Welcome to SilverBlack Nemesis Week Three coverage!
SilverBlack Nemesis is a series on Gatherling.com that is based on the Legacy SilverBlack format. Never heard of Legacy SilverBlack? Check out the Construction section! Legacy SilverBlack is a wide open format with a lot to offer. The buy-in price to build a deck is reasonable and there are a lot of viable options for what can be played. Jund, Madness, Mono Black Control, Infect, Tokens, Affinity, Hexproof, Red Deck Wins, White Weenie, Goblins, Elves, Counter-Top, Thopter-Sword, Fecundity... it's all here and viable to play! Legacy SilverBlack may have the widest selection of viable decks of any format. Have an old favorite you don't play anymore because it cycled out of standard or isn't viable any longer in regular Legacy or Classic events? Maybe Legacy SilverBlack can breathe new life into the deck! Check out the Construction section for deck building details.
For those of you who are still not familiar with Legacy SilverBlack here is a recap on the format:
First let's talk about how the format is constructed. SilverBlack events are so aptly named because only Uncommon (Silver Logo) and Common (Black Logo) cards of any given card set are legal. Deck sizes are what you would expect, a minimum of 60 cards in the main deck and either a 0 card or 15 card sideboard. And of course, as the name Legacy SilverBlack indicates, we are using the Legacy card pool.
The ban list for this event consists of 17 cards:
From left to right and in alphabetical order the banned cards are:
Last week it was an all tribal final as Elves took on Goblins to decide the event winner. After the smoke cleared it was clear that the new deck to beat was Elvish Melody as it posted a 2-0 victory against the little red maniacs. And honestly, it wasn't even close. Here is the list for the elf deck that lost only a single game in 4 matches and stormed its way to victory as players simply didn't pack enough board sweepers to contend with it.
Elvish Melody
As played by MTGO Player ztrman at SilverBlack Nemesis 1.02
My plan for this week was to play a version of the popular Classic Pauper deck list, Elvish Melody, but since ztrman brought it and won the event with it last week, I thought instead I would bring something I believe will stomp the daylights out of Elves! Muhahaha. And that is Mono-Black Control. Take a look at the deck tech video as I go through what I think are the perfect Elf and Goblin weapons black has to offer. After the strong performances last week for both Goblins and Elves, I am sure they will be back again this week.
My round 1 opponent was maxwell400 who had an interesting Goblin Burn deck with sac effects that could be pretty fast. This was a match where my Standard Pauper experience really paid off as this deck reminded me of an old Standard Pauper deck list I had once played called Kuldotha Hawk. Engineered Plague turned out to be the star of the show and justified the reason I had played it main deck. This turned out to be a bit of a back and forth slug fest, but I took the match 3-1 after wearing him down in the third game.
Goblin Burn
As played by maxwell400 at SilverBlack Nemesis 1.03
I had long awaited the opportunity to play my next opponent, ChrisMH77. This is the man who was behind the Heirloom series moving to Gatherling.com, and he really is a nice guy. I think he is a great addition to the PRE community. ChrisMH77 is an ingenuitive players who I have seen dig himself out of a number of situations where I thought he was a goner, so I was hoping for a really fun match. Sadly his draws were less than ideal, and I was easily able to take the match 2-0 while much of the time Chris was just sitting there prone waiting to get pummeled.
Jund
As played by ChrisMH77 at SilverBlack Nemesis 1.03
My next opponent was Rakura who is another very ingenuitive player who has a real knack for coming up with interesting new tech for common archetypes. Don't ever make the mistake when you are playing him to think just because you have seen the archetype he is playing that you instantly will know what he has in his deck. Rakura always packs a few surprises that you won't expect, I mean really, who plays Dodecapod? The match turned out to a bit of a brawl with some really funny moments as at one point when Rakura's deck had stalled I oblige him when he asks me to hit him with a Hymn to Tourach. Rakura is often misunderstood with his off key sense of humor, but he is always fun to play.
So heading into the final swiss round I was ranked in first place and was one of only 3 undefeated players left along with bobafett501st and the always dangerous pk23. Gatherling matched me up against bobafett501st who was on Jund, a deck I had already beaten in the 2nd round quite easily. This time however, the shuffler seemed to feed him everything he needed and every game of the match was an all out brawl. In the second game I was on the verge of being beaten 2-0 when I drew a miracle Drain Life to win the game. In the final game of the match I made a huge mistake by using a Geth's Verdict on my turn which then allowed my opponent to still attack me with the saproling tokens and a Loxodon Warhammer for 6 damage. Had I waited till his turn, those saprolings generated by the Sprouting Thrinax leaving play would not have been able to attack me for an extra turn due to summoning sickness. This was a strategy I had used in the previous game to give myself just enough time to pull the winning Drain Life. From there it was all down hill as I was just too far behind to stabilize.
Jund
As played by bobafett501st at SilverBlack Nemesis 1.03
Another week, another strong 3-1 finish. I have to say this is the most fun I have had building decks in a long time. There is so much to choose from! Honestly, I could build a new quality deck for each week of a complete season without playing the same archetype more than once. In the four Legacy SilverBlack events I have played a different deck each week, and placed in the Top 8 each event! UG Madness, Hexproof Aura's, Goblin Fecundity, and now Mono-Black Control.
Here is how the final standings worked out this week:
Finally Jund makes its mark on SilverBlack Nemesis this week as bobafett501st is able to take the deck 5-0 beating some extremely tough competitors. You had to know that with the volume of players that were showing up each week with Jund that it was just a matter of time before someone ended up in the winner's circle with it. Jund deck lists as of this week are the most played deck's here at SilverBlack Nemesis. However showing up with a Jund deck certainly doesn't mean you will do well as overall the Jund list has performed very mediocrely going 20-15 overall and only 3 Top finishes. Still the deck list is fun to play and is quite fast for a midrange deck with creatures that are quite resilient. The addition of the Loxodon Warhammer really helps give the deck both survivability and an extra "umph" in its attack. You can't argue that bobafett501st has found a winning list that I am sure will make an impact going forward.
Jund
As played by bobafett501st at SilverBlack Nemesis 1.03
And again a Goblin deck finds its way into the top deck lists this week with legendary player pk23 at the helm. pk23 brings the mono-red list in with a nice twist adding AEther Vial to the list that both speeds up the goblin drops, and makes it much more difficult for control decks to handle. I also like the use of Quest for the Goblin Lord which turbo charges the little red fanatics once 5 have been played. And remember, the problem with Goblins, is where you see one, you will usually find many.
Counter-Top again shows why it is considered one of the best decks in the format taking a 3rd place finish. Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek is still the favorite finish for the list. I find the use of Foil in this list quite disconcerting as now you can't even count on the Counter-Top player being tapped out to make playing a card counter free.
Counter-Top
As played by EightSixEightSix at SilverBlack Nemesis 1.03
Mono-Black Control with Cabal Coffers is quite a powerful deck list as I demonstrated this week. This marks the second time that a MBC deck has taken one of the top spots.
Still there is room for improvement, as I was talking to pk23 after the event was over this week he pointed out to me that Drain Life should probably be replaced with Consume Spirit if you aren't going to play both since Consume Spirit will allow you to gain more life than a target creature has toughness. A limitation that helped to contribute to my final match loss in the event and keep me from going undefeated. Playing the Consume Spirit can mean additional survivability for the list because of this extra life gain.
As well I am willing to concede that (Patherazer of Ulamog) probably should be replaced with Artisan of Kozilek since it is both easier to cast at a cmc of 9, and allows you to return your Nighthawk or Crypt Rats back from the graveyard when it comes into play, adding a two for one card advantage. And I am sure if I looked at it for a bit, I would be able to build a better sideboard. Still the list was good enough for a 3-1 finish and very narrowly missed winning the entire event.
ztrman is back again this week with an Elf deck, only this time he leaves the song and dance out. With all the cantrips from the elves I was questioning myself if Distant Melody was actually needed. I am not sure if it is the lack of Distant Melody or the increase of board sweepers this week that caused Elves to drop out of the top position.
Cloudpost makes a big splash this week with a blue/White version featuring Artisan of Kozilek as the big finisher. The white is splashed in for legendary card Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile both of which are top removal cards. This way of the Artisan of Kozilek doesn't get you, cl3m can clear a path for the Trinket Mage and Mulldrifter to pick away at you until you are done.
The big story this week in the metagame was the absence of Affinity as not a single player brought the list. This after last week Affinity had jumped to the top spot. I am not sure why the drop off occurred as I believe the list was just starting to find its homeostasis with a winning list.
Also for the first time swamps are no longer providing the most popular mana, as red this week was the most used color which meant more burn and less discard. Of course this also meant an increase in aggro as well. People are still branching out to build new and interesting deck lists and try different combinations of winning cards. Infect finally gets on board with another appearance as does RB Vampires and 4C Control. However all of these new lists fail to crack the top spots so more work is needed.