Much Abrew: The Jankiest Turn 2 Kill in Legacy: Scroll of Fate
Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. This week, our exploration of Legacy continues with a deck that looks a little bit like an Against the Odds deck: Legacy Scroll of Fate combo! So, what is our deck trying to do? Stick a Scroll of Fate; manifest some extremely undercosted creatures with negative enters-the-battlefield triggers like Phyrexian Dreadnought, Eater of Days, and Hunted Horror; and then flip them up into massive threats, getting around their enters-the-battlefield drawback. With our best draws (and with help from Tainted Strike), we potentially can win as early as Turn 2! Is it really possible that classic jank cards like Eater of Days and Hunted Horror have a home in Legacy thanks to Commander "all-star" Scroll of Fate? Let's get to the video and find out; then, we'll talk more about the deck!
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Much Abrew: Scroll of Fate
Discussion
- Our video today was actually a mashup of two leagues. In the first league I played with the deck, we went 1-4, although the one win featured a Turn 2 kill, so I didn't want to leave it out of the video. In the second league, we went 2-3, which is better but still not good.
- The good news about Scroll of Fate is that the deck is incredibly explosive. With our best draws, we can have a Phyrexian Dreadnought attacking (possibly with infect) on Turn 2! The good games with the deck are really, really good. The bad news is that the deck can be frighteningly inconsistent. If we can't stick a Scroll of Fate or Torpor Orb, we can't really cast any of the threats in our deck. (I tried casting a Eater of Days naturally in one game, and skipping two turns was as devastating as it looks.)
- So, here's the plan: mulligan fairly aggressively for either Scroll of Fate or Torpor Orb, which allows us to cheat Phyrexian Dreadnought, Hunted Horror, and Eater of Days into play and hopefully beat our opponent down with one or two undercosted threats before they can find an answer. Thanks to the London mulligan, it's not that hard to mulligan into a decent hand, although cards like Force of Will, Daze, Thoughtseize, or artifact destruction can ruin our day.
- Phyrexian Dreadnought is by far the most powerful of our payoffs, being both the cheapest and the biggest. Hunted Horror is cheap and big enough that it can attack through almost all the popular creatures in Legacy, although it does take three turns of attacking to win the game. Finally, Eater of Days is really powerful, but four mana is a lot for our 20-land deck. We had quite a few games where we managed to manifest an Eater of Days but couldn't flip it up in a timely manner because we didn't have the mana.
- Outside of our combo pieces, we have two groups of support cards. Dark Ritual and Tainted Strike help to power up our combo further. Dark Ritual allows us to cast Scroll of Fate on Turn 1, or Torpor Orb plus Phyrexian Dreadnought. Meanwhile, Tainted Strike allows either Eater of Days or Phyrexian Dreadnought to kill with just one attack. Technically, Unearth probably belongs in this group as well, as a way to reanimate Phyrexian Dreadnought or Hunted Horror, but it felt so bad in the deck that it probably should be cut. We just don't have enough reanimation targets to make it work (or ways to get creatures in our graveyard, especially considering that Swords to Plowshares is the removal spell most likely to deal with our big threats).
- The other group of support cards is interaction, headlined by Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach to clear removal and counters from our opponent's hand. Liliana of the Veil can come down on Turn 1 with the help of Dark Ritual and either deal with a creature or start attacking our opponent's hand. Murderous Rider gives us more removal, but it felt super slow and clunky in our deck. It's hard for me to imagine that with 25,000 cards to choose from, it's the best option for the deck.
- It's also worth mentioning that the deck is pretty cheap for a Legacy deck, at just over $1,000 in paper and $150 on Magic Online. If it weren't for Phyrexian Dreadnought being on the Reserved List and costing almost $500 a playset and the one copy of Volrath's Stronghold (which can also be cut—it didn't do anything in either league), the deck would be under $400.
- While I'm not sure there is a way to fix the deck's consistent issues—every threat needing a combo piece to resolve is a feature of the deck rather than a bug, but it does make the deck inconsistent—there are some potential upgrades, especially in the mana base, where cards like Wasteland, Castle Locthwain, and even Mishra's Factory could give us some extra power. Adding a couple more lands probably couldn't hurt either—it felt like we got stuck with one-land starts pretty often. Unearth and Murderous Rider felt pretty bad, and Liliana of the Veil felt really solid with Dark Ritual. Adding more copies over the under-performing reanimation and removal spells makes sense. Even with these changes, we'll still have games where our opponent deals with our Scroll of Fate or Torpor Orb and we don't do much of anything, but they do seem like they should add a bit more power to the deck overall.
- All in all, Scroll of Fate is probably more of a Legacy Against the Odds deck than a truly competitive option. It's just too inconsistent. Could it 5-0 a league? I think it's possible—the deck is really strong when it runs well—but it would probably be more the result of getting lucky for a few matches in a row than anything else. The good news is the deck is hilarious. Nobody in Legacy expects to get run over by an Eater of Days!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
