Hello everyone,

Today I would like to talk about the deck I am playing in Legacy: BUG Opposition. I was probably the only one who played this deck at the Grand Prix.

Originally, the deck was created this year and played only in France by 2 players. One is a good friend of mine and Pro Tour Columbus 2004 Champion: Pierre Canali.

I was here, the day Pierre came up with the deck together with his friend and I remember how I liked the idea and the concept of the deck. They played the deck in 2 events of 150+ players and they got to top 8 once each.

《Opposition》 also happens to be my favorite card, all my friends knows this. Each time when we are playing Cube and I see 《Opposition》, I will try to draft a deck around it. I am just in love with this card. But I started to play during Ravnica: City of Guilds and I never got to play this card in a real tournament.

Here, I realized a little dream of mine which was to play 《Opposition》 during a Grand Prix and I know I will enjoy my deck and have fun with it.

This is the decklist I played in Grand Prix Chiba 2016:

Bug Opposition is a deck between Elves and Shardless Bug. The goal of the deck is to put a decent number of creatures into play and lock your opponent by tapping down his creatures and his lands during his upkeep to be make sure he is not be able to play any spells. For this you will be using “cycling” creatures who have a draw effect when they come into play (《Baleful Strix》,, 《Elvish Visionary》 and 《Coiling Oracle》). 《Baleful Strix》 is a little harder to cast but it helps so much against 《Tarmogoyf》 and Eldrazi. It also has flying which is great together with 《Noble Hierarch》.

You also have mana acceleration from 《Deathrite Shaman》 and 《Noble Hierarch》 to be able to play a turn 2 《Shardless Agent》 or 《Cabal Therapy》 + “Cycling creature” + flash back 《Cabal Therapy》.

《Elvish Visionary》 and 《Coiling Oracle》 are Elves, so this is pretty good to have 《Wirewood Symbiote》 in your deck especially when you can search for it via 《Green Sun's Zenith》. 《Wirewood Symbiote》 also untaps your 《Deathrite Shaman》, 《Noble Hierarch》 or 《Dryad Arbor》 to give you more mana in addition to the value in bouncing a “draw a card” creature. 《Noble Hierarch》also buffs your attacking creature, this means you can attack with just one creature and keep the other ones to tap lands/creatures with 《Opposition》.

As finisher you are playing singletons like 《Deranged Hermit》 and 《Craterhoof Behemoth》. Same here you can search for it with your 《Green Sun's Zenith》. 《Gaea's Cradle》 is a good help to cast or search for them. It’s also very easy to pay the 《Deranged Hermit》 echo cost with it.

Usually playing 《Shardless Agent》 and 《Green Sun's Zenith》 is not a good idea but you are running 2 《Dryad Arbor》 in your deck. Because of this, you can consider 《Green Sun's Zenith》 as a one drop mana acceleration in addition to 《Deathrite Shaman》 and 《Noble Hierarch》. This also means all your fetch could be a potential creature for 《Opposition》 or 《Cabal Therapy》.

This is how I would rank the Match-ups.

Eldrazi
Death and Taxes
Lands

Infect
Shardless BUG
Jund
BUG Delver

Esper Blade
Grixis Delver
Reanimator
Miracles

Dredge
Sneak Show

Elves
ANT Storm

1 《Chains of Mephistopheles》 (Miracles, Brainstorm + Ponder decks)
1 《Scavenging Ooze》 (Reanimator, Jund punishing fire, ANT, Dredge)
2 《Marsh Casualties》 (Elves, infect, ANT, Grixis delver, Death and Taxes)
2 《Thorn of Amethyst》 (ANT, Sneak Show, Miracles)
1 《Nihil Spellbomb》 (ANT, Reanimator, Dredge)
3 《Winter Orb》 (Miracles)
1 《Pithing Needle》 (Miracles, Reanimator, Show and tell, Death and Taxes, Elves)
1 《Null Rod》 (Miracle, ANT, Death and Taxes, EsperBlade)
1 《Surgical Extraction》 (Miracles, Jund punishing fire, Combo decks)
1 《Thoughtseize》 (Miracles, Combo decks)
1 《Reclamation Sage》 ( Eldrazi, Death and taxes, Miracles, Esper Blade)

Wins: 6
Eldrazi x2
Death and Taxes
BUG Delver
Shardless BUG
Jund

Draw: 1
Miracles

Losses: 5
Miracles
Mono Red Blood Moon
Elves
ANT Storm
Esper Blade

With a main deck 《Reclamation Sage》 I would be able to win against Esper Blade and Mono Red Blood Moon. I won my game ones against miracles and lost all post-sideboard games, which means the sideboard plan wasn’t very good.

– I would play a 《Reclamation Sage》 main deck instead of 1 Garruk.

– Because Miracles is now running 2 《Engineered Explosives》 and 2 《Wear // Tear》 I dont think playing an enchantment / artifact sideboard plan with 《Winter Orb》 & 《Chains of Mephistopheles》 is good. I would like to play planeswalkers like 《Liliana of the Veil》 instead, because it’s hard for Miracles to deal with and because you can play it turn 2, because of this I would play a 2nd 《Underground Sea》 instead of one 《Tropical Island》. Or maybe 《Jace, the Mind Sculptor》 is another possibility too.

– make sure to Improve the Sideboard for the Elves & Storm Match-ups.

I recommend checking out some of Pierre Canali’s games with the Opposition deck. It has Raphael Levy, Patrick Dickman and Riley Knight as commentators.

Bazaar of Moxen Twitch links:
Round 2 Against Lands: VS Lands
Round 6 Against Lands: VS Lands
Quarter Final Against Elves: VS Elves

Thank you for reading,

Jeremy Dezani

Jeremy Dezani
He was the 2013-14 Player of the Year with his crowning achievement taking place at Pro Tour Theros where he won in spectacular fashion with Blue Devotion back in 2013.
He has a stunning 10 Grand Prix Top 8s to his name including 2 wins and Runner-up twice.

He will also be the first Non-Japanese player to join the ranks of the Hareruya Pros.

Articles by Jeremy Dezani