This Week in Legacy: Tron-Tastic!
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 talking about a deck that's growing crazily in popularity, and that's Legacy Tron! In addition to that, we've got our weekly recap and Challenges to look at as well as an RC Qualifier.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
1+1+1=7?
Legacy is ever-evolving, it seems as of late, and this is a really good thing to see. One thing we've seen a very direct evolution of is decks that utilize fast mana ramp strategies. When the Entomb ban hit, one of the major strategies at that time was both Blue Cloudpost and Mystic Forge Combo. One of those decks, Mystic Forge, has been hanging around a little bit here or there, but Cloudpost seems to have dipped off rather entirely. In fact, Cloudpost as a card seems to have dropped off quite a bit.
Instead? We have TRON LANDS.
Tron being a good strategy has always been a little interesting in Legacy, as it has always been assumed that cards like Cloudpost have been traditionally better. So what changed? Well, people, we have finally arrived at the Planar Nexus.
Nexus is one of those cards that was early on identified as a card to utilize with Urza's Tower specifically in Mystic Forge combo as a way to get a lot of mana on board rather quickly. However... along the line, people started saying "well if this is good, why don't we just play all the Tron lands instead?"
And here we are.
Now I mean, one of the big reasons that this deck works is largely because not just Planar Nexus, but also because of another card that has been a part of Legacy more than a few times, and that's Candelabra of Tawnos.
Candlesticks make this deck CRAZY expensive in paper, but it's pretty reasonable on MTGO. The game plan here is pretty close to what Mystic Forge was trying to do by acquiring lots of mana and using that mana to do big broken things. Where the two diverge is what those big broken things are. While Mystic Forge is trying to land cards like Glaring Fleshraker and close the game out that way, Tron takes a vastly different approach by just slamming haymakers until the opponent can no longer do anything about them.
Cards like Karn, Ugin, and the Ring are very powerful cards that require an immediate answer. What also helps is the crazy amount of redundancy in these cards and how the deck can continue to push them onto the stack to be answered. It's an incredibly strong strategy, and even something like Ugin can be put into play on Turn 3, and Ugin himself is somewhat difficult to answer because even if you counter him, his cast trigger is probably doing some damage on the way out.
Since the initial rise of this deck, the popularity of it has certainly exploded, and it's become one of the more popular decks in Legacy over the past two months. In fact, in the past few weeks alone, the deck has blossomed to be either in the Top 3 most played decks week to week or even in the Top 2. It's incredibly interesting to keep an eye on.
This is a deck that does very explosive things and is absolutely worth keeping a lookout for in an event. Definitely consider having a plan for this deck, because its popularity has continued to grow quite a lot. Legacy continues to be exciting with these kinds of developments, and it's why I'm really happy with the format.
Weekly MTGO Recap
We had a pretty even week, with one major event added in a Legacy RC Qualifier event. There was an issue with the data on the Wednesday event, so it is not included in the merged data for the week. Keep that in mind. Here is the data sheet recap for the week.
We had the following events this past week:
| Event Name | Top 32 Link | Data Sheet Link | Number of Players |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legacy Challenge 32 4/15/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 41 |
| Legacy Challenge 32 4/17/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 50 |
| Legacy Challenge 32 4/18/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 39 |
| Legacy Challenge 32 4/19/2026 - 1 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 33 |
| Legacy Challenge 32 4/19/2026 - 2 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 63 |
| Legacy RC Qualifier 4/18/2026 | Top 32 | Data Sheet | 107 |
As noted, due to the absence of the Wednesday event's overall data, this week we had close to 300 entries with the RCQ. Let's take a look at the graphical data for the week.
Last week Spell Combo was all over the place, but this week the Tempo strategies were back in the top played spot in terms of macro archetypes.
Dimir was back on top in terms of metagame percentage, making up close to 18% of the metagame for the week. It did reasonably well at around 50.7% non-mirror (which is only slightly better than its mirror win rate of 50.6%). I feel like last week gave a lot of people a strange impression that Dimir Tempo was dead or dying, but honestly, this is how metagames are supposed to function. Things cycle, they wax and wane. This is a good thing, it means that a deck like Dimir isn't truly a de facto best deck in Legacy, and that it can have off weeks where it doesn't do so well.
I've also read a lot of people who don't really quite understand how sample sizes work. These weekly recaps only work as a comparison of what's happening week to week, and obviously feed into a larger data set to aggregate those results. I would not take a week's results as an overall indication of metagame health, because the sample size is just not high enough.
Also, this is sort of a thing to recognize, but a win rate like this can be an indication that there are good players and bad players on this deck... which is literally true of every deck. If you remove the bad players from the data set, then things probably look a little different, but at that point, you are introducing a bias into the data set and reducing your sample size in the process. Instead, these are observations you can make about how a deck is performing, and you can do calculations to see what percentages of players playing the deck are doing well and which ones aren't, but you shouldn't be trying to account for this in the actual data set.
Sneak and Show remained rather popular from last week, and while its overall win rate dropped to around 54% non-mirror, I do feel like this is a deck that does continue to be quite good in current Legacy. It's straightforward to play, and it has some pretty broken matchups where it's just lopsidedly strong. Keeping this in check though is the tempo decks, as traditionally those decks are usually very good against these kinds of A+B combo decks. One thing that's really boosted this in favor of Sneak's gameplay is Hexing Squelcher alongside Mistrise Village.
Azorius Tempo was also very popular this past week, and it had a fairly strong 55.4% non-mirror win rate. I am pleased to see that there's a Tempo offering that's not Dimir-based, but also one that just doesn't want to play your typical Tempo cards like Delver or DRC or etc. Instead, we get a Dog and a weird space Sphinx that draws cards, that also normally costs five mana. Having Stifle is also kind of goofy fun with this deck, so it's cool to see this happening week to week like this where this deck's popularity continues to rise.
Tron continues to impress week to week, this week having a 57.6% non-mirror win rate which was slightly better than last week's performance. This deck was our focal point of the article this week, and it just continues to look very good while also being very popular.
Boros Energy rounds out the top five of decks of the week, sitting at a 51.4% non-mirror win rate with 20 copies. I think this deck is quite interesting. It's cool that something like it exists in Legacy, a traditionally blue format with stuff like Brainstorm having a legitimate aggro deck be a very strong deck. In addition to its strong roots from Modern Horizons 3, the deck continues to get good cards in a lot of different sets, from Voice of Victory to Hexing Squelcher.
All in all, I continue to be happy with Legacy, and with this being the last week before Secrets of Strixhaven releases in full, it will be interesting to see how the format adjusts with those cards. Are you enjoying Legacy? Do you think Strixhaven will have a huge impact? Let me know in the comments below!
Legacy Challenge 32 4/17/2026
The first Challenge event we're covering from this past week was the Friday event. This event had 50 players in it thanks to the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Three-way tie between Dimir, Azorius, and Oops! Of these, both Azorius and Dimir did very well, while despite a great result, Oops shunted below the 50% mark. Boros Energy also did very well here, while Doomsday and Izzet did not. Tron rode the middle.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Tempo | 1st | Lord_Beerus |
| Oops! All Spells | 2nd | peposhi |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 3rd | Roodslay |
| Tron | 4th | myra00 |
| Azorius Tempo | 5th | kasa |
| Boros Energy | 6th | TheGrimLavamancer |
| Izzet Tempo | 7th | yushi013 |
| Jeskai Control | 8th | MtgoUser031832121 |
Honestly, pretty cool Top 8. At the end of the event, it was Dimir Tempo that won.
Pretty straightforward deck here. The Powder Keg in the sideboard is quite cool.
In Second Place we had Oops.
This is more in line with the choutin type builds, with a single Narcomoeba and multiple Poxwalkers. Pretty legit.
Also in this Top 8 we had Mono Black Reanimator.
Really some cool stuff here. Raph & Mikey seem to have found a strong path into this deck's construction, but also Koma, World-Eater in the sideboard? Neat stuff.
Legacy Challenge 32 4/19/2026 - 1
The final Challenge event we're covering from this past week was the first Sunday event. This event had 33 players in it thanks to the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dimir Tempo was the most played deck of the event, and despite a Top 8, it had a poor win rate. Azorius Tempo also did poorly, while Sneak and Show, Tron, and Cradle did well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 1st | reojund |
| Saga Storm | 2nd | Cirxi |
| Rakdos Reanimator | 3rd | GoblinK1ng |
| Sneak and Show | 4th | Dioferreira |
| Dimir Tempo | 5th | manohito |
| Tron | 6th | Tron |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 7th | Tunaktunak |
| Sneak and Show | 8th | _INF_ |
Lot of Combo here. At the end of the event, it was Beans that won.
Very interesting build. Rakshasa's Bargain is quite sweet in this list. The sideboard has some crazy stuff in it. Cleansing Wildfire, High Noon? Neat.
In Second Place we had Saga Storm.
Really solid list here. The wish board is wild, and being able to board into Helm/Leyline combo is something else.
Also in this Top 8 we had Rakdos Reanimator.
We've seen a lot of this deck and the mono black variant. The Rakdos version is really just for Faithless Looting, and maybe you can hard cast a Raph & Mikey.
Legacy RC Qualifier 4/18/2026
We also had an RCQ type event this past weekend. These events qualify the winner and the Second Place finalist for an upcoming Regional Championship. This particular event had 107 players in it, which isn't a huge amount for a Legacy event like this. These events aren't like Super Qualifiers though, they require QPs to enter so that could be part of the limiting factor on attendance.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Sneak and Show was the most played deck of the event, but it didn't have a great win rate. Both Dimir Tempo and Tron did very well, as did Boros Energy and Azorius Tempo. Oops rode just below the line here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Tempo | 1st | _INF_ |
| Tron | 2nd | _Batutinha_ |
| Boros Energy | 3rd | MJ_23 |
| Azorius Tempo | 4th | Ark4n |
| Tron | 5th | masakitaro |
| Mardu Energy | 6th | CrazyMorango |
| Boros Energy | 7th | Comrade1312 |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 8th | Roodslay |
It's kind of wild to see a Top 8 with this much Energy in it. At the end of the event, though, it was Dimir Tempo that won.
This is an extremely straightforward list for Dimir. No frills even in the sideboard or anything, just strong Tempo cards.
In Second Place we had Tron.
Tron continues to be incredibly good, as was our focus of the article. All Is Dust is a wildly cool inclusion to the deck.
Also in this Top 8 we had Boros Energy.
This deck has some sweet stuff in it. Legion's Landing? That's really sweet. I am really pleased to see that this deck exists in Legacy, honestly, even if it took MH3 to make it happen.
Around the Web
- Douges posted a video on Dark Maverick. Check it out here.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast has a new episode. Check it out here.
- DasSourKraut has a video on Necrodominance. Check it out here.
- IN RESPONSE has a new episode about Elves. Check it out here.
- Sharkcaster is playing some Boros Energy. Check it out here.
- Harain posted a History of Doomsday. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
This placed 12th in a Legacy Challenge. I'm totally going to try to put together a video on this thing at some point.
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!
