Patrick Rush

I Find Your Lackey of Faith Disturbing

So I was kind of hoping that there would be some updates to the Legacy Banlist I could look at the new format, brew some new decks, and hope that [card]Show and Tell[/card] would finally get banned. But no, all is well. So what is there to talk about? Well my last article looked at some of the non-blue alternatives in the format but there’s one that I wanted to save all on its own because I’ve been playing it an awful lot lately, and it deserves more love. The deck in question is Goblins.

The tribe is a Magic mainstay, appearing in almost every set released, and for a long time, the tribe dominated Legacy. However, in recent years the little red men have had a hard time dealing with changes to the format. That being said, it has had a history of punishing blue midrange and control decks and seeing as the format is currently favouring those decks, it looks like it could be a good time for Goblins to make its return.

Goblins is a deck that can perform one of two functions. It can either play a hyper aggressive role with cards like [card]Goblin Piledriver[/card], [card]Goblin Warchief[/card] and [card]Goblin Chieftain[/card], or it can slow the game down and grind out a win with superior card and board advantage using [card]Goblin Ringleader[/card], [card]Goblin Lackey[/card] and [card]Goblin Matron[/card]. It also functions as a strong mana denial deck with four copies of [card]Wasteland[/card] and [card]Rishadan Port[/card].

The Core

No matter what list you see, every Goblins list is going to contain a playset of five cards that are ever present in the seventy-five.

Goblin Lackey

Goblin Lackey is possibly the best card in the deck and is the primary way the deck generates board advantage. A turn one Lackey off of [card]Cavern of Souls[/card] is the best opening play Goblins has and can lead to some absolutely blistering starts. Having the ability to drop a Ringleader on turn 2 is not only a way of filling up your hand for the early game and establishing card advantage, but it can also make mulligans less harsh.

Lackey does have a big problem, though, in that it is blocked by [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]. The printing of Deathrite was one of the last nails in the coffin for Goblins as the powerful start of a turn one Lackey, was countered by an equally powerful turn one Deathrite. There are ways around it, of course, but it certainly made the format hostile to the red one-drop. That being said, all Lackey ever needs to do is connect once and it’s provided you with some from of advantage and is the primary reason the deck still has game.

Goblin Matron

Tutor effects in Eternal formats are nuts. And this one is no exception. Goblin Matron is part of the reason this deck functions so well as a control deck. Most of the time, you’ll be fetching a Goblin Ringleader but including four copies of Matron allows you to build the deck to have a suite of one-of silver bullets that you can fetch when you need to. Allowing this to resolve can often times swing the game in your favour, picking up a much needed Ringleader or perhaps a [card]Siege-Gang Commander[/card] or [card]Tuktuk Scrapper[/card]. Not playing Matron in Goblins is a move that you need to have a good reason for doing.

Guys, trust me. Seriously.

Goblin Ringleader

Very few four mana cards get high praise in Legacy and Ringleader is one people always seem to ignore. Yes, it’s not got amazing stats but it effectively draws you 2-3 cards when it enters the battlefield. There is nothing more satisfying than flashing in a Ringleader with [card]Aether Vial[/card]. Ever since it was printed it’s been included in Goblins lists wherever it can. It’s one of your best cards against Shadless BUG and it can often be the way you turn a near unwinnable game to one you are in full control of. And yes, it does whiff. But being able to clear four non-Goblin cards from the top of your deck is at least somewhat of a plus, surely?

Goblin Warchief

This is another card that facilitates blisteringly fast starts from Goblins. The cost reduction is incredibly significant and granting all of your Goblins haste is an incredibly overlooked ability. Being able to activate a [card]Krenko, Mob Boss[/card] the turn he drops is insane. I’ve seen some lists run Warchief as a three-of but I honestly think that he enables such an aggressive strategy and allows you to get multiple Goblins in play a turn is reason enough to play the full four copies.

Aether Vial

Vial is a card that just fits right at home in tribal strategies, from Merfolk to Slivers to Goblins. The ability to dodge countermagic and operate at instant speed means that you free up your lands and can instead spend your mana activating Wastelands and Rishadan Ports. Vial is also key in getting your mana intensive Goblins into play, like Siege-Gang Commander and Goblin Ringleader, though hardcasting them is not an impossibility. Regardless, Vial is another automatic playset.

So that’s the glue of the deck. The above cards should be present in every Goblins list you see or build and should be the foundation from where you build your rabble. But what do we use to fill out the rest of the sixty?

A good place to start is removal and with that I believe everyone should be running four copies of [card]Tarfire[/card]. The presence of cards like Deathrite Shaman, [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] and [card]Delver of Secrets[/card] means you need to have cheap creature removal and Tarfire is the perfect answer. Not only does it deal with most every creature in the format, it can also be found off of Ringleader and Matron, which is huge. However, do remember that you can’t cast Tarfire off of Cavern of Souls as it specifies that it can only be used for creature spells. Still, Tarfire is, what I believe to be, the best removal spell that Goblins has access to.

Most lists will often include some number of [card]Goblin Chieftan[/card]. Chieftan is often times a finisher, turning your Siege-Gang tokens into legitimate threats. Cheating this into play with Lackey can often set you up for an early kill and demands that your opponent answers the lord. I’m currently running it as a two-of but I’ve seen people play as much as four copies in the main.

You’ll also find people playing some number of [card]Mogg War Marshall[/card] as a general value card and way of chumping big threats like [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]. [card]Gempalm Incinerator[/card] is a card that used to see much more play but is now usually there as a single Matron target. While I’m not a huge fan as it can often be a dead card, it is one of the few ways that Goblins can deal with Tarmogoyd or [card]Batterskull[/card].

Goblins also packs some form of artifact hate in the form of either Tuktuk Scrapper or [card]Tin-Street Hooligan[/card]. There are pros and cons to both. Scrapper costs four mana but can be played in monocolored versions, where Tin-Street costs less but means you have to be playing green and also has some serious anti-synergy with Goblin Warchief. I prefer Scrapper as I’m not running green but both cards are excellent additions.

There are tons of other Goblins that you can include, most often as Goblin Matron targets. The ones that I’m including in my list are Krenko, Mob Boss, [card]Grenzo, Dungeon Warden[/card], [card]Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker[/card], Siege-Gang Commander, and [card]Goblin Piledriver[/card]. I’ve also seen people run [card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/card], [card]Warren Weirding[/card] and [card]Skirk Prospector[/card]. These utility cards are all excellent and depending on what your meta is like, you can tailor your main deck to have the perfect angles of attack.

The Lands

Goblins plays a great mana denial game and is often compared to Death and Taxes in some ways. To start, the deck plays four copies of Wasteland and Rishadan Port. Using Aether Vial to get your creatures into play frees up your mana to be used to take care of the opponent’s mana base. Having the ability to grind out the opponent using card advantage and mana denial is one of the reasons this deck still has an awful lot of game.

Goblins also runs four copies of Cavern of Souls, for obvious reasons. Most any tribal deck should be running four Cavern but especially so in Legacy where [card]Counterbalance[/card] and other forms of cheap countermagic rule the roost. In the post board games, it can also be set to human and you can get through a copy of [card]Thalia, Guardian of Thraben[/card], a card that has found its way into Goblins sideboards since it was printed.

Finally, the last few slots go to any fetchlands that can fetch a mountain, 2-3 duals if you’re splashing any colour, and then a few basics to round out the sixty.

And that’s Goblins! The deck is relatively cheap to put together and has a low skill barrier, meaning that it won’t bite you for not playing absolutely 100%. That being said, a skilled Goblins player is a geniune threat and putting in the reps with the deck can make you a formidable enemy, even in the face of the pesky Golgari mana elf.

Until next time!

It’s Not Easy Being Green: The Non Blue Alternatives in Legacy

It’s been a while since I last checked in and the Legacy format has changed a lot since GP Seattle. Lands taking down the Grand Prix and Punishing Blue winning the Star City Games Legacy Open in November certainly showed that the format is in a position now where decks can get away with not running four copies of [card]Brainstorm[/card]. Legacy has slowed down a lot and midrange decks are king. Miracles has been one of the top dogs since Fate Reforged and even the Delver decks are slowing down with things like BUG and 4C Delver. At the SCG Player’s Championship, the Roanoke team brought Death and Taxes, saying that it was a deck that people were ignoring and could attack the format really well. So today I’m going to take a look at a couple of the non-blue decks that can take their own.

To begin with, the main reason non-blue decks aren’t as popular is the fact that Brainstorm allows decks to remove some level of variance and fix bad hands. It means that they’re not at the mercy of the top of their deck as much as decks without Brainstorm. They also tend to have poor combo matchups in the first game because of the lack of [card]Force of Will[/card]. Now they have different ways of attacking combo through cards like [card]Thoughtseize[/card], [card]Thalia, Guardian of Thraben[/card] and, against Storm and Reanimator, [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]. They certainly aren’t as safe or powerful as Force, but they are the best way these decks have of tackling these decks without having access to the powerful countermagic that blue has to offer.

Death and Taxes

Possibly the best non blue deck in Legacy, and my personal favourite if I had to leave the Islands at home. The combination of mana taxation in the form of Thalia, and disruption with cards like [card]Mother of Runes[/card], [card]Wasteland[/card], and [card]Rishadan Port[/card] allows it to play a great mana denial game against most decks. All of those one mana cantrips that fuel Legacy are pretty bad when they cost two mana. Better yet, all of Death and Taxes’ disruptive creatures are exactly that: creatures. They’re able to beat down incredibly efficiently and combined with [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] and the usual equipment package of [card]Batterskull[/card], [card]Umezawa’s Jitte[/card], and [card]Sword of Fire and Ice[/card] provide a range of options depending on the matchup.

Death and Taxes is also often able to dodge countermagic thanks to [card]Aether Vial[/card] and occasionally [card]Cavern of Souls[/card], meaning it can completely foil Miracles’ [card]Counterbalance[/card] gameplan. So countering Vial is number one against this deck. Mother of Runes is also a key turn one play that can ruin someone’s day. If DnT gets to untap with Mom, you better hope you’ve got a plethora of removal spells or you’re going to be in for a bad time.

DnT does have some very sketch matchups against things like Punishing Jund, Lands, and especially Elves. The best way of beating them is by playing some kind of recurring value engine. [card]Punishing Fire[/card] and [card]Grove of the Burnwillows[/card] is a fantastic way of fighting DnT. Similarly, obscenely fast combo decks like Belcher and Dredge are great at taking down the army of dudes. On the flipside, if you’re expecting a lot of Storm, Sneak and Show, or Miracles, Death and Taxes is a great way of taking on the field.

Jund

There is never a purer or more visceral experience in Magic than when you get to Jund someone out. Jund is present in every format because it turns out when you have the reach of red, the removal and discard of black, and the threat power of green, you just play seventy-five good cards. And Legacy is no exception. Jund was one of the decks that got pushed out when [card]Treasure Cruise[/card] and [card]Dig Through Time[/card] were around but now that they’re both gone, it’s time to look at one of the oldest non-blue strategies in the game.

Jund’s gameplan is simple: trade one-for-one with cards like [card]Abrupt Decay[/card] and [card]Thoughtseize[/card], land a [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card] or [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] to beat the tar out of the opponent with [card]Sylvan Library[/card] and [card]Dark Confidant[/card] keeping your hand nice and full, and eventually establish the [card]Punishing Fire[/card] + [card]Grove of the Burnwillows[/card] engine and grind out the opponent. The deck doesn’t mess about, it doesn’t get any fairer than this. And the versions that run [card]Hymn to Tourach[/card] are the only “unfair” versions, but it’s still just a two-for-one. Jund excels in heavy creature formats where people are running things like Death and Taxes, Maverick, or Merfolk. It can even out-attrition decks like Miracles and Shardless if played by a well-versed pilot.

The deck does suffer to combo though, as do most non-blue decks, as I’ve said. Though the heavy discard and fast clock can be incredibly potent against any combo deck. And if you can land a turn two [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card] it can just shred people apart. The deck does have a pretty poor Dredge and Burn matchup but those two decks aren’t as popular anymore. Despite having access to [card]Abrupt Decay[/card], Miracles is still a tough matchup for Jund. We are the premiere control deck of the format and we can grind and attrition just as well as Jund can. Liliana is great in this matchup because a Liliana ultimate is backbreaking. The absolute worst deck to get paired against is Maverick/Deadguy Ale/The Rock. These midrange decks are doing the exact same as Jund (roughly) but they have better tools: [card]Swords to Plowshares[/card] is better than [card]Lightning Bolt[/card], Mother of Runes can counter Abrupt Decay, [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card] allows for some incredible flexibility in the deck. But overall, Jund is a deck that, like Miracles, has no real bad matchups and there’s no card that just hoses Jund. There are cards that hurt, but don’t completely ruin the deck. A very, very solid choice.

Elves

I love this deck. I really do. And not just because Miracles has a completely dominating advantage against the deck, but because it’s a mono-green combo deck. That just sounds so freaking cool!

In all honesty, Elves is a very powerful deck that could see a return to form with Miracles on the decline. The deck is a combo deck that wins through a few different avenues. It can cast [card]Glimpse of Nature[/card] and fire out a load of small dudes, and draw half of its deck and make a boatload of mana in the process thanks to [card]Nettle Sentinel[/card] and [card]Heritage Druid[/card]; it can combo off with [card]Natural Order[/card] and [card]Craterhoof Behemoth[/card]; or it can play a fair creature matchup where it plays buckets of small creatures that can go incredibly wide. With Glimpse, every card you play is a cantrip, meaning that on turn three, the deck can vomit out creatures,slam a [card]Gaea’s Cradle[/card] and play a Craterhood or Green Sun’s Zenith for one. Oh, it also gets to run Green Sun’s Zenith, which in this deck is brutal. There are plenty of decks that play Zenith but Elves is one that gets to take huge advantage of it. Being able to spend two mana and get any of your combo pieces is just huge, and the toolbox element allows you to mould and sculpt your sideboard to your meta.

Elves is fantastic against fair decks. Against Delver, Elves can completely overrun them and make their Forces and [card]Daze[/card]s just terrible. And if you want to see a massacre, just look at Elves play against Death and Taxes. The little green men just destroy Thalia and Co. It’s actually kinda sad.

But not as sad as the Elves versus Miracles matchup.

A very good friend of mine is an Elves player so when I asked him about bad matchups the first thing he said to me was, “Miracles.” In our last Legacy night, I crushed him 2-0 in the first round and went 5-1 against him in our practice games beforehand. Counterbalance is obviously a problem when your deck is full of 1-CMC cards but it’s also the four copies of STP and the one-mana boardwipe in the form of [card]Terminus[/card]. The best way of dealing with this matchup is taxing the removal. If you can deploy two Nettle Sentinels or a Deathrite Shaman backed up with another creature to pressure the opponent can eventually whittle away the Miracles player. Elves also has a very hard time against fast combo decks like Storm and Reanimator. That being said, I think Elves is a fantastic deck and if you can pilot the deck well, the little green men will serve you well.

Who Needs Blue

These three decks are just a mere taste of what Legacy has to offer for those of us who want to leave the Brainstorms at home and sleeve up some Green Sun’s Zeniths or some Stoneforge Mystics. If this has whetted your appetite, there’s plenty more decks that have abandoned the Island life for a simpler, topdeck-ier game of Magic. You can continue down the midrange route with The Rock or Deadguy Ale, or perhaps aggro is more your style and you can play Burn or Maverick. Heck, you might even want to continue combo-ing off, in which case there’s a certain mechanic I think you might be interested in called Dredge.

Regardless of what you want to counteract the blue beast, Legacy has something for you. Just remember that you get to shuffle Green Sun’s Zenith back into your deck!

A Veritable Mixed Bag: Looking Back at GP Seattle

Woah. What a week it’s been for the format. In the week running up to GP Seattle, Legacy seemed to go from being relatively quiet and keeping to itself, to exploding with energy and buzz. I was hoping to do this week’s article on the new Jace and his place in Legacy but a lot has happened that I want to talk about. So let’s look at Legacy in the aftermath of the last Legacy GP of the year, and what lies ahead in 2016.

Let’s first take a look at GP Seattle and see what went down Stateside.

For a start, I was way off in my Top 8 prediction. I got half of it right but the other half completely threw me. Two Shardless decks Top 8’d, as well as Miracles and Grixis/4C Delver, but where I was wrong was in the other four. There was a second 4C Delver as well as a crazy Reanimator deck that I’ll get to in a bit, Lands, which took down the tournament, and Aluren. Yes. Aluren came out of nowhere and Top 8’d a GP. What a Top 8.

Both Shardless BUG lists and the Miracles list were fairly stock. Nothing super interesting to report on. Andrejs Prost decided to go for the [card]Scrubland[/card] in the sideboard to splash for [card]Meddling Mage[/card], a move that a lot of Shardless players are making, whereas Xin Sui chose not to, and decided to play a higher planeswalker count with two [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] and three [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card], instead of the 1-2 split the deck usually favours.

The two Delver decks were more or less the usual lists with a few spicy exceptions. Christian Calcano made it to the finals with a version that resembled a Canadian Threshold deck, with a leaning towards [card]Stifle[/card] and [card]Wasteland[/card]. It evidently proved successful for the Calculator himself as he ended up finishing second. Gary Wong, on the other hand, decided to play a single [card]True-Name Nemesis[/card] and two [card]Abrupt Decay[/card] in the main. Wong’s list looked to be favoured against some of the slower decks however Calcano appeared to have the edge against Miracles, thanks to the inclusion of Stifle.

But that’s all boring, normal stuff for a Legacy GP. Now we can move on to the real meat of this Top 8.

In a turn of events I was not expecting in any way, Aluren made the Top 8 in the hands of Martin Goldman-Kirst. For those that aren’t aware, Aluren is a combo deck based around the card, [card]Aluren[/card]. The goal is to land the four mana enchantment and then combo off with [card]Cavern Harpy[/card] and [card]Parasitic Strix[/card], or just out-value the opponent with cheap creatures that are CMC 3 or less. His particular list included a playset of [card]Imperial Recruiter[/card] and [card]Shardless Agent[/card] as value cards, as well as a single [card]Eternal Witness[/card]. The deck is a perfectly fine choice but when your combo can go off on turn three at the earliest, you fall into some small issues in regards speed. However, Goldman-Kirst was able to pilot the deck to a great finish so perhaps, it’s time to bring the deck back? A man can dream.

After Aluren, the big head turner of the Top 8 was Chase Hansen’s Reanimator deck. Reanimator making the Top 8 wasn’t that much of a surprise. It’s become very popular in Legacy over the last few months and it’s got a good Shardless and a good Miracles matchup. But this particular build is very strange. Two maindeck copies of [card]Misdirection[/card] and three copies of [card]Izzet Charm[/card] immediately jump out to me. Charm is a card I’ve liked since it was first spoiled but it’s hard to find a home for two mana [card]Spell Pierce[/card]. Now the other modes are very relevant, but at two mana it’s not fantastic and is just outclassed by other options. Although if it does have a home, it might be in Reanimator. The [card]Faithless Looting[/card] mode is very good in this deck and having the ability to protect the combo or remove pressure in the form of [card]Insectile Aberration[/card], [card]Monastery Mentor[/card] or [card]Vendilion Clique[/card] is excellent. The Misdirections are probably a concession to the amount of [card]Abrupt Decay[/card]s that are seeing play, which is also why this deck is only running two [card]Animate Dead[/card].

I do quite like the singleton [card]Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy[/card] in this deck as it functions as a repeatable looting outlet which can be very good when you draw one too many reanimation targets. [card]Jace, Telepath Unbound[/card] is also a fine addition to the deck when he appears, helping to either stem the bleeding when you’re under fire or flashback a reanimation spell from earlier in the game. I’m not certain if I’d bump the wee lad to two copies as I’ve yet to do any testing with him in Reanimator.

I was surprised to see Lands win the tournament. It’s a deck that I find will often make the Top 8 consistently but will have difficulty closing out the tournament. I even said last week that I wouldn’t expect any kind of [card]Mox Diamond[/card] strategy but yet those words couldn’t be further from the truth. Jarvis Yu’s winning deck has nothing out of the ordinary, bar a very cool single copy of [card]Molten Vortex[/card], which was already starting to see play in Lands, and a juicy one of [card]Riftstone Portal[/card]. In many ways, I’m not surprised. It’s a deck that has a pretty good Miracles matchup and an equally good Shardless matchup, I find, seeing as it’s able to keep up the card advantage, albeit in different ways. Lands has also always been good at preying on fair decks, and now that the Delver decks are moving towards a [card]Young Pyromancer[/card] approach, [card]The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale[/card] is just obscene. Though I don’t expect Lands to suddenly dominate considering how expensive the deck is, thanks to the aforementioned Tabernacle, as well as the playsets of both [card]Wasteland[/card] and [card]Rishadan Port[/card]. However when it does show up, I could definitely see it making a great run.

So that was GP Seattle. I don’t know how many people got a chance to see the coverage but Channel Fireball did a great job. The Timeshifted matches they had in between rounds were excellent, and something I think other broadcasters could definitely look at doing. Well done to them for the GP, they really ended the Legacy year on a bang.

Which brings me to my next point. And it’s a bit of an elephant in the room, but also not really.

Last week, after my article had been sent in, Star City Games announced their plans for the Open Series next year, including a brand change to the Open Tour and the removal of a season, going from four to three. But the big change that has a lot of people upset and angry is their Legacy support, or moreso, their waning support.

The company announced that they would be continuing with the mini-GP structure that they had introduced for the 2015 season, something I was generally happy with, even though I wasn’t a fan of the sudden drop in Legacy coverage. They also announced that they were dropping Legacy as an Invitational format, and so far, only one Legacy Open is scheduled to take place in Season One. To compensate, they are still running the Premier Invitational Qualifiers at each Open. However, the prize pool will not be money. Instead, they will be tickets for a Prize Wall, akin to what we have seen at GPs.shardless-agent

Now, I don’t want to sound subjective, and I’m going to do my best to not, but these changes are ridiculous. Cutting back on the amount of Legacy coverage was bad. The format wasn’t getting the regular attention it used to and we lost the regular big tournaments for data purposes. But I could understand this because the commentators were being overworked. And SCG’s coverage would lose a lot if Patrick Sullivan and Cedric Phillips were showing signs of weariness. But these changes are bad for the format. And not because we’ve only got one Open in the first third of the year, which is still pretty poor. Changing the PIQ prize payouts to non redeemable prize tickets, that can’t be “banked” from one event to another, is almost insulting. Several players used to fly or make long travel arrangements for these PIQs and now, SCG have decided to acknowledge that by giving you the chance of winning unsold Commander product and playmats, if what we’ve seen at GPs is anything to go by.

Now this has enraged the Legacy community, and not just in America. Over here in Europe, we’re angry. It doesn’t impact us but when we saw that there would be loads of people selling out of Legacy, we raised our voices just as much. It’s been clear that Legacy is an underdog format that hasn’t had fantastic support, especially in most of America. But things like this just make it harder to continue playing paper Legacy, for some people. And that makes me very sad.

But I’m not going to be one of those people yelling to the heavens, “Legacy is dead! Sell your duals! Sell your duals!” I’m keeping my duals, thank you very much because 2016 looks set to be cracking for Legacy. Not only are there three Legacy GPs next year (two of which are on the same weekend!) but Bazaar of Moxen announced, almost immediately after SCG made their announcement, that they would be hosting six (Yes, SIX.) Legacy Opens in Europe, each with a prize pool of 7,500 Euros. Just read that sentence again. I know I am.

That’s just amazing. I’ve already booked time off work for the one in London and the one in Germany, and maybe I might just book a third off. The BoM has always been a great supporter of Legacy and Vintage, part of the reason they were asked to organise GP Lille this year, so seeing them host six opens for the format is just huge. Plus, the MKM Open Series is starting to pick up traction and who knows, with enough success and time, we could see that becoming the European SCG Circuit.

So yes, the naysayers are out in full force, and people are mudslinging and badmouthing all around, but all they gotta do is take a look at what’s out there and see how much Legacy is happening. And how great it is to be playing the format right now. The format is diverse and filled with all kinds of great decks. People were saying the format was going to revert back to pre-Khans of Tarkir after the most recent banning, but that’s not even true because Canadian Threshold was the best deck back then, and I don’t even know if there is a best deck, let alone consider it to be Canadian Threshold.

If you guys have any suggestions for what you’d like me to chat about next time, let me know down below. Until then, remember: Let the Cascade trigger resolve!

Miracles with Mr Miyagi: A Look Towards GP Seattle

Well it’s been quite an interesting couple of weeks. The banlist update really did give Legacy a new breath of life, not that it needed one but it’s certainly a great time to be playing the format. In the past two weeks alone, we’ve had an MKM Series in Prague and an SCG Open in St Louise and both have yielded some interesting results. We now have two large sets of data to analyse the format with, which is going to give us a great idea as to what it’s going to be like in Seattles in a week’s time, as well as how the format could adapt to this new change.

But let’s begin with me,and the changes that I’ve made to my deck, Miracles.

Losing [card]Dig Through Time[/card] didn’t send any fears or worries through Miracle players. In fact, some of us were a little happy because it meant we were once again, one of, if not the, best late game deck in the format, now that Delver decks couldn’t just reload when things got grindy. After Dig got banned, I started wondering what I could play in those two slots. I had though about adding a second [card]Counterspell[/card] or throw in some more permission in the form of [card]Spell Pierce[/card] but I decided that I was already well equipped with permission that I didn’t really need it. Someone suggested trying [card]Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy[/card] but I don’t believe it’s as good, or better than the man himself, [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card]. Though we’ll be talking about the Wallet Sculptor in the not too distant future.

And then it hit me. Reading through the Legacy subreddit I found my answer.

[card]Fact or Fiction[/card].

Bear with me guys. This is legit. I tried putting in one and a second Counterspell and every time I drew the FoF, it was just insane. It gives the deck a potential source of card advantage, something Miracles isn’t particularly good at, outside of [card]Counterbalance[/card] and Jace. Even just using it as a way of clearing the top three cards, while not ideal, can certainly be beneficial. And boy oh boy, was it good in the mirror. It helped when the game got stagnant and it was often times, a pseudo-win condition. I added a second, as a replacement to the second Counterspell.

Another big change that happened was something that many found very controversial. I hadn’t made the decision to include [card]Monastery Mentor[/card] in the seventy-five up until this week. I wasn’t wholly convinced on it, and I certainly wasn’t convinced on the versions that ran four as well as cards like [card]Daze[/card] and even [card]Cavern of Souls[/card]. I didn’t like turning on removal in my opponent’s deck and I just didn’t believe that it did a better job than [card]Entreat the Angels[/card] by providing an efficient, consistently powerful win condition that could play a defensive role.

td191_5jw106l9i

However this week I decided I would try two in the sideboard for the combo and mirror matches and I ate my words faster than I could breath. The card is insane. I wanted to sideboard it in nearly ever match. Despite how much I love Entreat, Mentor is just so much more powerful and isn’t a dead draw. It’s easier to cast and actually synergises with what you’re already trying to do. Fair enough, you can’t use it to take down an [card]Insectile Aberration[/card] or [card]Vendilion Clique[/card] but you can still chump [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] for days and it’s just a counter to [card]Young Pyromancer[/card]. After a day of testing online, I moved the two to the mainboard and have arrived at this list.

 

[deck title=Miracles]
[Creatures]
*2 Snapcaster Mage
*2 Monastery Mentor
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
*4 Sensei’s Divining Top
*4 Counterbalance
*4 Ponder
*4 Brainstorm
*4 Force of Will
*4 Swords to Plowshares
*3 Terminus
*2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
*2 Fact or Fiction
*1 Supreme Verdict
*1 Council’s Judgment
*1 Counterspell
*1 Entreat the Angels
[/Spells]
[Lands]
*4 Flooded Strand
*3 Scalding Tarn
*2 Arid Mesa
*1 Polluted Delta
*3 Tundra
*2 Volcanic Island
*3 Island
*2 Plains
*1 Mystic Gate
[/Lands]
[Sideboard]
*2 Pyroblast
*1 Red Elemental Blast
*2 Vendilion Clique
*1 Rest in Peace
*1 Baneslayer Angel
*1 Mountain
*1 Surgical Extraction
*1 Containment Priest
*1 Flusterstorm
*1 Izzet Staticaster
*1 Council’s Judgment
*1 Wear // Tear
*1 Engineered Explosives
[/Sideboard]
[/Deck]

 

For the most part, this is effectively what the Miracle Dude himself, Phillipp Schonegger, has recommended for going to GP Seattle but I’ve made a few personal tweaks. I’ve mentioned my love of FoF in this deck and I think two is a good number, though I understand playing none at all as it does cast four mana and can brick entirely, and believe me, it does. Though I think if Shardless BUG is going to be the next best deck (which it certainly looks like it could be) then I think it provides a good shot at taking that on, as well as the mirror, as I’ve mentioned.

I’ve been playing with [card]Supreme Verdict[/card] in Miracles for a long time and I think it’s a very underplayed card in Legacy. Originally that slot was a second [card]Council’s Judgement[/card] but I found that Verdict did the same thing most of the time, but couldn’t be countered and could be pitched to [card]Force of Will[/card], which is a merit on its own. Four mana is a lot and sometimes you can’t afford or simply can’t get two white on turn four but I believe as a one-of, it provides a clean, effective way of resetting the board if you’re beginning to feel the heat.

The manabase as well has some funk in it in the form of [card]Mystic Gate[/card] which I’ve borrowed from Joe Losset and have borrowed since I started playing the deck over a year ago. It allows me to play cards like Verdict and originally, the second Judgement, and also has a benefit of protecting me from [card]Choke[/card], which was a bit of a local meta call but I still think that it’s a very viable way of going about things. The fetchlands as well are up to you, but I think that [card]Flooded Strand[/card] is an automatic playset in whatever configuration you go for. All you need your lands to really do is fetch Islands, hence why I’ve cut one of the Islands for a single [card]Polluted Delta[/card], simply as another shuffle effect and some small defense against an aggressive [card]Pithing Needle[/card].

Most of the sideboard is stock as well with a few exceptions. The single basic Mountain has been a favourite of mine for a while and helps me bring in the heavy amount of red without needing to fear [card]Wasteland[/card]. The [card]Izzet Staticaster[/card] was originally a [card]Sulfur Elemental[/card] but now that I’ve made the switch to Mentor, Staticaster does effectively the same job, pitches to Force, and has a lot more versatility than just being a complete sledgehammer to Death and Taxes, which it is still excellent against, as it can take out [card]Phyrexian Revoker[/card], something Sulfur Elemental can’t. The [card]Baneslayer Angel[/card] is another personal love of mine. It gives me an alternative win condition that, against some decks, just can’t be answered profitably without countermagic. When Canadian Threshold was riding high, Baneslayer was often what brought me back into the game after having a Miracles or two [card]Stifle[/card]’d or a Counterbalance [card]Daze[/card]’d. I’ve even brought it in against midrange-y decks as a way of closing out the game relatively quickly and it makes the 12-Post matchup a lot more bearable.

So with that out of the way, let’s gaze into our [card]Crystal Ball[/card] and see what will the world be like in GP Seattle.

From what we’ve seen in the past two large events in Europe and America, Miracles is still king however it is not dominant at all. There were two copies in the Top 8 of MKM Prague and only one in the Top 8 at the open in St Louis. And that I would attribute to the fact that the MKM Series is smaller and Miracles is a more popular deck in Europe than it is in America. In Prague, Storm took down the tournament (though the Top 4 decided to split and Storm came first based off of Swiss standings) and Infect won in St Louis, in the hands of known Infect pilot, Tom Ross. In fact, outside of Miracles, the only overlap was Storm, which wasn’t particularly surprising considering Storm has a great Shardless BUG matchup.

I’m going to expect a lot of Shardless at GP Seattle. Possibly more than Miracles. I foresee a lot of the Pros who don’t play a lot of Legacy picking up Shardless for the weekend as it’s the deck that can beat the best deck reliably and has great game in a very slow field, which is what this format is certainly shaping up to be. There’s also going to be a hefty amount of combo but I don’t think Sneak and Show will be prevalent. It’s generally a very popular deck in America but I don’t think it’s as good as it was a few months ago. Miracles has a great game against it, I find, and it’s a very easy deck to attack. I could possibly see the BGx decks making an appearance, like Jund, Maverick and Punishing Blue though I doubt the [card]Mox Diamond[/card] strategy will be out in force. Again, I think it will depend on if the European players make a big showing.

If I were to make a prediction, I would say that this is what the Top 8 would contain:

2 Shardless BUG
1 Miracles
1 Death and Taxes
1 Storm
1 Infect
1 4C Delver
1 “Flex slot”

Though I could be entirely wrong, this is what I think is going to be in the Top 8. The “flex sot” is basically a wild card, an anything goes type of outcome. Perhaps someone gets fantastically lucky or a Pro makes a great run in the tournament. And I honestly think this is a very fine Top 8. All the decks have a fighting chance against one another, with some matches a little bit lopsided, but if this is what was produced on Sunday, I would feel very happy about where Legacy is.

So those are my thoughts on the upcoming GP. I hope that those of you who will be going have a blast as it looks to set to end the Legacy year with a bang. A GP only a month after a banning and with only two tournaments of data? These are the times in Legacy when anything can go and the meta is in a state of flux. Perhaps we may even see some new tech from Battle for Zendikar (come on Brave Sir Robin, I believe in you).

Next week I’ll be taking a look at the Littlest Jace that Could and if he possibly has a home in this format alongside his big daddy, Mr Mind Sculptor. Until then, don’t forget your Tabernacle costs!

I Have Been, and Always Shall Be, Your Friend: The Dig Through Time Banning

I woke up on Monday the 28th of September feeling good. The weekend had been great, I was recently employed, everything was well. And then it came to four o’clock, and my heart sank as I logged onto The Source and I read these words:

“[card]Dig Through Time[/card] banned in Legacy.”

I couldn’t believe it. It had survived three BnR update announcements. I thought that it was going to become a format mainstay. But sadly, my blue delve spell of choice (Sorry [card]Logic Knot[/card]) was gone. I’m gonna miss you buddy. It’s been great playing with mini Demonic Tutor in Legacy but I suppose it was time for you to go.

But it’s time to move on and tackle the Banned and Restricted List update for Battle for Zendikar.

Yes, Dig Through Time is gone. What was a card that pushed non-blue decks out of the format is now a relic of a time gone by, sent to serve time alongside [card]Survival of the Fittest[/card] and its big brother, [card]Treasure Cruise[/card]. Now despite the fact I loved the card ever since it entered the format, I do believe that Wizards were right in banning it. I played with two copies in Miracles since Khans of Tarkir came out and loved the inclusion but it changed the format in a big way. I don’t think it warped the format to the same degree Treasure Cruise did but it had an impact that a lot of people hated.

It was no surprise that decks that didn’t have Islands were at a disadvantage in Legacy but it didn’t stop them from putting up a good fight, and sometimes, punishing those blue decks. Death and Taxes and Elves are decks that immediately spring to mind, but you could go further with things like Jund, Maverick, the various [card]Life from the Loam[/card] strategies, and so much more. But when Dig was in the format, you just couldn’t beat the card advantage and long game power the card had. Before, BGx decks would often attack blue decks with cards like [card]Hymn to Tourach[/card] and [card]Liliana of the Veil[/card], but it was useless when those decks could run these powerful delve draw spells and refill their hand as quickly as they were attacked, leaving the attrition player with nothing and the other with a fresh belt of ammo. While it was less so when Treasure Cruise was banned, blue decks could, and would, keep in Force of Will against these attrition based decks because the card disadvantage didn’t matter anymore because of how easy it was to reload.

I am sad that Dig Through Time is gone. I was a big fan and I don’t think it was as toxic as Treasure Cruise was. Though I will admit, towards the end of its life, people were beginning to maindeck [card]Pyroblast[/card] and that is always a poor sign. So while I am sad to see it leave, I am not surprised.

So now that it’s gone, what will happen to Legacy?

For a start, the Omnitell deck that ran rampant is gone. Even though it was a deck that existed before, it gained so much with Dig Through Time. It was streamlined and much more efficient. It could set up the combo of [card]Show and Tell[/card] plus [card]Omniscience[/card] faster and with more resiliency. The deck was also 90 percent redundancy in the form of cantrips like [card]Ponder[card], [card]Preordain[/card] and [card]Gitaxian Probe[/card]. All of these cards were there just to fuel Dig and sculpt a hand of the combo and enough counterspells to win the fight. Without Dig though, the deck has lost the card that made it so resilient and fast. It will stick around but it will be back to running the [card]Dream Halls[/card] version with [card]Enter the Infinite[/card] and [card]Release the Ants[/card].

Because of this change, I expect to see Sneak and Show come back. The deck was pushed out by Omnitell as the former was a much more resilient version of the combo deck and wasn’t vulnerable to the same hate the other version was. Before, one could [card]Karakas[/card] the big fattie the deck cheated in to play or [card]Pithing Needle[/card] naming [card]Sneak Attack[/card], or even playing a card like [card]Containment Priest[/card]. But when the Omnitell was Showing in an enchantment that allowed them to just cast Emrakul, these cards were gone. The deck was also able to load up on counterspells that it could unleash for free.

The other impact of Dig leaving the format is that non-blue decks are going to come back. We’re going to see Maverick come back, even though it may not be the best time to play it what with Miracles having such a strong position in the metagame. Death and Taxes, a deck that was already going strong in a world of Dig Through Time, is going to come back as well. Elves as well I think gains a lot out of this banning. Elves has been punished heavily since KTK was released. The Treasure Cruise Delver decks were able to race Elves and packed cards like [card]Forked Bolt[/card] and [card]Young Pyromancer[/card] that attacked the tribe so well, and even when Cruise was banned, it was still hard for the forest dwellers to keep up against the decks that abused Dig Through Time, so now I think it’s time for it to make a resurgence.

cardart_digthroughtime

Delver decks are going to stay, by-and-large, the same however they won’t have the late game strength as they had with Dig. I believe that Grixis/4 Colour Delver will be the Delver deck of choice as it has access to cards like Young Pyromancer, [card]Cabal Therapy[/card] and [card]Gurmag Angler[/card], as well as having the green splash for [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] and [card]Abrupt Decay[/card]. It’s also got access to a lot of cheap countermagic. These decks normally played two copies of Dig so those slots easily get filled in with something like [card]Spell Pierce[/card] or [card]Flusterstorm[/card].

I predict as well that Canadian Threshold is going to come back. This deck was at one point the best deck in Legacy and would be a monster against nearly all of the field. However the printing of Treasure Cruise pushed it out as its mana denial plan of [card]Stifle[/card] and [card]Wasteland[/card] were useless against decks that could refill with Cruise and Dig, but the deck couldn’t play these cards because of the anti-synergy with [card]Nimble Mongoose[/card] and to a lesser extent, [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]. Now though, the deck is able to breath once more and while I think it has been outclassed by other Delver decks, I think it’s going to come back now that Stifle and Wasteland have room to play around in.

Another deck that we haven’t seen since KTK is Shardless BUG. Shardless BUG I believe is one of the best decks to play right now, now that Dig is gone. Card advantage was very rare in Legacy up until the blue delve spells came into the equation and the only deck that really got card advantage was Shardless. The deck gave up counterspells other than [card]Force of Will[/card] so that it could use [card]Shardless Agent[/card] to the best of its ability, normally abusing the interaction with [card]Ancestral Visions[/card]. But when other decks could easily keep up with the advantage Shardless generated, the deck fell a little bit out of favour. That and it fell into the attrition decks that were relegated to a subpar status when delve became the monster that it was, and still is to some degree. But now, not only does it produce some incredible card advantage, but it also has a fantastic matchup against Miracles. It can attack the deck in a variety of ways and I believe is the choice of deck to play if you’re playing in a large Legacy tournament.

I’ve talked a lot about Dig Through Time’s banning but have neglected to talk about the unbanning of [card]Black Vise[/card]. When Legacy was created, Black Vise was one of the cards on the original banlist that was put there because of the way the format looked at the time. Legacy no longer is dominated by hyper efficient blue draw spells and Black Vise no longer punishes decks the way it used to. The only strategies that it fits into that I can think of are Burn, which would rather play a [card]Goblin Guide[/card] or [card]Monastery Swiftspear[/card] on turn one, or MUD, which is an unpopular and underplayed deck. There are also plenty of cards that get rid of it that are played in the mainboard of decks: Abrupt Decay, [card]Council’s Judgement[/card] and [card]Vindicate[/card] are all cards that see play in the main of Legacy decks.

Dig Through Time had a great run, a better run than I’d say Treasure Cruise did, but all dogs must have their day and now it is gone. But it’s time for us to move on and embrace this world of non-blue fair decks, with their [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card]s [card]Knight of the Reliquary[/card] and [card]Bloodbraid Elf[/card]s. And with the last Legacy GP of the year in just over a month’s time, you can be sure that this change is going to get people gearing up for one heck of showdown.

Until next time!

Legacy’s Allure

This weekend, my LGS is having its first Legacy FNM. For people who don’t play Legacy, this is just a chance for people to show off their dual lands, Force of Wills and Wastelands. I guarantee there will be some people who’ll show up just to see cards they may never see again. I mean, the words “Jace, the Mind Sculptor” are said in hushed tones amongst casual players, imagine the chance to see this legendary card of mythical power, pun intended. But for those playing in the tournament, it’s a whole lot more than a showcase of Magic’s greatest hits. It’s exposure to what many call the best format in the game, the Magic player’s paradise, or Type 1.5.

For those that aren’t aware of this format, Legacy is an eternal format, meaning that the format doesn’t rotate and you can play any card that was printed in the game’s history, provided it isn’t on the format’s banlist. It’s a format where you get to experience the power that was Magic’s history and where you get to see some of the most skill intensive games of Magic you may ever see. It has a huge community online on The Source and on the subreddit, /r/MTGLegacy, yet despite this, people are often turned away or are afraid to approach Legacy. Legacy is my favourite format, hands down, so I’m going to take some myths about Legacy and toss them aside and show you why you would be a fool to turn away from a format where you can put an Emrakul into play on turn 2 or 3.

legacys-allure

Magic the Gathering’s Greatest Hits

In recent years, Wizards RnD have done a great job of perfecting power levels. Sure cards like [card]Siege Rhino[/card] and [card]Hangarback Walker[/card] slip through onto the print sheet but on the whole, the game’s power is at a much lower rate than it was fifteen years ago. Which is healthy for the game going forward but come on, would you rather be playing a turn two [card]Sylvan Caryatid[/card] or [card]Sylvan Library[/card]? In Legacy, you get to play with cards that no other format lets you play with. When you cast your [card]Stoneforge Mystic[/card] or your [card]Dig Through Time[/card], this is the only place where you’re going to find those cards. You get to play with these powerhouses of recent memory that have been banned in Modern and sometimes Standard. And that’s just looking at cards that have been printed in the past few years. Just you wait until you see what RnD thought was okay to print twelve or thirteen years ago!

I love being able to see these cards shine. It feels like you get to play with ancient relics that used to be wielded by gods. Imagine getting the chance to lift Thor’s hammer or pull the sword from the stone. That’s what it’s like to cast [card]Force of Will[/card] and [card]Hymn to Tourach[/card]. These cards that won’t see the light of day ever again because they’re too strong have a home in formats that aren’t Legacy. It’s kind of like that moment in action movies when you get the old, retired action hero to come out of retirement and get back into it again, and then you see them kick serious booty as the other heroes watch in awe. Legacy is getting to fight alongside Yoda and Gandalf! How cool is that?

A Thrill for Skill

Pauper, another format dearly close to my heart, is widely considered to be a brewer’s format. People that love to come up with deck ideas and tinker and brew are drawn to Pauper and it’s brewing capabilities. Legacy, on the other hand, is a player’s format. What I mean by that is, Legacy rewards those who really know the game and their deck. This isn’t to say that other big constructed formats like Modern or Standard aren’t skill intensive. You just need to look at the finals of this years World Championships to see how much skill is present in these formats. But this skill and all of the various lines of play are multiplied hundredfold in Legacy. Legacy matches can be decided on how one orders their [card]Ponder[/card] or [card]Brainstorm[/card]. Similarly, there can be multiple paths to victory and its a matter of trying to isolate the path that is quickest and easiest on the resources.

And this isn’t to say you have to be a “good” player to enjoy Legacy. Instead, if you are a “good” player you will be heavily rewarded in this format and it’s a real test to your skill level. Even if you aren’t a PTQ grinder or the person who regularly goes undefeated FNM, playing Legacy will test you and after even a couple of games, you’ll begin to get better. Games will almost always come down to the player who picks the best plays and utilise their cards in the right manner. I refuse to believe that there are “bad matchups” in Legacy. There are decks that have an upper hand against some decks but I refuse to believe that there are decks that just steamroll other decks. There are decks in Modern that just can’t beat certain decks like Merfolk vs Affinity, or B/G Midrange vs Zoo wheras in Legacy, sure Infect has strong game against Miracles but all it takes is a good Miracles player and they can claw back those percentage points like nothing. If you love trying to figure out the right play or the most mana efficient way of stabilising the board, then Legacy is the format for you.

forceofwill

There’s a Deck for That

There’s a really strong brewing community within Legacy and with the entire history of Magic at your fingertips, you can go nuts with what you have available. And the great thing is all of these decks can be played to great success and have been played to great success. Which means that no matter what you want to play, you can find a deck for you.

Do you like playing control and locking out the game before grinding out a win? Miracles.

Do you want to do loads of maths and thinking over how to sequence your cantrips before picking up speed all in one turn? Storm.

Wanna play a deck that wins by not casting spells? Just look at any of the flavours of Dredge.

Even if you just wanna play ball and hit with creatures, you’ve got a deck for you, Maverick and Death and Taxes. Legacy has something for everyone, regardless of what your preferred playstyle is. It’s hard to find something for everyone in formats like Standard. Combo players often don’t get the love in Standard and even in Modern, combo decks don’t get the care and attention from Wizards. Yet in Legacy, there’s a slew of combo decks you can play from Storm, to Reanimator, to Omnitell, to Dredge, to… you get the point.

All too Good to be True?

This all seems like it’s a paradise for every kind of Magic player but you’re probably asking about a couple of niggles. A few bits you’ve probably heard about Legacy that immediately put you off. No doubt the first one is the price and I wanna get this one out of the way.

Legacy is an expensive format, if you want it to be. Yes, you can splurge all out on a deck like Lands that plays cards like [card]Rishadan Port[/card], [card]Wasteland[/card] and [card]The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale[/card] and yeah, that’s gonna set you back a hefty chunk of cash. Alternatively, you can play something cheaper, something that’s still got great game and isn’t going to break the bank. There’s a whole variety of affordable decks out there that are probably the same as a Standard or Modern deck. Something like Burn, Merfolk, Dredge, even something like UR Delver only really has expenses in the 4 Volcanic Island which is a card that will let you play loads of Legacy decks, and 4 Force of Will which similarly, lets you transition to another deck with little to no difficulty. And in case you’re thinking, “but budget decks are always going to be inferior to decks that are expensive and cost lots of money”, you couldn’t be more wrong. I recommend you check out the Top 8 of SCG Worcester from last July. In that Top 8 you will find Charlie Mitchell playing Burn against Loam Pox and Jeskai Delver, two decks that are both expensive on their own but were fully pimped out, all foils, Alpha and Beta duals and so on. Charlie beat the Loam Pox deck to make it to the Top 4 where he lost to Jeskai Delver. A two hundred dollar Burn deck trounced an easily four thousand dollar Pox deck.

Oh, and Charlie Mitchell was 13 years old when he did that. So you can’t say money buys you victory when those kinds of results and players are out there.

You may also think that Legacy is full of turn one kills and combo deck after combo deck but that is equally untrue. Sure, in Vintage turn one kills or relatively uncommon but in Legacy, yeah there’s fast combo decks and alright, pretty much all of them have the capacity to win on turn one but the chances of that happening are so unbelievably slim. I’ve been playing and watching Legacy for over a year and in all that time I’ve seen Storm combo off on turn one once. And they were able to do that because they cast [card]Gitaxian Probe[/card] to reveal a five card hand with no disruption so they knew the coast was clear. Show and Tell, the most popular combo deck in the format right now, can’t go off on turn one. The mono blue Omnitell deck (another relatively unexpensive deck, I might add) has given up [card]Lotus Petals[/card] meaning it can’t cast [card]Show and Tell[/card] on turn one. Legacy is in fact, a slower format than people think. The Modern Affinity deck is faster than the Legacy Affinity deck, which has access to all of the Artifact Lands, a luxury the Modern deck doesn’t get to capitalise on.

I Now Pronounce You, a Community

I think after all of the crazy stack shenanigans and getting to say, “I equip Umezawa’s Jitte to True-Name Nemesis”, the part of Legacy that has me coming back every time is the community. Whether you frequent The Source or r/MTGLegacy, the Legacy community is always welcoming and is great fun to be around. Possibly this is because we know we’re a small bunch and we have to stick together. When I started getting into Legacy, the local Legacy players were delighted to help out and showed me a couple of their decks. There’s even a guy in my LGS who lets new players play his Death and Taxes deck at Legacy events.

Legacy players have invested into the format. They’ve spent time tuning and learning their decks, and spending large amounts of money on them in a fair few cases. They care about the format and when they see new people coming in, they are always happy to help them out. Even now, a friend of mine has bitten the bullet and is going to Legacy this Friday with his Modern Burn deck, with a few modifications. And I’m delighted. The Legacy community has gotten hit hard by WOTC a lot over history. The Reserved List, not reprinting expensive staples in an easily obtainable manner like a Commander deck, the lack of GPs, it’s pretty obvious we’re not WOTC’s favourite child. So when we see new players coming in, we welcome them in with open arms. The format is constantly growing as more and more people move to the format and most of them are sticking around because there’s a great bunch of people within the community. Guys in America like Bryant Cook, Joe Losset and Eli Kassis are known Legacy players that are great spokespersons for the format, and the same can be said over here with people like Phillipp Schoenegger, Julian Knab and even our own Susann Heidemueller, who became our World Cup Team Captain because she landed a great finish at GP Lille, which was Legacy!

I could go on about this wonderful format for paragraphs but I won’t. Because then you won’t have enough time to start playing this incredible format. Log on to Magic Online or Cockatrice or whatever platform you play on, or even head down to your LGS and ask about Legacy events. Start a proxy league in your shop. Make an account over at The Source and look at what some of the guys over there are posting. There’s tons of ways to get into Legacy and I encourage you choose one or multiple of them and start exploring. I can’t recommend the SCG Open Series enough as a way to get into the format. The commentators do a great job at explaining even the most complicated of combo decks and showcase a variety of decks, not just Delver deck after Delver deck.

I hope that you enjoyed this ramble of a madman and I hope to see you flipping Delvers and spinning Tops at the next Legacy GP!