Return to legacy

Made top 4 in 39 person legacy tournament yesterday with basically the same UW countertop deck I've been running this year.

1 academy ruin
1 karakas
3 wasteland
2 mishra factory
1 seat synod
1 misty rainforest
1 polluted delta
2 scalding tarn
4 flood strand
2 tundra
1 tropical island
3 island
2 plain

4 brainstorm
4 swords plowshare
4 sensei diving top
3 enlightened tutor
2 spell snare
1 pithing needle
1 engineered explosive
4 counter balance
2 trinket mage
1 crucible world
2 ensnaring bridge
3 mindsculptor
1 humility
4 force will

side
1 tormod crypt
1 dispeller capsule
1 pithing needle
2 seal cleansing
1 circle of protection red
1 wall tanglecord
1 energy flux
1 ethersworn canonist
2 e bridge
4 shroud leyline

Only change I would make is to cut Humility which was worthless. By the time I have 4 mana, I need something that absolutely stabilizes, not leave them with some 1/1s that could finish me off. Frankly, I'd like to replace this with a cheap blocker like Wall of Shards, and same with the Tanglecord in the board, and thus make the trop a basic. Lastly, the 2nd Seal of Cleansing should become the 2nd Academy Ruins for matchups where tormod or EE recursion matters a lot.

Round 1 - GBU midrange
G1 We both mul to 6. He dazes my SDT I think, but I get CB t2 and resolve an ensnaring bridge vs a goyf. I draw another top, then resolve Jace and fast-track ultimate, while he's locked.

G2 I get t1 sdt, He gets t2 Dconf, Im holding FoW, CB and plow. I let dconf resolve, then plow it and let him force it, this is just bait to get CB down with Force back up, since that card advantage trumps dconf. This works as planned. Then he misses his first dconf trigger and mixes his draw for turn into his hand. I call judge, who is supposed to examine his hand, and reveal the highest cmc to both players and then he takes that much damage. Instead the judge had him reveal his entire hand and take highest cmc damage, which was FoW. This was pretty clutch information since enemy is also holding Jace and Extirpate, which greatly influenced how I left my sdt stack from that point forward. I CB counter his jace, and he eventually gets to extirpate my FoWs, which allows him to counter some of my additional threats like Crucible and Jace. But he never deals with CBtop so in the long run I kill his team and go the distance with factories.

Round 2 - Colin Wu w Time Spiral
G1 - I assumed he was playing his usual techy countertop build, and got blown out by hightide chain on t4.
G2 - I greedy keep [e-tutor, plains, factory, waste, ruins, bstorm, snare] luckily my tutored ethersworn canonist resolves on t2, and I draw blue mana on t3, which lets me counter his cunning wished snap. I draw a Fow to pitch my bstorm to on his chain of vapor. canonist guarantees I win all the counter wars and he's dead the following turn.
G3 - I have better mana this time, plus shroud leyline t0. I tutor for canonist on Colin's t3 endstep, he Meditate in response, which I Force since 4 cards are worth more to him than an extra turn is to me. He doesn't counter war, making me fear he is saving it for Canonist. But no it resolves. For the rest of the game my draws are Force, Leyline, Force, Leyline, Force, and I hardcast all three on his various attempts at bounce spells. It turns out Colin was in fact playing Wipe Away, but for some reason he always Merchant Scroll or C Wish for other things, misreading me as out of counters.

Round 3 Brandon Adams w Doomsday
G1 - I have t1 sdt, and t2 CB. Brandon has a full, full grip though and builds up lots of mana, he finally attempts to go off on like t8, and makes me use up a lot of mana switching my top card, and resolving some rituals in the mean time. It all came down ironically to my having put needle on polluted delta much earlier, which kept him from getting the last blue mana he needed to Meditate and perhaps gone off.
G2 - I open with double leyline, which made me feel a little safe, though Brandon is running E-Truth and Reverent Silence. He gets t1 Xantid which doesn't really matter since most of my defense is permanent based. I tutor for Canonist on his endstep and resolve it t2. That guy absolutely pulled his weight today. Brandon gets off Doomsday behind Xantid, and I play inexcusably loose here, but was not in any real danger.

Round 4 vs Dredge
G1 - He gets pretty fast team built up, and I have t3 e-bridge, but can't get my hand count below 1 and he has 4 or 5 1/1s which kill me.
G2 - Board out all the counterspells. He has needle on tormod, but I stabilize at 8 life w e-bridge vs 8 power worth of zombies. Eventually Trinket for Tormod, then Jace to bounce Trinket for EE, kill his needle and wipe out his 40+ card yard.
G3 - More of the same. I e-tutor for tormod on t2 and knock him back 3 turns worth of yard development, while all he has is a Putrid Imp onboard. This gives me ample time to get Ebridge and then counter+top.

Rd 5 ID
Rd 6 ID

Top 8 vs Dredge
G1 - He makes just land drop t1, then t2 Breakthrough which I Snare. I plow his first 2 creatures after that, with Jace behind Ebridge for enough turns to ultimate.
G2 - I get academy ruins + Tormod pretty quick. Basically this match up is a bye.

Top 4 vs Calcatera w GBU midrange
G1 - Nick mulls to 5, but my 7 isn't great and worse after losing roll and hit with t1 Thoughtseize. The reason I kept though is I know his list has no basics, and I had double wasteland vs his first two land drops. and he never gets another blue mana, so I get to do whatever I want

G2 - I have countertop and Ebridge vs 2xtgoyf. But he resolves Jace and then it becomes very difficult to actually counter his threats, and even though I have Crucible on top of my library, and playing as tight as possible, eventually he fate-seals + K-grip and I lose my bridge and dead to 12 power worth of lurgoyf.

G3 - We fight a lot of counter wars. Nick has 2xtgoyf + dconf and known nature's claim in hand, vs my just 5 lands and SDT. Its 10pm now and I punt bad. I see e-tutor in my top 3, but just flat forget that engineered explosives is in my deck, so instead I'm wondering how to protect Ebridge vs his artifact removal. I just die to combat damage instead of wrathing him.

It was a fun tournament. I really wanted to drop Energy Flux vs one of the several Tezzeret agro decks present. I'm quite satisfied with this archetype despite the pros abandonment of counterbalance. Turn 1 top, turn 2 CB still feels like the most unfair thing one can do in this format. Good job to Nick Calcatera winning the Timetwister.