up, but she felt their relationship was running on fumes and that only vestiges of their former affection remained.
Related Words: Scintilla (a tiny bit or trace), Residue (remainder, leftover part after something has been removed.
More Info: Vestigial features in biology are those left over from a previous stage of evolution—for instance, the hind limbs of whales and snakes, and the tailbone in humans. Thus, when a baby is born with a protruding tailbone, it is called a vestigial tail (as featured in the 2001 film Shallow Hal).
Definition: Abnormally pale (as skin); lacking color or vitality
Usage: When Adolfo left the office mid-day, we knew from the pallor that had overtaken him that he really was getting sick. / We need this blog to really hit hard against the special interest groups ruining our country, and your pallid writing isn’t doing it—you’re going to bore people to death with this wimpy prose.
Related Words: Wan (abnormally pale), Sallow (sickly-yellow in color)
Nicol Bolas
Pre Mending or Post Mending: Pre
How they are alive post mending: Natural longevity as an Elder Dragon
Color(s): Black/Blue/Red
Race: Elder Dragon
Homeplane: Unknown
Know Visited planes (that we’ve seen in cards): Alara (All shards and reborn), Tarkir, Dominaria, Amonkhet
Sets/Storylines: Agents of Artifice, Conflux, Zendikar, Scars of Mirrodin, Hour of Devastation
Known Other Planeswalkers (that we’ve seen as a planeswalker card): Ajani, Sarkhan, Tezzeret, Jace, Liliana, Ugin, Teferi, Chandra, Gideon, Nissa, Ral, Vraska
Bio: Elder dragon and tyrant of worlds, Nicol Bolas is one of the oldest known beings in the Multiverse. Mana hungry and wielding a triple threat of blue, black, and red spells, he’s a force of villainous destruction, crushing all magic—and minds—that stand in his way. Witness to countless wars, cataclysms, and rivalries, Bolas is one of only five elder dragons to survive the Dragon War. He’s also survived the destruction of his Madaran Empire on Dominaria at the hands of Tetsuo Umezawa, the epic duels between the Planeswalkers Leshrac and Teferi, and The Mending, which healed the universe and consequently changed the very nature of the Planeswalker spark, costing several Planeswalkers their lives. Nicol Bolas left a crumbling Dominaria before The Mending, implying that it couldn’t be saved. “I have prepared a suitable place for myself in that eventuality,” he said before departing through the Talon Gates. In fact, he had already begun plotting his next scheme for power. His “suitable place” was Alara, which Bolas had been watching for decades. Long ago, he began recruiting agents on Alara’s five shards—gathering individuals and groups who could secretly do his bidding. These agents have sown the seeds of dissent, creating chaos and conflict. Unknown to all but Nicol, the shards of Alara are reconverging into a single plane, and when that happens, he wants all-out planar war. Why?
His obsessive need to regain the godlike powers he had before The Mending. Back then, Planeswalkers were ageless shapeshifters whose supremacy was limited only by their experience and knowledge.This elder dragon had that power torn away from him, and he will go to any lengths to get it back. For Nicol Bolas, all the power in the universe is not enough.
Definition: Relating to the spring; fresh, youthful
Usage: Alma’s favorite part of gardening was the vernal reawakening that followed a frozen winter.
Related Words: Primaveral is a synonym. (The dish pasta primavera is full of vegetables—that is, “spring pasta”)>
More Info: The vernal equinox is a moment in spring at which the Sun is directly over the equator; this is associated with a change of seasons.
There is an interaction between these three cards that allows you to return both creatures to your hand while sacrificing them in the process of casting a spell. The interaction is complicated and even experienced commentators like LSV still have a hard time explaining it correctly on camera, so I wanted to clear up some confusion and misconceptions.
The loop works as follows, starting with you controlling all three permanents:
The biggest misconception about this interaction is that somehow things can be done simultaneously. Things can never be done simultaneously in Magic. Actions are always taken one at a time in a specific order, especially when you’re activating abilities.
The next biggest misconception here is that things can be done in any order, but this isn’t the case. If you sacrifice Scrap Trawler before you sacrifice Myr Retriever, then you’ll still be able to return both cards to you hand, but you won’t get a Scrap Trawler trigger for Myr Retriever dying since Trawler wasn’t on the battlefield at that time, which robs the loop of its ability to net you mana or extra cards.
The final misconception is that this loop can be executed outside of casting a spell. This doesn’t work because if you’re just activating KCI when you have priority, then the triggers from Scrap Trawler and Myr Retriever will go on the stack before you can get all the cards into your graveyard and so one or more of the triggers won’t be able to find the correct target in the graveyard since targets are chosen when the triggers go on the stack.
I hope that this post has helped to explain this interaction better. If you have any followup questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch through my inbox.
Definition: Charming, engaging, esp. in a sweet and innocent way
Usage: It’s hard for some to believe that Lindsay Lohan, known for her current run-ins with the law, was once the winsome young starlet in Freaky Friday.
Related Words: Ingenuous, Guileless, and Artless are all related to being genuine and sincere (perhaps a bit naive). An Ingénue is a young—presumably innocent—actress or female performer.
Memory Trick: Being winsome will help you win some friends.
