This Week in Legacy: Player Spotlight Series - The Triumph of TK
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 are doing something new and fun! It's our first Player Spotlight Series of 2024, but this time we're going into the realm of video form! We're joined by North America Eternal Weekend 2023 Champion TK Strachan! In addition to that we've got some paper event news and coverage and of course two Challenges from this past weekend.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Player Spotlight Series: The Triumph of TK
This week we're doing our first Player Spotlight Series of 2024! I wanted to do something new and different this year for these, simply because I am always looking for great opportunities to evolve and change over time. One of the big ideas I had from late last year was to turn these into video interviews as opposed to text-based articles. Suffice to say, I hope that this works out. The plan is to do all of my Player Spotlights of 2024 in this fashion!
My guest this week is a true ambassador for Magic and for Legacy. He's the winner of North America Eternal Weekend's Legacy Championship on his incredible Triumph of Saint Katherine based Beanstalk deck, TK Strachan!
Thank you so much to TK for joining us this week and I hope you enjoyed the new format for these articles going forward!
Paper Event Coverage - Legacy 5K at Owl Central Games 1/20/2024
There was a sweet Legacy 5K event this past weekend in Central PA at Owl Central Games! This event had a littler under 60 players, which is super sweet to see.
You can find most of the decklists for this event here (there were a lot of paper decklists that didn't get entered into Melee) and the data sheet for the event here. We were off by 5 paper decklists for this event, but major thanks to Cameron at Owl Central for helping me finish up some of this data!
Beanstalk Control decks were pretty big here, and despite a top finish by Non-Yorion builds it had a less than 50% win rate. The rest of the decks above the cutoff were pretty even, but Red Painter really converted hard, and Grixis Delver also did very well. Boros Stompy was one of the decks that didn't do so hot here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Red Painter | 1st | Aidan Algier |
| Red Painter | 2nd | Eric Farmer |
| Grixis Delver | 3rd | Drew Wood |
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 4th | Matthew Vook |
| Beanstalk Control (Yorion) | 5th | Jon Goss |
| Grixis Delver | 6th | pcreutzberger |
| Red Stompy | 7th | Jordan Berenhaus |
| Grixis Attractions | 8th | Brady Munroe |
What a super sweet Top 8 here. The winner of the event was Aidan Algier on Red Painter!
This is a super solid looking list. I absolutely love Chaos Defiler (one of the cards I really hope we get on MTGO at some point) because it's so good in the Painter shell.
The Second Place finalist was also on Painter.
Adding white to the game plan here gets us access to Swords to Plowshares and Forth Eorlingas! which is incredible.
The real highlight of this Top 8 for me though was the 8th place list... Brady Munroe on GRIXIS ATTRACTIONS.
There is zero good way to show Attractions in our decklist pages, unfortunately, but this deck is something else. My understanding is that a lot of hinges on Sibylline Soothsayer (one of the Doctor Who cards). According to Brady, the Attractions used were listed as below. This is a super cool deck for sure.
Bounce Chamber 4,6
Haunted House 3,6
Tunnel of Love 3,6
Pick-a-Beeble 3,4,6
Information Booth 3,6
Storybook Ride 3,4,6
Balloon Stand 4,6
Clown Extruder 3,6
Trash Bin 4,6
Foam Weapons Kiosk 4,6
Paper Event News - Legacy Showdown at Alchemist's Refuge 3/23/2024
Because I love paper events and helping to promote paper events, I recently learned about an event down at the Alchemist's Refuge near Cincinnati, OH. This is a $20 entry event with first prize being a copy of Force of Will + $40 in store credit.
The event is on March 23rd at 12 PM EST. You can find all of the information about it here.
Legacy Challenge 1/20
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event. This event had 52 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project and Daybreak Games.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Beanstalk decks were the top of the heap, with those decks having a solid win rate overall. Grixis Delver was also popular but it's win rate was less than ideal. Lands, Goblins, and RUG Delver all did pretty well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 1st | TrueFuturism |
| Reanimator | 2nd | snoopy-magic |
| RUG Delver | 3rd | ZYX-FXY |
| Lands | 4th | Granham |
| Death's Shadow | 5th | gatekappa |
| Goblins (Turbo Muxus) | 6th | wordy333 |
| Dredge | 7th | Geodude_Jared |
| Dimir Delver | 8th | kiyoaggro |
Really interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Mono Green Cloudpost that won.
It's really cool seeing new cards like Echoing Deeps come into play here in these decks. Having a way to rebuy a destroyed Cloudpost or even a Tabernacle seems like it's really good.
In Second Place we had Reanimator.
Sire of Insanity! Been a while since I've seen that in a Reanimator list. Really solid list overall here though.
Further down the Top 8 we had Lands.
4 Sphere Lands continues to be very good. I think this is one of the best ways to approach Lands at the moment, honestly.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Dredge.
Good old fashioned LED Dredge is a sight to see for sure. I've always enjoyed this deck, as it's super fun to play and incredibly explosive when it wants to be.
Legacy Showcase Challenge 1/21
The second event of the weekend was actually a Legacy Showcase Challenge! These events are QP entry only events where the Top 8 earn an invitation to the Showcase Qualifier at the end of the play season. This event had 266 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project and Daybreak Games.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Reanimator was super popular here with a slightly over 50% win rate. The rest of the field here above the cutoff was just below or above the 50% mark overall, but both Grixis Delver and Beanstalk decks didn't fare so well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| RUG Delver | 1st | Baku_91 |
| Red Stompy | 2nd | Turn1GlistenerElf |
| Dimir Delver | 3rd | JakeTMS |
| Goblins (Turbo Muxus) | 4th | tenj |
| Hogaak | 5th | Nammersquats |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 6th | L4rss0n |
| Goblins (Turbo Muxus) | 7th | Mav40121 |
| 8Cast | 8th | PintuMtg |
This is a pretty cool Top 8. Lot of variety in decks for sure. At the end of the event it was what I heard was a finals split with the recorded winner being RUG Delver.
Very light on the green portion of this deck with only two copies of Questing Druid. Portent is a unique inclusion here as well as a main deck Counterbalance.
In Second Place we had Red Stompy.
Multiple main deck Unlicensed Hearse is super interesting. This is a very straightforward list full of aggressive power.
Further down the Top 8 we had Turbo Muxus Goblins.
This deck is incredibly aggressive for sure. It's purpose is to utilize it's mana advantage to drop Muxus and turn Goblins sideways to win the game. Broadside Bombardiers really improved this game plan a bunch.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Cephalid Breakfast.
I really like this list a lot. The Urza's Saga variants of the deck are quite strong, but slotting in Stoneforge Mystic as a game plan as well is quite good. Orim's Chant is a sweet card to have here.
Around the Web
- JamesKisau has a video on Grixis Control with Fulminator Mage. Check it out here.
- Eternal Durdles has some hot takes on Unbans! Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook is doing some Belcher nonsense. Check it out here.
- The Legacy Gambit is getting some Dredge on. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
White Stompy with Lodestone Golem is SWEET.
Living End in Legacy is incredibly interesting, especially featuring new card Wail of the Forgotten
Stryfo doing Stryfo things!
Sawing in Half for Fun and Profit!
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!
