Recently I have dipped my toe into the Legacy format in perpetration for Grand Prix Birmingham. While I will probably end up playing my beloved Burn deck (big shock I know) I have had a bit of fun brewing, thanks to the wide choice of cards the Legacy format provides. You can’t really understand how powerful cards like Wasteland or Force of Will are until you get to play them in a competitive environment. The only issue is that a lot of these cards, such as the original duel lands, are both expensive and hard to come across.
While I might have a limited budget, Magic Online provides a reasonably affordable avenue of play in the Legacy format thanks to digital produces been unaffected by such things as the Reserved List. I can try my hand at brewing with cards I would not normally be able to get my hands on, such as I have done in today’s article. After seeing the power and versatility of Stoneforge Mystic in the last couple of Legacy Leagues I played in, I was keen to try it out for myself. But instead of the usual plan of resolving a turn 3 Batterskull, I wanted to see if I could make uses of one of my pet cards for some toolbox shenanigans.
The key to this decks game plan is Sunforger. Sunforger is a rare artefact-equipment originally from Ravnica: City of Guilds that cost three and equips for the same cost. It gives the equipped creature +4/+0, but that’s not what we want to use it for. You see, for a white and a red we can unattach the Sunforger to search up a white or red instant from our library, and then cast that spell for free. This allow us a two-tier toolbox strategy. Firstly, we use one of our Stoneforge Mystic to search up our Sunforger, which we then equip and unequip to find the instant spell we need.
So, that’s the plan, but how are we going to pull it off. A playset of Stoneforge Mystics seems like a good place to start, but we could also do with some other creatures to equip to if the Mystic bites the dust. Playsets of Young Pyromancer and Mirran Crusader, along with two copies of Soulfire Grand Master will offer the backbone of the creature package. The Young Pyromancer will be able to create an army of 1/1’s to attach our equipment’s to, while the Mirran Crusader can be a game winner if he is equipped and connects with the opponent. The Soulfire Grand Master gives all our burn spells lifelink, and if we have enough mana we can recycle the instants that we have managed to tutor up.
Speaking of instants, we run playsets of Swords to Plowshares, Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix, with Mana Tithe, Red Elemental Blast, Boros Charm, Deflecting Palm, Skullcrack, Price of Progress and Fireblast as one of’s. Our playsets are most useful instants therefore we want to make sure we have a ready supply standing by. The other instants in our deck are more circumstantially useful, so we don’t need multiples since we can just grab one when we need it. Finally, we want to include a Umezawa’s Jitte and a Sword of Fire and Ice as back up equipment for when our Sunforger gets targeted by an Abrupt Decay or gets countered.
For our mana base we run playsets Arid Mesa and Bloodstained Mire to fetch up our four of Plateau or one of our basics. We also run two copies of Karakas to handle any pesky legendary’s, and four Ghost Quarter s as a budget alternative to Wasteland. The sideboard runs more copies of our one of’s for the match ups that we need them in. We also run spells like Smash to Smithereens and Wear//Tear to handle artifacts, as well as Rest in Peace to handle graveyards and two copies of Day of Judgment for when we just need to blow up the world.
Creatures (14)
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Soulfire Grand Master
4 Mirran Crusader
Non-Creature Spells (19)
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Mana Tithe
1 Red Elemental Blast
4 Lightning Helix
1 Boros Charm
1 Deflecting Palm
1 Skullcrack
1 Price of Progress
1 Fireblast
Artifacts (3)
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sunforger
Lands (24)
4 Arid Mesa
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Plateau
3 Plains
3 Mountain
2 Karakas
4 Ghost Quarter
Sideboard (15)
1 Mana Tithe
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Path to Exile
1 Boros Charm
1 Deflecting Palm
2 Smash to Smithereens
2 Wear//Tear
3 Rest in Peace
2 Day of Judgment
And there you have it, the deck I like to call Hammer Blade. After playing a few games with it on MTGO I think the deck has legs. It can attack from many angles, either swinging in with a Sword of Fire and Ice on a Mirran Crusader or burning our opponent out with Lightning Bolts and Helixs. But what do you think? Do you fancy blasting your opponents with fire and steel? What changes would you make to the deck, if any? Why not let us know in the comments below, and while you are there why not subscribe to the site to keep up to date with all the latest from us here at Master of Magics. But until next time remember, Good Luck and Have Fun.
