Check out my Aggro-Combo-Control Deck!

I have noticed recently that I have been having more and more of an inclination to play the controlling role across all formats from Legacy to Limited. There is a certain comforting feeling knowing that if you play your cards right (literally) than you simply can not possibly lose. It feels awesome to be able to make your entire opponent's deck cold. However, on the other side of the coin, all of the most dominate decks in history have been beatdown/fast combo decks. Putting your opponent on an unstoppable clock before they can stabelize and take over the game.

So can we get the best of both worlds? Some decks have, most notably Merfolk in Legacy by playing control with Standstill, Force of Will, and Wastelands while playing the beatdown role by hitting with a ton of small creatures dropped into play extra fast with Aether Vial. Another deck, Caw-Blade had been able to do it in standard, although to an expected lesser degree, by attacking every turn while leaving up counterspell mana thanks to Sword of Feast and Famine.

I have been playing Countertop for legacy the past couple weeks, although I dropped 3 Counterbalance from the deck last week, and it didn't hurt that bad. How about we take it a step further and just drop the whole counter-top package from the Countertop deck? Looks like we need a new name for the deck....

I present you.... everything:

3x Thopter Foundry
1x Sword of the Meek
1x Trinket Mage

4x Enlightened Tutor
4x Ancestrial Visions
4x Brainstorm

3x Thoughtseize
4x Swords to Plowshares

2x Firespout
1x Pithing Needle
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Humility
1x Crucible of the Worlds

4x Force of Will
2x Spell Pierce
3x Counterspell

4x Flooded Strand
1x Poluted Delta
2x Misty Rainforest
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Volcanic Island
1x Tropical Island
3x Tundra
1x Underground Sea
1x Tolaria West
1x Acadamy Ruins
2x Mishra's Factory
1x Island
1x Plains

Sideboard:
1x Pithing Needle
2x Mindbreak Trap
2x Firespout
1x Runed Halo
1x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Krosan Grip
2x Relic of Progenitus
3x Rhox War Monk

When I was testing Pyromancer Ascension for standard, I found myself joking around saying what I really wanted was Ancestral Visions as a card draw tool to close out games. Well, the only format it's legal is Legacy, so that's naturally where I looked to include it first. It felt good as a way to give the card advantage necessary to shut down games in Countertop, and since I was phasing out the Countertop package anyways, it feels like a natural substitution. Sensei's Divining Top is awesome, but we're not combo and we're not playing Counterbalance, so it's just a card that smooths out draws, but doesn't actually do anything itself. Ancestral Visions, on the other hand, is an epic T1 play. It allows you to play more proactively to shut down the opponent with Thoughtseizes and Counterspells before refilling and mass producing Thopter tokens.

This is obviously a very complicated deck, as it literally has answers to EVERYTHING. Sometimes that means you can be stuck with the wrong tool for the job at hand during game 1, but the sideboard is designed to be just as diverse so we don't run into these problems for games 2 and 3. The easiest way to attack this deck is to disrupt the Thopter-Sword combo, so I have 2 man-lands and the 3 Rhox War Monks. Another place this deck is weak is that is is completely vulnerable to Wastelands. I decided to include the Crucible of the Worlds to combat that threat in addition to allowing us to hit every land drop by bringing back a Flooded Strand every turn (which has the nice deck thinning effect too).

This is the list that I think I will be running for Legacy this week. It may be a bit overzealous and risky, but I didn't come to play the easy game. I came to take risks and see what we can do with them. Maybe this 5 color mana base won't even be a problem? Theres only 1 way to find out!

Until next time, stay classy!