We started with 68 two weeks ago, and today we are now down to just 8 cards. Each of the cards will be fighting for the championship of their respective region. Let’s take a look at the Top 8:
Dominaria Region
(5) Lightning Bolt defeats (1) Ponder (123-117)
(3) Jace, the Mind Sculptor defeats (7) Liliana of the Veil (171-69)
Coincidentally, both of these matchups were featured in last year’s Top 8, and the same cards won each round. Ponder struggled in the first two rounds this year. While heavily represented in the metagame as a whole, the card doesn’t really have a strong identity. After all, it really is just Brainstorms #5-8.
Liliana of the Veil had some rather convincing wins against Phyrexian Revoker (77%) and Spell Pierce (72%), but it’s not at all a surprise that she fell to Jace, the Mind Sculptor. While planeswalkers ultimates can put the player in such a convincing advantage, Jace is the best at sealing the game away. Or maybe it’s just because he is a Brainstorm on a stick. That’s probably it.
Tarkir Region
(8) Cabal Therapy defeats (5) Delver of Secrets (153-87)
(3) Abrupt Decay defeats (2) Gitaxian Probe (163-77)
Cabal Therapy is one of the dark horses left in the tournament. It fell early last year to Force of Will, but it’s been dominating so far this year. Stoneforge Mystic, Daze, and Delver of Secrets, all lynchpins of popular archetypes in Legacy, would all arguably be strong candidates to make a deep run in the tournament when looking at the Round of 64. In fact, Delver of Secrets and Stoneforge Mystic made the Top 16 last year. But Cabal Therapy felled them all. The sheer skill needed to cast the card correctly – have you ever had to name a card after your opponent Brainstorms? – helps really define what Legacy is to many players. It’s also what draws many players to Brainstorm as well (Do I really have to loop everything back to Brainstorm? Maybe I do).
Abrupt Decay was half of the gift that Return to Ravnica introduced to re-invigorate the GBx archetype in Legacy. The versatility of the card while also being immune to counterspells helps secure the matchup for many decks. No longer do you have to worry about your Delver opponent holding the Daze or Spell Pierce stop you from killing their Delver, or that Miracles player blind flipping an Entreat the Angels or Vendilion Clique to counter your Krosan Grip – just Decay their Counterbalance! Getting rid of problematic artifacts like AEther Vial or Umezawa’s Jitte is just icing on the cake.
Mirrodin Region
(1) Wasteland defeats (12) Lion’s Eye Diamond (172-67)
(11) Stifle defeats (10) AEther Vial (127-112)
Finally, we see a #1 seed actually make it to the Top 8! Wasteland is such a defining card for Legacy. It keeps greedy manabases in check – big mana Modern decks like Amulet Bloom, Tron, 12 Post struggle to exist in a format where you can kill a nonbasic land by spending your land drop instead of 3 mana, or giving a land back.
Stifle is surely making a deep run into the tournament. As the lowest seed left in the tournament, its matchups have been very close in every round – its biggest margin of victory was 54.5%! While Stifle keeps Wasteland in check in a game of Magic, will it be able to hold strong against the highest seed left in the tournament?
Zendikar Region
(1) Deathrite Shaman defeats (12) Life from the Loam (166-74)
(3) Sensei’s Divining Top defeats (2) Swords to Plowshares (137-102)
Deathrite Shaman made a deep run last year (it had a Top 8 appearance last year), and it’s no surprise that the one mana planeswalker is making another run this year, this time as a #1 seed. The versatility of the card is incredible, and it also blocks Goblin Lackey very well.
I don’t think anyone would have been surprised with either a Sensei’s Divining Top or Swords to Plowshares Top 8, but much like Brainstorm, Sensei’s Divining Top is a pretty complicated card to master, and the card really rewards players who knows how to maximize its potential. It’s also an integral part in the Counterbalance-Top soft lock.
The Bracket
Voting
Remember – Vote for which card you like better. Power level or prominence in Legacy does not matter (unless it matters to you!). Voting will end March 18th, 2016 at 7:00pm Arizona Time. With the time change due to Daylight Savings, this may be different for people living outside of Arizona.
EDIT: Sorry all. I’ve had to stop the above link. Earlier this month I had to upgrade with SurveyMonkey to get up to what I thought was 1000 responses per survey…turns out it’s 1000 responses for my account and now that we’ve gotten over 1000 responses across all of the different surveys, I would be charged an overage fee of $.15 per response.
I’ve taken this down for now and I’ll re-upload this (hopefully tonight) via Google Doc. We’ll start the voting completely over.
EDIT 2: The Google Link is now up! Voting will end Sunday, March 20th at 7:00pm Arizona Time.