This Week in Legacy: An October Look at Legacy
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 diving into some data and looking at Legacy since the beginning of August until now pursuant to the fact that we got no changes in this past week's BnR announcement. In addition to that we've got two Challenges to discuss from over the weekend.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
A Legacy Check In
We had a Banned and Restricted announcement this week, one that functionally amounted to "no changes for all formats". Since nothing was changed, it felt prudent to talk about the current state of Legacy and why not making changes at this time is a good thing.
I'm going to be leaning on the aggregate data we collect within the Legacy Data Collection Project. That being said, this past few months have seen some small gaps in our aggregate data, due to the fact that we've had either technical issues with MTGO or just not having enough people available to do an event. It's definitely quite rough when we don't have enough people to collect data, and it does lead to some issues.
Still, we have quite a bit of data in just August until now. A rough estimated near 8,000 matches of Legacy in that time, and that is pretty nice.
Let's look first at some graphical data.
Legacy at its core in 2023 is fairly close to most Legacy formats in that the most popular decks of the format remain some form of Tempo followed by Midrange/Control shells. In the current instance however, the big popularity winner overall is Dimir Scam, but the numbers are actually fairly close across the board for the top 3-4 decks. Outside of those two big macro archetypes, Stompy decks continue to make their presence felt in the format as Boros Stompy has emerged the clear winner after the banning of White Plume Adventurer.
The rest of the bottom part of the cutoff here is fairly common archetypes to the format overall and it's a nice variety as well as fairly diverse in nature. One of the biggest things of the current format is the presence of cards like Orcish Bowmasters, which has proven to be a great card in multiple archetypes as well as cards like The One Ring.
That being said, the real winners of the current format definitely has to be cards like Lorien Revealed and Troll of Khazad-dum. It's pretty wild how innocuous these cards look on the surface and how they end up playing out in games. They're extremely powerful and flexible, making them just absolutely solid ways to deckbuild in 2023.
It's not just Lord of the Rings though that has been pushing on the Legacy format and deckbuilding ideas. Up the Beanstalk and Agatha's Soul Cauldron from Wilds of Eldraine have also both had positive impacts it seems on the format's deckbuilding, and we can't forget the powerhouse of Beseech the Mirror.
The overall win rates of these decks over the past few months have also all been rather reasonable and all mostly within good ranges. In all reality, despite how popular decks like Dimir Scam are, there still seems to be no surefire winner for "best deck" and while the Tempo shell is still very good (and always will be for a number of reasons) there are a number of different styles of Tempo decks in the format now and even a wide array of Control options that make up those macro archetypes.
Honestly, Legacy seems pretty great right now. While there are a large number of decks playing cards like Orcish Bowmasters, we've seen so many different decks manage to cement that solid Tier 2 sweet spot that Legacy lives for sometimes. We've seen newer decks like Hammer Time and RUG Cascade make splashes in the format and we've even seen Creative Technique take off. There are multiple fun and interesting decks in the current format, and it has made the format more interesting and fun to play.
We are still of course, waiting on several cards from the Warhammer 40K decks to still release, and while we did get some of the Unfinity cards, we won't have things like Attractions or Stickers (in a full implementation) on MTGO any time soon. There's been some hints at the Doctor Who decks, but ultimately much of that set looked pretty meh for Legacy gameplay so I'm not ultimately worried about it.
Legacy is in a good spot, and I'm glad we didn't make further changes to it this past week. It didn't need it, and giving the metagame a chance to breathe in this atmosphere and cycle naturally is important to proper metagame development.
Legacy Challenge 10/14
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event. We did not have full data for this event due to technical issues but we do know there was 63 players in the event thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the incomplete data sheet here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Girixs Delver | 1st | piao |
| Omni-Tell | 2nd | Tko |
| Creative Technique | 3rd | Aldreen |
| RUG Delver | 4th | JUJUBEAN__2004 |
| Esper Control | 5th | wooop_orc |
| 8Cast | 6th | death_grips |
| Doomsday | 7th | Enrichetta |
| Sneak and Show | 8th | ktmr-39 |
Pretty interesting Top 8 here for sure. Some neat variety. At the end of the event it was Grixis Delver that won.
Red cards like Dragon's Rage Channeler definitely continue to prove themselves in the current metagame. This is a really solid list for sure. I like Price of Progress here as it's a very direct card that hurts the 4C Uro decks.
In Second Place we had Omni-Tell.
Very straightforward list here for sure. The game plan of this deck is very linear and focused. It knows what it wants to accomplish and has a lot of great tools to do so.
Also in this Top 8 we had Creative Technique.
Okay I can really dig Colossal Skyturtle here. It's a bounce spell or a regrowth effect and both of those things seem really good for the mana.
Further down the Top 8 we had Esper Control.
Okay Monastery Mentor in a deck is really cool. Also Void Rend is super sweet here. This looks like a ton of fun to play for sure.
Legacy Challenge 10/15
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the mid afternoon Sunday event. We also did not have full data for this event, but we do know there was 83 players thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the incomplete data sheet here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| 4C Uro Control | 1st | wiky |
| Maverick | 2nd | Harry1232 |
| Reanimator | 3rd | TheGrimLavamancer |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 4th | TrueFuturism |
| 8Cast | 5th | AFX |
| Grixis Delver | 6th | MikeEgan |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 7th | D00mB0t |
| Grixis Delver | 8th | stu909090 |
Little bit of Delver and other variety things here. At the end of the event though it was 4C Uro Control that won.
The One Ring has continually proven itself to be quite good, and as well Leyline Binding has really come into its own as a control defining card in the format. Wild when we were all meme'ing on it, but it turns out the card was actually really good all along.
In Second Place we had Maverick.
I always dig seeing this user's Maverick lists. They are always so super cool. This is no exception honestly. I love seeing cards like Renegade Rallier in the format again.
Further down the Top 8 we had Mono Green Cloudpost.
It makes so much sense that this deck has adopted The One Ring. It seems tailor made for a deck that can outpace the life loss by playing a few Glimmerpost. Absolutely bonkers good.
Also in the Top 8 we had Cephalid Breakfast.
Very clean and straightforward list here overall. It's got good bones and there's no reason to try any cute frills, because this is just that good.
Around the Web
- Bazaar of Boxes posted a 5-0 with Grixis Delver. Check it out here.
- LucksackGames posted a videon on Karn Forge. Check it out here.
- TonyScapone is definitely killing it with Legacy PO. Check out the video here.
- Speaking of Tony, he's got a new podcast called "Brews of Paradise"! Check out the first episode here.
- Eternal Durdles is on with Sam Dams of Infect fame. Check it out here.
- The Legacy Gambit is talking about Cradle Control! Check it out here.
- Douges has some sweet content on budget Turbo Depths. Check it out here.
- Finally, Everyday Eternal has a new episode! Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
GoblinLackey is making waves with Name Sticker Goblin!
Stiflenought is always sweet, but so is Likeness Looter.
FOOD CHAIN.
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!
