| Rogue Elephant: The Art of Tapping Sideways | by Paul David Jones on 17/06/2010 | Legacy Elephants
Tapping sideways to win has always been a popular tactic, but it has mistakenly tagged as simple. Any style of deck can be effective, and even the least experience player can make plays to change the game. Tapping a Grizzly Bears sideways and playing giant growth isn’t the most challenging a play, I’ll admit that, but neither is tapping 2 blue mana and playing Counterspell. Much like in control decks it all comes down to making the right move at the right time. One thing that players forget is that playing around counterspells can often be trickier than actually playing them.
When my friend first suggested to me that we build decks for legacy, the first thing that sprung to mind was “Green beats”. This was not said with much thought, but almost instinctively. My friend laughed and claimed it wouldn’t work, so at that moment I knew I had to go for it!
 
Its always a shame when the flavour text out does the card
I’d never played legacy before and I only started looking into it 2 weeks before the GP Madrid Trial in Manchester. I’d not been to an event this big before so I looked into the legacy meta. Legacy Meta, its an interesting concept; the fact is, its varies so much that there almost isn’t one. The best I could figure is that you need to deal with dredge and other graveyard recursion, the rest of it is guess work. Right away 4 Tormod’s Crypt where placed as sideboard. I placed a Gaea’s Blessing in the board as it’s a good utility card that gets you out of a good few problems, Oxidize deals with any annoying artifacts and Vexing Shushers was there to deal with counterspells. I had a sideboard sorted, but what am I playing in the deck itself? How can I deal with a turn 2 or 3 combo in mono green? Looking further into legacy I found my answer, and it seemed so obvious, Winter Orb. I’d always had a great appreciation for this card, but I always thought it to fit in combo decks and the like, but I found a barely heard of archetype known as 10 Land Stompy. The deck utilizes Quirion Ranger to play around the Orb, allowing the deck to play out with just one mana. This seemed like a genius idea, so I got building.
 
Sorry Gideon, you don’t get to untap if I play the Alpha print
Running on one mana I needed to choose the best one drops I could. I got online and started ordering cards while I checked gatherer. I found creatures like Jungle Lion and Ghazban Ogre, unfortunately I couldn’t find any Jungle Lions in time and Ghazban Ogre seemed a little weak. The creature that impressed me the most though, was the inspiration for this article, Rogue Elephant. I dug through my old elf collection from when I first started playing the game, finding Skyshroud Elite and a collection of boosts. The deck began to take shape.
At the GP Trial I managed to get a not so impressive 2-3 score, placing 12th out of 19. The result wasn’t fantastic, but having not played the deck or the format before, I was happy with how it played out. Since I’d not played legacy before I didn’t even mind losing the game, instead I’d just watch the mad combos in awe, impressed by turn 2 wins and ridiculous cards I’ve never seen before. It was a refreshing change from playing against Jund over and over.
I took another look at the deck afterwards and done some actual play testing. I realised one thing, playing Might of the Old Krosa on a Rogue Elephant and swinging for 7 is really satisfying. Unfortunately, having just bought a new computer, I felt splashing out on Berserks seemed a little excessive, so I decided to play the deck without them.
 
Terastodon gets you 3 of these guys
When I arrived at Fan Boy 3 for there monthly legacy event, the deck looked like this;
3x Winter Orb
3x Hidden Gibbons
4x Quirion Ranger
3x Might of Old Krosa
4x Skyshroud Elite
2x Briar Shield
1x Beserk
2x Giant Growth
4x Rancor
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
2x Skarrgan Pit-Skulk
2x Talara’s Battalion
1x Tarmogoyf
4x Jungle Lion
3x Rogue Elephant
4x Land Grant
1x Nettle Sentinel
3x Vine Dryad
2x Verdant Catacombs
8x Forest
Sideboard
4x Rushwood Legate
1x Hidden Gibbons
1x Winter Orb
2x Null Rod
1x Oxidize
4x Ravenous Trap
2x Wheel of Sun and Moon
At the GPT it became apparent that Engineered Explosives was a big problem for the deck. I lost 2 matches due to the card and my Oxidize could do very little about it. Baring this in mind I ordered myself a few Null Rods to replace Oxidize. I wasn’t happy with Tormod’s Crypt. It sits in play letting your opponent know it needs to be dealt with. I opted to replace it with the more surprising Ravenous Trap. I also took out the mana intensive Vexing Shusher for Rushwood Legate as it fits my ‘kill them before they get the chance’ style of play.
 
Because everyone playing Force of Will gets tiresome
I’ve discussed the sideboard first since they were the simplest changes, the main deck itself was hard to build; not due its complexity, but because in 17 years of Magic, there are a lot of good 1 drops. Jungle Lion is a Savannah Lions with a downside that you generally don’t care about, a 2/1 for 1 is always good, lets face it, can’t block is a lot better than Jackal Pups downside. Next I looked at Skarrgan Pit-Skulk, I must’ve given tons of these away in Guildpacts day, it wasn’t big enough for Gruul and seemed weak on turn one, but looking at it now it seemed unbelievable. In standard this card took up the slot of a turn one drop, which Gruul would prefer something like Seal of Fire and due to its good mana curve wouldn’t need to play anything for 1 afterwards, preferring the 3 or 4 drops like Burning-Tree Shaman or Rumbling Slum. However, in a deck like mine, turn two consists of dropping 2 mana efficient creatures; even after losing a land to Rogue Elephant I could still get a 2/2 with evasion the next turn. With Rancor attached, Skarrgan Pit-Skulk seemed easily as good as the elephant himself, with his evasion Rancor makes him a tough match for even Goyf.
 
Seems like a good turn two to me
When it came to choosing boosts, I went for the most damage I could get at the lowest cost; this included harder choices than you would think. Cards like Seal of Strength or Briar Shield are clearly effective damage, after all +3/+3 for one mana is the same damage you get from lightning bolt, but they do have their faults. The main problem with these cards is that they sit in play and warn your opponent of an oncoming threat, much in the same way as Tormod’s Crypt, although sometimes this can be beneficial since providing an obvious threat can unsettle an opponent, saving a Stifle for the Seal of Strength instead of a Force of Will for your Berserk. Speaking of which, Stifle is a problem. Playing a Seal of Strength allows you to boost when you need it without worrying about mana cost, this is strong against something like burn; but against blue control you give your opponent 2 chances to counter: the spell and the activated ability. The last issue that I noticed was Goyf, while sacrificing an enchantment boosted my Goyf, it also boosted my opponents as enchantment is usually one of the last card types to hit the graveyard. As I was only running 1 Goyf, this didn’t seem beneficial. However, I decided to run 2 Briar Shield as the long term benefit outweighed the one shot of some of my other boosts, giving my deck a stronger aggro vs aggro match up. This was also the reason in playing both Giant Growth and Might of Old Krosa, while Might does 4 damage for 1 mana and Giant Growth only does 3, Growth offers more versatility against an aggro match up. Getting a 2/2 past a defender to then boost after is a likely outcome, whereas boosting that little Nettle Sentinel to a 6/6 and swinging is likely to be met by a blocker.
 
Give due respect to the only battalion in the game!
So, I’m sure all you legacy players out there are thinking, “Why not 4 goyf? Are you nuts?” My answer would be, quite possibly, but I have thought this through. Tarmogoyf is renowned as the most mana efficient beat stick in legacy, and most decks splash green just to play it, but unfortunately in this deck it had its down side. I found that quite often I’d be playing creature followed by creature, and removing cards from the game as costs. The dream start for a Goyf would be playing Landgrant to get a forest to sacrifice to my Rogue Elephant. At that point I get a 2/3 turn two (if I can get it out with a Spirit Guide), aside from this I was often playing a 1 /2 or a 0/1, not exactly threatening. I discovered that my ability to play a lot of things in one turn made Talara’s Battalion a much stronger choice. Tapping your 4/3 trampler sideways and playing Giant Growth definitely frightens your opponent on turn 2 and can be enough damage to defeat Ad Nauseum.
I hope that this article has inspired you to tap your guys sideways a little more often and to maybe give a little more credit to those that do. Some people like to play control, some like to watch control players sweat. Whatever you style, I hope to see you at the next Legacy event.
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The Week Ahead
Tuesday - Casual, EDH & more at West Coast Gamers (7:15pm)
Wednesday - FNM at The Gaming Crypt (7pm)
Friday - Standard FNM at Cleator Gaming Club (7pm)
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