Playing a Vintage Deck in a Legacy Event

There is a certain feeling that you get from time to time where you know you have the best deck in the room by far. You have an uncanny advantage that simply can't be matched, like playing an Extended deck in Standard, or a Legacy deck in Extended. The same holds true for playing a Vintage deck in Legacy, you simply feel too powerful.

Black Lotus? Check
Ancestral Recall? Check
Mox? Check
Demonic Tutor? Check*

Please note that by "Check" I really mean: I'm playing 4. For a while now I have had a casual interest in making a Tendrils Storm deck, the same casual interest that made me trade for Dredge. I looked up a list online, which included 4x Brainstorm, 4x Ponder, 4x Preordain, 4x Duress, Tendrils of Agony, Ad Nauseum, fetchlands, 2x Underground Sea, and 4x Dark Ritual, all of which I had, so I decided to actively pursue it. The deck wasnt hard to get from there. $10 got me 2 Infernal Tutor and an Il Gotten Gain, and I was able to quickly trade for 2 Italian Infernal Tutors. But then there were those Lion's Eye Diamonds..... LED is a $50 card which is played in Dredge, but there were many lists without any, but you simply could not play ANT (Ad Nauseum Tendrils) without them. I was walking around the SCG open yesterday (which I will post a report on soon) and saw Star City Games selling a bunch for $50 each. I passed, but then decided to buy an Italian one I saw from another Vendor at $45. I talked to the third vendor, and they said they didn't have any, but if they did they would sell it at $35. I was pumped and checked between every round for 7 rounds, but to no avail as they either never got any in or sold them immediatly.

Fast forward to the end of round 7 where I drop after going 4-3, I head over to the opposite corner of the facility from the Standard event where there is a huge trading Bazaar (of Baghdad). I managed to wurm myself a spot and proceded to not get up for 4 hours and spent the time straight trading. I walked around a bit, then crammed in another 2 hours of trading. 5 hours in I still had seen 0 LEDs, even in binders I wasn't trading with. Then the clouds parted and the angels cried out in a melodic harmony as this guy in a bright orange polo and big black cruffy beard comes up to me and asks to trade. There, in all of its glory and wonder, is 3 copies of Lion's Eye Diamond. I snap hand him the high value binder and he points out his interest in my 2 Tropical Islands. I soon move him the 2 Tropical Islands for the 3 LED to finish the set!

Fast forward to Sunday, I am sitting at my bed laying out cards for ANT and I only have to proxy a Thoughtseize and a Cabal Ritual in the maindeck! I immediatly make the proxies, play a few games solitare style, and pack it up for the legacy event. For reference, here was my list:

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Preordain
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Lotus Petal
4x Infernal Tutor
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Ad Nauseum
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Il Gotten Gains
4x Thoughtseize
4x Duress
4x Polluted Delta
3x Misty Rainforest
2x Verdant Catacombs
2x Underground Sea
3x Island
2x Swamp

Sideboard:
1x Tropical Island
4x Xantid Swarm
10x other stuff

I never read the decklists when I read an article unless it is something I actualy want to build and I want to see how close I am to making it, so let me give you the TL;DR list:

12x Instant/Sorcery for U that draws cards
4x Black spell that nets 1-3 black mana
8x 0 mana artifacts that make mana
4x Card that gets some 1-ofs
8x Hand Disruption spells for B
4x Singleton spells that build storm and win the game
16x Land

Yeah, this deck exemplifies the power of KISS (keep it simple stupid), and because of that it's very consistant. For those not in the know, you are a combo deck with your only kill card being the 1-of Tendrils of Agony. The other 59 cards in the deck enable that card to kill your opponent. How is it so consistant? How do your games play out? Assuming you don't simply draw the nutty kill in opening hand, you want to Duress/Toughtseize to clear your opponent's hand while Brainstorm/Ponder/Preordaining until your hand is just right. Here are the key cards to have in hand before going off:

Lion's Eye Diamond
Infernal Tutor
1+ Dark Ritual/Cabal Ritual with Threshold

Now, just having those 3 cards wont get you to 9 Storm before casting Tendrils, cards like Lotus Petal and additional Rituals should be sandbagged in hand before going off. Here is a good combo turn:

1 Duress, take only disruption (if there is more disruption than you can answer, do not engage)
2 Dark Ritual
3 Dark Ritual
4 LED
5 Infernal Tutor, retain priority, sac LED to discard hand, fetch Il Gotten Gains
6 IGG, returning Dark Ritual, LED, and Infernal Tutor
7 Dark Ritual
8 LED
9 Infernal Tutor, retain priority, sac LED to discard hand, fetch Tendrils of Agony
10 Tendrils of Agony

(Infernal Tutor can search for any card a la Demonic Tutor if you're Hellbent. Hellbent, like Metalcraft, checks its respective resource upon resolution, so by retaining priority when you cast Infernal Tutor and sacrificing LED to discard your hand, you resolve Infernal Tutor in its Hellbent state and get anything you want.)

That seems pretty straighforward, right? Well if you get rid of the first 2 spells, things get awkward.... All the mana works out assuming you have 2 lands in play, but you will have a storm count of 7 when you go to cast Tendrils, which will only deal 16 damage.... It is in moments like these you grab Ad Nausaum instead of IGG, and draw as many cards as you can off of it. From there you should by able to get a storm count way beyond 9 and kill your opponent. Also, IGG lets your opponent get 3 cards back from their graveyard too, so if they have counterspells, it may just be better to get Ad Nausaum and not get blown out by a Force of Will.

So like I said, I wound up sleeving this bad boy up and took it to the Legacy event at Toys. When I got there, the normal joking around began, and Winchester came up to me pulled out 4 Leyline of the Void and said, "I got these just for you!" I calmly responded, "You know I play Chain of Vapor right?" to which he simply said he could kill me before I drew it. That seemed to satisfy him, and I smiled very wide because he had no idea what he was getting himself into.

Round 1: Anthony, Goblins
I don't remember a lot about our games, but that's because they were over very quick. He was having mana flooding like crazy both games, and I was able to combo out under no pressure twice in a row.

2-0
1-0

Round 2: Andrew, Fish
I was playtesting this matchup a bunch before the event started, and it wasn't lookin too good. He puts me under pressure, which makes Ad Nauseaum worse, and he plays counterspells, which makes IGG worse. Untilmately it didn't matter as I was put under intense pressure with soft counterspell backup. Game 2, I brought in the Xantid Swarms, and got one on turn 1 with an otherwise loose hand, but he got a Jitte on a dude and used one counter to kill the Swarm. All of a sudden I'm incredibly vulnerable and he aggroed out from there.

0-2
1-1

Round 3: Mike, Mono-blue control
I was watching Mike's game from round 1 where he was playing against Keith's mono-white control deck, and naturally they had a draw. His deck was a wall of counterspells, followed by Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and Teferi. I felt like I should have a good matchup as long as I was able to disrupt him. Game 1 I had no gas but 2 Duress and a Thoughseize, so I kept. I killed a counterspell with Duress, but he had 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptors. I drew into a Preordain and started sculpting my hand. I should have taken away his other Jaces, but I didn't. He landed a Jace and brainstormed. I REALLY should have Duressed him here, but once again I didn't, instead opting for a Brainstorm at the end of his turn, drawing my top card and passing, leaving a Dark Ritual on top. My hand consisted of Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Cabal Ritual, LED, Infernal Tutor, Duress, and Thoughtseize. He played a 5th land and slammed down a Jester's Scepter, with 2 lands up. I knew he had a Dark Ritual, so I had to go into the tank..... 4 lands in play.....
1 Duress
2 Thoughtseize, hand is now just land
3 Dark Ritual, countered by the Scepter, leaving him tapped out
4 Lotus Petal
5 Cabal Ritual w/Threshold
6 LED
7 Infernal Tutor, sac LED, grab IGG
etc for win
Game 2 He got another Jester's Scepter in play, but I guess he didn't like it because he bounced it back to his hand with Echoing Truth and replayed it. I cracked a Misty Rainforest and studied my deck trying to discern what he took. I didn't count out all the 4-ofs, but I noticed there was no Il Gotten Gains or As Nauseaum, so I just scooped. Turns out his first Scepter just had a Brainstorm and land, while the second one had Ad Nauseaum, IGG, Preordain, Ponder, Ritual, aka the nuts. Game 3 I don't remember but I think it involves a turn 2 kill.

2-1
2-1

Overall, I was thoroughly satisfied with the deck, and really glad I traded for those LEDs! I have also incorperated them into my Dredge deck, which simply makes it faster then before! Now instead of having to wait all the way to turn 2 or 3 to win, I can do it turn 1 from time to time! It's insane decks like this one that really get me excited to play Magic, because it's dramatic and completely off the wall! Now I can have even more fun at the Legacy events by concealing whether I'm Dredging or Storming (or Counter-topping if I feel like being boring) until M1G1! Until next time, stay classy!

*If you haven't figured it out by now, Black Lotus is LED, Ancestral Recall is Brainstorm, Mox is Lotus Petal, and Demonic Tutor is Infernal Tutor