This past week, the StarCityGames.com Open Series stopped by in the hometown of Gen Con – Indianapolis. After 8 rounds of Swiss, the Legacy Open was finally narrowed down to eight contenders.
Top 8:
After a long drought (yes, pun intended), High Tide walks away the victor; its last high finish was actually here in sunny Phoenix, Arizona, where our fellow mage and combo enthusiast Nathan Cardinell took it to Top 8.
The past couple weeks have been a good showing of the diversity of Legacy, but as far as spicy brews go, this week was a bit of a dud. 12-Post and UB Tezzeret were the highlights of the past couple weeks, but the only truly “new” deck is the UG Enchantress lists that have now been sprouting up. Now with three Top 8 finishes in recent history, perhaps it is a new contender in the Legacy scene (and certainly, the baseline for Enchantress decks, rather than the traditional GW versions).
But I’m not going to lie, nothing this weekend made me laugh more than seeing this 10th Place Belcher sideboard (Okay fine, Frank Karsten’s singleton monored deck making Day 2 at Pro Tour: Return to Ravnica may actually surpass this):
| (15) 1 Atog 1 Auratog 1 Chronatog 1 Foratog 1 Lithatog 1 Megatog 1 Necratog 1 Phantatog 1 Psychatog 1 Sarcatog 1 Steamflogger Boss 1 Thaumatog 1 Atogatog 1 Chandler 1 Goblin Game |
A 15 Island sideboard was awesome. Having no sideboard just isn’t creative. But this? This is just way better than my proposed 4 Wood Elemental/4 Carnival of Souls/4 Sorrow’s Path/3 Great Wall sideboard for Belcher.
In addition to the StarCityGames.com Open, the monthly NELC was held at Jupiter Games this past weekend. For those that don’t know, Jupiter Games hosts some of the biggest Legacy events in the United States—and with some of the toughest competitors. GP: Providence winner James Rynkiewicz, GP: Columbus Top 8 competitor Bryant Cook, multiple SCG Open Top 8 competitor Eli Kassis, and others regularly play at these events. Even though the NELC events may not get as many players as a StarCityGames.com Open, the competition itself is arguably harder.
The Top 8 Decks (decklists in the link)
- RUG Delver (winner)
- Bant
- Manaless Dredge
- 2 BUG Delver
- Esper Stoneblade
- Maverick
- Team Italia
Going down this list, Bant makes an appearance in this Top 8. Bant rarely sees any play in StarCityGames.com Opens, which I find a little odd. Apparently the two strongest colors in Legacy (green and blue) plus a great supporting color can’t get any work done on the StarCityGames.com Circuit!
Historically, the StarCityGames.com Opens tend to just copy the winning decks from the weeks before and take those decks
to victory. Bant has a huge number of variants, from a New Horizons-style build with Stifles, to a Blouses version with Geist of Saint Traft, to a Maverick variant that splashes just blue, to a more Stoneblade-like build, that perhaps people really just don’t know what to play.
Or maybe Bant just isn’t good? That’s a possibility too, though a deck with Knight of the Reliquaries, Brainstorm, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor can never really be all that bad in my eyes.
The next interesting deck in the Top 8 is Michael Keller’s Manaless Dredge deck. I believe this is his second Top 8 with this iteration of Dredge, but I may be mistaken. Here’s the decklist:
| Creatures (36) 4 Golgari Grave-Troll 4 Narcomoeba 3 Griselbrand 2 Flayer Of The Hatebound 4 Ichorid 4 Nether Shadow 4 Golgari Thug 4 Phantasmagorian 4 Street Wraith 3 Shambling Shell Spells (20) 3 Contagion 4 Bridge From Below 4 Cabal Therapy 1 Sickening Shoal 4 Stinkweed Imp 4 Dread Return Lands (4) 4 Dryad Arbor | Sideboard (15) 1 Ali From Cairo 4 Nature's Claim 4 Reverent Silence 3 Sickening Shoal 2 Verdant Catacombs 1 Forest |
The last time this deck was viable was during the Mental Misstep era of Legacy. With Mental Misstep stopping much of Dredge’s discard outlet (Breakthrough for 0, Putrid Imp, Tireless Tribe, Careful Study, and Cabal Therapy), the theory behind the deck would be to just abuse the only uncounterable discard outlet—the discard step. Thus, Manaless Dredge always took the draw in order and never mulliganed in order to discard and get the ball rolling.
The strategy hasn’t changed. Dryad Arbors have made their way into the maindeck, giving an extra guy that can be played for free in order to have a fulfill a sacrifice outlet, and also fueling the Reverent Silences in the sideboard to stop Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace. Also, don’t Wasteland Dryad Arbor (you’ll trigger the Bridge from Belows).
Another deck in the Top 8 is Team Italia. Gerard Fabiano’s lovechild has never really gotten the time of day by other people, but it seemed to have worked in this event. This list did eschew the Stoneforge Mystics in favor of a heavier black support in Lilianas and Bitterblossoms. This does make the mana slightly better, especially with Gatekeeper of Malakir in the deck. Either way, I’m glad that the least used dual lands in Legacy is finally seeing some play instead of just the 1-of to round out a three color deck. As far as a top tier contender in Legacy? Probably not. Its slow clock doesn’t mesh well with the discard since your opponent can just topdeck the last card they need against you. If you want a good deck with discard, turn to BUG Delver.
One thing I hope to cover more in my articles is the European Legacy events. Europeans tend to be a couple of months ahead of us Americans in the metagame, so it’s always interesting to see what brews pop up. For example, Maverick and Nic Fit were seeing play much, much earlier than America. To put it into perspective, Maverick was winning tournaments in Europe before both Green Sun’s Zenith and Noble Hierarch.
Last week there was an 80-man event won by none other than…Bant Survival. Seriously. Here are the Top 8 Decks (once again, decklists are in the link):
- Bant Survival
- 2 UW Miracles
- Aluren
- Excalibur
- Goblins
- Food Chain
- Dream Halls/Omniscience
A Top 8 without RUG Delver? Or Esper Stoneblade? And we still manage to have seven different distinct archetypes (even the two Miracle decks are built very differently). Let’s take a quick look at some of the decks in the Top 8, which is chock full of old Legacy archetypes:
The Bant Survival deck looks like it was taken out of 2010, except replacing Survival of the Fittest with Fauna Shaman and no Vengevines (since the engine is much worse at triggering Vengevines). I don’t think that Fauna Shaman is better than Green Sun’s Zenith, even if it can get Iona out, but Maverick players have already been hardcasting Elesh Norn with the help of Gaea’s Cradle anyways. But still, Bant Survival!
One of the Miracles deck employs a new combo in addition to the Counterbalance/Top—Rest in Peace and Energy Field. These two combos work very well with each other. Once Energy Field is on the battlefield, you can’t counter anything without getting rid of the Energy Field, since Energy Field reads “when a card is put into the graveyard from anywhere”. Counterbalance/Top gives you a way to counter things without putting cards in the graveyard. Rest in Peace is a fine maindeckable card, especially since it combos with Energy Field and Helm of Obedience, so it’ll be interesting to see the UW Miracle decks evolve as time goes on.
The other Miracles deck plays yet another two mana blue enchantment that once dominated Legacy: Standstill. A turn two Standstill with a Mishra’s Factory out puts the controller at a massive advantage against most decks—provided that the opponent doesn’t start out with an AEther Vial or a Delver of Secrets.
We also see two fringe combo decks—Aluren and Food Chain. Aluren hasn’t gained all that much from recent sets (though any 3 mana or less creature is always a contender for Aluren) but Food Chain received Misthollow Griffin from Avacyn Restored. People were talking about a “combo summer” with Misthollow Griffin/Food Chain and Griselbrand/Reanimate being legal come Avacyn Restored, but that fear was largely overhyped. Food Chain decks couldn’t solve the problem of “What do you do if you don’t have a Food Chain?” and Misthollow Griffin simply doesn’t answer that problem. In the end, Food Chain is a worse Elf Combo deck. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve a high finish now and then, but with the huge mentality of “Play the best deck” mentality that echoes through many pros, not many people are willing to take a risk with Food Chain—especially at a large event.
Phew, that about covers it for this week. What will you play at your next Legacy event?
Jason
@mtgtwin1 on Twitter