| Maine. Ingram. Dickerson. Stevens. Ross. If you've been watching Season Two of the SCG Tour, you're familiar with each of those names. And as we make our way into the dog days of summer, these five are competing for three invites to the Players' Championship. Only 15 SCG Points separate the leader, Andrew Maine, from #SCGATL champion, Tom Ross. But it's perhaps the three names in between Maine and Ross that are the most interesting. For Peter Ingram, it was his win at #SCGINDY with Jeskai Control that put him into prime position to secure an invite to the Players' Championship at the end of the year. A member of Team MGG, Ingram has flexed his muscles in Modern, but can he do the same in Standard this weekend? For Josh Dickerson, consistency has been the key. With a Standard Open win at the Columbus Invitational, a 35th-place finish at #SCGMKE, and a 32nd-place finish at #SCGATL, Dickerson's consistency has kept him in the running all season. Can he keep it up this weekend at #SCGORL? For Todd Stevens, don't let the snazzy dress fool you. With format defining takes on Bant Eldrazi at #SCGINDY and Bant Humans at #SCGORL, the Texas native has demonstrated his prowess with all things white, blue, and green. Will he take another Bant strategy for a deep run in the sunshine state? We're all in search of answers to these questions and by the end of #SCGORL, we will have them. I'll be joined by Craig Krempels, Nick Miller, and the rest of the SCGLive crew as we make our way through 15 rounds of Standard action and crown a champion. If you can't make it to #SCGORL, be sure to watch all the action unfold over at twitch.tv/scglive! — Cedric Phillips, Media Manager @CedricAPhillips |  |  | Eldrazi And A Rain Of Filth Legacy is known to many as "The Brainstorm Format" and #GPCOL didn't prove otherwise. But is everyone's favorite Eternal format really as Brainstorm-filled as it's perceived to be? Patrick Chapin dives into the results to find out while helping you get ready for the Legacy Classic at #SCGORL. |  | Fact Or Fiction: The Green, The White, And The Ugly Will G/W Tokens dominate #SCGORL like it did #SCGATL? How important is sideboarding in this incredibly diverse Standard format? And is Merfolk actually the real deal in Modern given all of its recent success? Michael Majors and Ross Merriam break it all down in this week's Fact or Fiction! |  | Gerry VS. Majors: G/W Tokens VS. Sultai Control On one side, you've got the hot upstart, Michael Majors, and a powerful Sultai Control deck. On the other, you've got the grizzled veteran, Gerry Thompson, and his G/W Tokens deck that he went 15-0 with at #SCGATL. Who will come out on top? Find out in Gerry's return to VS! | | | Join Michael Majors for the SCG Tour Spotlight this week as he takes Todd Stevens' runner-up Bant Humans deck from #SCGATL through a league on Magic Online. |  | | With a couple of legacy Grand Prix just behind us and a Legacy Open in Worcester on the horizon, plus Legacy Classics at Orlando and Dallas, it seems like now is the right time to have your eternal deck perfectly tuned. The major events that just took place show Miracles to be one of the biggest players in the legacy metagame, but there is also a healthy dose of BUG decks (with and without Shardless Agent) and a large slew of other powerful but less represented decks. The top 8 decks from the two different Grand Prix may make the format look narrow or stifled, but looking further into the top 64 reveals a lot more strategies that were just a win shy of being on the front page. In diverse formats like Legacy, I want to be doing something that is on the unfair side of things. Summoning a 1/1 human for one blue mana just doesn't get me all that excited. That is why I will be packing Lion's Eye Diamond and Ad Nauseam for my next Legacy battles. Storm is crazy powerful, sometimes winning on the first turn of the game, and the deck is more resilient than many people think. The redundancy of the spells means discard is not always a successful path to fight the deck and storm also brings its own disruption with Duress and Cabal Therapy. Piles of cantrips churn through the deck until the tipping point has been reached and the storm player closes out the game. Let's all pack our raingear, dig up our Caleb Scherer invitational tokens, and harness the power of storm! | | 
It is notable that I play the full complement of Duress and Cabal Therapy. With the "all-in" nature of the deck it is important to first make sure the coast is clear. The cheap discard can strip away opposing counterspells or just disrupt the strategy of the opponent long enough for us to go off. This may seem like a lot of slots dedicated to discard but I am virtually never unhappy to draw it and every single other card in the deck is devoted to the combo kill. 
The Empty the Warrens had a home in the maindeck for a while because there were enough hands that contained explosive mana and a tutor but wouldn't generate the storm count needed for a Tendrils of Agony win on the first turn. However, the storm deck can almost always wait the extra turn or two by leaning on its discard and the Empty was just too painful to flip into with the Ad Nauseam. The goblins are now relegated to flooding the battlefield after sideboarding when it is not safe to rely on Tendrils alone. Some things to keep in mind as you play storm... It is the fastest and most dangerous deck in the room. Do not panic and walk into an opponent's disruption when it could easily be played around. A first turn Delver of Secrets or Deathrite Shaman is a good start but it is not actually that fast of a clock. So take your time, set up your hand, and go for the win on turn three, four, or five. Remember there are a lot of Wastelands waiting to blow up your thin mana base. Search for the basics early and then do not sacrifice additional fetch lands until you need to. There are also a lot of copies of Daze and Force of Will out there, just waiting to ruin the day for careless mages. Saving a Gitaxian Probe for later in the game instead of cycling it on Turn 1 will let you know precisely what cards you need to play around when it is time to win. 
A lot of the matchups get much slower after sideboarding. Again, take the time to assemble the necessary components and don't feel like you have to win immediately. Against Miracles I bring in A LOT of cards and grind them out over time. Xantid Swarm, Abrupt Decay, and Dark Confidant all come in. Knowing that a deck like Miracles is not going to be pressuring me early I can take out some of the explosive elements of the deck. Lotus Petal, Preordain (the worst of the blue cantrips), and two copies of Duress come out. The creatures are usually safe because other decks side out nearly all of their removal and the extra bodies in our deck can conveniently be cashed in to flash back Cabal Therapy. Against Death and Taxes strategies I want the Dread of Night, Massacre, Abrupt Decay, and Dark Confidant. The removal is so good against them that I end up with a lot of time to put together a winning hand. 
The last couple of sideboard slots are flexible and very metagame dependent. Before any big event I talk to as many competitive gamers as I can to get a feel for what decks are going to be overrepresented. The Hurkyl's Recall is just better as Rebuild if you are playing it as an answer to Trinisphere but that is not the case if you expect Thorn of Amethyst. Krosan Grip can be added if you anticipate a plethora of Leylines. The key is to decide what you want to be able to combat and then not get upset if you lose to some of the more rogue decks. Legacy is diverse, powerful, and fun. It is a format that generates a lot of unusual interactions on a regular basis. There is a lot more going on than I could pack into one little deck primer. Practicing with a combo deck that regularly plays a dozen spells in one turn is of paramount importance. Get your reps in with Storm and enjoy raining on the parade of everyone else at the Legacy Classic at #SCGORL! — Craig Krempels, @CraigKrempels |  |   If you would like to unsubscribe and stop receiving these emails please click here. |
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