This Week in Legacy: So Many Battles, So Little Time!
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 touching on the final week of All Access with an ode to a deck archetype I love dearly: Battle of Wits. In addition to that, we've got some Challenges to look at which also includes a Showcase Challenge. Also a touch on the Manatraders events this month.
A side note on the Challenge events this weekend, we did have a lot of technical issues with collecting data for these events. I've talked about this before via this column. These things do happen unfortunately. Hopefully we will be able to pull together and move forward. Primarily this means we don't have full metagame data for these events and no fancy graphs.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Battle? BATTLE!
It's the end of All Access period on Magic Online, and honestly for a good portion of it I was out of pocket (out of town in various ways), but I did manage to find some time to pick at one of my favorites for All Access and that is Battle of Wits.
As most folks know, Battle of Wits is one my favorite things to do in All Access periods, because it really is just so much fun. I always try to build towards a theme for these decks because frankly I find that the fun part of playing this deck. The last time I did this I played an Initiative variant because White Plume Adventurer and Expressive Iteration were legal. This time, I realized in talking with some friends on the MTGLegacy Discord (thank you OnTheWind) that we got a brand new card type this year, so clearly that had to be the theme.
BATTLES.
Clearly this was the goal of this version of the deck. However, it couldn't just be all Battles, as there are plenty of Battles that are hard to really want to have in play, so I had to really pick and choose. Some of the major highlight Battles are Invasion of Ikoria (which is frankly absurd with being able to fetch a Vampire Hexmage), Invasion of Alara (it does literally everything), and Invasion of Ergamon (the Treasure generation did actually matter a lot here). There were a few that I would likely cut in a future iteration of this (and believe me, there's definitely a future iteration here), like Invasion of Shandalar and Invasion of Arcavios just seemed too poor for their effect.
Invasion of Pyrulea also quite surprised me as well, as more often than not it was Scry 3 draw a card.
Anyways, this is where I ended up with this stream. There are definitely far more iterations to come out of this possibly, but it was a lot of fun to work on. Big shout out to Fishduggery for helping me sort out the version that led to putting Begin the Invasion in the deck, because I was frankly unaware that card existed.
The deck was super fun, and I did stream a League with it this past Monday. I did end 2-3 which was fun, playing for a positive record in the last round versus Reanimator but made a few mistakes that cost me the game. I will note that I did also make a severe misclick vs Depths in not blocking the Marit Lage with an Ice-Fang Coatl to stay alive a turn, so yeah that happened. All in all though we had a ton of fun in this League still and that's really all that matters. So take a gander, and watch the insanity unfold!
ManaTraders June - Legacy
This month's ManaTraders series event is Legacy! The qualifier for this period runs from June 5th - June 20th with the Swiss rounds held on June 24th.
You can find more information on how these events work here.
Legacy Challenge 6/10
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event. While data was incomplete, we do know that there were 67 players in this event thanks to the initial efforts by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the incomplete data sheet here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| RUG Delver | 1st | Bryzem1 |
| Riddlesmith Combo | 2nd | Killabee |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 3rd | Turn1GlistenerElf |
| RUG Delver | 4th | ayukawa |
| BUG Control | 5th | Oceansoul92 |
| Red Painter | 6th | HanktheObese |
| UR Delver | 7th | boytriton |
| Black Saga Storm | 8th | Cherryxman |
Pretty wild Top 8 overall here. Some nice variety too. At the end of the event it was RUG Delver that won it all.
It's pretty cool seeing actual Tarmogoyf again in the format. I definitely like this version of the deck.
In Second Place we've got the one and only Killabee.
Back on classic Riddlesmith but with a dash of Wheels here, this deck is a little bit of a mix of both. Storm Entity is kind of a sick include in the sideboard. Sort of like a Grapeshot that attacks.
Further down the Top 8 we have BUG Control.
Haven't really seen much BUG in a while so it's cool to see. This version has a unique Reanimator style aspect to it as well since it's able to nab opponent's creatures or its own Griefs in the graveyard. Also, Pernicious Deed in the sideboard!
Down at the bottom of the Top 8 we have Black Saga Storm.
This is a deck heavily popularized by MTGO user TonyScapone, and it's just a really wildly cool deck. It has a lot of the same "Storm" elements that are similar to both ANT and The EPIC Storm, but it also has the Saga backup game plan, which is sweet.
Legacy Showcase Challenge 6/1
The second event of the weekend was a Showcase Challenge event! These events feed into the Showcase Qualifier at the end of the premier play season with the Top 8 being invited to that event. While data was incomplete, we do know that there were 258 players in this event thanks to the initial efforts by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the incomplete datasheet here.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Yorion Zenith | 1st | McWinSauce |
| Echo Stompy | 2nd | ElfKid |
| Red Stompy | 3rd | MercSavage |
| Sneak and Show | 4th | Yukke |
| Sneak and Show | 5th | pacoelflaco |
| Yorion Zenith | 6th | zachattack23 |
| Yorion Zenith | 7th | HouseofManaMTG |
| Jeskai Control | 8th | BERNASTORRES |
This Top 8 was definitely dominated by Yorion, Sneak and Show, and Ancient Tomb. At the end of the event it was Yorion Zenith piloted by McWinSauce that won.
Quite a strong list here for sure. Nissa, Resurgent Animist is pretty sweet and looks like a really powerful card here. I also just love seeing Omnath, Locus of Creation in decks. Card is so much fun.
In Second Place we have a blue-based Echo Stompy deck.
This deck is definitely seeking to abuse the power of wheels + Narset or Hullbreacher as much as possible and then leverage that advantage into Karn ending the game. Also, Saprazzan Skerry!
We had some Sneak and Show in the Top 8 so let's look at the higher placing one.
Vesuvan Drifter is kind of sweet as a sort of Arcane Artisan effect that can turn the Drifter into one of the deck's big game-ending creatures. Seems like a strong effect in these lists for sure.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we have Jeskai Control.
I like how this list looks. Very clean for sure. Kozilek's Return out of the sideboard is pretty great, so is Ruination.
Around the Web
- Eternal Durdles is talking all about Lord of the Rings. Check it out here.
- Saw this one pop up on a feed somewhere, and found it interesting. This is an article written by AJ Sacher over ten years ago about Brainstorm, and it still feels very relevant today. Check it out here.
- BLACK BELCHER.... IF YOU PLEASE...
- Phil Gallagher is playing some Reclaimer Elves. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
Mono White Stiflenought!
This Polymorph deck is actually just pretty wild.
EUREKA!
Loam lists are always spicy to look at. This one is no exception.
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!
