Legacy Titanic Dryad Primer
- May 8, 2022
- 12 min read
Updated: Mar 29, 2023
Welcome to the next and new card topic. Lately I have been focusing on so many outstanding issues that I forget to also create new things.
Relax. This is not another post about Nic Fit, so you don't have to be afraid that the issue will not be interesting.
A short introduction and here we go with the topic!
Remember! If you're unfamiliar with the Magic The Gathering card game, go to the basic knowledge supplements first.
Let's get it started
As you know or you don't know, among Legacy players in Poland, I am mainly associated with one deck. This is of course Nic Fit***. However, this is not the only deck I play in tournaments, and I think even a person who has a Pet deck like me should sometimes play something else. You may know, knowing me or playing against me, that the deck of second choice is the aforementioned Dryad. However, when we think about the Dryad card, Dryad Arbor first comes to mind.
In this article, therefore, I will try to highlight the following issues for you:
First, the origin of the deck and everything related to it;
Second, why did I choose to play with this deck and to whom I dedicate this choice;
Third, I will describe the deck, a brief description of MU with other decks. Unfortunately, I do not know all of them, so I will focus on those I know.
Fourth and last, I will present you some sample lists of how I happen to play and how to play. I hope you will be delighted. Let's move on to the main thread.
***
If you are not familiar with the concept of the deck - Nic Fit, below you will find a link in which I provided an explanation:
History Notes
It seems to me that before the printing of the aforementioned Dryad, there was also no deck in the metagame of Legacy that would resemble the above-mentioned deck - Titanic Dryad. If there was a deck that could come up with the closest overall characteristics to that deck, it would most likely be Loam or Lands. And now it happens that players playing this deck also call it Loamless Loam, Lands or simply Dryad and Titanic Dryad. So if we look at the origins of the deck, it is quite young for the Legacy format. An expansion like Theros Beyond Death, which also printed other famous cards like the killer Kroxa and the life-giving Uro, was released in 2020. And this year we should look for the beginnings of the deck.
If we focus on the idea of the name "Titanic Dryad", the idea was taken from the ubiquitous in the lists, titans like Primeval Titan and the already mentioned Uro. What's more, in the company of these two mighty creatures, the "Cavern of Souls" land, which played a key role in the casting of the just described giants, was also pushed into the initial decklists. This is how I described the first point to you so we can move on to the next one :)
Why this deck?!
I was once a very active modern player with a few less successes on my account. These were not some results on a national scale, but, for example, making a 5-0 result at the local Rzeszów FNM or 4: 2 at PPTQ during the Krakow GP. The first and only deck of my choice during these modern challenges has always been the RG Valakut - a deck that, after printing Dryad, confusingly resembles the already mentioned deck in Legacy. Since I stopped having time to play two formats at once, I decided to try to assemble my modern deck in the best of the formats. Around the time of printing the Dryad of the Ilysian Grove card, I stopped playing modern, only a few weeks after the card was printed, to discover that in Legacy, a place was made for this card. In addition, the choice of this deck was inspired by Adam Gerwatowski's stream from Łódź, during which he tested this very construction. We both like to play with this type of decks and I have enjoyed using his advice and knowledge in this area many times. To everyone who plays Modern and uses the aforementioned card, I recommend this choice, unless of course you want to play the best format, which is Legacy. Recently, attempts have been made to convert the Amulet Tytan deck from modern to our beloved format, in which the Nymph I mentioned also appears.
Deck Features
So we come to the third point in this article, which is a short what and how and a very basic description of matchups. As you might have guessed, the overriding principle in any deck built around Dryad is to summon it as quickly as possible. You can ask yourself a few questions, why play it at all and why it is better with this card, not just Lands, which generally do better then what the Titanic Dryad deck does. The point is, that Dryad has a slightly different gameplay than Lands, due to the fact that the lists deliberately include a mythical land called Valakut, the molten Pinnacle, which creates an unstoppable synergy with the Nymph in the field. (Unless Dryad, of course, gets a remowal spell). In addition, this nymph is a great and natural impassable barrier against agrro strategies, thanks to its 4 defense points in the back.
I mentioned above that this deck is confusingly similar to Loam and Lands, but it is not quite so. I think that the deck can be much more compared to Maverick because it works like the Creature Toolbox under Green Sun's Zenith with access to the Toolbox in the form of utility lands of various masses like Bojuka Bog, Karakas, Wasteland, Maze of Ith, Blast Zone, Valakut, Field of the Dead, Cycling lands or also Grove of the Burnwillows or even Urza's Saga. Also, this deck doesn't use a combination of Dark Depths + Thespian Stage cards. At least I have never played that way. Aside from the creature pack of various weights and the whole range of cool lands, of course the deck should also play at least one Life from the Loam, which is some form of deck engine when all else fails.
Briefly and on how we win:
Monsters: In addition to the aforementioned Dryada, each deck should contain a bundle of murderous creatures that can win the game by themselves. These can be, among others, Primeval Titan, Uro, Titania Protector of Argoth, Omnath Locus of Creation, Knight of the Reliquary and many others that have synergy with lands.
Lands: So with Valakut, based on his synergy with this leg base Exploration, and with the Field of the Dead or Urza's Saga.
Forcing an opponent to surrender: We do it, for example, with the Wasteland lock, which the deck has access to thanks to the Ramunap Excavator card, or with the use of P.Fire + Grove.
MU
When it comes to matchups, as I said, I don't know all of them, because my experience in playing with this piece is barely a year, if not less. However, there are matchups that I know, and I will introduce them to you here from the easiest to the most difficult.
In sequence:
Ur Delver - a deck easy to beat, due to the access to the remowal, which responds to every threat played by Delver's pilots. Especially since the monkey ban, it's a lot easier. We have P. Fire and Swords to Plowshares, Prismatic Ending or even the Land Blast Zone in our arsenal. The downside of this matchup is the fact that we definitely lose against a card like Daze. Countering it by an opponent of Dryad or Zenit, who would search for it, may also be crucial. Post Side the situation is a bit more complicated because the opponents should naturally throw Sulfuring Vortex on us, disabling the synergy of P. Fire + Grove and extractions. We, on the other hand, add a larger amount of effective remowal in the form of Endurance or Run Afoul.
Death & Taxes/Yorion Taxes - I haven't had the pleasure of playing with Titanic Dryad deck against big Taxes, but I label the way I play against both decks the same way. As with Delver, the game should not cause any problems here. However, Taxes, unlike Delver, play cards that can make our lives very difficult. These include Thalia Guardian of Thraben, Skycleave Apparition, Sanctum Prelate selecting 1 or 2, Containment Priest. Post Side, the opponent should throw at us Cataclysm, after which it is very difficult to rebuild. Either way, this deck ranks second in difficulty after Delver.
Bant Control/UW - X Control - It has always been known that Control strategies have have bad against Big Mana strategies. Fortunately for us, therefore, matchups with Control UWX decks qualify positively. Naturally, the opponents have cards that may be problematic for us, such as Dress Down or left unanswered Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Playing with this deck should be fierce and we should shower our opponent with threats of various masses. If we happen to land in a lost position, the duel will end in the Opponent's favor.
Loam - the game should be very even. A lot depends on who will have more Wastelands at their disposal, and who will play with Basic Lands. The threats used by Dryad are stronger than those played in Loam, so we should win in the long run.
Nic Fit - a difficult matchup due to the opponent's access to the basic lands, so our wastelands are not that effective. The advantage of this MU is to play a threat to which the opponent will not have an answer. Usually, Field of the Dead wins our games with this deck because Nic Fit hardly has access to the cards that do something to the lands. If you want to check what else Nic Fit is having a hard time with, I invite you to other posts I have written.
Afinity/Urza - difficult matchup, the opponent can start the game in a very explosive way. Our deck doesn't have access to mass removal, so resisting an army of Sai thopters or Urza's Saga constructs can be a hassle. Post Side things get a little better with the Force of Vigor and Collector Ouphe which almost completely retracts the deck in action back to the Stone Age.
Madness - a very difficult matchup, but the opponent's deck is based on a lot of luck and luck usually decides how the duel will end. If we see a hand with LED on the enemy side, we do an autoscoop. Post Side the situation does not improve much, throwing hatred on the grave is the only thing we can do and is not very good, but as the old saying goes - better something than nothing.
Mono R Prison - a difficult matchup, but it can be won if the opponent makes the right mistakes. For example, we can easily deal with the creatures that this deck plays and Magus of the Moon, but we cannot deal with the Bloodmoon card. It is therefore crucial to keep hands on which we have green mana or basic lands. What's more, even with Bloodmoon in the table, we are able to play without any problems, because playing Dryad overwrites the effect of Bloodmoon (Layers).
Dark Depths - we have a large stock of cards that hurt the opponent. The key to success is therefore to start playing with them. These cards include Karakas, Wasteland, Swords to Plowshares, and Post Side Run Afoul.
CloudPost - in theory it is a deck that is very vulnerable to Wasteland, but naturally this deck plays with needles to block them. In general, the game takes place as a race - Will they play faster Emrakul, with whom we will not do anything; Can we insert the titan faster and at the same time manage to cut the opponent from mana with the help of Wastelands?
Reanimator - to be honest it's hard to say and a lot depends on who starts. If there is an opponent on the play, Game 1 cannot be won, otherwise we can win the first game. Difficult to deal with, is the variant of the Reanimator playing tendrils, the so-called. Tin Fins.
Storm - Unwinnable game 1, Post side we throw Collector Ouphe, which hinders the opponent from killing us.
Doomsday - no comment; our only chance is to keep Endurance in hand, which the opponent will of course counter ...
Show and Tell - no comment; I won once because I had Dryad, my opponent played Show & Tell and I killed him with Valakut triggers ....
Oops - no comment here as well.
How to play & Card selection
If you've read my scratching carefully from the beginning, you already know that one of my inspirations to play this deck was Adam Gerwatowski from Łódź, who likes such designs as much as I do. His experience and knowledge in this area is much greater than mine and I have repeatedly used his advice on how to play, what to play, and so on. The list of decks from this period and the way to play with them looked something like this:
Mainboard: (60)
4x Ancient Tomb
2x Bayou
3x Cavern of Souls
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Field of the Dead
1x Forest
1x Karakas
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Snow-Covered Forest
1x Swamp
2x Tropical Island
2x Valakut, the molten Pinnacle
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Wasteland
1x Windswepth Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
4x Chalice of the Void
2x Mox Diamond
4x Once Upon a Time
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Abrupt Decay
1x Sylvan Library
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Courser of Kruphix
4x Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
1x Ramunap Excavator
4x Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
1x Primeval Titan
SideBoard: (15)
1x Field of the Dead
1x Collector Ouphe
1x Scavenging Ooze
2x Thorn of Amethyst
1x Leovold, Emmisary of Trest
2x Oko, Thief of Crowns
2x Plague Engineer
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Tireless Tracker
2x Trinisphere
1x Titania, Protector of Argoth
This is what the 2020 decklist of this deck would look like. Note that many cards that I mentioned earlier are still missing here. An interesting thing is the lack of access to the Life from the Loam card. Looking at the decklist, however, I see in it the already banned planeswalker Oko, Thief of Crowns. Therefore, we should not be surprised why this list places such emphasis on playing cards of the UG suit. With the Oko ban, however, the concept of playing with this deck was slowly shifted towards other colors as well.
Along with the Oko ban, new concepts of playing with this deck began to be created, because the deck gave the impression of yet unused potential. It was the same with me, I was not very attached to playing BUG-colored Dryad for too long, because my Nic Fit uses cards (mostly dual lands) included in this version. Below you will find some examples of decks for the period 2020-2021 in various color configurations. These are not just my ideas!
First Option Mainboard: (60)
2x Wooded Foothills
1x Windswept Heath
2x Verdant Catacombs
4x Wasteland
2x Valakut, the molten Pinnacle
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Snow-Covered Forest
1x Maze of Ith
1x Karakas
1x Forest
2x Field of the Dead
3x Cavern of Souls
1x Bayou
2x Ancient Tomb
1x Dryad Arbor
2x Sylvan Library
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Mox Diamond
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Once Upon a Time
1x Life from the Loam
1x Scavenging Ooze
4x Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
3x Ramunap Excavator
2x Tireless Tracker
4x Primeval Titan
Contrary to the previous list, here you can definitely notice the lack of blue, which was on the deck with Oko and Uro. The black color in the form of the single Bayou may be just a splash under a possible sideboard and a landcount to Field. Generally, the decklist is very similar to the previous one.
Second Option Mainboard: (60)
3x Windswepth Heath
2x Wooded Foothills
2x Flagstones of Trokair
2x Wasteland
2x Taiga
2x Savannah
1x Plateau
1x Indatha Triome
1x Karakas
1x Plains
1x Forest
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Field of the Dead
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Dark Depths
1x Thespian Stage
1x Snow-Covered Forest
1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Ancient Tomb
2x Sylvan Library
4x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Prismatic Ending
1x Life from the Loam
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Crop Rotation
3x Elvish Reclaimer
3x Orcish Lumberjack
3x Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
2x Titania, Protector of Argoth
1x Bonecrusher Giant
1x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Primeval Titan
1x Ramunap Excavator
1x Yasharn, Implacable Earth
As you can see, this deck is completely different than the previous ones. You can definitely feel the presence of the Modern Horizons 2 expansion in the form of Prismatic Ending cards and a green urborg. It looks very solid, although I personally wonder about the lack of access to P.Fire. I think that when playing with such colors, it should be obligatory to fit two or even three pieces of this card. I am also wondering about the Triom which gives black mana. I can only guess that his presence is especially for Field and to possibly play Prismatic Ending for one more color.
Third Option is my option, which I have played many times at Legacy Fnms or smaller tournaments. It is confusingly similar to the list above, but it differs in a few things. I think you will immediately notice how. It is a very good deck that is very pleasant to play. However, it has one major drawback. I prepared the list, being aware that I would never be able to buy the Mox Diamond card due to its price. Because of this, the deck is very clunky and takes a lot of time, which playing in Legacy usually doesn't have. In my version, I was guided by the selection of cards, due to the access to the dual lands I have - the deck had to be in the Naya colors with the addition of blue. In addition to the aforementioned duals and the lack of moxes, I also opted for the blue color, which provides access to the already known fair giant Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath (joke) and Omnath, Locus of Creation. The quite recent expansion Innistrad: Midnight Hunt also introduced the possibility of playing an interesting option in the form of the Slogurk, the Overslime. Without unnecessary pouring of water, I present my creation to you. Enjoy!
Mainboard: (60)
2x Windswepth Heath
2x Wooded Foothills
1x Misty Rainforest
3x Wasteland
1x Ketria Triome
1x Jetmir's Garden
1x Tundra
1x Tropical Island
1x Taiga
1x Savannah
2x Forest
1x Plains
2x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1x Field of the Dead
1x Bojuka's Bog
1x Blast Zone
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Karakas
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth
1x Boseiju, Who Endures
1x Outland Liberator
1x Ramunap Excavator
3x Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
1x Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
1x Slogurk, the Overslime
1x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Endurance
1x Omnath, Locus of Creation
1x Yasharn, Implacable Earth
1x Primeval Titan
1x Sylvan Library
1x Life from the Loam
4x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Swords to Plowshares
2x Punishing Fire
2x Once Upon a Time
2x Prismatic Ending
2x Exploration
2x Crop Rotation
As you can see, blue has been packed into the deck, which is a splash for only 3 cards. Uro is quite a sensible choice, Omnath a bit less, but this Slogurk does feel like a card with potential. I am quite sure that the manabase is built correctly, but I still have doubts about the overall list. The Legacy Polish Championships in Łódź, organized by my blog partner - Legacy Academy, are approaching and I am seriously wondering what I should play there. If this is a deck worthy of Top8 on such an event, it probably still needs some fine-tuning.
If you are unfamiliar with the concept of Legacy Academy, below I put an appropriate link to the academy's website.
That's it for this article. Let me know what you think about this deck in the comments below the post or on the blog. I hope you liked the content :)
08.05.2022
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