Would Crystal Vein be a suitable replacement for City of Traitors?
Legacy Deck Help forum
Posted on Dec. 19, 2017, 2:29 p.m. by Dredge4life
Basically the title. Im building Sneak and Show in Legacy, and Im not able to get my hands on a pair of City of Traitors just yet. Im wondering if Crystal Vein would be a suitable budget replacement until I can acquire them. My current spread of fast mana is 3x Ancient Tomb and 2x City of Traitors. Not looking to compete in tournaments, just playing competicasually amongst friends. Thanks!
TheHelvault says... #3
For your level of competitiveness, I'd say Crystal Vein is very acceptable. Turn 1: Island, Turn 2: Crystal Vein, Show and Tell, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, etc. Seems good for kitchen table legacy to me haha.
I ran Tin-Fins for a kind of competicasual thing my playgroup had going, and it worked fine with some Gemstone Mine's instead of Underground Sea. I wouldn't worry too much about using Crystal Vein.
December 19, 2017 5:27 p.m.
Honestly I run into a similar conundrum with eldrazi and Crystal vein works fine for me even at tournaments.
December 20, 2017 1 p.m.
I think it's fine if you're planning on going all-in on a combo. The downside is the turn after you use Crystal Vein. However, if you draw most of your library via Griselbrand, you should also draw into another fat beater to kill your opponent in one attack phase, or at least position yourself where you can't lose.
In other words, since you won't have a developed mana base after using Crystal Vein, you have to go all-in on the combo, not relying on the turn after since you'll basically be down to 1 mana. This means playing 8+ fatties (Griselbrand, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and something else) and 4 Lotus Petal. You may even want to experiment with Chrome Mox and/or Mox Diamond to increase your chances of a turn 1/turn 2 Show and Tell or Sneak Attack.
EndStepTop says... #2
Realistically it's the best you're going to get. The other option is to run more Islands and some number of blood moon to cheese grixis delver/pile decks.
December 19, 2017 3:22 p.m. Edited.