This Week in Legacy: 5 Decks to Think About for Eternal Weekend
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of This Week in Legacy! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week we're going to be taking a look at five decks that could be great decks for Eternal Weekend! In addition to that we've got some paper events in a look back at the Swiss Magic Masters event as well as Bazaar of Boxes Series 9. We've also got two Challenges, one of which was a Showcase Challenge.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Five Decks to Think About for Eternal Weekend
Eternal Weekend is fast approaching in a month and a half in Pittsburgh, PA! With that thought in mind, we're going to take a look at five decks that can be strong considerations for the Legacy event. I am not going to cover some inclusions like Delver, Scam, or Death's Shadow due to the fact that those decks are very common enough. Instead we're going to look at some decks that have unique angles to the current metagame.
Painter
Painter is a deck with a massive amount of consideration to its power level in the current format. The current incarnations of the deck in paper Magic have a caveat that currently does not exist on Magic Online and that is the presence of Chaos Defiler. This card does a lot for this deck in allowing it to power through certain matchups. Couple that with cards like Orcish Bowmasters and all of the angles this deck attacks on, this is a deck that will absolutely reward every percentage point mastering it.
If I were to play in Eternal Weekend this year, Painter would be my personal go-to.
Cephalid Breakfast
From one A+B combo with a fair game plan to another A+B combo with a fair game plan, Cephalid Breakfast is yet another deck that I think looks pretty good in the current metagame. It's combo game plan is hard to disrupt easily, and the fair backup plan of cards like Urza's Saga allow the deck a lot of grinding capabilities.
The fact that this deck can run Force of Will as well is not an unknown quantity. Being able to play fairly and play on multiple axes is what makes this deck look good.
Lands
I think Lands is a great deck right now, and certainly a great deck in paper to bring into an Eternal Weekend style event if you really know the deck well. The biggest aspect of this deck's evolution as of late has been the adoption of four copies of Sphere of Resistance. This gives the deck some really strong options versus combo decks, but also allows it the ability to delay most fair decks as well through both Spheres and the usage of Wasteland to demolish the opponent's manabase.
This is a grindy deck at the moment and it has a lot of power behind it, so if that's the kind of gameplay you love, this is a deck to think about.
8Cast
8Cast seems like a weird inclusion in a field where you expect Orcish Bowmasters to be quite popular, but I think the deck has a lot of current promise due to the recent adoptions the deck has made towards cards like Patchwork Automaton. Not only does Automaton function well versus common hate like Null Rod or Collector Ouphe, but it can muscle through a lot of decks due to how big they can get.
Out of the sideboard, the deck gains access to a lot of countermagic but also stuff like Dismember to clear up Bowmasters, so the options this deck has are very strong and it is a very straightforward and powerful strategy to play.
Death and Taxes
D&T has been rather up and down as of late in the current format, but I have an eye on this deck primarily due in part to things this deck receives being in the paper Magic world and not on MTGO, and that's primarily cards like Canoptek Scarab Swarm. This card can be a verifiable army in a can sometimes, and it has some strong game versus decks that rely hard on the graveyard. In addition, cards like The Battle of Bywater have proven them to be insanely good in the deck.
D&T takes a lot to learn and has a lot of time investment into it, but it's powerful and I think it's good.
Bonus Deck - Boros Stompy
Ok I lied. Here's a bonus deck to consider. Boros Stompy is incredibly strong right now, largely due in part to the incredible power level of Forth Eorlingas! This is a deck that is incredibly straightforward and super powerful. It has some really incredible games where it just muscles through so much. The Initiative continues to prove that it has a lot of staying power in the current format despite the absence of White Plume Adventurer.
Swiss Magic Masters - 10/1/2023
At the beginning of the month of October there was a great 77 player event in Switzerland known as the Swiss Magic Masters event. I definitely did not get this reported on last week and I meant to, so let's talk about the event now. As noted, their Legacy event for this event weekend had 77 players in it and it sounded like a really solid event overall. They did a write up on the event which you can find here.
Definitely a nice looking event, a cool playmat given out to players, and just some great fun. Let's also look at the Top 8 of the event.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Boros Stompy | 1st | Christian Vittoni |
| Death's Shadow | 2nd | Thibaud Zemp |
| Burn | 3rd-4th | Patrick Wild |
| Grixis Delver | 3rd-4th | Janosh Georg |
| 4C Uro Control | 5th-8th | Pascal Richter |
| 8Cast | 5th-8th | Ramon Hegi |
| Grixis Delver | 5th-8th | Alex Van Der Bijl |
| Death's Shadow | 5th-8th | Sam Marti |
Definitely a really cool Top 8. Burn made a Top 8 here! At the end of the event it was won by Boros Stompy.
We talked about this deck a bit above and I feel like it's a really strong deck. Congrats to Christian for taking down this event!
Bazaar of Boxes Series 9 10/21/2023
This past weekend was the Bazaar of Boxes Series 9! Bazaar of Boxes has long had a place in these columns. They really provide us with a lot of great info on their events and lot of small details. Much thanks to Michel de Jong of BoB for giving us all sorts of great info on their events. These events are also qualifier events for the European Legacy Masters tournament series.
You can find all of the event info for their events at their website here. This event was event streamed with full commentary. Check out that below:
This event had 73 players in it! You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here. It's worth noting that a few decklists had to make some weird adjustments due to MTGMelee not having certain cards (specifically cards from the Doctor Who set Everybody Lives! and Banish to Another Universe). Highly intriguing!
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| GW Depths | 1st | Maarten van Tol |
| Grixis Delver | 2nd | Tim van der Lans |
| Hive Mind | 3rd | Michael Kammer |
| Boros Stompy | 4th | Ruben Smeets |
| Dimir Scam | 5th | Terrence Serraarens |
| Mono Blue Delver | 6th | Robert van der Poel |
| Red Painter | 7th | Patrick Pouwels |
| 8Cast | 8th | Dennis Drost |
Definitely a wild Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Maarten van Tol who won, qualifying again for the European Legacy Masters series on GW Depths.
Very strong looking list here. I am digging the Hall of Gemstone in the sideboard here. Seems like a super sweet card overall.
In Second Place we had Grixis Delver.
Okay Ob Nixilis, the Adversary in the sideboard is super cool. Loving it!
The really spicy part of this Top 8 was Hive Mind Combo.
This deck is super duper sweet. Casting Pacts with Hive Mind in play is something ELSE.
Legacy Challenge 10/21
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event. This event had 62 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
4C Uro decks were the most popular here, and they had a strong win rate overall. Boros Stompy also did very well while Grixis Delver and Sneak and Show performed poorly.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Doomsday | 1st | clan |
| Death and Taxes | 2nd | 1337erhosen |
| Boros Stompy | 3rd | mmapson125 |
| 4C Uro Control | 4th | Rank1Lynx |
| Death's Shadow | 5th | M0001 |
| 4C Uro Control | 6th | Baby |
| Maverick | 7th | achillies27 |
| 4C Tempo | 8th | CoolUser |
Lot going on in this Top 8. Some Stompy, some combo, some Tempo. At the end of the event it was Doomsday that won.
The One Ring is kind of a sweet inclusion here. Being able to chain this into play and then use it to draw a bunch after Doomsday is kind of cool and the protection aspect preventing you from dying is sweet.
In Second Place we had Death and Taxes.
75 card D&T isn't something we see too often anymore. Some oldies and goodies in this deck, such as Serra Avenger. Palantir of Orthanc in the sideboard is sweet too.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had a really cool 4C Tempo list.
Hah! Wow, having both Bowmasters AND Questing Druid in the same deck is super sweet especially since if you put the Druid into play it gets bigger off every other spell in the deck. Really sweet.
Legacy Showcase Challenge 10/22
The second Challenge event of the weekend was a Showcase Challenge! These events are Qualification Point (QPs) entry only and the Top 8 of these events feeds into the Showcase Qualifier at the end of the season. This event had 330 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project. Staggering number of players for sure!
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Both Dimir Scam and 4C Uro decks were fairly neck and neck in popularity, and overall both did middling despite both having some great Top 8 results. Boros Stompy was a clear solid deck in the event, boasting a near 60% non-mirror win rate with 21 pilots on the deck.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| 4C Uro Control | 1st | ziofrancone |
| Dimir Scam | 2nd | D00mSwitch |
| Boros Stompy | 3rd | xJCloud |
| Dimir Scam | 4th | duke12 |
| Death and Taxes | 5th | Freudian_Slip |
| 4C Tempo | 6th | kl0gw |
| 4C Uro Control | 7th | slaxx |
| RUG Delver | 8th | Gul_Dukat |
Really interesting Top 8 here too. Reasonable amount of variety. At the end of the event it was 4C Uro Control that won.
Up the Beanstalk and Lorien Revealed continue to put up a ton of work in decks like this, and even cards like Leyline Binding is incredibly powerful.
In Second Place we had Dimir Scam.
Very solid stock list here it looks like. I continue to like seeing Palantir of Orthanc in decks. That card is incredibly powerful.
Also in the Top 8 of this event we had Boros Stompy by our good friend John Ryan Hamilton.
Very clean and solid list here. This is just clean powerful Magic.
Around the Web
- This Deck Has Been Driving People Crazy, indeed.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast is going full on Stompy mode. Check it out here.
- 90sMTG has the finals of the Gamestoria 1K in NYC. Check it out here.
- The Legacy Gambit is paying some Taxes! Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
Infect in a Spice Corner? Oh YEAH!
Rainbow Depths!
BUG Beans is pretty cool.
Speaking of Beans, cascading into them seems quite good.
INVERTER OF TRUTH.
Wrapping Up
That's all the time we have this week folks! Thanks for continuing to support the column and join us next week as we continue our journey into Legacy!
As always you can reach me at all my associated links via my Link Tree! In addition I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the MTGLegacy Discord Server.
Until next time!
