I've been toying around with Legacy again recently and, after taking such a long break, it feels good to be playing what I believe to be the best format out there again. It's definitely given me the bug to play a bit more competitively. Now, I say "a bit more" because I was never one to play anything meta. My brother and I usually try to come up with or find silly strategies (often combos) to bring to our local events. The main goal is to have fun trying to make these off-meta decks work. So, if we do well with them, the victory tastes that much sweeter! We've even had success with some of these decks in local and larger events. One such deck that I've found recent local success with utilizes the incredibly cheap and surprisingly effective Nomads en-Kor + Daru Spiritualist combo. So, when thinking of a deck to write about for this week's casual article, I was more than a little influenced by my renewed excitement for the two White creatures.

About Face Combo| Casual | James Heslip

• Creatures (22)
• 2 Shaman en-Kor
• 2 Task Force
• 2 Pathmaker Initiate
• 4 Benevolent Bodyguard
• 4 Daru Spiritualist
• 4 Nomads en-Kor
• 4 Militia Bugler

• Instants (18)
• 2 Gods Willing
• 4 About Face
• 4 Condemn
• 4 Hearth Charm
• 4 Invert // Invent

• Lands (20)
• 6 Mountain
• 10 Plains
• 4 Wind-Scarred Crag

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Cost: $12 at the time of publication

The Core

In order to actually win the game, we'll be casting either our namesake spell About Face, or the Invert half of Invert // Invent. Both cards invert the stats of any creature we choose. So, in choosing Spiritualist, we can potentially deal infinite combat damage to our opponent!

The Backup

Being a combo deck, our list can be broken up into three primary pieces: The combo, the consistency, and the protection. We've already mentioned the primary combo pieces of Nomads, Spiritualist, and the Power/Toughness swappers, but there are a few secondary combo pieces worth mentioning. Hearth Charm has some use outside the combo, dealing with artifact threats or pumping our scores of smaller creatures, but its primary use is in making our Spiritualist or Task Force unblockable, making our kill much easier to achieve. Pathmaker Initiate serves the same purpose, and though it costs more to cast initially, we can activate its ability at no cost, which can be very helpful in situations where we're low on mana.

Much of the consistency of the deck comes from the sheer number of each of the combo pieces we're able to play. Since many of these cards have alternate versions, we're able to fill the list with six or eight copies of each without issue. Two thirds of the combo are small creatures, though, so Militia Bugler has been included as a way to dig through chaff and find exactly what we need. Though we'll mostly be searching for Nomads or Spiritualist, our enthusiastic marching band soldier could also find evasion in Pathmaker Initiate, or protection in Benevolent Bodyguard.

Protection is an important part of any combo, as we need to prevent our opponent from disrupting our straightforward strategy long enough to win with it. Since two parts of the combo are creatures, removal spells like Doom Blade or Swords to Plowshares are the biggest roadblocks to our success. So, Benevolent Bodyguard and similar spells are gravely necessary. Bodyguard acts as a "free" protection spell, negating removal at instant speed with no activation cost. Gods Willing works much the same way, and while it does have a casting cost, it is more easily hidden from the opponent, and comes with built in scry! Finally, Condemn acts as both protection and a combo piece! If needed, it can be cast to clear out any large attacking threats that we can't wall off with our infinite toughness and damage redirection. We can also use it on our own creatures, though. Targeting a post-combo Daru Spiritualist with the removal spell results in us gaining an arbitrarily large amount of life, effectively winning the game in that our opponent will likely never be able to kill us!

Playing the Deck

Should the opponent have too many blockers, and a Hearth Charm or Pathmaker is nowhere to be found, don't forget that the color protection provided by Bodyguard and Gods Willing also give evasion for that color. If the opponent has only a single color of creature in play, your path to victory could be as easy as naming that color.

Finally, don't be afraid to play your combo creatures early and use them as protection. Because you can redirect all damage from your en-Kor creatures onto your infinite-toughness creatures, you almost never have to worry about losing them to combat damage. This also makes it almost impossible for them to die to burn spells and effects.

Additional Options

Additional Options | Casual | James Heslip

• Creatures (8)
• 1 Recruiter of the Guard
• 1 Gavony Dawnguard
• 1 Plargg, Dean of Chaos // Augusta, Dean of Order
• 1 Warrior en-Kor
• 1 Dwarven Thaumaturgist
• 1 Mannichi, the Fevered Dream
• 1 Tireless Tribe
• 1 Selfless Savior

• Instants (4)
• 1 Inside Out
• 1 Emerge Unscathed
• 1 Brave the Elements
• 1 Strange Inversion

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 Shuko

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Most of what we see here are worse alternative combo spells Mannichi, the Fevered Dream and Dwarven Thaumaturgist could be found with Militia Bugler, but their casting cost likely makes them unplayable. Strange Inversion and Inside Out suffer the same problem, and while the latter draws us a card, it's much more important for us to keep the combo as cheap and quick as possible. Shuko is an alternative to the en-Kor creatures, but is more difficult to search for in this shell, and requires at least two creatures in play in order to go infinite. It's also not possible to activate it at instant speed.

Emerge Unscathed, Brave the Elements, and other similar spells could replace Gods Willing or other spells as needed, though I prefer Willing because of the scry effect. Selfless Savior is an alternative to Benevolent Bodyguard, but it doesn't have the potential to help our creatures evade blockers.

Plargg, Dean of Chaos // Augusta, Dean of Order, Gavony Dawnguard, and Recruiter of the Guard could all be added in if you feel you need more ways to consistently find your combo. Of these, Recruiter is by far the best, but a full playset would cost you nearly $100, which is likely out of the question for most casual players. It's certainly not something I'll be dropping my money on any time soon. At least, not for this deck.