This Week in Legacy: Only Murders in the Manor
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 diving into a new Standard set with Murders at Karlov Manor! In addition to that we've got two Challenges from this past weekend to take a look at.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
The Ravnica Murder Mystery Dinner Show!
We're back at the end of yet another preview season, this time for a new Standard release! Murders at Karlov Manor (not to be confused with the nonexistent Murders at Markov Manor) is coming very soon and we've got some new cards to look at that could see play in Legacy.
The big returning mechanics of this set are primarily Investigate (which makes Clue Tokens) and Surveil. We've got some new mechanics such as "Cases" which are Enchantment types that you solve to get an effect, Cloak/Disguise which is a rehashing of Manifest/Morph (but with added Ward 2). There's also a mechanic called "collect evidence X" which allows you to exile cards with mana value X to pay for the collect evidence cost (for example, collect evidence 10 means you'd need to exile cards until you are either at or above total mana value 10).
A lot of these mechanics don't really hit too much in Legacy, so let's see what cards could actually be interesting.
Archdruid's Charm
A green-aligned take on the Archmage's Charm cycle. While that one doesn't see much play, GGG is a bit more reasonable and the effects are interesting, especially the first mode being able to find a nonbasic land and put it right into play (albeit tapped). The other modes are interesting enough as exiling artifacts or enchantments is nice, or being able to turn your big threat into a way to remove a blocker. It's costly, but the flexibility is there.
Assemble the Players
There's a big sub theme in this set of creatures with power 2 or less, primarily meant to enable you to cast "Disguise" creatures and get a bonus. This may not see play, but the effect is very interesting at 2 mana, and there's plenty of power 2 or less creatures you can cheat into play with this. Obviously this does mean if you don't have something that lets you cast creatures at flash speed you still have to follow timing rules, but you could play a Containment Priest off the top of your library in response to something.
Delney, Streetwise Lookout
Following on that sub theme of power 2 or less, this one actually seems quite good. Giving all your small creatures the ability to squeak damage through (especially since it allows something like Thalia to swing through Dragon's Rage Channeler) is interesting enough, but getting double triggers off some of your stuff like Recruiter of the Guard is really cool.
Doorkeeper Thrull
Another take on the card that turns on Phyrexian Dreadnought, this one also offensively works against artifacts as well as creatures. This shuts off ETB effects of stuff like Coveted Jewel and even The One Ring.
Leyline of the Guildpact
This seems like it might be a meme, but the fringe strategy that is Leylines is something of an interesting odd duck and this card is a bit of an upgrade to a lot of the stuff the deck was already doing. The fact alone that this pitches to multiple Forces is nice, but also allowing you to turn your Serra's Sanctum into a rainbow land to maybe catch Crop Rotation is reasonable. Might be a meme, but might also enable more of a fringe deck. Sweet card, for sure.
Long Goodbye
While Abrupt Decay exists, the splashable nature of a 1B effect that destroys creatures or planeswalkers mana value 3 or less should not be dismissed. The strength of this lies in not needing two different colors of mana to deal with a pesky Planeswalker or Delver/DRC.
Pick Your Poison
This is a wildly interesting card. It's getting rid of a variety of things, but the nice thing is that flexibility. Probably a good thing this is a Sorcery because at Instant speed this would be kind of nutty. The enchantment mode also gets rid of Urza's Saga which is cool.
Ransom Note
It's a Mana Cost 1 artifact, so we have to consider the implications of Urza's Saga. I don't think this is super good, but it surveils and does some things.
Surveil Lands
A very big upgrade to the Temple cycle from Theros block, these are lands that Surveil 1 when they ETB and they also have land types, which means they can be picked up by fetchlands. ETB tapped is a rough upside, when you consider that people are only playing tri-color lands that do the same because they enable the Domain for Leyline Binding. I don't know if these are any good, but they have some utility as Surveil is a pretty strong mechanic.
Sophia, Dogged Detective
Sophia: I think we're in the wrong article, Tiny! We need to get out of here!
Tiny: NUH UH!
Sophia: Jinkies! Would you like some Selesnya Snacks first!
Tiny: *nods frantically*
Sophia: Here you go, let's get out of here before we're discovered!
Legacy Challenge 1/27
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event. This event had 59 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
An even spread across the top metagame shares, but it was Goblins (Turbo Muxus) that performed way better than any other deck here, putting half of its copies into the Top 8. Reanimator did very well in addition, as did D&T. Beanstalk Control performed rather poorly here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| White Stompy | 1st | RingoDeathStarr |
| Reanimator | 2nd | snoopy-magic |
| Goblins (Turbo Muxus) | 3rd | choutin |
| RUG Cascade | 4th | dag8 |
| Death and Taxes (Yorion) | 5th | shiromuni |
| Goblins (Turbo Muxus) | 6th | Etriol |
| Black Midrange | 7th | grymn |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 8th | susurrus_mtg |
Fairly interesting Top 8. Goblins as noted did very well. At the end of the event though it was a White Stompy build that was off the beaten path that won.
This deck is more of a White Stax sort of build, leaning on prison effects and aggressive threats like Lodestone Golem to close the game out. No Initiative creatures is very interesting here for sure, but the deck's game plan doesn't lend itself to that. It's very much of a White "Workshops" deck in Legacy.
In Second Place we had Reanimator.
I like this list quite a bit. Sire of Insanity coming back around is kind of cool for sure.
Also in this Top 8 we had D&T.
The color splashes here are very interesting. We've got the black predominant splash for Bowmasters/Thoughtseize, but we've also got a green splash and red splash for Gaddock Teeg and Magus of the Moon. Really interesting stuff.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Black Midrange.
Very straightforward Scam list in Mono Black. Stalactite Stalker is quite interesting here given that you can evoke Grief and fetch to make it bigger which is cool.
Legacy Challenge 1/28
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the mid-afternoon Sunday event. This event had 88 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
Reanimator was the most popular of the event, and it's win rate was actually pretty good. Beanstalk decks again performed poorly in this event, as did Goblins slightly. RUG Cascade did very well. Surprisingly, the only Delver deck on this list past the cutoff is RUG Delver. It's very interesting how much the format has shifted over time.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| 8Cast | 1st | DNSolver |
| Dimir Delver | 2nd | JakeTMS |
| RUG Cascade | 3rd | fingers1991 |
| Thought Last Combo | 4th | DragonDayDragon |
| Reanimator | 5th | karatedom |
| Black Midrange | 6th | grymn |
| Coveted Jewel Combo | 7th | TonyScapone |
| Granham | 8th | kabloom |
Highly interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event, it was 8Cast that won.
I am very much digging these builds with Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender. That card has consistently looked super powerful to me every time I've seen it.
In Second Place we have Dimir Delver.
These shifts of the Dimir Scam decks to Dimir Delver is interesting for sure. There are a lot of moving parts in the tempo shells of the format at the moment as these decks try to figure out their place versus the current format. I like where these decks are at right now.
Further down the Top 8 we had Thought Lash Combo.
This deck is honestly really cool. The game plan is really interesting and it's doing some fun things. The sideboard is pretty cool too, with hits like Propaganda and Phyrexian Censor.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Coveted Jewel Combo.
I'm of the mind that TonyScapone is simply at the bleeding edge forefront of combo decks right now in the current format. He continues to pioneer so many interesting styles of decks. This is no different. Taking cues from the Jewel Shops decks in Vintage but then taking that a step further with stuff like Copy Artifact even is pretty cool.
Around the Web
- Bazaar of Boxes has a video on Death's Shadow. Check it out here.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast has a video on Beans and Bombardiers. Check it out here.
- MahfuzVanGogh has their first video on Blue Dredge! Check it out here.
- The Legacy Gambit has assembled the Doomsday Cabal. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
DEADGUY ALE.
Rakdos Living Death is kind of sweet.
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!
