No UWR for me in Legacy
For the first time in a very long time (probably since BOM Paris last November!), I played Legacy. I took UWR (Owen's build) to an 8-man at Dark Sphere and went 1-2, winning against Doomsday, and losing against Miracles and BUG Delver. Some quick thoughts from yesterday:
I think UWR is poorly positioned against UWR and BUG Delver. Miracles can take its time to setup a big turn and UWR doesn't have a good enough clock with enough threats to close out the game. I found Dazes, Spell Pierce and Wastelands incredibly poor in that matchup. I would hate to have to play this matchup multiple times over a course of a big tournament and for that reason alone I think I'm dismantling UWR.
I had a slightly easier matchup against BUG, but this was mostly due to its vulnerability to Wastelands. I also found that BUG Delver isn't as kold to RIP as I thought it would be. I was better off holding back mana on turn 2 to counterspell a Liliana as there was no way I could get a threat to stick once Lili hit the board. Oh, and there's also Tombstalker out of BUG which only StPs can handle.
GBP8.50 for Nightveil Specter is really expensive. I was thinking of buying a playset for funsies for Vintage, but at that price, I would rather pass. It's great not having the time for Standard... I don't have to be sucked into buying cards which are rather expensive for the amount of use I would have gotten out of them.
BUG in Vintage is only good if you can land a Null Rod. Even if you do land up protecting it, I'm still kold to Hurkyl's Recall or Tinker. This card should be either a 4-of, or a none of. I wonder if RUG Delver in Vintage is any better, but I'd lose the security of being able to fire off uncounterable Abrupt Decays.
Mana denial is probably the best strategy to go for against Doomsday. Not only do they need BBB to resolve the namesake spell, but they also need cards in hand to build storm for the Tendrils finish. They could of course, go for the Lab Maniac/Emrakul win, but that takes time. Keeping them off black mana seems to be the working strategy. Also, Meddling Mage on Burning Wish is sweet. Another cool play from yesterday: Dazing a random spell to tax them, returning a Tundra to ensure that my opponent couldn't Massacre for free. Geist of St. Traft out of the board was better than TNN as it clocks for 6 (instead of 3) although its a lot more vulnerable to Pyroclasm.
Next up: build Vintage Humans and Jund.