This Week in Legacy: The Cradle of Life
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 power of Cradle Control (also commonly known as "Nightmare on Elf Street") and where that deck sits in the post Orcish Bowmasters world. In addition to that we've got some Challenges to look at including the Showcase Challenge from Sunday. In addition to that we've got some paper event news.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
The Cradle of Life
This focus deck of this week is honestly a pretty sweet deck that has gained a lot of traction in recent months, but also a deck that received a lot of powerful new cards as well. The deck is of course Cradle Control, although it is also referred to in the community by the name "Nightmare on Elf Street". This deck originally began as a variant of Elves that utilized Elvish Reclaimer instead of the normal Nettle Sentinel / Heritage Druid combo game plan that was common to the shell. The new deck was mainly made popular by Elves player Newton Hang, who championed a lot of the changes made to the shell over time.
In current times the deck is a midrange powerhouse, continuing to utilize the power of Gaea's Cradle in more of a toolbox fashion, while allowing the deck to cheat on mana to get its larger threats into play.
More recent printings of Orcish Bowmasters definitely had an effect on this deck's power level. The deck is able to leverage these cards because of the strength of Fiend Artisan, which acts as a toolbox finding threat that eventually grows large to close games. So many of the cards in recent times have had a real impact on the power of this deck, from Atraxa, Grand Unifier to just having cards like Grist, the Hunger Tide.
This is a great deck and well worth keeping an eye out for. It's player base is pretty niche right now, but it's proven itself in a lot of events and it has a ton of power behind it.
Paper Event News - Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy Open II
I've mentioned this event a bit now, coming up at the end of July on July 29th, but I'm also happy to announce that not only will I be at the event, but I'm not actually playing in it! I'm going to instead be doing onsite coverage of the event, alongside Anuraag Das (who will be joining in the fun remotely). I'm really looking forward to meeting folks coming to this event and hoping for some sick sick coverage!
Check out the announcement over on the Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy Twitter!
Paper Event News - NRG Team Trios and Legacy 5K in St. Louis!
NRG Series is hosting a sick weekend in St. Louis on 7/8 and 7/9 this coming weekend. This includes a Team Trios 10K on Saturday and a Legacy 5K on Sunday. Check out the NRG Twitter for more information!
Legacy Challenge 7/1
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.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Not a clear top deck in terms of representation, and a pretty evenly spread set of decks overall. Doomsday and Grixis Delver did quite well overall, while Reanimator, Black Stompy, and Jeskai Delver all did very medium.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Doomsday | 1st | _INF_ |
| Cradle Control | 2nd | runkor |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 3rd | Xerk |
| Grixis Delver | 4th | Oscar_Franco |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 5th | Cherryxman |
| Bomberman | 6th | kanican |
| 8Cast | 7th | ItsSwiftyTime |
| RUG Cascade | 8th | Heffy |
Pretty interesting Top here all around. A double dose of the Mystic Forge deck which is wild, and some Bomberman! At the end of the event though it was Doomsday that won it all.
Very clean and straightforward list here. The only major sideboard juke here is the Sheoldred's which seem quite good actually versus Bowmasters since it also punishes drawing cards and makes your own card draw not as bad.
In Second Place we have Cradle Control.
Runkor is a very solid pilot on this deck who has continually had great results with it. This is really awesome to see for sure, considering we talked about this deck earlier in the article (it's almost like I knew).
Also in this Top 8 we had some Mystic Forge decks. The first one is a very Ring-centric variant.
I've played against this deck and it is real beating once they get going. If they can draw enough cards off The One Ring and land Paradox Engine it's basically game over. They can then make as much mana as they need to and Lattice-lock or cast a lethal Walking Ballista. Pretty scary.
Further down the Top 8 we had Bomberman.
Boromir, Gondor's Hope is not a card I had on my radar from the Commander decks, but after reading its effect it looks quite strong. The fact that it finds all of the other creatures in the deck plus the combo pieces of Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond is really something else.
Legacy Showcase Challenge 7/2
The second event of the weekend was the Showcase Challenge event! This event is a Qualification Point only entry event, with the Top 8 gaining invitations to the Showcase Qualifier at the end of the season. This event had 269 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 semi incomplete data sheet here. The data sheet itself was finished but the Match Up Input wasn't quite done before I had to publish the article.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Reanimator | 1st | Beenew |
| 4C Non Uro Control | 2nd | Ark4n |
| Death's Shadow | 3rd | MadHatter1442 |
| Grixis Delver | 4th | ziofrancone |
| Death's Shadow | 5th | iKhada |
| Jeskai Delver | 6th | silviawataru |
| Tempo Reanimator | 7th | fire10798 |
| Red Painter | 8th | Julian23 |
Really interesting Top 8 here too for this event. Lot of Tempo strategies in the Top 8 here, between combinations of Delver and Shadow. At the end of the event though it was Reanimator that won.
Solidly straightforward list here. The juke here is that you board into stuff like Dauthi Voidwalker and Orcish Bowmasters, which is pretty strong. Definitely enjoying this list a lot.
In Second Place we had a 4C Non Uro deck (Grixis Plus White).
Very interesting setup here, with Orcish Bowmasters pulling a lot of heavy weight as both a punisher card and as a finisher, alongside Staff of the Storyteller as an engine. Wild for sure.
Further into the Top 8 we had Jeskai Delver.
Out of the cards in the Lord of the Rings Commander product, Forth Eorlingas! is definitely one of the coolest and strongest of the bunch. Scaling well with the game is the hallmark of a powerful card, but having a floor that enables Monarch so cheaply is also just fantastic. Expect to see more of this card going forward for sure.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had an interesting sort of Reanimator list.
UB Reanimator but with a twist on having tempo threats like Bowmasters and Baleful Strix. Definitely a wild looking deck.
Around the Web
- Everyday Eternal has a new episode out! Check it out here.
- Eternal Glory Podcast also has a new episode! Check it out here.
- John Kieser has a budding Legacy YouTube channel focusing primarily on Grixis Control. Check it out here.
- GreenSunsZenith has a great video on Answering the One Ring. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
Granger Guildmage in MAVERICK. Also Forth Eorlingas!
DWARVES.
Yorion Wheel Tribal is definitely a thing.
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!
