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Maverick was a deck that I never entirely understood in Legacy. It always kind of seemed like a goofy Death and Taxes to me, but the Punishing Fire builds represented angles that I respected more. Tom Keating's winning list from the Legacy Open in Somerset this weekend features that technology and plenty of other great metagame options.
Punishing Maverick by Tom Keating
One of the major upgrades over traditional Maverick is replacing Ignoble Hierarch with Mox Diamond. Turn two Knight of the Reliquary is cool and all, but a turn one Chalice of the Void is completely backbreaking. Keating defeated two Storm decks in the Top 8 of the Open, which is a comically difficult feat for traditional Maverick decks.
Abrupt Decay over Swords to Plowshares is another huge improvement. One of these cards is great against Miracles, and the other is super terrible. Swords is, of course, more efficient and can deal with larger creatures, but Abrupt Decay is so much more flexible.
Liliana of the Veil is another upgrade over traditional Maverick, as Liliana is kind of just good against everything that people currently play other than Elves, which Chalice of the Void and Punishing Fire do great work against.
I have a hard time convincing myself not to play a Brainstorm/Force of Will deck in Legacy, but Chalice of the Void/Life from the Loam/Sylvan Library help make up for these exclusions. If you're looking to switch things up in Legacy, this is a very solid option.
Except his deck is not maverick, it’s aggro loam, and aggro loam has always played these cards.
At least Ryan didn’t call it Punishing Abzan…
Punishing Abzan is a better name for this deck than Maverick… Maverick plays Mother of Runes. This isn’t Maverick.
Aggro Loam has historically played Seismic Assault, and it DEFINITELY is a four Loam kind of deck. It’s a mesh of the two archetypes.