Karakas Control
Ever since I heard about Karakas, my mind immediately drifted towards EDH. I ask myself, "How broken would it be if I could get a free
Unsummon
every turn?" The thought was tantalizing. This thought would have to be tabled for some time. When I tried to make a modern
Torpor Orb
deck with some hidden technology in
Leyline of Singularity
, where my
Hunted Troll
would instead of giving my opponent 4 fairie token, only one. The deck went places or rather it went into the garbage since it sucked. However the Leyline was now in my arsenal of card knowledge.
Now during
Nahiri, the Harbinger
's reign during modern, I was compelled to create something akin in Legacy. Now with Nahiri being as strong as she was, I thought to hell with it, why not bring in the rest of the game breaking 4-drop planeswalkers and played a playset of
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
and
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
. With any option of overpowered planeswalker, I reshaped the game for my opponent into being completely about getting one of three win conditions off the field, while I continue to accumulate value in free looting, brainstorms, or ..., yeah looking back on it now Chandra didn't really do anything important but test for counterspells in control player's hand or immediately down tick to remove some creature.
The
Karakas
Leyline of Singularity
combo works out so well in our deck and no one elses' since we have no need for multiple piece of our gameplan for board presence on the field, since planeswalkers are already legendary and our enchantments do nothing for us in multiples.
To preface, the deck does NOT hinge entirely on this combo. It just happens to be living the dream.
Now after many nights of piloting Legacy Enchantress and slamming
Leyline of Sanctity
on round one against any deck with black in it, I started getting a feel for how important not getting my planeswalkers
Thoughtseize
d was. So in came 4 Leylines of Uninteraction. Coincidentally, I also got the pleasure of blowing out storm and burn on game one.
Now by itself there is no real chaff in this deck. Drawing a
Leyline of Singularity
on turn one feels bad or even having two in the opener, but it's not that bad since we can pitch it to
Force of Will
, loot with
Nahiri, the Harbinger
,
Brainstorm
away with
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
or even just cast the damn thing and bottleneck our opponent. Even late, it can be very disruptive and make multiple
Tarmogoyf
s for our opponent just sit in hand. And if we use our
Karakas
then we have essentially fogged our way out of the game since our opponent is unable to go wide.
Leyline of Sanctity
however, is 90% a dead card if not out on turn 0, so just trash it as soon as possible.
This is not a proactive deck, where you cantrip aggressively. Though you might be tempted to use mana efficiently, if you are not looking for something to interact with your opponent that needs to be addressed immediately.
Now my matchup history is useless right now, since I played this deck when
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
was new and I stopped playing legacy since the software I played this deck online with stopped working for my computer. However, I do recall much success and few failures. Our obvious hard matchups are against Delver and Control. We are light on permission and I found that fighting for my own spells often left me losing the game. Post-sideboard we have better fighting chance with our
Trinisphere
s, but it's still not easy. The rest of the SB slots should be obvious when and where to slot in. Every other deck we have a fair chance against, except for aforementioned, storm and burn, both of which I hate with a passion.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
was a decent utility planeswalker, but ultimately I am a bit unenthusiastic about it. I'm experimenting with
Gideon of the Trials
to maybe play a more defensive gameplan in combination with the already very creature restricting
Leyline of Singularity
.