Legends Legends - Gosta Dirk

Welcome back, one and all, to another exciting edition of Legends Legends! We're rapidly approaching the end of this series, with just five legends left. Today's legend comes from the cycle of landwalk-hosers present in 1994's Legends set.

He's Gosta Dirk, the anti-islandwalk dual-wielding Human Warrior (I just noticed he's holding an axe in his off-hand; I figured he was holding that shield up with his left hand, which raises the question: how is he holding that shield in place?).

Gosta Dirk's ability isn't really enough to build around. He pretty much banks on your opponents not only running blue, but also running islandwalk creatures.

This makes him an effective hoser for those combat-heavy Merfolk kindred decks that I'm sure you see hundreds of every Friday at your LGS. Instead, we're broadening our spectrum of hatred to include all blue players. Ready to play some spiteful Magic? Let's dig in.

General Thoughts

Gosta Dirk is a 4/4 Human Warrior with first strike for . He also allows creatures with islandwalk to be blocked as if they did not have this ability. I guess back in 1994 the Fishliver Oil meta was a huge issue for the designers.

While this ability is neat, it's not nearly broad enough to have a significant impact on our games, especially if we can't count on our opponents to run a bunch of Devouring Deep-equivalents.

Instead, we'll be running a broad coalition of anti-blue cards. This deck wants to shut down the other blue players at the table, giving them a taste of their own Staxy, control-y medicine.

We'll use advantageous counterspells and blue-hosers to lock those blue decks out of the game. In addition, we'll do our best to deny blue players access to the things they do best: drawing cards, setting up combos, and countering our spells. 

F#%$ You, Blue Players!!!

Gosta Dirk and myself are tired of all these dorky blue commanders ruining our EDH games. "I'll counter that","I cast Negate", "At the end of your turn, I'll..." These are sentences dreamed up by the criminally insane. We cannot let these monsters continue to run rampant in our game stores and kitchen tables.

This deck runs a mix of traditionally valuable control elements and blue-specific control spells, plus some Stax effects for good measure. While a majority of the "anti-blue" cards are found in red and green (blue's enemy colors), there are still a few important color-hosers.

Gainsay and Jace's Defeat are both better-than-average Counterspells when unleashed on a blue permanent. You won't see many Jace planeswalker spells outside of purpose-built mill decks, but on the off chance someone tries to sneak a Jace, Memory Adept into play and mill us for 20, we'll be more than ready. Mystical Dispute is another blue-specific hoser that can foil an opponent's plans.

Dominaria's Judgment is an oddball choice for our deck that we'll use to survive targeted blue (and white!) removal: for three mana, we're saving our board from most forms of removal at the same rate as Teferi's Protection (also included here for good measure).

If there's one thing blue players love to do, it's cast counterspells. These are typically instants, so to counteract this we're running a ton of noncreature and instant-specific counterspells. This means Dispel, An Offer You Can't Refuse, Disrupt, Force of Negation, Spell Pierce, and Stubborn Denial (which we can use Gosta Dirk to proc the Ferocious effect).

The only problem is those pesky blue nerds always seem to have another spell up their sleeve. In fact, any control player worth their salt will see you pass the turn with two Islands untapped and know better than that. Luckily, we don't have to play their little bait-and-switch game.

We'll go ahead and counter that first spell and the rest of their turn with Render Silent, Calamity's Wake, Permission Denied, and Silence. These are also all excellent choices to imprint on our Isochron Scepter, and we should use our two tutors to set up this synergy if we can manage it.

Stacking Up

Blue decks tend to spend a lot of their time casting noncreature spells. Even the most creature-focused blue Merfolk deck will still need to cast an occasional Counterspell. Let's get petty, though.

Cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Charitable Levy, and Thorn of Amethyst all increase the cost of noncreature spells by one. This hurts our counter magic too, of course, but that's why we're running Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. 

Maybe they're pushing through and just casting their spells for the extra mana tax, or maybe they've already ramped up their mana that these small taxes won't affect them. Never to fear, we can always punish them for casting their spells and drawing those cards with Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, and Smothering Tithe. Go ahead, pay three extra for your Ponder, see if we care! 

Narset, Parter of Veils, Archivist of Oghma, and Aven Mindcensor put in work to keep our opponents from digging or tutoring for a response to our oppressive wall of counter magic. Drannith Magistrate keeps them from sneaking cards into play from their graveyard, and Tidal Barracuda and Grand Abolisher keep their own pesky countermagic away from our side of the board.

Cursecatcher, Diversion Unit, and Judge's Familiar are fun ways to store some counterspells for a later turn, and trhey act as a sort of rattlesnake to wave around at anyone looking to cast an instant or sorcery.

Llawan, Cephalid Empress is a total shutdown versus any mono-blue deck. She'll wipe the board by putting those creatures back into their owners' hands, and then won't even let them recast those creatures until she's removed.

Finally, Perplexing Chimera is a weirdo oddball choice for this deck that I use as a skill check on my opponents. It can easily be played around if you know what you're doing and how to prioritize your spells, but I've found many blue players aren't actually as good at this game as their control decks would have you believe.

Beating Up The Nerds

So, how does Gosta Dirk actually play into this deck? We'll use our beefy jock commander to stuff those blue players into their lockers via our trio of Swords. Sword of Fire and Ice and Sword of Truth and Justice both provide Gosta Dirk with protection from blue in addition to doing all the cool stuff the Swords of X and Y do. Sword of War and Peace, despite not giving protection from blue, is still a powerful choice versus those blue decks with Reliquary Towers filling their hands greedily with more cards than they can cast.

Besides simply beating our opponents to death with Gosta, we've got two other large creatures that can be quite a threat on the board, especially if we've got the countermagic to protect them.

Nezahal, Primal Tide can't be countered (F#%& you, blue), rewards us whenever an opponent casts a noncreature spell, and it has a 7/7 body to boot. Hullbreaker Horror is another big, uncounterable monster, with the added benefit of letting us bounce our opponents spells from the stack before they resolve.

Mana Base

With no access to traditional ramp, we're loading up on Signets and Talismans to keep this deck running. We're also sitting pretty on 37 lands, a little more than most decks you'll see on Legends Legends, but its definitely necessary that we have the mana available every turn to counter (or otherwise threaten to counter) our opponents' spells.

Budget

The total for this deck comes out to around $465. That price point is driven up by a handful of expensive cards that'll hurt to cut. Force of Negation is $50 these days, and two of our three Swords are more than $30. This is in addition to the $26 Smothering Tithe and $45 Rhystic Study.

If you're looking to save a dime on this deck, these cards can easily be replaced with more traditional counterspells, like Negate, Flash Counter, or Overwhelming Denial. Any ol' Blackblade Reforged or Obsidian Battle-Axe can be swapped in to make Gosta Dirk more of a threat in combat, but you'll find you miss that protection effect. Maybe try Blue Scarab or Blue Ward?

Gosta Dirk Decklist

Wrap Up

If being salty was an art, I think I'd be Picasso. If general pettiness was a sport, I'd win MVP every year. This deck exists as an eternal testament to the fact that if you beat me handily several games in a row, I will go home and write up a deck list built to specifically screw you over, Talrand, Sky Summoner player.

Really, blue isn't all that bad. Interaction during your opponents' turns is one of the best mechanics in Magic. But, as the old adage goes, Magic: The Gathering is a lot of fun, except that other player is always trying to do some BS. 

Thanks for reading! Until Next time!