The Maverick Monthly – What’s Being Played? October 2019

Hey there! Welcome back to the Maverick Monthly, your source of what’s been happening with Maverick over the past month. You can find the August and September editions where we discussed the main archetypes of Maverick and their current position in the meta.

Maverick’s been in a tough spot over the past few months with a large portion of players moving over to Depths or Loam builds, leaving the archetype off the tables. In saying that, there have been some really solid results from leagues and tournaments around the world for Maverick during October, so let’s jump straight into them.

GW Maverick:

MTGO Player: BalenciagaNBoba
MTGO Legacy League: 5-0 (Undefeated)
Deck: GW Maverick
Decklist found here

This is an obvious case of “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it”. Again BalenciagaNBoba has kept with the same list, choosing Sword of Feast and Famine as their sword over the more popular Sword of Fire & Ice. Sunlance too taking a spot in the sideboard over Path to Exile with Boba making sure the majority of current threats of the format are being answered without giving your opponent any sort of advantage. The full playset of Choke in the sideboard is absolutely punishing against RUG Delver and other heavily U-reliant decks in the format such as UW Miracles and Sneak & Show. As Boba hasn’t changed anything from his last 5-0 with Maverick, you can find where I went into some detail regarding this list in the last Maverick Monthly.

MTGO Player: Altniccolo
MTGO Legacy League: 5-0 (Undefeated)
Deck: GW Maverick
Decklist found here

Collector Ouphe makes its way into the maindeck alongside 3 Tomik, Distinguished Advokist . I really like Ouphe in this build that isn’t running Stoneforge Mystic – or any equipment for that matter. Right now Stoneforge without Batterksull just seems a little…meh. An equipment fetcher that takes a few too many turns to setup, I would much rather card advantage through Sylvan Library or other Green Sun’s Zenith targets right now.

The sideboard here is streamlined, simple and hard-hitting. The playsets of Knight of the Reliquary and Elvish Reclaimer are paired with a maindeck Bojuka Bog to deal with opponents’ graveyards in G1 and also set up that free win through Dark Depths & Thespian’s Stage. It’s not every day you see such a clean sideboard strategy, especially in a deck with Green Sun’s Zenith, which tends to direct players towards playing multiple green silver bullets in their sideboard.

Altniccolo has taken a different path and gone with 4 different non-creature spells to round out their sideboard. Choke for U matchups, Force of Vigor to clear any pesky artifacts or enchantments, Surgical Extraction for the combo and graveyard-based decks of the format, and Veil of Summer to counter any type of hand disruption and wins from cards like  Tendrils of Agony. I actually through this was some sort of error when I first saw the amount of cards in the board but the more I think about this setup, the more I really like it.

MTGO Player: Albrekt
MTGO Legacy League: 5-0 (Undefeated)
Deck: GW Maverick
Decklist found here

Once Upon a Time is a card that’s seen a fair amount of play so far in Legacy Depths variants. However, Albrekt has found success with it in traditional GW Maverick taking his list undefeated through a MTGO league. As the first spell you cast, this card is amazing. But as time goes by and you have cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in play, I’m a little less excited about it. UOAT does act as a small Zenith effect and allows you to hopefully find that non-green, game-breaking threat like Plague Engineer or Sanctum Prelate, but is it worth diluting your creature base to fit these in your deck?

I’m really happy to see Albrekt testing UOAT and obviously being rewarded with it – hopefully more players come out and try it in different Maverick decks to see where it fits.

MTG Player: Lucas Nunes
Super Eternal Challenge @ Brasil: Top 8 (6th)
Deck: GW Maverick
Decklist found here

Tireless Tracker , Mindbreak Trap and Celestial Purge aren’t cards you see too often anymore in Legacy Maverick, yet Lucas has taken his list to a dominant top-8 finish at a Super Eternal Challenge in Brasil. Tracker hasn’t see too much play recently since the rise in aggressive Delver decks and Lightning Bolt in general – but when players don’t expect Tracker, that’s when it shines. Mindbreak Trap is a great card against Storm and Elves, however, Veil of Summer has pushed more players away from Trap. The fact that you can cast a Veil naturally is a huge advantage, where only sometimes you may be lucky enough to hardcast a Mindbreak Trap (however, if this is where the game is, you’re most likely winning!).

Celestial Purge is a great answer to Wrenn and Six , Dreadhorde Arcanist, Marit Leige and other threats in the current format and takes the spot of removal like Abrupt Decay in non-black builds. However, it is much more narrow than Council’s Judgment. Of course, each has their pros and cons, which I went over in my last article, universal removal in Legacy Maverick.

Daze is also one of the most played cards right now and is catching players who are trying to either tap out for a threat or be a little too tricky with their sequencing. Tireless Tracker has an interesting relationship with Daze. Most players want to tap out for Tracker and then make their landdrop to get instant value, as if Tracker has an ETB effect. Daze, however, makes this play much worse and may force players into not getting this value just to play around a suspected Daze. I’ll admit this is a pretty unique situation, but it’s something to take into consideration when you’re playing with Tireless Tracker against Delver decks.

GWB Maverick:

100年ぶりにマーベリックでMOリーグ5-0😇

5-0 at MO League by GWB Maverick !

Game history and Updates are shown below. pic.twitter.com/YfHQFC6D3a

— なおすけざむらい (@naosuke_samurai) November 1, 2019

MTG Player: naosukesamurai
Event: MTGO League
Deck: GWB Maverick
Decklist found here

Naosuke went 5-0 through a league with this unique GWB list, including maindeck Council’s Judgment Abrupt Decays and Assassin’s Trophy. This removal is on top of the 3 maindeck Swords to Plowshares and is most likely a further flexible answer to not only creatures, but also Planeswalkers. Naosuke also trying out 2 maindeck Gilded Goose for ramp and life gain, as well as a maindeck Plague Engineer to hedge against creature decks. I haven’t tried out the Goose myself and am waiting for a little more data on how it performs without another food generator like Oko, Thief of Crowns. I don’t feel Maverick is a deck that tends to have the 2 mana each turn to keep creating food, and really relies on mana dorks to gain a board advantage early on.

Blast Zone is also a great out to the current meta of maindeck Planeswalkers like Wrenn or Oko or hard-to-remove threats like True-Name Nemesis. Blast Zone has the added advantage of being an uncounterable piece of removal (Wasteland aside) and can be tutored with Knight.

GWR Maverick:

This is a Naya Loam list that I wanted to discuss as it seems the archetype is becoming more and more popular and could be interesting to many Punishing Maverick pilots. Shout out to Dreadnaught33 who is a players who’s been getting some great results with Naya Loam recently.

MTGO Player: Ultimar
MTGO Legacy Challenge: 6th Place
Deck: GWR Depths
Decklist found here

The 1-of Hexdrinker is a small amount of spice in this Naya Loam list from Ultimar, who took it to a 6th-place finish in the Legacy Challenge. Naya Loam plays similar to Punishing Maverick, where you still have your Green Sun’s Zenith package and disruptive elements but rely on Mox Diamond, Wrenn & Six and Life from the Loam to stabilise and accelerate your mana in the early game instead of relying on mana dorks. For those who’ve played or know of 4C Loam, the list is very similar but is missing one key piece in Chalice of the Void. Opting for Swords to Plowshares and more 1-drop creatures like Elvish Reclaimer, Naya Loam is ready for the Delver matchup where Chalice (sadly) just doesn’t really cut it anymore.

The Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast in the sideboard are also great cards to negate the effectiveness of the current blue decks in the format, being able to deal with cards like Jace, TNN and Oko on the stack. It’s always interesting to see these lists where the Grove of the Burnwillows and Punishing Fire combo seems to fit really well. However, with Wrenn and Swords to Plowshares, it’s just not needed and in all honesty, just a little too slow. Don’t get me wrong though – there are many players online still running Grove & Fire in their Naya and 4C Loam builds with great success.

Spice Rack:

Questing Beast is seeing more and more consistent play as a great maindeck threat. A non-boltable, non-decayable creature that attacks the turn it comes down isn’t something to dismiss lightly. Even better, it attacks face AND can deal with Planeswalkers at the same time. The ability to also trade with a Goyf or Gurmag (no matter their size) may not be the best 1-for-1 trade, but it allows you the option. You can read more about my thoughts on Questing Beast in Legacy in my article summing up its potential in Legacy.

Tomik is starting to see more play in GW Maverick as Delver and Depths decks run rampant. Tomik is a pretty huge bomb against Depths decks, stopping Hexmage and Stage interacting with Dark Depths and also stopping lands coming back from the graveyard through Loam and Wrenn. You would have seen its progression as a maindeck threat AND piece of protection in GW Depths however the move over to Maverick is, in my eyes, something only time was holding back.

You would have noticed since the release of M20 that Elvish Reclaimer has made its way into Depths archetypes as a staple playset. But what if I told you it was an up-and-coming staple for Legacy Maverick? The 1/2 turned 3/4 is showing up in more and more lists across MTGO and paper events, synergistic with Knight of the Reliquary and Maverick’s plan to have a toolbox manabase. Although a fine choice, I’ve never been a fan of Bojuka Bog in the 75 of Maverick without access to Crop Rotation. The addition of Reclaimer in Maverick does change my views, as it allows you to have an instant speed Bog online as early as turn two as well as setting up utility lands like Blast Zone and Karakas.

Conclusions:

Maverick is still in no-man’s land. It’s not a Tier 0-1.5 deck but it’s definitely not Pox (I’m so sorry). With the amount of players jumping over to Depths and Loam variants, the potential top-table results have of course dropped off. But it is great to see some players sinking their teeth into the archetype, trying out newly printed cards and seeing where changes could be made to bring the deck back into the metagame light.

Fight hard, fight fair. A metagame isn’t always defined by numbers and data. If you feel you’re good enough with your deck, play the hell out of it.