This Week in Legacy: Player Spotlight Series: The Elvish Reclaimer
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 doing another Player Spotlight Series. This time we're talking to a player who is well known in the Legacy community for pushing the boundaries of one specific archetype: Elves! That's right we're talking with the one and only Newton Hang! In addition to that we've got some info on the final Leaving a Legacy Open from this past weekend as well as two Challenge events!
Before we get into this, I just want to note that one of the players I've yet to do a Player Spotlight with sadly is taking a step back from the game for a while. Our good friend GoblinLackey1 (aka Eli Goings) is taking a bit of an extended break from Magic, and while he may or may not ever see this article, I wish him well in his future endeavors. Eli has been one of the most prolific Goblins content creators out there, and a really truly awesome person. So, good luck to Eli! May the Force be... wait. Is that copyrighted?
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Player Spotlight Series: The Elvish Reclaimer - Newton Hang
It's time again for another Player Spotlight Series. I meant to do this one way earlier, but the past few weeks have been insane with spoiler seasons and with the Pit Open. This month we're talking to a friend who is one of the Legacy community's most well known "Elves" players. Going by the name hellonewton, Newton Hang is an Elves player who has continually pushed the boundaries of the deck in many different ways, including being the primary progenitor of the Elvish Reclaimer Elves builds. His willingness to cut any card (and I do mean any card) including the deck's sacred cows have earned him quite a lot of notoriety.
So, without further ado, let's have Newton introduce himself!
Look at that cute pupper!
Introduction
Hi, my name is Newton. By day, I work as an Electrical Engineer in the Aerospace. By night, I enjoy playing MTG at Spellhold Games (my LGS) or on MTGO. Most people associate me with [controversially] incorporating Elvish Reclaimer (and now Fiend Artisan) into Legacy Elves. This began the divergence between Cradle Control and “traditional” Combo Elves, mirroring the Storm archetypal split between Ad Nauseam Tendrils (ANT) and The Epic Storm (TES) in years past.
MTG History
I played the equivalent of kitchen table MTG during my teenage years and always enjoyed those experiences with my brother (also named after a mathematician). In 2011, the first Commander sets dropped and I purchased the Devour for Power (The Mimeoplasm) pre-con deck to casually play with a few local friends. Yes, the truth is reanimation spells (and combos in general) reinvigorated my fascination in MTG that had been dormant for years. This eventually led me down the rabbit hole of purchasing Legacy Elves to play in Southern California monthly events.
In addition, I also played Death and Taxes, Delver, and ANT prior to the pandemic. Despite being known primarily as a green mage, I actually love creature strategies involving the flicker mechanic as well. Thus, Mangara of Corondor and Mulldrifter (Pauper) evoke happy memories.
My big MTG moment came in 2020 when I won the Legacy Showcase Qualifier with “Reclaimer Elves” to qualify for the Magic Online Champions Showcase (MOCS). Yet, I have since learned a lot with regards to properly piloting the deck. I believe it was an example of the deck being extremely powerful (thanks pre-nerf Lurrus of the Dream-Den) and me being in the right place at the right time to capitalize. Furthermore, the big breakthrough for Reclaimer Elves came at Eternal Weekend 2021 last November. My great friend Joerg Heinrich outright won the Bayou event while Peter van der Ham and I both made the Top 8, totaling three copies of the deck in the first two events.
Going Forward
I have been very humbled by the amount of support in the MTG community, especially from fellow Legacy players. As a result, I’ve really enjoyed the gradual growth of my stream / Patreon. The community’s support is actually one of the main factors in me keeping a positive outlook. For example, the public interest in Cradle Control really skyrocketed after Andrea Mengucci played the deck to great success on his streams. Perhaps more importantly, he thoroughly enjoyed his experiences with the deck, which was a big endorsement for the deck’s interactive gameplay.
One of my biggest goals in MTG is to play more and improve at Limited. I personally believe it will make me a more well-rounded player as I will be forced to adapt on the fly. Moreover, I think the deck building practice should inevitably translate well to constructed formats too.
Conclusion
Finally, I want to thank Joe for inviting me on for this player spotlight series. In addition, I’d like to shout-out the many people I routinely bounce ideas off of: Inigo Villamor, Joerg Heinrich, Adam Wallace, Curran Delahanty, Romario Neto, Will Krueger, Jax, Levi Sprung, Theo Jung, Jonathan Zhang, Cyrus Corman-Gill, Max Gilmore, Jarvis Yu, and friends from Spellhold Games.
Banned and Restricted Announcement 10/10 - No Changes to Legacy
We did have a Banned and Restricted Announcement this past week on 10/10, with no changes being made to Legacy. You can find the full announcement here.
However, they did address Legacy in the announcement, so let's look at what was said.
I have to definitely believe that the percentage of representation cited by Delver here is likely looking at not just premier events but also all of the League data (data I wish we had more access to overall). However, I still find it hard to believe that Delver is only 9% of the metagame even at that level (given that the deck is 20.5% of the premier events gathered by the Legacy Data Collection Project). I can definitely see the win rate argument here of the deck being at around 52% as that is around the general win rate in the premier event data we've been able to gather. Now, League data is definitely important to factor in and that is something we have to consider when making these decisions that Wizards does have far more data in that regards than we do. It is a piece of data I wish we had more access to see because the transparency is important to me, so we could see the same data driving these decisions. I know this may never happen, but one can hope!
While I do agree that Legacy has had a bunch of cards entering the format throughout this year and we have cards coming from 40K, Unfinity, and The Brother's War very imminently. However, I do disagree that they definitely chose some cards here that showcases a very low knowledge of the impactful cards that have arrived in the format. Cards like Leyline Binding which sees pretty much zero play (9 decklists total I could find), and a card like Ledger Shredder which goes actively in the Delver style decks. No mention at all of cards like Maddening Hex or Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes, both of which have had such an incredibly large impact on the format overall.
While I'm fine with the fact that nothing was banned at the moment, because so much is happening that it's okay to wait right now, this blurb is a little tonedeaf in my opinion, and doesn't do much to give hope to the Legacy community that the format is being managed well. If anything, it might make that aspect way worse, which in turn is incredibly frustrating.
Leaving a Legacy Open 10/8
This past weekend in Acton, MA was a solidly attended Legacy event. The final Leaving a Legacy Open, hosted by Gaming, Etc and presented by the cohosts of Leaving a Legacy Pat Euglow and Jerry Mee, took place with 87 players in attendance.
This was indeed the last big Open the LaL guys are putting on, as the show itself is being sunsetted in the coming months. By all accounts these events were always very well attended and very well run, with great coverage and always a charitable aspect to it. Kudos to Pat and Jerry and the staff at Gaming, Etc. for their support of the Legacy community with these events.
As noted, there was coverage of the event, so hopefully soon that coverage will be up on the Leaving a Legacy YouTube channel. You can find a metagame breakdown provided by LaL over here.
With that being said let's take a look at the Top 8!
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| The EPIC Gamble | 1st | Tony Scapone |
| GW Depths | 2nd | Curtis Doiron |
| Humans | 3rd-4th | Gary Fox |
| GW Depths | 3rd-4th | Ross McGee |
| Worldgorger Dragon | 5th-8th | Rood H4n |
| Death and Taxes | 5th-8th | Jack Kosnicki |
| UR Delver | 5th-8th | John Li |
| 8Cast | 5th-8th | Andrew Maag |
Definitely an incredibly fun looking Top 8 for sure here. In the end though, with the MVP card listed as Echo of Eons, the one and only TonyScapone coming off a repeat Top 4 appearance at the Legacy Pit Open II wins this entire event on The EPIC Gamble.
Tony's list is very strong, with a lot of very powerful ways to win the game. Galvanic Relay is definitely an incredibly powerful card in this deck, and the deck just looks absolutely insane when it does its thing.
The other Finalist in this event was on GW Depths.
GW Depths is a very strong option in Legacy right now and well worth keeping an eye on. This list is very reasonable and has all the hallmark action the deck can achieve, including the power of new cards Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes as well as stuff like Outland Liberator.
Legacy Challenge 10/8
The first Challenge from this past weekend was the early morning Saturday event. This event had 76 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 datasheet here.
UR Delver was highly popular but didn't quite push a good win rate here. Most of the decks that did the best in this event actually flew under the cutoff as all the popular decks did middling to worse with Yorion Zenith at the top with a 50% win rate.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| UG Echo | 1st | GHash77 |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 2nd | TrueFuturism |
| 4C Control | 3rd | LeoFa |
| Doomsday | 4th | _Gerwaz |
| UR Delver | 5th | LuisMJ |
| Enchantress | 6th | moro66 |
| Reanimator | 7th | snoopy-magic |
| Red Stompy | 8th | Maximum_Zen |
Pretty wild Top 8 indeed! One UR Delver player did crack into the Top 8 here, but at the end of the event it was a sweet Echo deck that took it all down.
This deck is super sick. Having the Hullbreacher + Echo and Day's Undoing combo is sweet but being able to back it up with Malevolent Hermit is superb. Deck looks like a ton of fun.
In Second Place we've got Mono Green Cloudpost.
Definitely looks like a solid deck for the rest of this Top 8. Lot of inevitability there and some powerful cards this deck can ramp into.
Further down towards the bottom of the Top 8 we had a showing by Enchantress.
Helm/RIP Enchantress is super sweet, not going to lie. In addition, seeing a bit of a newer card in Prayer of Binding in the sideboard here. A Banishing Light that gains two life is kind of sweet especially since it has Flash. Seems way better than Cast Out.
Legacy Challenge 10/9
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the mid-afternoon Sunday event, which had 92 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 datasheet here.
UR Delver was massively popular and had the win rate to boot. Reanimator also did pretty well, while Yorion Zenith faltered a bit below 50%. Below the cut, 4C Control did insanely well given that it put all three of its pilots into the Top 8.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| 4C Control | 1st | burrarun |
| 4C Control | 2nd | LeoFa |
| UR Delver | 3rd | Bryzem1 |
| Doomsday | 4th | Enrichetta |
| 4C Control | 5th | Nammersquats |
| UR Delver | 6th | Bullwinkkle6705 |
| Death and Taxes | 7th | yoshiwata |
| Doomsday | 8th | Sawatarix |
Quite a lot going on in this Top 8. Some Delver, some Control, some D&T and Doomsday. At the end of the event, it was a 4C vs 4C battle with the winner being on... 4C? Let's take a look at both.
Both of these lists are pretty close to each other, with the Second Place list opting to have Coatls as additional card draw/threats. These are both exceptionally strong decks though and some powerful stuff.
Also in this Top 8 is Doomsday.
The red splash here is very interesting, not full on Grixis, but I like the idea of having Pyroblast and Meltdown in the sideboard here. Also, SHEOLDRED.
Around the Web
- GoblinLackey1, xJCloud, and Dan Ford discuss "Mind Goblin" for two hours. Check it out here.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast has a great new episode on Sideboard Jukes. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook dives into Tony Scapone's Legacy Pit Open II deck. Check it out here.
- My episode of Leaving a Legacy with Pat and Jerry is finally up! Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
This Minsc & Boo prison list might just be the real deal.
Nimble Mongoose?! In this economy?!?!
SOLDIER STOMPY. SOLDIER STOMPY.
This is a deck. Like... wow.
Mono White Stax is super duper sweet.
This Rakdos pile is SICK. Rakdos Waste Not!!!
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!
