The first weekend of Return to Ravnica’s legality is finally in the books! To no one’s surprise, we saw a whole new Standard at SCG: Cincinnati. The rotation of the Titans, Mana Leak, Ponder, Birthing Pod, and a host of other lynchpins of the format paved the way for cards that were suppressed by Mirrodin’s Scars, like Olivia Voldaren, and Ravnica’s new visitors like Jace, Architect of Thought.
But Legacy is a different story. Which of Return to Ravnica’s cards can compete with the tens of thousands of cards already legal? Cards like Abrupt Decay, Supreme Verdict, Deathrite Shaman, Rest in Peace, and Detention Sphere have been hyped up to change Legacy, possibly even for good.
Fortunately this weekend, the Legacy players at SCG: Cincinnati got to finally show off what Ravnica has brought to the table (again).
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like much.
The Top 8 at SCG: Cincinnati:
- RUG Delver
- 2 UR Delver – One Two
- UB Tezzeret (Winner)
- Death and Taxes
- UG Enchantress
- Omni-Tell
- Esper Stoneblade
The Top 8 is a slightly typical. To no one’s surprise, Legacy’s known quantities like RUG Delver, Stoneblade, and UR Delver topping the tables along with the smattering of rogue strategies in Caleb Durward’s UB Tezzeret and the MOCS Top 8 deck UG Enchantress.
However, the missing piece in this Top 8 is Return to Ravnica. Exactly two Return to Ravnica cards made it into the Top 8. Sphere of Safety made it into Chris Andersen’s UG Enchantress list (it seems doubtful that it was much better than Ghostly Prison or Propaganda anyway) and Bernie Wen posts a single copy of Supreme Verdict… in the sideboard.
In fact, the highlight card of the set for Legacy players—Abrupt Decay—failed to put a player in the Top 8 of the event. As powerful as Abrupt Decay is, the black/green color combination hasn’t seen much play in Legacy recently. However, I usually like to reserve judgment about cards, especially with a card that can potentially be format defining. I’d give the card a couple of weeks, as finding the right shell for it may prove a little difficult. Ryan Forsberg’s 17th Place BUG Delver list—essentially swapping the red spells in a RUG Delver deck for Abrupt Decays and discard—might be a good starting place.
An interesting deck that managed to Top 16 the SCG Open is BW Tokens!
| Creatures (2) 2 Stoneforge Mystic Spells (36) 1 Batterskull 2 Humility 4 Intangible Virtue 1 Enlightened Tutor 4 Raise the Alarm 4 Swords to Plowshares 2 Umezawa’s Jitte 1 Cabal Therapy 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Lingering Souls 3 Spectral Procession 3 Vindicate 4 Bitterblossom Lands (22) 3 Plains 2 Swamp 3 Arid Mesa 4 Marsh Flats 4 Scrubland 1 Verdant Catacombs 3 Wasteland 2 Karakas | Sideboard (15) 1 Pithing Needle 2 Ethersworn Canonist 1 Circle of Protection: Red 2 Rest in Peace 2 Disenchant 1 Enlightened Tutor 3 Mindbreak Trap 2 Zealous Persecution 1 Thoughtseize |
After winning GP: Yokohama, has BW Tokens finally come to stake its claim in Legacy? Humility is a pretty sweet touch in the decklist since your tokens are hardly affected by it. Sure, the Spirits will lose flying, but when you win the race with Intangible Virtues, you probably won’t care. I feel like the list could have switched the split between Cabal Therapy and Inquisition of Kozilek however, due to the synergy with tokens. Chrome Mox wouldn’t be a half-bad addition to the deck either. Speeding up the deck by a full turn seems solid, especially since the token generators can make up for the card disadvantage.
Finally, what about Caleb Durward’s UB Tezzeret deck? Known for his brews (and basically the reason why Survival of the Fittest is now banned in Legacy), he managed to take down SCG: Cincinnati with his crazy take on Tezzeret.
Baleful Strix really ties the deck together. It’s a cheap creature that can be dropped down early to mount a defense versus aggressive decks, draws you a card, and provides a flying body for Tezzeret’s animation ability if you need the evasion. Engineered Explosives may seem like an odd choice for a two-color deck since most players opt to add an off-color dual to increase the utility of the Explosives , but when you consider that it’s a fetchable Ratchet Bomb with Trinket Mage, its inclusion certainly has some merit.
While UB Tezzeret isn’t completely unknown, it’s still a relatively fringe strategy. Will Legacy players everywhere pick it up? Who knows? Most notably, the main win conditions (Jace and Tezzeret) aren’t hit by Abrupt Decay. Actually, the deck itself isn’t very vulnerable to Abrupt Decay. Hitting a Baleful Strix or a Talisman doesn’t sound very satisfying, so UB Tezzeret seems like a perfect answer to all of the hype that Abrupt Decay created. I look forward to reading Caleb’s probable article about his UB Tezzeret list!
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the first of hopefully many Legacy analyses. See you next week!
Jason
@mtgtwin1 on Twitter