Battle of Wits is a card that has stuck out to me for a while. Battle of Wits is a strategy where you are incentivized to play a 226+ card deck. The allure is similar to EDH, where you have a plethora of slots to really customize your approach. But just like in EDH, the card slots fill up rather quickly, and what starts off feeling infinite in scope, quickly becomes a pragmatic review of the logical reasons for each of the cards included. For someone who really likes analyzing the merits of a fourth Mulldrifter over a case Shriekmaw in a main deck that is 200+ there is a lot of fun to be had in the process of brewing and transforming the shell to match your recent results or to fit in appropriately with a meta.
The appeal of Battle of Wits for me is multiple. I own the deck in real life, and for me, the value is in both the overall fun as well as its strange board states. Legacy Battle of Wits is inherently humorous, but also extremely thought-provoking. Legacy has such a wide, card pool, and Battle of Wits necessarily incorporates the largest swath of that pool into a single, focused engine. When one sees such a deck, I think it's only natural to peak the curiosity of surrounding players. Battle of Wits regularly manages to present both complex and unique board states that require assimilation of new tactical strategies, not unlike the complex board states of multi-player EDH games.
My particular slant on Battle of Wits is to go with the Hypergenesis console. I do not consider this to be the best Hypergenesis deck in the format, but I believe it is the best Battle of Wits deck in the format. It all starts with redundancy. There are 4 spells with converted mana cost of 3 that cascade. They are, Shardless Agent, Violent Outburst, Ardent Plea and Demonic Dread. Out of these, Violent Outburst is by far the best, and Demonic Dread is by far the worst. Violent Outburst can be cast at instant speed, and Demonic Dread needs a creature on board to be put on the stack. The downside of Demonic Dread can be significant. On an empty board, if you cast one of your four mana cascaders, like Captured Sunlight and you cascade into Demonic Dread you won't be able to cast it, so it is better off as a sideboard card in creature match ups.
The four spells with cmc of 4 which cascade are, Bloodbraid Elf, Kathari Remnant, Stormcaller's Boon and Captured Sunlight. Here, Bloodbraid Elf and Captured Sunlight are the two best. Bloodbraid Elf provides a creature which can help you start a Birthing Pod chain, and the life gain on Captured Sunlight is relevant since you don't have early action.
This main deck list runs no copies of any spell that cost 3 or less. This makes every three drop cascade spell essentially a tutor for Eureka. One of the benefits of your early drops having the mechanic "Fuse" with Eureka for 0 mana is that counter magic is going to be directed at the Hypergenesis, so invariably, your cascade spells all tend to resolve, since the big fight is over the Hypergenesis each brings along with it. Almost under no circumstances will there ever be a tussle over your Shardless Agent, your Bloodbraid Elf or your Captured Sunlight. This may seem non-consequential, but it can be very advantageous to provide blockers, bodies or life gain in a pinch. Because you tend to win off any resolved Hypergenesis, the secondary win conditions are often difficult to fight over. With no contesting your three mana Grizzly Bear, Birthing Pod becomes a natural secondary route to build your board. The Birthing Pod chain is actually an extremely important component of being able to sculpt the game to your liking. The Pod chain naturally goes from 3 to 10 (or 11, if you like Ulamog) and there is random utility sprinkled entirely throughout. There is a creature with hexproof or shroud at every point along the curve in case you need to chain into Iona, Shield of Emeria against a deck like burn.
Almost every 4-of doesn't need an explanations. Birthing Pod is a legitimate secondary plan with small creatures like Shardless Agent or Solemn Simulacrum to chain into big, relevant monsters. Birthing Pod also isn't a redundant piece if you somehow end up with two on the board. It's just a quicker chain. Chains are obviously situational. Academy Rector is really threatening to a lot of players because they know you can just search for a Battle of Wits. Some legacy decks have an answer for the early Battle of Wits, but there are many who do not, and the Rector can often stave off several turns worth of ground attacks. It also can get utility enchantments later in the game. There are a lot of 4-ofs in the 4 drop slot. This is the first slot where we don't have to worry about a card choice impacting our odds of cascading into another cascader or the Hypergenesis. In previous builds, I experimented with adding main deck Vendilion Clique and Simian Spirit Guide. I've trimmed those while I playtest some more. The meta when I last played this deck was heavy with Temur Delver, so being able to combat that strategy even at the cost of an unfortunate cascade into Simian Spirit Guide was something I opted for, but with the advancement of Lands strategies and Eldrazi, being a little colder to an already bad matchup feels justified for the greater consistency without playing non-cascading three-drops.
Sometimes you will suspend Hypergenesis, but mostly it will be cast free via cascade. Both Birthing Pod and Phyrexian Metamorph are virtual three-drops by using Phyrexian mana which is convenient.
This deck also runs as many Sol lands as it can, including Build-a-Sol-Lands like Calciform Pools. Early pressure is important so that blue mages can't just sit back and Daze our Hypergenesis in which we have so much invested. Phyrexian Metamorph can often find an early creature, an Insectile Aberration or a Batterskull or a Thought-Knot Seer to duplicate and buy some time on the defensive. This deck has some really nice inevitability, simply because as long as you can get your spells onto the battlefield whether by cascading them in, podding them up or casting things like Wurmcoils and Primeval Titans, for the most part, all of your permanents outclass an average opponents. You have Draw-7s like Griselbrand and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, and you have free wins against certain decks like with Blazing Archon, Iona, Shield of Emeria, etc. With so many monsters, Sneak Attack is another useful 4 drop. It can often steal games by creating complex combat scenarios with up and cards in hand. The end of turn draw-7 with Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur is especially great with up and Sneak Attack out since you are almost certainly refilling on monsters. Another point to keep in mind is that if you manage an early Hypergenesis, you are allowed to put lands into play. If you end up putting three fetch lands into play, and a Draw-7 like Jin or Griseldaddy, you can often times draw into a Violent Outburst and cast it at instant speed in response to a combat step. I have managed to stave of an opposing Emrakul more than once this way by refilling my hand with Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur and in response to a looming Emrakul, the Aeons Torn attack from my opponent, Violent Outburst'ing into Blazing Archon. The utility is really far-reaching and impactful. Sigarda, Host of Herons offers protection against Liliana of the Veil edicts and Eldrazi triggers, in addition to All is Dust out of MUD or even Innocent Blood effects.
A Birthing Pod on turn three that is countered, and a Sneak Attack on turn 4 that is countered, may just clear the way for a Shardless Agent into Hypergenesis that can often stabilize any race, with mana to pay for spell pierce on turn 5. I'm not going to pretend that this deck strikes fear into the Tempo-Delver players heart, but if you can manage to store enough mana to pay for soft permission and bait out whatever hard counters exist, the Hypergenesis often sends more than the Delvers can effectively manage. Inferno Titan is another recent addition. I added him in consideration of the Sneak Attack with Deadeye Navigator route. It's a way to cheat the creature in, plus the occasional utility of a come-into-play effect. Sneak Attacking Elvish Piper is , put a creature from your hand onto the battlefield. Restoration Angels can win in combat with Delvers. Their utility is in presenting the Delver player with a surprise, unexpected block that can potentially eat a looming counterspell that can clear a path to Hypergenesis.
I really like the chances against any non-blue strategy. It's just extremely unlikely that a creature matchup or burn strategy can go toe to toe with an Empyrial Archangel who has shroud and also has "Fog all of your opponents combats until they can present 8 unblocked damage." And even then, you still untap and have your turn to dig for an answer.
I like keeping hands with Violent Outburst obviously, but short of that, I like three mana and a Solemn Simulacrum, or an Evolving Wilds, an Ancient Tomb and a Krosan Tusker and maybe an Oracle of Mul Daya. Pretty much anything early in the game is great, and I just try to strap in and hold on and get some card advantage. You obviously lose to a good number of nut draws, but I think it's surprising how powerful this strategy can be. The biggest strength it has is its diversity of answers and diversity of threats. You are pretty much just priced into racing this deck. Nothing really blanks it, not even a Chalice of the Void on zero. If you win with a very powerful Hypergenesis in game one, game two, your opponent slams a chalice on zero and cackles, and you present a turn two Ancient Tomb into Birthing Pod holding Solemn or Bloodbraid or Shardless or Restoration Angel in hand. Being on the play is pretty important, but even against the fastest decks there is still a possibility of a turn two or three resolved Hypergenesis. As the list evolves, it gets faster and more resilient at the same time. I'm envisioning a point where it's only about a turn slower than the major decks of the format, which is a lot, but what it sacrifices in speed, it makes up for with grit.
It's also worth noting that 4x Leyline of Sanctity are totally main-deckable because unlike some decks, if they aren't in your opener, you can sometimes just cascade them in anyway or cast them. They do blank a number of decks including discard strategies that tend to be pretty bad since our early game is their midgame.
The lands are 4 of all 12 fetches, including Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse. Fetch lands should find basics when able to dodge Wasteland which can be a problem for this deck since our gameplan against soft permission is ultimately to be able to pay for Pierces and Dazes. This deck runs about 20 basics and one of each dual land. Mana fixing is not really an issue, and the downside of drawing original duals when you are set a turn behind by Wasteland is not really worth the upside of more consistent color accessibility. 20 basics + 10 duals + 48 fetch lands means around 78 lands out of the necessary ~96 are spoken for out the gate. I toyed with trying Rishadan Ports to be able to slow down tempo strategy, or Phyrexian Towers to sacrifice the Rector, but I ultimately settled on 4 each of the three natural Sol lands, (Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors and Crystal Vein) and I have recently been testing and really like the Time Spiral storage lands. You flat out need the sol lands because you have such a high curve, and with the storage lands, yes they do get Wastelanded, but the downside of their vulnerability to Wasteland I think is worth the upside when your opponent isn't running Waste or just doesn't see it. They can provide a lot of ramp. With twenty basics, you do have some insurance on your lands sticking. The Calciform Pools is the best for us because we have high-impact, mana-intensive spells largely in white. Iona, Shield of Emeria and Blazing Archon. In blue, we have Omniscience and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. In green, we really only have Terastodon and in Black, Griselbrand, so I think the U/W fixer is the priority for this deck. You can adjust as needed.
One of the fun things in playing this deck is being able to Nerf opposing strategies without trying all that much. Many aggressive decks can't really deal with a Blazing Archon. Against Sneak and Show, they often insist that you put yours in for free!!! Omnitell can easily lose to an Iona. It's not as hard as it seems to get these monsters into play.
This deck tries to have a little game against everything, and it isn't as slow as it would seem. The results are like a grab bag of Magic's greatest treasures.
Sometimes you even win with a Battle of Wits.
