This Week in Legacy: A Brand New Legacy?
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 looking at the first week of how Legacy is shaping up after the bannings of Expressive Iteration and White Plume Adventurer. It's definitely been an interesting week! We've also got some data from the Challenges over the weekend and some news about new cards having made it to MTGO.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Legacy - Week One Post Ban
We're into the first week since the bannings of Expressive Iteration and White Plume Adventurer and I am definitely hearing a lot of positive chatter on the format. While we still won't see fully what the ramifications of this banning will be until we get a little further out time-wise, I can say sofar that the hype and excitement for the format is pretty great.
There's a lot of speculation about where the format is going to congeal to after these bannings, especially in the realm of what UR Delver will end up looking like or will end up doing. Delver still stands as one of the better decks in the format, and I don't think that changes, but I do think that it will take a bit for people to settle on what ends up being the correct way for Delver to attack the metagame. Already we've seen scenarios where Delver players just go more low to the ground and focus on their core threats and cards like Stifle.
We've also seen scenarios where cards like Third Path Iconoclast, Young Pyromancer, and even True-Name Nemesis are making a comeback alongside new cards like Minor Misstep.
We've also seen Mercurial Spelldancer put in some work in the format, which is not unexpected because that card is a lot of value.
Beyond Delver though, we've seen some players trying newer builds of Initiative based decks like Gruul Initiative and Boros Initiative. This is not unexpected either really.
Of the big things I've seen in the new format is that Marit Lage players are very excitable, and we've even seen the return of Cloudpost based decks to the format as well. Control decks are finding root without having EI to rely on, and we've seen everything from UW Control to Bant, to even Bant NO Zenith based decks.
All in all it seems like an ultra exciting time to be playing Legacy.
That being said, we do have an eye towards the sets March of the Machine and Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle Earth because those sets could have some potential changes to them. March especially can have some big changes due to the fact that we're getting a new card type in Battles and we don't really know what that's going to do just yet.
Still, for now things are exciting and Legacy players are sounding far more positive about the format, so I'm really looking forward to what happens next.
New Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate Cards on MTGO
Pretty much right after we got the Ban Announcement last week, we also received a notification from Daybreak Games that two more Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate cards would be finding their way to the MTGO client. Those cards are two more cards from the "Adventurer" cycle that White Plume Adventurer belonged to, and those are Undermountain Adventurer and Ravenloft Adventurer.
Both of these cards do add some interesting concepts to existing decks, especially Undermountain Adventurer which has pretty solid stats for a four mana with Vigilance, and Ravenloft Adventurer's pseudo Leyline effect for opposing creatures. It will be interesting to see what effects these cards have on the metagame.
Legacy Challenge 3/11
The first post ban Challenge event was the early morning Saturday event. This event had 83 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.
UR Delver was the most popular deck, but it did not do well in terms of win rate at all. What's great to see here more than anything is the wide spread of decks that people are trying. I know that eventually this might change but it is always nice to see people exploring different space within the metagame right off the bat.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Sneak and Show | 1st | ht991122 |
| Bant NO | 2nd | mort3d |
| 8Cast | 3rd | Butakov |
| Painter | 4th | CoolUser |
| Painter | 5th | ganesh_69 |
| Gruul Stompy | 6th | OnlyLandsDotCom |
| Reanimator | 7th | piao |
| Red Stompy | 8th | acorn_locker |
Quite a lot of Ancient Tomb decks in the Top 8 here. At the end of the event though it was Sneak and Show that won it all, which is not at all that surprising for a post ban week.
Sneak and Show is a great deck for capitalizing on these kinds of metagames where players are attempting to find a new niche or simply try to find something that is good. This is a pretty straightforward list with zero frills and it doesn't really need any.
In Second Place we've got a sweet Bant Natural Order list.
Atraxa as a Natural Order target here is super sweet. It's guaranteed to draw a good number of cards off the ten cards you look at, and it's a strong card to hit the opponent with. This deck is sweet.
Further into the Top 8 we've got a showing by Blue Painter.
This pseudo 8Cast/Painter hybrid is pretty cool really. It has a lot of really strong gameplay to it, and it's flexibility is really good.
Down at the bottom half of the Top 8 we have a sweet Gruul Initiative deck.
This deck is pretty sweet. It's very much a lot of mana based cards like Spirit Guides and Lotus Petal and it's definitely designed to either jam a lock piece or an Initiative threat on Turn 1, and honestly I think this is a great place for an Ancient Tomb deck to be because of having to invest a bunch of resources into getting one of these two things on board. Four Fury is also really good.
Legacy Challenge 3/12
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the mid afternoon Sunday event. This event had 103 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.
Reanimator and UR Delver were the two top popular decks of the event, but neither of them had very good win rates. Even more in this event there was a wider spread of different decks and people trying different things, with decks like Painter, Elves, and Breakfast all doing well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Elves | 1st | ferrarix |
| 8Cast | 2nd | TelepUndomain |
| Gruul Stompy | 3rd | gravy98 |
| Reanimator | 4th | MDecker |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 5th | L4rss0n |
| Orzhov Stompy | 6th | HanktheObese |
| Doomsday | 7th | Fuz65 |
| Red Stompy | 8th | MercSavage |
Definitely an interesting Top 8 here. Good number of Stompy, but also some Breakfast and at the top of the event... Elves.
Atraxa here as a Natural Order target for when the Hoof gameplan is off the table is pretty cool. It has a lot of power to it and can easily draw a bunch of cards to refill. Also worth noting here is the Undermountain Adventurer in the sideboard.
In Second Place we've got 8Cast.
8Cast is one of those Ancient Tomb decks that greatly benefits from the banning of White Plume Adventurer, giving this deck a bit of breathing room for sure. This is a pretty straightforward list and it does a lot of powerful things.
Further down the Top 8 we had a sweet Stompy list in Arena Rector Stompy.
This deck is amazing and I love everything about it. I want to definitely try this at some point because Arena Rector is a guilty pleasure of mine. This just looks super fun to play for sure.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we have Doomsday.
Oh oh oh... some Tendrils of Agony action in this Doomsday deck is pretty sweet. Also TWO copies of Bolas's Citadel?!?! This deck is some spice.
Around the Web
- Julian Knab was on the Humans of Magic Podcast recently. Check it out here.
- Speaking of Podcasts, yours truly showed up on a few last week! Check out my thoughts on Legacy post ban with the crew of the Dark Depths Podcast as well as brief appearance on last week's MTGGoldfish Podcast!
- Eternal Durdles does a Community Spotlight on Phil Nguyen! Check it out here.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast talks about the Legacy bans. Check it out here.
- WINOTA
- Our good friend Minhajul Hoq wrote a new post on MinMax Blog in regards to the bans. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
Not super spicy, but we have not seen BUG Delver in literally forever, so it's kind of cool to see.
Rector Control! I love this deck so much. Kaya, Intangible Slayer seems like a super sweet inclusion for the deck.
4C Loam!
GSZ Stompy!
This deck is pretty wild. Artifact Aggro with a side of Cranial Plating.
STAX.
UR Stiflenought with Currency Converter is gas.
Speaking of Stiflenought style decks. The Aeon Bridge featuring Atraxa.
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!
