This Week in Legacy: Pirate Stompy and Other Things

Welcome to another This Week in Legacy! The world of Legacy has run a little wild this week with thoughts of Pirate Stompy… So this week we’ll be firstly having a look into that craziness! We’ll also have a look at the recent Challenge results and the recent KMC in Japan!

Pirate Stompy

r/MTGLegacy and social media have been ablaze the past few weeks after word-of-mouth told of a Pirate Stompy deck crushing on Magic Online, but its player deciding to concede the last match to conceal information. Bob Huang, Julian Knaab and other high-calibre players fueled the suspicion, declaring the list was being hidden for its debut at Eternal Weekend.

What was the deck to involve? No one really knew. Many expected it to be somewhat of a variant of Sea Stompy (a now-antiquated Blue-based Chalice of the Void deck), but utilising Siren’s Ruse, the Mercadian Masque block Pirates, and Hostage Taker to ruin all of the opponent’s permanents. This sounded pretty cool, and having a new deck debut like Eldrazi would be neat but…

In my mind, such a deck could not be truly “broken” since at its core it would still be a derpy old Stompy shell. Unlike Standard, where hot new technology and comboes are dearly kept under wraps before the Pro Tour, Legacy will always be a wide-open format with some undiscovered potential available – but it will also always have the safety valves of Force of Will and other efficient answers to deal with any new completely busted interaction. I was perhaps excited that a neat new deck ala Soldier Stompy and friends had made its debut, but certainly did not expected it to break the format.

Flickering a Rishadan Footpad… That’s really not that busted.

$ 0.00 $ 0.00   $ 0.00 $ 0.00

Despite this, card prices of random Mercadian Masque block Pirates skyrocketed. People truly believed the hype.

Bob Huang soon revealed the elaborate Ruse in his article at the start of this week. And the entire Legacy community breathed a sigh of relief.

I’m not here to re-tell that story though. Bob’s done quite a job of that in his article. What I am here to tell is as Legacy players, we should be more willing to test, think and formulate opinions rather than buy into the hype of the hive. Thinking rationally, the Pirate Stompy deck was never going to be insane, though I suppose that is easy to say now in the aftermath. There is no broken Legacy interaction to be found with the new Ixalan Pirates. There is nothing like Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi Temple to truly make a uniquely powerful Legacy deck as occurred with Eldrazi. There is some neat interactions with Siren’s Ruse, perhaps, but as aforementioned, this is not busted, and Legacy is a format of much more powerful things. As we cast our Brainstorms and Ponders we should be aware of that, and should look to being more willing to question the opinions of so-called format specialists moving forward. I certainly feel sorry for any of you who bought those Rishadan Brigands for whatever absurd price they were, however. And I’m certainly a little sad about the aura of mistrust it has created within the Legacy community. Let’s all be a bit more vigilant in the future to be critical of decks but also not feed the flames when something is going a little out-of-control.

Anyway, I’m a big fan of toying around with Stompy shells so... Let’s try and win with one of the coolest ham sandwiches ever. Let’s put that overpriced cardboard to good use.

Please remember: this deck is not particularly good. But if you think it looks fun, I feel it could win some matches. It is basically Sea Stompy 2017, with a Black splash for perhaps the most powerful new Pirate, Hostage Taker.

$ 0.00 $ 0.00

This card is actually quite reasonable, and I would not be surprised if this becomes a card useful for BUG Nic Fit shells, for example. It’s also impressive that it gives this Stompy deck a clean way to deal with Show and Telled in creatures, something that most versions have struggled with. It also has cute interactions with enters-the-battlefield creatures if you can’t exile any of your opponent’s – though rebuying the Masque block Pirates may actually not be powerful enough, despite them being on-tribe. Honestly, the Masque block Pirates are very lacklustre, despite the dream of eating all the opponent’s permanents, and overhauling this whole shell to be Hostage Taker + enters-the-battlefield creatures could be neater.

$ 0.00 $ 0.00

Deadeye Quartermaster is quite an interesting creature too, continuing the line of Trinket Mage and Trophy Mage in some way. This is again a card that probably would’ve found a home in Sea Stompy even if it weren’t a Pirate. Equipment has always been a staple of Blue Stompy shells and this having the upside of getting Smuggler’s Copter for the grind is quite neat.

$ 0.00 $ 0.00

Kitesail Freebooter is honestly the only good cheap Pirate I could find. A much more limited Tidehollow Sculler, this effect is a bit at odds with Chalice of the Void in the deck. Chalicing the opponent and then Duressing away their Brainstorm anyway is not particularly great. But with non-Chalice draws I guess it does something.

$ 0.00 $ 0.00

Also note: Sorcerous Spyglass is out! This is going to be a staple of Stompy shells moving forward, and I’d recommend everyone grab their copies as soon as they can. It as a two-of is going to be a shoe-in in any deck I’m running with Ancient Tomb.

Well, that was Pirate Stompy!

84^th KMC

This is going to be quite a day of Stompy decks. The recent KMC event in Japan went by last week:

Two decks caught my eye:

Interesting trimming down on Magus of the Moon for more Dragons. Rawr! This is quite an aggressively bent Stompy list, contrary to the trend of more Ensnaring Bridges and prison elements. Glorybringer is actually becoming one of the more common appearances in Dragon Stompy these days, and it, Thundermaw Hellkite, and Stormbreath Dragon all seem to be the slots for contention.

$ 0.00 $ 0.00

Territorial Hellkite I thought not good enough, but the fact that it slams in for six right away is not to be underestimated, I suppose. Think of it like Fiery Confluence five-to-seven when burning the opponent out and it makes a little bit of sense, even though it doesn’t untap the turn after.

Painter returns, with not many changes despite Top being gone. As expected, it is now a Chandra prison shell like Dragon Stompy. A card I am a fan of in this list is Hangarback Walker, who can spiral quickly out of control and I’m sure is a useful bullet to have in grindy matchups like against Czech Pile (although artifacts are always dubious propositions against that deck). I suppose Walker can also be broken for value via use of Goblin Welder.

10/02/17 Legacy Challenge

Let’s as always look at this week’s Challenge. The Top 8 was:

Bryant Cook on his signature The Epic Storm took down the event. Although pretty close to what he’s always been running (check theepicstorm.com for updates on that, as always) his sideboard includes the new Perilous Voyage, which may become the staple two-mana bounce spell in Storm moving forward. Echoing Truth is nice, with Bryant including it too, and it has some upside at times, but an almost-assured Scry 2 is nice to set up a final combo turn. I can imagine Eldrazi having lethal on board after an attack, but an end-of-turn Voyage on Chalice Scrying into exactly the cards needed for the win with the Storm player's back against the wall.

$ 0.00 $ 0.00

Other exciting lists include JPA93 again finding success with Eureka-Tell!

Conclusion

That's all for this week!

In terms of more content from the rest of the internet, Mengucci plays BUG Nic Fit!

‘Til next time,

Sean Brown

Email: sean_brown156@hotmail.com
Reddit: ChemicalBurns156
Twitter: @Sean_Brown156

What I’m Playing This Week

Somehow, I took down a 59-player event in Brisbane, Australia. More spectacular was that I took it down with RUG Delver. Or Canadian Threshold, whatever you want to call it.

In short, I think the deck actually has a bit of legs in the current super-fair metagame, as RUG is the best of the Delver decks at going under the opponent via mana denial as well as blanking removal via Nimble Mongoose or Hooting Mandrills. I’ll have a bit more of an outline of the deck and the journey to Brisbane in a soppy sentimental tournament report coming soon. Look forward to it!

The Spice Corner

This comes from a large tournament in Japan – with some spicy tech: Shaper’s Sanctuary in the sideboard. A cheap, efficient way to recoup cards in grindy matchups when Infecters are dying left and centre. I like it.