This Week in Legacy: Unbananza!
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 taking a look at cards that could potentially be unbanned in Legacy, and also talk about the various classes of cards on the Banned and Restricted List. In addition to that we've got some data from events this past weekend including a Super Qualifier and Challenge data. We've also got a paper event to discuss in the 4 Seasons Autumn event and a paper event in the NRG Series 5K Trial, and some info from last week about Eternal Weekend that got published after the article was already live.
Also, before we get going this week I just want to point out and thank Richard of MTGGoldfish for working on finishing up the new data classifications for decklists on MTGGoldfish. I specifically assisted with both the Legacy and Vintage classifications, and I am pretty super pleased with how it turned out.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Unbanana - A Look at the Banned and Restricted List
Since the hot topic lately has been on the Legacy format and whether or not anything needs to be banned in the current format, I felt it would be an interesting topic to take a step back from that and look at the cards on the Banned and Restricted List and determine if anything there could potentially see an unbanning. We're also defining a little bit some of the various classes of cards on the list so that we can talk about some parts of the list in broad strokes as to why or why not those cards could ever be unbanned (or not unbanned).
For the purposes of this study, we are assuming by default that none of the cards with the card type Conspiracy or cards that reference physical dexterity/ante/subgames are not eligible for any discussion whatsoever. These cards might as well never exist to Legacy or any sanctioned format for that matter.
Starting At The Bottom - Cards That Will Never Be Unbanned Because They Are Broken
We're going to start right at the bottom of the list here with the cards that will never ever see an unbanning in Legacy, simply because they are too broken at a functional level that four copies would simply burn the format into cinders. Specifically, let's list the cards we're talking about below.
| Card Type | Card Names |
|---|---|
| Power 9 | Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, Moxen, Time Walk, Timetwister |
| Fast Mana | Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Sol Ring, Tolarian Academy |
| Powerful Lands | Mishra's Workshop, Bazaar of Baghdad, Library of Alexandria |
| Tutor Effects | Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Demonic Consultation, Imperial Seal |
| Delve Spells | Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time |
| Generically Powerful Cards | Oko, Thief of Crowns, Underworld Breach, Gush, Fastbond, Arcum's Astrolabe, Strip Mine, Tinker |
| Wheel Effects | Windfall, Wheel of Fortune |
| Combo Centric Cards | Hermit Druid, Yawgmoth's Will, Skullclamp, Channel |
Not only are many of these cards also Restricted in Vintage, but many of them are also Reserved List cards (a category we'll be discussing a little later here). Many of the recent cards on here, such as Oko or Astrolabe have had overwhelmingly homogenizing and powerful effects on the overall metagame, and should not be revisited for this reason either.
As such this category is just right out of being considered as an unbanning for Legacy.
Cards That Are Probably Too Strong, But It's Borderline
The next category of cards are those that are borderline more than likely too strong to bring back. Some of them are recent bans within the past year such as Dreadhorde Arcanist and Zirda, the Dawnwaker. Let's take a look at the cards in this category.
| Card Type | Card Names |
|---|---|
| Generically powerful with Brainstorm / fetch lands | Wrenn and Six, Dreadhorde Arcanist, Deathrite Shaman |
| Generically powerful on their own | Necropotence, Balance, Zirda, the Dawnwaker, Mana Drain |
| Phyrexian Mana | Mental Misstep, Gitaxian Probe |
The first sub section of this is cards that have a generic power level associated typically with blue decks, but more specifically with blue decks that play Brainstorm and fetch lands, and occasionally the card Daze. It's a common thread that gets brought up that these cards died for the sins of Delver shells, and that a ban on a card such as Daze would allow them to be unbanned, but I don't believe this to be fully accurate. The major culprit for these cards is the presence of either Brainstorm and fetch lands or the combination of both. While both Wrenn and Six and Dreadhorde Arcanist exist in Modern, it is the presence of both the cantrip cartel and fetch lands that pushes them over the top in Legacy. Specifically, with Wrenn and Six, the added presence of Wasteland also exacerbates any potential this card has at being unbanned.
The second sub section is borderline generically powerful cards. Balance likely actually falls under the "too broken" category, but it's very close. Zirda, the Dawnwaker at a glance might seem like it might be fair under the new Companion rules changes, but the kinds of decks that Zirda promotes gameplay with are very good at making three mana very trivially and I suspect they would end up being one of the best things in the format to be doing because of how powerful the mechanic is. Necropotence also is likely too strong because of how well it interacts with cards like Dark Ritual.
One card that I see often come up in topics of conversation is Mana Drain. Much of the conversation around this card revolves around the aspect that the card Counterspell currently sees very little play in the Legacy format and therefore, the restrictive UU cost of Mana Drain would make it not see play as well. I don't feel this is a solid equivalency personally, and I put this card much further down because I have no doubt in my mind after witnessing the lengths players will go to in order to jam cards into the format that Mana Drain would most assuredly see play, and it would probably be kind of nutty. While the overall curve of Legacy is pretty low, and yes the card does not see much play in current Vintage, there are still plenty of applications for this card in the format, and I suspect it would probably just be very very very very good. However, this one is very closer to the borderline level than the other cards here, so who knows?
Finally in this section, we have Phyrexian mana cards, namely Mental Misstep and Gitaxian Probe. Let's be realistic here. Neither of these cards is probably ever coming back to Legacy. The Phyrexian Mana mechanic is not a good mechanic from a design perspective, and while cards like Surgical Extraction are okay, paying life for free information and countermagic is not quite okay.
Cards That Are On the Reserved List
A major aspect of the cards on the Banned list is that a lot of the cards are on the Reserved List. Some of these cards may potentially be safer than others. For example, Earthcraft is honestly a pretty safe unban. It gives something unique to both Elves and Enchantress and just adds a win con to the format that didn't exist before. However, because the card is on the Reserved List, it is more than likely that the card will never be unbanned.
While this is unfortunate, as ban/unban decisions largely shouldn't have to do with a price of a card or whether or not it is on the Reserved List, but the reality of the situation is that Legacy is still largely treated by some as a paper Magic format. While we don't often move the needle on card prices, an unban on an RL card would definitely move prices. Some may claim that this isn't an issue, that the format is already expensive, but therein lies the understanding of why Wizards simply has no incentive to unban such a card.
Some of these cards would be genuinely interesting to see while some are borderline. Survival is a cool card that didn't have premium removal like Abrupt Decay or Prismatic Ending to deal with when it was around, so it would be interesting to see how that would go. Yawgmoth's Bargain and Memory Jar are probably borderline broken but again would be interesting to see.
If in the future, Legacy fully moves into a space where proxies are more allowed and more of the format is fully centric on Magic Online, then I could see them approaching an unbanning on an RL card. Until then, probably count these ones out.
Cards With Play Pattern Issues or Unfun Play
These are cards that have some issues with how they play, specifically in their generic play patterns. Mind Twist at a glance seems like it's probably a safe card to come off the Banned list due to the overwhelming presence of cards like Force of Negation and Daze, in addition to players playing Veil of Summer, but the truth is that Mind Twist presents an interesting conundrum. Does the card actually add any positive function to the format? The answer here is honestly no. The play patterns of Mind Twist when the card does its thing are pretty demoralizing and generally not much fun at all to play against, and often devolves games into top deck modes, creating a functional non game. While the card may be right on for power level and might not even be that good, the potential alone is enough to make me believe that Wizards is not actively considering this card for an unban.
Top on the other hand supposedly presents play pattern issues regarding time. While it is true that inexperienced players can spend a lot of time on Top, I don't fully agree with this being a constraint leaving Top on the ban list. However, the power level nature of the card when used in conjunction with Counterbalance is a real consideration, and of the two I would more than likely want Top over Counterbalance (or to also remove Terminus from the mix as well). That being said, the potential again is the key here. Because the potential exists of both negative play pattern and power level, Wizards has no real reason to unban this card.
Cards That Might Be Worth Trying, But Could Be Potentially Problematic
These are cards that I would actually not mind seeing in the current format, but do have some issues that could potentially be problematic. The first on our list, Goblin Recruiter, has an interesting history in the current format, and a lot of people often misrepresent why this card was banned originally. Often times, people bring up the play pattern of time and how much time it takes to resolve Goblin Recruiter. This is a myth, and not really why the card was banned in the first place. One of the holdout cards that was banned when Type 1.5 was split off from Vintage and the banned list looked more like a compromise between it and the Extended ban list. The primary reasoning here was because of the interaction the card had with the card Food Chain and how the deck could allow one to go infinite with Food Chain.
Nowadays, the aspect of a combo kill with Goblin Recruiter is much greater than jamming it with Food Chain. Introduced in Core Set 2021, Conspicuous Snoop gives the Recruiter a shot in the arm by making the pile so incredibly small and able to win the game either on the spot or on the following turn. Primarily one of the ways this can do so in the same turn is stacking the pile so that Torch Courier is on top followed by Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and then casting Torch Courier, sacrifice it to give Snoop haste and then off we go. With mana accelerants like Chrome Mox and stuff like Cavern of Souls, it's more than likely this combo could be pulled off as quickly as Turn 1 and win the game immediately. This combo does already exist in the format, requiring the card Boggart Harbinger to do it, but that card also costs three mana and is also a black card, which requires black mana to cast. With Recruiter, all of the combo can be cast on red mana, compacting it quite a bit. It's because of this that I would be hesitant to see Recruiter become unbanned, but at the same time, yet another two card combo likely would not impact the format overall. It's more than likely just fine.
Lurrus is another point of contention as it is a more recent ban to the format, but then the Companion Rules were changed after its banning. Because of this, I would be interested to see what the format would be like and how it would react to Lurrus being around under the new rules. It's possible that it is problematic still, but it is worth noting that the card was successfully unbanned in Vintage and has simply settled into just part of the format overall. I feel like the same would be true of Legacy. At the very least I would like to try the card and see how it goes. I expect that there is a real choice now to being constrained into two mana value or less permanents in a deck, especially if cards like Murktide Regent remain legal.
Mind's Desire is another potential that could be problematic, but would be interesting to see how it pans out. The cost of the card at six mana value with double blue in it is intriguing especially since nearly all the ritual effects make red or black mana in particular. To make up the requisite blue would require additional cards like Mox Opal or Manamorphose and that feels like just the right amount of extra steps needed. However, as with any card with the word "Storm" printed on it, it's possible that it is too powerful.
Cards That Are Probably Safe
Oddly enough we are left with one card that is more than likely pretty safe to unban out of the entire Legacy banlist. Frantic Search honestly does not feel that bad given the relative standings of most of Legacy's current crop of combo decks, and especially since a good majority of those decks rely on cards like Mox Opal. If anything it potentially gives some tools to High Tide, which has seen a bit of resurgence as of late thanks to our good friend Marcus Ewaldh. I suspect that the power level of Frantic Search wouldn't be much more terrifying than the rest of the format and what it has going on with it right now. Is there an incentive to unban this? That's the other good question.
How Bans and Unbans Happen
The big issue here is how Bans and Unbans currently happen in the format. A lot of how these announcements are made now is on an ad-hoc basis. While this sounds like it might be a great thing where bans and unbans can happen more fluidly, the reality of this is that it often feels like we as a community have to resort to theatrics to get Wizards to acknowledge us. It results in situations where we don't know what Wizards wants for the format or what they're keeping an eye on.
Awkwardly, scheduled announcements can often feel like the same, resulting in situations where if Legacy isn't mentioned, then waiting until the next scheduled banned and restricted announcement can be painful.
I believe the current method of doing things does not work so well for unbans. It does not give much incentive to unban cards in general, resulting in situations where unbans only happen as part of larger announcements or as a "prisoner exchange" where something else is banned in the same announcement. This is how I would expect any potential unbans to ever happen in the format going forward.
I would eventually like to see sort of like a quarterly review type communication from Wizards in this regards. Not so much a scheduled banned and restricted announcement, but a quarterly format review where they talk about what cards they're looking at and what they feel is healthy or unhealthy for the metagame. More transparent information regarding their thoughts on certain cards. Not just for Legacy but for every format. And then they can ban still on the ad hoc basis that is needed, but at least players are able to become more aware of the conversation of how Wizards feels about the format, and I feel this would do a lot for giving players more agency in the discussion.
I also feel like it would be prudent for Wizards to make a definitive mission statement of what Legacy is supposed to encompass. This is much harder because the format means different things to different people, and everyone has strong opinions over what the format should represent as its identity, but I also feel like this would again go a long way to allowing players to have agency to evaluate cards through the lens of a mission statement.
I don't know if any of this would ever happen, but I am all for any change that gives us as players the ability to be more involved in the conversations regarding the health of the format.
On Challenge Attendance
There has been a lot going on about Challenge Attendance in general as of late, and I really wanted to sit down and talk about it this week because it feels like there's some miscommunication over the real issue with this across the community.
For the past six weeks, the Saturday morning Legacy Challenge has not fired. The minimum number of players for a Legacy Challenge event on Magic Online is 64 players, and the events are getting to roughly 47-50ish players on average and then failing to fire because they didn't hit the minimum. Conversely, the Sunday Legacy Challenge has fired with exactly 64-65 players for the past several weeks as well.
I wanted to address some of what was going on here because there are some definite factors in relation to these events. The first of which is the time slot, which is something that has been brought up possibly as a point of contention specifically for the Saturday event. The Saturday event takes place at 4:00 AM PST (which is 7:00 AM EST) and is definitely an issue for many US players to play in as it requires them to be up pretty early. In Europe this event starts at roughly 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM, and in Japan it starts at 8:00 PM JST. Historically, this event has fired for quite some time before the slow down that led to it not firing. The time slot may be a factor of players not wanting to play in an early event on a Saturday, but at the same time considering the reduction in players on the Sunday event which takes place at 8:00 AM PST (11:00 AM EST) then it is possible it might not have anything to do with the time slot.
Furthermore, in other areas like Europe and Asia, events are starting to pick back up in paper, giving players an outlet on the weekends after being stuck indoors due to the pandemic. This is definitely a potential aspect of why event attendance has begun to dwindle as well.
The biggest part of this has to primarily do with format health and more especially, the role of grinders in the Magic Online world. Many of the players that are disappearing from these events in general are MTGO grinders. Grinders aren't always specialized players of the Legacy format, instead often playing multiple formats. They tend to migrate around but most of the grinders stick to formats they know well enough. A lot of what has been cited in general for players stopping these events has to do with the overall health of the current format and a dislike of the gameplay in the current format.
I think there is a mixture of all of these factors and that when it comes down to it if a player has a choice between playing a different format or playing in paper or simply doing something else rather than being up early on a Saturday (or maybe they're up early for a different format) when a format is not doing well health-wise, those factors will contribute to a player's choice to not show up and play a specific event. Correlating that with the attendance of the Sunday events, however, it seems more probably that players not playing these events do have an opinion on the overall health of Legacy right now and are choosing to exercise that opinion by either taking up various things like playing other formats or finding paper events to play in on the weekends.
Paper events also present a different way of approaching things because more often than not, even if the format is generally on fire a paper event can be well attended and considered fun, and that is generally on the back of being able to play with paper cards as well as the Gathering aspect of Magic where one is socializing with other people or hanging out with friends. These parts of a paper event tend to matter a bit more in general than the format, and Spikes especially will gravitate to a paper event hoping to win a prize pool.
There is something further to be said on the aspect of how Wizards handles events like this on Magic Online and how Challenges should be more adaptable in regards to attendance. Something like a scaling attendance/prizing system has been a hot topic among players for pretty much forever, and this is a change that I feel would be a great thing for MTGO to figure out how to implement because it would prevent issues like this from occurring in the future. I don't believe the answer has to do with changing these events to Minimum 32 players, but I do have an honest inkling that's what might happen in the interim until something happens with the format itself. I do believe that nothing will likely happen in Legacy until after Eternal Weekend, as those events will present a very large data point for Wizards to draw from.
Community Event Update
This go around I've got a sweet update on an event series that is near and dear to me in Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy! I've mentioned these before, but Rob Wilson continually steps up his game every event. This next event, which is scheduled for 11/20 (Yes, it's the same weekend as EW Online) will have a sweet sweet full art framed original BCDL inspired card art, drawn by the wonderful Adriano Kitani (you might recognize Adriano's work well... everywhere on this website!) You can check out the post here. And then check out the sweet art below!
Eternal Weekend 2021 Online
After my article was submitted last week we had a full announcement of Eternal Weekend Online 2021! The Legacy events for this will be taking place from November 19th - November 21st and will be three events with different artwork to win, including Wasteland, Bayou, and Sylvan Library!
In addition, the All Access Tokens for this event are also back as well, so as early as November 15th you can purchase a token and be able to play with any card on Magic Online until December 1st for only $25 for an entry fee into one of the events. This is a great way to learn about Legacy in general from an outside perspective!
Furthermore, if you are a player planning to play in one of these events, please consider contributing your time during the event to help the Legacy Data Collection Project collect data for these events. Please reach out on the Legacy Data Collection Discord if you think you can help!
Be sure to check out the bigger announcement article here!
4 Seasons Autumn 10/17
While this event happened a bit back, it's still worth talking about as we don't get many events with this kind of attendance. Hosted by 4Seasons Tournament Series, 4Seasons Autumn hosted a Legacy event with 233 players in Bologna, Italy. You can find out more about these tournament series over on the 4Seasons Twitter account.
You can find the data sheet for this event here. Big thanks to RonColpoCinese for continuing to put in the ground work on these events for data!
Definitely an interesting breakdown with a lot of Death and Taxes in the room, even over the two big Tempo variants which is pretty interesting to see. This is the place where paper and MTGO do diverge is in regional metagames and what players in those areas tend to favor. D&T had a solid win rate in this event as well as we'll see by the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| UR Delver | 1st | Mauro Petruzzella |
| Death and Taxes | 2nd | Cristobal Navarro |
| Doomsday | 3rd | Luca Ferrari |
| Death and Taxes | 4th | Marco Montani |
| Death and Taxes | 5th | Alex Matteazzi |
| UR Delver | 6th | Guillem Salvator Arnal |
| Reanimator | 7th | Cristian Ortiz Ros |
| UR Delver | 8th | Michele Carretta |
6/8 of this Top 8 is Delver and D&T, which is wild to see. At the end of the event though, it was a UR Delver list that took it down.
Definitely, still one of the best things in current Legacy to be doing for sure. I do dig the Pyrokinesis in the sideboard here though. Seems nice in a field of D&T.
The 4Seasons events are pretty cool things and they really put a ton of effort into them. Be sure to check them out if you are in Italy!
NRG Series 5K 10/24
This past weekend was a big return to some paper Magic in the US, with the Nerd Rage Gaming Championship Series returning to full form in Chicago. One of the events held this past weekend was a Legacy 5K, and it had 100 players in it! Not only that, they had full coverage of the event over on the NRG Twitch channel.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet for this event here.
As roughly expected, quite a bit of UR Delver in this event, holding onto a solid win rate a little bit above 50%. D&T also had some great representation here as well, as did GW Depths and Reanimator.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Death and Taxes | 1st | Isaac Sherman |
| GW Depths | 2nd | Tommy Tomsovic |
| UR Delver | 3rd | Mack Endress |
| Reanimator | 4th | Kevin Adams |
| Bant Control | 5th | Gavin Bennett |
| Aluren | 6th | Matthew Minniear |
| UR Delver | 7th | Will Krueger |
| Elves | 8th | Matthew Bailey |
Interesting Top 8 here for sure. Lot of solid variety here with two UR Delver pilots and a field of other interesting decks. At the end of the event though it was the Sky Noodle that won it all with pilot Isaac Sherman on Yorion Death and Taxes.
I am still not sure how I feel about Urza's Saga in these lists, but it definitely looks like Isaac has considered the impact of the card and accounted for it with a lot of Plains and white sources, which is awesome. Timeless Dragon is also a sweet include as well.
The Second Place finalist was on GW Depths.
This deck continues to be super powerful and looked really solid on the coverage. This is definitely the defacto best Depths shell right now and it isn't even close.
As noted, Reanimator had a solid performance here, and one showed up in the Top 8!
Really digging some of the newer Reanimation targets given by Modern Horizons 2. Both Archon of Cruelty and Serra's Emissary have really pushed in as powerful silver bullets and that's awesome.
Also in the Top 8 we had Aluren.
Aluren is one of those decks that often shows up more in paper events because of the nonzero amount of clicking it takes to play on Magic Online. Even then it's still not too bad. This list is awesome though with Living Wish (one of my favorite Wish cards) and Acererak the Archlich.
Legacy Super Qualifier 10/23
We had a Legacy Super Qualifier event this past weekend, which is basically a Pro Tour Qualifier for the top two players. Because of this these events often cost Qualification Points (QPs) to enter and are generally far more competitive than the typical Challenge events. Thanks to the data acquired by the Legacy Data Collection Project we know this event had 123 players in it.
You can find all of the Top 16 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
So much UR Delver in this event, which is by and large a big product of the competitive nature of a Super Qualifier, as players often tend to gravitate towards either the most recognized popular deck or best deck in the format. Still, pretty insane and a huge lack of certain decks that prey on Delver like Death and Taxes is wild to see.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| UR Delver | 1st | WingedHussar |
| Lands | 2nd | Tyaburi |
| UR Delver | 3rd | JPA93 |
| 8-Cast | 4th | Griselpuff |
| Blue Zenith | 5th | McWinSauce |
| Doomsday | 6th | RonColpoCinese |
| UR Delver | 7th | WeAreVenom |
| UR Delver | 8th | JPSN54 |
Definitely a solidly UR Delver packed Top 8 here, with 4/8 of the Top 8 being on the deck. The other half of the Top 8 is on various decks. Of course at the end of it all, it was UR Delver that took it down in the hands of a good friend of mine WingedHussar.
What we've come to expect as a stock list for UR Delver variants here. The inclusion of Gut Shot as a free spell that kills Ragavan or opposing Dragon's Rage Channeler's before they turn on to 3/3s is pretty solid.
The Second Place list was on Lands.
Haven't seen Manabond in a while which is pretty cool. That card with an Urza's Saga in your opener seems pretty solid for sure. Also, having Kaheera, the Orphanguard as a Companion is interesting as well.
Down the Top 8 in Fourth Place is our good friend Bob Huang on 8-Cast.
The big switch up here from the normal lists is the reduction to two Echo of Eons and a third Chalice of the Void. Bob has noted on Twitter that Chalice felt more important than Echo did. I love this deck a lot, it has been a lot of fun lately to play!
Also in the Top 8 we have a sweet Blue Zenith list.
This list is sick. I am loving the spicy one-of Wrenn and Seven here. Looks like a ton of fun.
Outside of the Top 8 we have a showing in the Top 16 by perennial Bomberman expert kanican.
Cathar Commando seems like an ultra sweet inclusion to this deck honestly. Deals with a ton of different permanents that can impact this deck. Super sweet for sure.
Legacy Challenge 10/24
We did have one Challenge this past weekend, the Sunday event. This event had 65 players in it thanks to data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find all of the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
As we expected by now, lot of UR Delver in this event, but it really toed the line in win rates here at just over 50%. Elves had a solid showing and win rate despite not putting any players in the Top 8, but it was GW Depths that really had a solid event.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| 8-Cast | 1st | Patxi |
| GW Depths | 2nd | MagicLair |
| The EPIC Storm | 3rd | Bryant_Cook |
| Curse Stompy | 4th | SuperCow12653 |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 5th | TrueFuturism |
| UR Delver | 6th | Bullwinkkle6705 |
| Jeskai Ragavan | 7th | billsive |
| GW Depths | 8th | Martin_Dominguez |
Interesting Top 8 for sure. We even had a Top 8 showing by Curses here, so that's sick. At the end of the event however, it was an 8-Cast deck that took down this event!
This is pretty spot on to Bob Huang's list, and I still love it. Deck seems incredibly good right now in the current format.
The Second Place list was on GW Depths.
There's a light splash here for Pyroblast out of the sideboard but that's about it as far as red splash is concerned. The power of this deck's ability to fix its mana makes it really easy to play around with certain sideboard options, so it only makes sense.
Also in the Top 8 we had our good friend Bryant Cook on The EPIC Storm.
Prismatic Ending seems to also be just one of the best spells for these kinds of decks to have access to because of how flexible it is for removal, and it can be found with Burning Wish which is really sweet.
Also in the Top 8 we had Curses!
Really digging this list. Curses has evolved so much over time into a hybrid combo/prison deck and I love it. Lot of super cool tech here.
Outside of the Top 8 we have another placing of the Ragavan 4C Loam build we've been seeing pop up.
Is this deck for real? I'm pretty sure it is, and it's pretty sweet. I love how "pile-y" it is and it's just so much fun looking.
All the way down near the bottom of the Top 32 we've got Soldier Stompy!
This isn't the first time I've seen this deck lately, so it's cool to see it again. Solitude feels like a strong inclusion to a Stompy deck for sure.
Around the Web
- Our good friend Alex McKinley has some info on how to Galvanic Relay. Check that out here.
- Everyday Eternal has a new episode! Check it out here.
- Our good friend Phil Gallagher has a sweet list featuring Laelia, the Blade Reforged. Check that out here.
The Spice Corner
Laelia, the Blade Reforged is now on Magic Online. That is all.
Hive Mind PACTS.
Collected Company is super sweet here.
What I'm Playing For A While
I've been jamming a lot of the 8-Cast deck by Bob Huang as of late, but of course we have All Access Tokens coming up so that means I get to play my favorite thing! That's right, it's a new rendition of Battle of Wits!!! Expect a video on this one.
I've also been drafting up a deck that unfortunately can't be played on Magic Online yet because one of the cards (Prosper, Tome-Bound doesn't exist on there.
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 Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, and Patreon! In addition I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the /r/MTGLegacy Discord Server and subreddit.
Until next time!
