This Week in Legacy: A House Never Sleeps
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 beginning our look into the world of Duskmourn: House of Horror for Legacy! In addition to that I've got a look at some of the info out of the European Legacy Masters event this past weekend, a commentary on the ongoing nature of the Legacy Data Collection Project, and all the Challenges from the past week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Creepy House, Creepy House
We have moved on from the cute cute cute CUTE animals of Bloomburrow and are now moving on to the CREEPY CREEPY setting that is Duskmourn: House of Horror. Set on a plane where the entire plane is one giant haunted house, this set comes jam packed with all sorts of modern (not the format) horror references and mechanics that utilize them. There's a lot of things like Rooms (new Enchantment subtypes), Enchantment Creatures, a Constellation-like mechanic, and even Delirium (the best mechanic)!
For what it's worth, I'm not sure if any of the Rooms may warrant a look in Legacy. The mechanic itself is pretty slow and while there's some minor flexibility in which side you cast, they're all pretty costly effects.
We're here to see if there's anything in this set that is worth looking at. This will be another two parter since the spoiler season is not quite done yet.
Abhorrent Oculus
This card actually intrigues me somewhat. Exiling six cards is honestly not that difficult in Legacy given the amount of cards put in the graveyard simply by playing the format, that a three mana 5/5 that generates a 2/2 every opponent's upkeep could be reasonable.
Curious to see if anyone tests this. Heck, I might test it!
Aminatou, Veil Piercer
Sort of unfortunate that we get a new Aminatou card and she gives miracle to ENCHANTMENTS. This is probably not good, I just wanted a cool Aminatou for Legacy.
Demonic Counsel
Okay so we're literally printing Demonic Tutor here that is super easy to turn on? Delirium is so easy to enable in Legacy that I can't imagine this doesn't get tested somewhere cuz wow, it's pretty interesting.
Kaito, Bane of Nightmares
Kaito seems kind of cool honestly, especially with Ninjas and cards like Baleful Strix/ Getting to come down a creature and then surveil is pretty neat.
Marvin, Murderous Mimic
Okay this is sort of amusing. It has all the activated abilities of all the other creatures that don't have the same name, so stuff like Goblin Welder, Goblin Engineer, etc. Seems very intriguing and sort of amusing.
Untimely Malfunction
Have you ever wanted to ask your Painter opponent to mill themselves instead? Now you can! The versatility of this is wild. It's a Shatter that also sets up combat, but also redirects targets of spells. This might definitely see play.
Unwanted Remake
This remake is not as great, but it does destroy a creature for W with very little actual downside. The manifest dread aspect is very minimal in my opinion. This probably does not see play over Plow or Path, but hey, it's an option.
Valgavoth, Terror Eater
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I don't think this card is actually any better than things already happening in Reanimator shells. Yes, it has a Ward that is VERY ABSURD to pay and is functionally hexproof, and a 9/9 is absolutely insane with flying and lifelink, but I feel like it's not going to overtake cards like Griselbrand, Atraxa, or Archon of Cruelty that have an immediate impact on the game. Atraxa especiially is one of those cards that possibly just draws you into all the answers you need to prevent your opponent from combo'ing off the next turn.
The ward is also pretty bad versus cards like Sheoldred's Edict. I might see some people trying this (and honestly I will try it myself just to confirm my own thoughts on it) but I don't think it replaces any existing Reanimator threats.
Withering Torment
Black getting more Enchantment removal is very interesting. This is sort of like Feed the Swarm but for one mana more, an instant (which can be relevant) and you only lose two life as opposed to life equal to the mana value.
Metamorphosis Fanatic
Usually I wait a week for all the Commander decks to be available to look at any of the Commander stuff but this one came across my feed after my article had already been submitted so I had the article yanked back so I could talk about this because I just needed to.
This card is absolutely verifiably insane. The amount of value packed into this card is incredible. And it slots right into the current reigning champion of UBx Reanimator decks. Being able to Brainstorm out a Reanimation spell is so gross, but that's not just it. This doesn't event need to be cast for Miracle to trigger its effect, it can be Reanimated on its own to do this. Early game it can snag a Troll into play with Lifelink, it can late game rebuy Frogs with Lifelink, it can do so much. It can even instant speed dump Archon or Atraxa into play.
I can't believe this card actually exists, because it's value is so incredibly powerful. I really hope this is overstated, because wow, the power level of this thing is so very, very, VERY high. Be watching for this one for sure.
Leyline of the Void
I hear this card is probably pretty good in Legacy. Can anyone confirm that?
Update on the Legacy Data Collection Project
Late August/early September since the Banned and Restricted Announcement has been a bit of a rough starting patch for the Legacy Data Collection Project. Since the BnR, we have only been able to collect two events worth of data. This is out of a total of four events from this past weekend and the five events from last weekend, so two out of nine events total. The Legacy Challenge 64 on this past Sunday did not fire.
This makes things pretty rough for us if we are to really make this project work. I'm at a bit of a loss myself on what to do here. I've been consistently informed by the community that they want this data, but I'm one person and incapable of playing in every Challenge event. We need multiple people, at the bare minimum one person per 32 player Challenge to be able to help collect this data. What does this entail? This is a good opportunity to talk about this.
- Play in a Challenge event and stay in the event until the Top 8 is finished.
- At the end of the event, take a screenshot of all of the rounds (can be broken up into multiple screenshots) and post those to the #challenge-screenshots channel of the Legacy Data Collection Discord. The screenshot is important for us to use to fill in round data in the spreadsheet.
- Watch the replays of players below the Top 32. In all reality, MTGO publishes the lists for the Top 32, so there's no reason to watch replays with players in the Top 32. One can even knock out multiple names at once below the cut of the Top 32 by watching matches between players that fall under that cut. There is a small guide on how to watch replays here.
- Identify the deck the player is playing (and especially if that player is playing a Companion or not, this is important for things like Beanstalk, D&T, etc.) and just list the person's name and their deck below your screenshots in the #challenge-screenshots channel.
- Done!
In all reality, this is a pretty simple set of steps. Yes, the watching of replays is quite tedious, but figuring out how to break up the watching by focusing on the specific subset of players helps cut that time down quite a bit. One of the people playing in the weekly event that we have gotten data for the past two weeks has recorded that it barely takes a half hour or less to get all the data. If we had just one or two regulars per event doing this, we would have all of the data every week. It's really that simple.
I know that this may fall on some deaf ears, but if you can help, join the Discord linked at the start of this section, especially if you really want this data to exist. Having this data exist can be helpful for many players to make more informed decisions about the format at large.
Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy News
Our good friends over at the BCDL team just announced two more events, with the first ever event in Houston, TX! You can find the announcement of both of these events here along with info on how to register.
The first of the two events is BCDL 17 on October 12th at The Warp Gate in Columbus, OH.
The second event is BCDL 15 on October 19th at Asgard Games in Houston, TX.
Thanks to BCDL for passing this info along and it is awesome to see this tournament series expand like it has!
European Legacy Masters 2024
This past weekend at 4Seasons in Bologna was the European Legacy Masters event for 2024! This event is an invitation only event where players qualify throughout the year at ELM Qualifiers in order to represent their country at the final event. It's an incredibly cool initiative by the European Legacy community, and really looks like an amazing time. This event had 112 players qualified for it, which is fantastic! Thanks so much to ELM and especially Tom De Decker for helping me pull together the data for this event.
You can find all of the decklists here and the data sheet here.
The big story here is how popular UB Reanimator was. Like we discussed last week, this deck is not going anywhere any time soon thanks to the power of Psychic Frog, and the win rate in this event was a near 60% non-mirror win rate. It's pretty crazy that this is still a thing even without Grief, but we did sort of allude to the fact that this was a likely outcome. Grixis Delver was also very popular but it's win rate was just a bit over 50%. On the low end of representation, Doomsday and Eldrazi looked good, and while Painter had a strong finish its overall win rate for the number of players was dragged below 50%.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| UB Reanimator | 1st | Matteo Blasi |
| UB Reanimator | 2nd | Niko Altaparmakov |
| Eldrazi | 3rd | Leif Stohlmann |
| UB Reanimator | 4th | Tue Bo |
| Red Painter | 5th | Illia von Pressentin |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 6th | Alex Rouw |
| Doomsday | 7th | Luca Fasoli |
| Grixis Delver | 8th | Krzysztof Mazurek |
3/8 of the Top 8 is UB Reanimator here, with it making up 3/4 out of the Top 4. I think that's to be expected with as much of it was in the event. There was a good smattering of other decks here from Eldrazi to Painter and even Doomsday. At the end of the event it was two UB Reanimator decks in the finals with Matteo Blasi coming out on top as the winner and the one and only EUROPEAN LEGACY MASTER.
All in all, this looks like this was a fun event, and I hope everyone involved had a great time! Major thanks again to Tom and ELM team for hooking us up with the data.
Legacy Challenge 32 9/4
The first Challenge event of the week was the Wednesday event. This event had 54 players in it thanks to the MTGO website. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Red Painter | 1st | choutin |
| UB Reanimator | 2nd | JackSparr0w |
| UB Reanimator | 3rd | Univerce |
| UB Reanimator | 4th | Capitano_CL |
| Eldrazi | 5th | msmayer |
| Nadu Elves | 6th | VampireX_ |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 7th | Boucha |
| Nadu Elves | 8th | Add1ct3d |
Lot of UB Reanimator at the top but the rest of the Top 8 looks reasonable. At the end of the event it was Red Painter that won.
Sort of a wild mix of Painter (with only one Painter) and Red Stompy with Bombardiers and Rabblemaster. Also Soul Cauldron and Devourer. Interesting!
In Second Place we had UB Reanimator.
"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated!" Yeah, this is still a thing, and it still looks very good. Tamiyo looks strong here as well.
Further down the Top 8 we had Nadu Elves.
Chord of Calling being a good thing in Legacy is pretty sweet, I will say. It's not quite like the Elves we knew, but it's pretty neat. Still would like to see Bristly Bill, Spine Sower though. That card rocks.
Legacy Challenge 32 9/6
The second Challenge event of the week was the Friday night/Saturday morning event. This event had 54 players in it thanks to the MTGO website. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Red Stompy | 1st | Sil3ntGoaT |
| Red Painter | 2nd | yapperdoodle |
| Tin Fins | 3rd | Magic_Dads71522 |
| Beseech Storm | 4th | ScreenwriterNY |
| Dimir Tempo | 5th | _INF_ |
| Nadu Elves | 6th | Schiaveto |
| Grixis Tempo | 7th | LAURI_PROTOUR |
| Nadu Elves | 8th | Statuskrow |
Definitely an interesting Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Red Stompy that won.
This is very cool. Pyrogoyf is a sweet looking threat that can deal damage when more enter the battlefield, and leaning hard on four Vexing Bauble does make a lot of sense. Really slick.
In Second Place we had Red Painter.
Very solid looking list here. There's certainly a careful balance here, I would like one more blast in the main, but six red blasts seems really good in current Legacy.
Also in this Top 8 we had TIN FINS?!
Borborygmos LIKE. NOT GRUUL? THEN DIE!
Legacy Challenge 32 9/7
The third Challenge event of the week was the early morning Saturday event. This event had 53 players in it thanks to the MTGO website. There was no data for this event.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. The Top 8 is below.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Lands | 1st | Sprouts |
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 2nd | trunks132 |
| Doomsday | 3rd | Azerate218 |
| Pox | 4th | akisamiyou |
| Eldrazi | 5th | Jumba |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 6th | l337erhosen |
| Eldrazi | 7th | NMT_Sco94 |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 8th | TheGrimLavamancer |
Fairly diverse looking Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Lands that won!
Jegantha seems pretty cool and easy to enable in this deck, albeit you don't get access to Endurance, and any sideboard games you want to bring in Force of Vigor you have to turn off Jegantha which is sort of rough.
In Second Place we had Beans.
Fairly stock looking 4C variant here. The Damping Sphere makes a lot of sense given the amount of Eldrazi running around.
Also in this Top 8 we had POX.
Liliana of the Veil and Smallpox in 2024?! YEAH. I'm into it. Fell the Profane looks really good here too.
Legacy Challenge 32 9/8
The final Challenge event of the week was the 32 player Sunday event. This event had 53 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Dimir Tempo and UB Reanimator were both tied for most popular, with Dimir having a really strong win rate and Reanimator sitting right on the 50% line. Eldrazi looked good here, as did Red Stompy, while Elves seemed to suffer.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Naya Depths | 1st | Nictophobia |
| Dimir Tempo | 2nd | _INF_ |
| Eldrazi | 3rd | Jumba |
| Dimir Tempo | 4th | bernardocssa |
| Red Stompy | 5th | _Mago_ |
| UB Reanimator | 6th | Kuranari-Jackpa |
| Eldrazi | 7th | nanovo |
| Red Painter | 8th | IronBeagle |
Interesting Top 8. Lots of Dimir and stuff. At the end of the event it was Naya Depths that won.
Mawloc is really intriguing to me, because I feel like it's not going to be very good versus a card like Psychic Frog that can often grow outside of damage based removal like this. I'd be curious to see how it plays out. The most interesting card in this deck may just be Talon Gates of Madara, because that card is pretty amazing.
In Second Place we had Dimir Tempo.
Very straightforward list here it feels like. Nethergoyf and Tamiyo backing up Frog are certainly very good.
Also in this Top 8 we had Eldrazi.
This is the more green-centric variant of this deck, but the sideboard has access to stuff like Wastescape Battlemage. Also having some copies of The One Ring in the main deck seems quite good.
Around the Web
- MahfuzVanGogh has a new video on Dredge! Check it out here.
- Maxtortion continues pushing some MH3 threats. Check it out here.
- SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR HAND.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast declares that "Reanimator is Banned, Long Live Reanimator!" Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
HIGH TIDE.
Esper Tempo STUFF.
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!
