This Week in Legacy: A New Era for Legacy Data
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 kicking off the new year by discussing some of the major developments by Daybreak Games and what all this means for the Legacy Data Collection Project. In addition to that, our final big events of the year were two Challenges and a Super Qualifier!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
The New Era of Legacy Data
I've mentioned this a few times before, but we are now getting a lot of data from Daybreak Games for Legacy events! With the changes made at the end of 2023 here, Daybreak Games is now publishing all decklists for all events from Preliminaries to even Super Qualifiers.
What does this mean for us going forward for the Legacy Data Collection Project? Is the project just dead? The answer is actually far from it! In fact, 2024 is a look ahead at where we can level up the information available to us and continue to move forward with how we collect this data and display it. One thing we collect in the project that I feel is pretty important is the collection of Round Match Data (which we get via screenshots of the rounds), which gives us things like H2H data to look at. This kind of data will continue to be collected.
One of the big plans in my mind for 2024 will end up being the ability to automate more of the process that we simply could not automate before. Prior to the changes, the primary way we collected data was via players watching replays after playing in the event. There was no way to automate this data collection at all, due to TOS on MTGO. With all of the data simply available to us now and with many other websites already scraping data from MTGO's website, this gives a lot of greater flexibility to automate data collection.
Another thing I am looking at that is already being worked on is the ability to become far more granular in our data collection. With all of the lists available, we can now differentiate between things like 60 card and Yorion D&T much easier, or various builds of control shells. It's easier to identify Naya vs Abzan Depths, etc. We're going to leverage some of that granularity a bit better now.
Finally, the other major thing I'd like to do is to move completely out of using the Google Sheets and start loading this data into a database instead, to make it easier to display via a website or something like that. This may take a bit to do, but it's definitely on my mind for 2024.
All this being said, I am really thrilled about these changes overall. It's going to be an awesome year for data collection!
Legacy Super Qualifier 12/28
We had a Super Qualifier event over the past week! This event had 316 players in it thanks to efforts of the Legacy Data Collection Project and the new data provided by Daybreak Games.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Beanstalk Control was the most popular deck and it's win rate was strong. The RUG/Grixis Delver decks also showed up well here in addition to what we've come to expect out of the format at the moment.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| RUG Cascade | 1st | Killah_SUV |
| Boros Stompy | 2nd | Filyoni |
| Doomsday | 3rd | monkeyscantcry |
| Esper Vial | 4th | Carroz |
| RUG Delver | 5th | Baku_91 |
| Dimir Scam | 6th | Succulent |
| Lands | 7th | Mistakenn |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 8th | Talisker |
Pretty solid Top 8 overall. At the end of it all it was RUG Cascade that won.
It's pretty cool that this deck translates well to Legacy, and it's proven that it's very good as well. I think Lorien Revealed definitely improved this deck a bunch like it did so many other decks.
In Second Place we had Boros Stompy.
I like this list. It looks pretty fun. Eowyn, Fearless Knight is such a sweet card for sure.
Also in this Top 8 we had Esper Vial.
It's pretty cool to see this deck given how little it exists in the overall metagame. There's all sorts of cool stuff in these decks. New cards like Abuelo, Ancestral Echo seem pretty sweet.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Mystic Forge Combo.
This list is super clean and no frills. There doesn't need to be, and it's very good at executing its game plan quite well.
Legacy Challenge 12/30
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the mid afternoon Saturday event. This event had 66 players in it thanks to the efforts of the Legacy Data Collection Project and the new data by Daybreak.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Beanstalk Control was again the most popular deck in the metagame here, sitting just above 50% win rate. Dimir Scam did very well as did Goblins. RUG Delver did poorly here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Goblins | 1st | Sinizter_6 |
| Boros Stompy | 2nd | McWinSauce |
| Dimir Scam | 3rd | yPrincipe |
| Dimir Scam | 4th | audio336 |
| RUG Cascade | 5th | mephidro |
| Doomsday | 6th | Enrichetta |
| Grixis Delver | 7th | TheGenz |
| RUG Cascade | 8th | Halle87z3 |
Wild Top 8 here, full of Scam and RUG Cascade. At the end of the event though it was Goblins that won.
Solid and interesting list here. Love seeing Goblin Ringleader here as a 4-of. It's super strong and this deck looks so good.
In Second Place we again had Boros Stompy.
Similar list to the Second Place list from the Super Qualifier. Again, this deck looks very strong right now.
Also in this Top 8 we had Dimir Scam.
This deck continues to look very good. Stifle is such a sick card here.
Legacy Challenge 12/31
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Sunday event. This event had 78 players in it thanks to the efforts of the Legacy Data Collection Project and the new data by Daybreak Games.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Reanimator was the most popular deck and it did quite well. Beanstalk Control also was very strong in addition to Dimir Scam and Lands. Everything else did well here except for Red Stompy which did suffer.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Reanimator | 1st | Roodslay |
| Beanstalk Control | 2nd | trunks132 |
| Grixis Delver | 3rd | Kazuga |
| RUG Delver | 4th | Diem4x |
| Lands | 5th | CCdsmash |
| Stiflenought | 6th | Parrotlet |
| RUG Delver | 7th | stu909090 |
| Boros Stompy | 8th | Shaunkocher |
Solid Top 8! Good amount of Delver, but at the end of the event Reanimator won.
GHALTA! Leveraging a Ghalta into play seems so sick, and the sideboard juke of becoming a Chain of Smog deck is pretty wild.
In Second Place we had Beanstalk Control.
Very powerful-looking deck here. These decks are chock full of really good cards that put pressure on the opponent very well.
Further down the Top 8 we had Stiflenought.
I like the cut of this list a lot. Lots of great ways to enable Phyrexian Dreadnought here, but also having Murktide and Uro as threats is pretty sweet as well.
Around the Web
- Anuraag Das joins the crew of Everyday Eternal! Check it out here.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast wraps up 2023. Check it out here.
- Eternal Durdles also wraps up 2023! Lots of Wrapping happening! Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that League postings are spread out over the entire week thanks to the new Daybreak changes, I will be pulling from those.
TonyScapone taking PO and adding Transmute Artifact is gas.
Mono Black Scam!
This Gruul Stompy deck is super sweet.
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!
