LML May is in the books! Winning this month was Khade’s Tempest-era black/green Stompy, which served up a clear reminder of the power level ramp that starts around Visions and begins to “push” many Old School cards out of playability, adding new powerhouses like Overrun and River Boa. In Greg’s defense, his deckbuilding strategy was visiting a local card shop and compiling a deck based entirely of cards they had on hand, somewhat of a double-edged sword type of restriction in this case (also in Greg’s defense, I expected my LML April “Lands” deck to get crushed by the field before it annihilated everyone). So it goes.
In any case, May certainly held up to previous months in terms of bringing an exceptional gauntlet of decks to the table. Paul’s “Faerieball” (faerie tribal with the ability to cast its single Fireball via Fire Sprites) was incredible, and I was happy to be the pre-LML opponent caught with my pants down the first time he pulled off the feat. And Jim’s Safe Haven/Ball Lightning deck! What a masterpiece. I played against Jim in week 2 and was completely enthralled by his use of Safe Haven and Animate Dead to recur Ball Lightning and Viashino Cutthroat (another strong card from the Premodern pool), a brilliant set of synergies that felt powerful yet balanced. Jim tied Greg in total points and duel win percentage, with an impromptu, unofficial match deciding their final tiebreaker. Well done!
My deck this month was built around Lich, a rad but precarious gameplan that most of the time fails to pan out. The idea was to draw into either Lich or Demonic Tutor, extending the game with thrulls, lifegain, and/or Greed + Ivory Tower and eventually draw many cards and beat down with littles. Things worked out once or twice, and during my first match an interesting question came up about Gate to Phyrexia: Previously, our group had determined that Life Chisel could have multiple creatures sacrificed to it during a given upkeep. Did Gate to Phyrexia work the same way? Seemed like maybe it should, given the similar wording...
It seems, though, that the key difference is the Gate’s use of the word “one” (“Sacrifice one of your creatures” and “destroy any one artifact”), whereas Life Chisel says “Sacrifice a creature,” a subtle but relevant distinction. I couldn’t find any further clarification in old Usenet posts, but the Oracle text on Gatherer confirms (even though we don’t necessarily abide by modern rulings) that Gate to Phyrexia is intended to include the clause “Activate only during your upkeep and only once each turn.”
This wasn’t how Adam and I interpreted it at the time. Hope I didn’t illegally steal a match win as a result...
Anyway, without further ado, behold the Legionnaire Magic League decks for May!
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| khade’s B/G Tempest Stompy (10 points + 2-0 tiebreaker match win) |
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| old_school_unlimited’s Safe Haven/Ball Lightning Combo (10 points) |
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| whiskeyjack_jg’s R/B Tor Wauki (4 points, also prettiest deck photo accolades) |
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| deegs_esq’s Faerieball (4 points) |
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| wanderingspecter24’s U/G/W Timmytime (4 points) |
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| mattfs5’s Lichgate (4 points) |
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| seodfac’s U/B Enchant World Menagerie (0 points) |
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| High-tech LML brewing process |
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