Forcing the Will: Reveillark

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Forcing the Will. Today I will go over the rather short and very disappointing MTGO Legacy Metagame for the past month, and will be covering the deck known as Reveillark. So let’s dive right into the Legacy Metagame so that you can get to watching those videos!

MTGO Legacy Metagame

9/14/2011 (Event #2829976)
(4-0) Dark Horizons
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Ub Merfolk
(3-1) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) Sneak Show

9/15/2011 (Event #2830018)
(4-0) Landstill
(3-1) Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT)
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Deadguy Ale

9/17/2011 (Event #2830118)
(4-0) GW Haterade
(3-1) Reanimator
(3-1) Zoo
(3-1) Dark Zoo
(3-1) Aggro Loam

9/18/2011 (Event #2830160)
(4-0) Aggro Loam
(3-1) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) Zoo
(3-1) Elves
(3-1) Stone-Blade

9/22/2011 (Event #2853414)
(4-0) CounterTop/Thopter
(3-1) Aggro Loam
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(3-1) Red Deck Wins (RDW)
(3-1) Elves

9/23/2011 (Event #2853464)
(4-0) Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT)
(3-1) Stone-Blade
(3-1) Dark Horizons
(3-1) Natural Order (NO) RUG
(3-1) Aggro Loam

10/1/2011 (Event #2873234)
(4-0) Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT)
(3-1) Zoo
(3-1) Red Deck Wins (RDW)
(3-1) 3C Thresh
(3-1) Imperial Painter

Top Winning MTGO Legacy Decks Breakdown

This month there hasn’t been very much activity going on in the MTGO Legacy scene, and the number of winning decks further proves just how depressing the Legacy metagame has been this past month. With only 34 decks walking away with prizes, it’s hard to say that there is really much of a metagame at all at the moment. The past two weeks only two Legacy Daily Events have fired. There are many possible reasons as to why this has happened. I believe that the low attendance in Legacy is due to the fact that lots of players have been playing the new Modern format, Legacy players are waiting for Mental Misstep to be officially banned online (which it is now), and that players have been waiting for or are playing in Innistrad events. I can’t say for certain that these are the reasons for such a huge decline in Legacy participation, but I hope that this is just a little slump and that Legacy will gain momentum once more. Only time will tell, but with this few data, there isn’t much to really discuss, so I will continue on to the next portion of the article.

Reveillark

Reveillark is a deck that has been around for a few years now, and was once a very popular deck in Standard. It eventually found its way into the Legacy format with some obvious changes since Legacy has access to such a large card pool compared to the Standard format. The basic idea behind the Reveillark combo is to be able to get some sort of sacrifice outlet onto the battlefield such as Carrion Feeder, and use its ability to create an infinite loop by sacrificing Reveillark, which would then target Body Double and Mogg Fanatic, which eventually pings an opponent to a slow, painful death. The most common way to get this combo working correctly is to get Protean Hulk into play and then sacrifice it so that you are able to get both a sacrifice outlet and Body Double. From this point, you would then use Body Double‘s enters-the-battlefield ability to target the Protean Hulk, which you would then sacrifice to fetch Reveillark and Mogg Fanatic. This combo is a little confusing at first, especially while reading, but after seeing it in action, it’s fairly easy to grasp. I will now show you the Reveillark build that I decided to play.

KillerOwen's Legacy Reveillark

Creatures (20) 1 Academy Rector 4 Birds of Paradise 1 Body Double 1 Carrion Feeder 1 Fauna Shaman 1 Mogg Fanatic 1 Progenitus 2 Protean Hulk 1 Reveillark 1 Starved Rusalka 2 Tinder Wall 1 Viscera Seer 1 Wall of Roots 1 Wild Cantor 1 Xantid Swarm Other Spells (20) 4 Cabal Therapy 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Green Sun’s Zenith 4 Natural Order 4 Pattern of Rebirth Lands (20) 3 Ancient Tomb 2 Bayou 2 Dryad Arbor 1 Forest 1 Gaea’s Cradle 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Phyrexian Tower 1 Savannah 1 Scrubland 4 Verdant Catacombs Sideboard (15) 3 Carpet of Flowers 2 Go for the Throat 1 Krosan Grip 4 Leyline of the Void 1 Qasali Pridemage 2 Slaughter Pact 1 Sylvan Library 1 Xantid Swarm

Buy this Deck

As you can see, not only does the deck contain the Reveillark combo, but it also carries the Natural Order (NO) combo as well. This is fairly common with green-basd decks in the Legacy metagame, and it also gives us another way to win, which is why I favored this build over others. I will now cover the deck and play some games in the videos below with the Reveillark deck, and hopefully show you the basic idea behind this deck and how it functions. Nevertheless, I hope you found these videos useful or at least somewhat entertaining. If you have any criticisms, comments, or questions about the deck or videos, or just feel like bashing on me as a player and commentator, feel free to post a comment below, or contact me either by email at ForcingtheWill@gmail.com or on MTGO at KillerOwen.

Reveillark Deck Tech

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Round 1

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Round 2

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Round 3

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Round 4

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Well, there it is folks, the Legacy Reveillark deck. I will be the first to admit that this deck took some time for me to get somewhat used to, and by the mistakes and poor choice of hands I kept, it is apparent that I am not very skilled with this deck and the play style that is required to master it.

You Choose the Deck!

In this section I let you, the reader, choose which deck I will be covering in my next article! Here is a list of decks that you have to choose from, followed by a list of rules for voting.

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Make sure to get your votes in fast, as I will only allow two to three days before choosing the winning deck to cover in my next article. The more votes, the better, so get your friends to log in and cast their votes, as well.

Also note that if there is a specific version of a deck you would like to see, include a link to the list if possible.

That’s all for this installment of Forcing the Will. I hope you enjoyed this article and were able to learn something or at least be entertained by the Reveillark deck. Please leave any comments, questions, or requests you have (positive or negative), and I will do my best to respond to them. And until next time, may the Force of Will be with you!

Owen Robbins