This Week in Legacy: All About Them Beans
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 talking about Beanstalks in Legacy! In addition to that we've got some discussion on Data Collection Project stuff, and some Challenges.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit
Since the release of Wilds of Eldraine, we've seen a lot of buzz around the usage of one of the set's primary best uncommons in the form of Up the Beanstalk.
This card seems rather innocuous on the surface, but it has actually proven to be exceptionally powerful as there are a large number of numerous mana value 5 spells that Legacy players cast a lot on average, from Force of Will and Solitude to even cards like Murktide Regent. What makes this card so powerful is the fact that Up the Beanstalk cycles itself when it ETBs and it functions well with cards like Yorion, Sky Nomad and other big splashy spell effects. In multiples the card is very powerful since you can cast something like Force of Will and draw multiple cards to negate the downside of casting Force.
Making this card draw cards is actually much easier than most other cards of this nature (for example the very recent Staff of the Storyteller which has become completely eclipsed by this card) and the card has definitely been forceful in the metagame.
Since the release of this card we've seen it show up in a number of different shells utilizing this card in different ways. Primarily this card was seeing play in shells utilizing Yorion and Uro (the more 4C Control builds).
This version of the deck has access to a lot of effects like Terminus, Yorion, Solitude, Force, and Leyline Binding to trigger Beanstalk, providing a constant stream of card draw.
We've also seen this in less of an Uro shell and more of a 4C Esper+Green type shell as well.
This is an interesting take on utilizing the card. No Yorion to blink abuse them, but plenty of cards to trigger it pretty regularly.
Most recently we've actually seen this card show up in Daze shell decks as well.
The big hitters here are your finishing threats like Murktide and Hooting Mandrills, alongside cards like Force and Magmatic Sinkhole. Between the extra card draw provided by Beanstalk and Mishra's Bauble this deck can see a lot of cards.
Up the Beanstalk is a sweet card, and I think we've only scratched the surface of what this card is capable of. This is something to continually keep an eye on because it is quite powerful and has a lot of strong shells it can be pulled into.
On Data Collection Efforts
This is a bit of a slight update on the ongoing efforts for collecting data for the Legacy Challenge events on Magic Online. One thing we've been running into a lot lately is the fact that we simply don't have enough regular data collectors to ensure full data collection. This has been a real issue for being able to keep up to date on data collection and getting all the event data we need.
One of my long term projects here has been the recommendations and continued promotion of getting Daybreak Games to simply publish all of the Challenge data for older formats like Legacy. Vintage, Pauper, etc. This would remove a huge weight and burden off the shoulders of the data collection teams and allow us more time to work on other projects. You can find my post about this on the MTGO forums here. It's marked as "In Consideration" and I've had direct discussion with Daybreak about it a number of times, but upvotes to this discussion are always preferable.
In the short term, we really need more people who are able to help collect data on a regular basis. If you think this is something you can do or are able to help, please feel free to reach out to either me on Twitter or via the Legacy Data Collection Project Discord server.
Legacy Challenge 9/23
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event. Despite having some collection issues we do know there was 79 players in this event thanks to the efforts of the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the incomplete datasheet here. This basically means we don't have fancy graphs, so let's look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Scam | 1st | duke12 |
| Hogaak | 2nd | Applepies96 |
| 4C Uro Control | 3rd | DemonicTutors |
| Dimir Scam | 4th | M0001 |
| Lands | 5th | Trailovsky |
| Dimir Scam | 6th | RyanWu |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 7th | yPrincipe |
| RUG Midrange/Control | 8th | Gabri091 |
Lot of Scam here, but a good smattering of other decks as well. Of course, it was Scam that won the event.
This list looks fairly stock overall, but the shell is exceptionally flexible and can do a good number of powerful things.
In Second Place we had Hogaak.
In reality, this deck is also sort of a Scam deck as it's utilizing the Scam package alongside the Hogaak game plan. This leaves no room for the typical Altar of Dementia kill that Hogaak usually has, but I think that's fine. Being able to Scam and then have Hogaak up to drive home the game seems very powerful.
Also in this Top 8 we had 4C Uro Control.
This list looks super sweet. I definitely love Slogurk, the Overslime a ton. Super fun and interesting card overall.
Further down the Top 8 we had Lands.
Sphere Lands is so good right now it feels like. It's got a solid game against a good amount of the format and it has strong options for winning the game. This is definitely my favorite Dark Depths shell of the format right now.
Legacy Challenge 9/24
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the mid-afternoon Sunday event. Unfortunately due to collection issues, we don't know how many players were in this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. There was no data sheet for this event yet due to not enough people to collect data.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mystic Forge Combo | 1st | wambocombo2020 |
| Dredge | 2nd | MahfuzVanGogh |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 3rd | markdm |
| Reanimator | 4th | Wizard_2002 |
| Lands | 5th | kauffj |
| Maverick | 6th | Harry1232 |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 7th | TrueFuturism |
| Dimir Scam | 8th | HJ_Kaiser |
Very unique Top 8 here. Good amount of variety overall. At the end of the event, it was Mystic Forge Combo that won.
This list looks quite powerful indeed. Echo of Eons as an additional way of recycling the deck to keep drawing cards with Mystic Forge and The One Ring seems quite good.
In Second Place we had Dredge.
This "blue" Dredge deck has been the product of MahfuzVanGogh's hard work on this deck, and it definitely shows. Not needing LED is pretty interesting and being able to play both Daze and Force of Will is quite clever.
Also in this Top 8 we had Reanimator.
Maxing out on the Reanimator targets here is quite interesting for sure. Lots of ways for this deck to draw a billion cards for sure.
Further down the Top 8 we had Maverick.
Oh man, I really like this list. It seems quite fun. Have not seen cards like Renegade Rallier in a hot minute that's for sure.
Around the Web
- Alex McKinley has a solid article on Beseech the Mirror. Check it out here.
- Bazaar of Boxes has a video on RUG Delver with Questing Druid. Check it out here.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast goes deep on Storm. Check it out here.
- The Legacy Gambit throws down the Legacy Gauntlet. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
The League postings were pretty late, so we're pulling from the Challenges for this Spice Corner.
This list is super sweet.
Name Sticker Goblin is finally legal on MTGO in its current implementation on there, so of course it showed up in a Goblins list.
This list by iKhada is super cool. Yorion Scam?
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!
