Are you a Quiet Speculation member?
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
Today's list is 100% John McCain approved. If you're not familiar with Legacy Maverick, it's a strategy dedicated to grinding opponents out with green and white cards, with a few extremely powerful metagame choices such as Karakas to shut down Show and Tell/reanimator and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to capitalize on all of the Brainstorms in the format. Some people mistakenly categorize Maverick as a beatdown deck, but the real story is that nothing is in the deck strictly because it attacks well, though some of the creatures certainly do.
There really aren't enough cards available in Tiny Leaders to make a strong Selesnya Maverick deck, but there is a lot to be gained by going into Abzan. It just so happens that there is an Abzan Tiny Leader that has a random graveyard hosing ability, which give the deck some random percentages against things like Varolz, the Scar-Striped.
One of the big incentives to playing Anafenza is access to Knight of the Reliquary. There are a ton of non-basics that you can play to power up Knight, with the aforementioned Karakas being extremely powerful against some leaders. Tutoring for Wasteland is also quite powerful, and a miser's Gavony Township goes a long way as well.
There are a number of other powerful options for tutor-able lands, such as Dark Depths, Thespian's Stage and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, but for the direction that I took the deck these were all omitted. This is my preferred list:
Anafenza Maverick
The power of this deck lies in the resiliency and the versatility. There are a ton of ways to recycle cards in the graveyard, with Recurring Nightmare + Eternal Witness being an absurd engine, and that's only the plan if the opponent can even survive your initial onslaught of Stoneforge Mystic of Dark Confidant into Anafenza.
The biggest downside to the deck is the mana, and it might even be right to just not run any basics. You'll find yourself losing to some random Blood Moons, but if the deck's mana doesn't otherwise perform, then the downside of being randomly hosed isn't as bad as the downside of the deck just not performing under normal conditions. Notably, there are a few black and white fetchlands currently omitted, and filling them in might just be the play.
It would appear that you are correct. Well, this is awkward. XD
This certainly makes Knight worse, but I don’t think it changes the deck. -Karakas +fetchland I suppose. Good call!
FLIf you live in Florida you should be aware that all court room prdeecoings are open to the public. The only exceptions are very sensitive matters, usually involving juveniles, which are handled in Chambers.
Dec12 When I initially commented I clicked the Notify me any time new comments are added checkbox and currently every time a comment is added I get four email messages with the same comment.
Isn’t Inquisition of Kozilek a better card than Thoughtseize in the format (not that you can’t run both…) ?
I’d also say Smother is nearly an auto-include in any TL deck running black…
You can replace the Karakas with Sejiri Steppe for a nice one-shot protection if you have KotR out…
Further embarrassment! I thought I had both discard spells.
The reason I don’t have smother is that exiling seems to have better mileage than smother, so I prefer the white removals for creatures.
Except with Anafenza out…all kill spells “exile”
I wouldn’t count on Anafenza just living all the time. With this deck’s curve, one mana is much preferred to two as well.
I have a very similar deck I just run a few spells that are different, and obviously no karakas. I have toyed with the idea of using kotr to fetch up man lands like stirring wildwood ect. but fear it will water down the mana base. I love the flexibility of a card like Shred Memory/Dimir Machinations in the format as well, pseudo tutor with a really relevant ability. Veil, Decay, and Swords with Den protector/witness recursion should be fine as a removal package accented by pulse/vindicate. Smother shouldn’t be needed in a 3 colour deck where you have access to so many other great removal pieces. I kind of think it’s redundant to have pulse charm and vindicate I’d suggest something like Read the Bones or Night’s Whisper but thats just my preferred style.