This Week in Legacy: Eternal Weekend 2022
Howdy folks! It's time yet again for another edition of This Week in Legacy! I'm your host, Joe Dyer, and this week
Eternal Weekend North America 2022
This past weekend was a return to form as we revisited Card Titan and their hosting of the North American Eternal Weekend event. This event looked like a whirlwind weekend of Eternal Magic, with plenty of Legacy and Vintage to check out. While there was no official coverage of this event by Card Titan themselves, community stalwart Anuraag Das put the pedal to the metal and stepped up with some of the best coverage I've seen in a long time. You can check out the coverage VODs over on Anuraag's Twitch channel and I have to assume these will also be on his YouTube at some point as well. It was a really great set of coverage with some awesome casters, including folks like Brian David-Marshall, Chris Banuchi, Caleb Durward, David Lance, Michael Mapson, and so much more. It's super cool to see such great coverage of such a solid event.
The Legacy event had 468 players overall in it, thanks to the event being hosted on MTGMelee and the continued work of the Legacy Data Collection Project to convert these kinds of events. If you think about it, we keep having these 400+ player Legacy events, so it's just incredibly sweet to see how much people want to play Legacy. As we'll see with the EW Online event, this event took place at the same time as 424 players showed up for the Online event, so this weekend alone had nearly 900 players playing Legacy. Superb!
You can find all of the decklists from this event here and the data sheet here.
UR Delver was indeed the most popular paper deck in the event (not counting all the unknowns from paper decklists that didn't get recorded), and while it did have a solid finish in the event the win rate overall was pretty fair (50.29% non-mirror). A lot of this has to do with the fact that the deck was well represented, making mirror matches more common which normalizes the win rate closer to 50% (one deck has to win and the other has to lose after all). The second most represented single deck here was the new hotness of White Stompy, coming in strong with a 65.23% non-mirror win rate. In addition across the top decks we had some showings by 4C Control, Painter (doing quite well), D&T, and even Doomsday/Reanimator.
Let's take a look at the Top 8. Each of the Top 8 competitors in this event all received a special Ponder printing, of which only 24 exist in the entire world.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| UR Delver | 1st | Jay Wojciechowski |
| 4C Control | 2nd | Hank Zhong |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 3rd | Bryan Bell |
| UR Delver | 4th | Samantha Murphy |
| White Stompy | 5th | Robert Hayes |
| White Stompy | 6th | Chris McGuire |
| GW Depths | 7th | Chris Perciavalle |
| White Stompy | 8th | Eric English |
White Stompy certainly boosted some numbers here and put three copies into this Top 8, alongside Delver, Depths, and even Cephalid Breakfast. At the end of the event though, it was UR Delver taking it down with the sickest line of casting Price of Progress for lethal and then Pyroblast on Hank Zhong's Snapcaster Mage in response to a Swords to Plowshares to push in that lethal damage. Jay Wojciechowski takes home the brags of being the 2022 Legacy Champion as well as the sick Scrubland painting.
This list is definitely powerful, and it's incredible to see the level at which these Delver decks are respecting White Stompy builds with cards like Unchained Berserker in the list being able to cleanly steal the Initiative away. The main deck Fury here is sick as well, because having a pitchable removal spell is pretty solid. I like this list a lot.
The Second Place finalist was Hank Zhong on 4C Control.
Very strong list here as well with some solid notes coming hot off the heels of recent technology updates in these 4C lists. We see the utilization of Dress Down and Terminus here to great effect, and we also get to see some copies of new card Brotherhood's End here as well.
Also in this Top 8 we had a showing by Cephalid Breakfast.
Ban Shuko. That's it. That's the Tweet.
We also had three copies of White Stompy in this Top 8. Let's take a look at the higher placing one.
This deck is definitely still pushing itself to be very powerful and I don't really believe we've seen a final stock list of this deck. Touch the Spirit Realm is an insanely strong card in this deck though, and I expect that to be the big norm going forward. Still, it will be interesting to see where this deck finally settles.
Eternal Weekend Online 12/10
Before NA Eternal Weekend's Legacy event even kicked off, the action on Magic Online was heating up as Eternal Weekend there was in the midst of it all. This event had 424 players in it, thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project. I was unfortunately unable to play in this one because of a number of factors including a sick child and the start time being at 4am EST. Still, this looked like a super fun event and sounded very exciting.
You can find the Top 16 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
UR Delver was the most played deck in this event by a huge margin and it had a really strong win rate (56.50% non-mirror). Coming up right behind it (well, sort of at 39 copies to Delver's 94) was White Stompy as a solid 55.24% non-mirror win rate. Beyond that we had a good amount of Elves and Reanimator and all the way down to Red Stompy at the cutoff. Lands and Oops didn't do so hot in this event, and neither did Sneak and Show.
Let's take a look at the Top 8. The Top 8 competitors of this event also received the sweet Ponder physical promo.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Elves | 1st | mephidro |
| White Stompy | 2nd | bennybo |
| Elves | 3rd | fluffy21 |
| UR Delver | 4th | kohei1202 |
| Elves | 5th | endFunU |
| 4C Control | 6th | medvedev |
| UR Delver | 7th | kobayui |
| UR Delver | 8th | JUJUBEAN__2004 |
Not an incredibly diverse Top 8 here. Lot of Elves and Delver, with a White Stompy and 4C Control thrown in. At the end of it all though and the winner of the Tabernacle painting was mephidro on Elves.
This is a much more combo-slanted version of the deck, leaning on the power of Nettle Sentinel and Glimpse of Nature as cards that push the overall combo aspect of Natural Order instead of the more midrange-esque builds floating around the format right now. This version seems quite powerful versus the White Stompy decks because this deck can really push a kill super quickly.
Speaking of White Stompy, that's our Second Place finalist.
We've definitely seen a lot of differences in these decks, as there are a lot of flex spots available to these kinds of decks, but we are seeing some pieces remain as considered stock. Cards like Touch the Spirit Realm and Solitude are definitely leaning into that territory, and Elite Spellbinder has proven to be quite good.
Legacy Challenge 12/10
The first Challenge of the weekend took place in the midst of Eternal Weekend but it still fired with 61 players, thanks to the efforts of the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the incomplete datasheet here. Due to technical issues and other ongoing events, we were unable to get all of the data for this event (as such some ordering past the winner/second place may be out of order). If you think you can help, please reach out!
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Reanimator | 1st | snoopy-magic |
| White Stompy | 2nd | albertoSD |
| GW Depths | 3rd | SpiRitc |
| UR Delver | 4th | Diem4x |
| Elves | 5th | DawsonCreep |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 6th | CoolUser |
| Ninjas | 7th | Squiddward |
| 8Cast | 8th | Dreddybajs |
Pretty varied Top 8 here, with the finals being Reanimator vs. White Stompy. Reanimator won!
Pretty wild list here. I love the sideboard of boarding into Dauthi Voidwalker and also Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Super sweet list for sure.
The Second Place list was on White Stompy.
One thing I see in this list is respecting cards like Torpor Orb with effects like Cathar Commando. With many of these decks solely on Loran of the Third Path, having an option that destroys an Orb seems very important as Loran doesn't achieve that.
Legacy Challenge 12/11
The second Legacy Challenge of the weekend was the Sunday event, which had 71 players in it thanks to the effort of the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the incomplete datasheet here. Due to technical issues and other ongoing events, we were unable to get all of the data for this event (as such some ordering past the winner/second place may be out of order). If you think you can help, please reach out!
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Reanimator | 1st | satu2112 |
| Stoneblade | 2nd | davy2892 |
| GW Depths | 3rd | SpiRitc |
| Oops! All Spells | 4th | kbol_ |
| Elves | 5th | jewdan |
| UR Delver | 6th | TrueFuturism |
| Doomsday | 7th | Fuz65 |
| Painter | 8th | Julian23 |
Yet another fairly varied Top 8 here, and yet another win by Reanimator in the finals!
The sideboard here is fairly different as we get to see the Show and Tell sideboard juke in addition to having Iona, Shield of Emeria (which seems pretty great versus White Stompy).
The Second Place finalist was on Stoneblade.
True-Name Nemesis being a big thing in 2022 simply because it's a creature that steals the Initiative well is pretty wild. Also four copies of Stifle here which is really solid.
Legacy Showcase Qualifier 12/11
This past weekend was also the Legacy Showcase Qualifier for the end of Season 3. This is an invitation-only event that one gets into through qualifying in Showcase Challenges and Last Chance Qualifiers. Because of the nature of this event, this is often a very small and very narrow metagame as players here will make some extreme choices to fight the metagame specifically. This is the best of the best of Legacy players on MTGO though, and the winner of this gets to move on to the MOCS and the Pro Tour, so it's high-end competition.
You can find the Top 13 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
A majority of the field brought UR Delver, which was definitely a safe choice for those players who are not archetype specialists. The deck did quite well, as did Stoneblade. White Stompy saw a good set of numbers for this size of event, but had a middle-of-the-road win rate.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| UR Delver | 1st | Diem4x |
| UR Delver | 2nd | mei0024 |
| UR Delver | 3rd | discoverN |
| Elves | 4th | Testacular |
| Elves | 5th | EronRelentless |
| Stoneblade | 6th | FGC |
| UR Delver | 7th | urzatheplaneswalker |
| Stoneblade | 8th | ziggy_stardust |
For the first time ever we have decklists for these events! It's not common that these events to have their lists posted in the past, so kudos to Daybreak for releasing at least some of these lists. At the end of this event it was UR Delver that won.
Not a ton of crazy spice in this list, but we do get to see the respect still for White Stompy in the sideboard, as well as new card Brotherhood's End and even a Fury in the sideboard. Seems incredibly strong for sure.
Around the Web
- Using Ephemerate and Initiative creatures! Check it out here.
- Everyday Eternal went to Italy! Check out their most recent cast here.
- GRAB LIFE BY THE HORNS.
- TonyScapone has a bit of Black Belcher, if you please.
- The ELM posted a sweet Vlog collection. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
Dragonlord Ojutai?!? YEAH.
Lot of crazy Initiative decks here. This one is wild.
Shredder's Revenge? Yes, that's what I'm calling this.
This deck is wild, it's like RW Painter without Painter and instead Stoneforge Mystic. Very wild.
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!
