This Week in Legacy: Asia 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 we're going to be talking all about the Legacy Championship event at Asia Eternal Weekend in Aichi, Japan! This looked like an incredibly exciting event, so I'm stoked to talk about it. We've also got Challenge data from this past weekend as well as a Showcase Challenge.
Also I would be remiss if I did not mention our good friends at Leaving a Legacy. Their final episode was published very recently (which you can find here) and it is jam packed with great memories, guests, and awesome stories about the podcast, Legacy, and in general. Again, we thank Pat and Jerry for having contributed EIGHT YEARS worth of Legacy podcast content and we send them off knowing that the community in general has indeed been left a true Legacy. Thanks you two for all the fun times and great guests, and hope to see both of you in the future at events.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Asia Eternal Weekend 2022
This past weekend was one of the first of two major in paper Eternal Weekend events, held in Aichi, Japan and organized by BIG MAGIC. The 2022 Asia Legacy Championship was a solid looking event overall with nearly 400 players playing Legacy. The final count of the event was 389 players thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project.
The First Place winner of this event received a special painted trophy of Gaea's Cradle. The paintings are a huge part of Eternal Weekend tradition and they are always incredibly cool.
All of the Top 8 competitors in this event also received a special Ponder promo card. There are only 24 of these in existence between the three Eternal weekend events (Asia, North America, MTGO) so these things are sure to be insane on the secondary market.
All in all this looked like a well attended event and a lot of fun to see Eternal Weekend back to some form of considered normalcy after being gone for a few years due to pandemic.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
UR Delver was by and far the most popular deck in this event at a whopping 20.05% of the metagame, and its win rate was reasonable enough at that size at 51.69% non-mirror. Sneak and Show was insanely popular and it really shows how different regional metagames can be as Sneak and Show is a very popular deck in Japan. Red Stompy and Reanimator were also pretty popular, as was 4C Control.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Red Stompy | 1st | Kouki Nagata |
| UR Delver | Top 8 | Morishima Ryouta |
| UR Delver | Top 8 | Taro Miyamoto |
| 4C Control | Top 8 | Akira Ikegami |
| ANT | Top 8 | Kobayui |
| UR Delver | Top 8 | Ryosuke Urabe |
| Belcher | Top 8 | Takaaki Akagi |
| Sneak and Show | Top 8 | Koki Kageyama |
The Top 8 here is a little weird because we don't know the full scope of the Top 8 standings due to the MTGMelee page not showing this information. What we do know about this event is that it was Red Stompy that won it all in the hands of Kouki Nagata.
This list is certainly interesting, leaning hard on Caves of Chaos Adventurer being a powerful creature that utilizes the Initiative. Laelia is also a very powerful card as well here in pushing through the deck in addition to Fable of the Mirror-Breaker.
Also in this Top 8 we had a showing by ANT utilizing a new card from Unfinity in Pair o' Dice Lost.
Pair o' Dice Lost is an interesting card because in these decks it acts as mostly a green Past in Flames effect that rebuys a bunch of different cards at once. It also nabs lands back as well and works great with used Lion's Eye Diamonds and Lotus Petals. Very strong card and looks great in this deck.
Also in this Top 8 we had a showing by Belcher.
We don't see Belcher too often anymore as more people are often playing Oops. Looks like a super fun list, and it's cool to see The People's Cannon still around.
European Legacy Masters
This upcoming weekend is some exciting stuff in the culmination of the European Legacy Masters events for 2022. Straight from the mouth of the ELM folks, here's the info you need to know about this series:
The European Legacy Masters (ELM) is an invitational Legacy event bringing together Legacy players from across Europe to determine the European Legacy Champion
It is taking place next Saturday, December 3rd at the closest thing Europe will get to Eternal Weekend; 4 Seasons Autumn Tournament in Bologna.
Attendees include Andrea Mengucci, Javier Dominguez, Alberto Manchado (Baku_91), Jörg Heinrich (Eron_Relentless) and many other Legacy all-stars from 20 different countries that have earned qualification through regional events or because of their past accomplishments.
Coverage of the event is sure to be exciting! You can keep up to date by following @EULegacyMasters on Twitter or watch live on Twitch.
Jumpstart 2022
It seems like spoiler season never ends, right? Right? Riiiight. Anyways, we do have some new Jumpstart 2022 cards to talk about. The last Jumpstart gave us some incredibly archetype defining stuff like Muxus and Allosaurus Shepherd, but this time around there doesn't seem to be a whole lot going on with this set in that regards. It seems like maybe there were some lessons learned with this set for sure. Some of these cards may not ever see play, so we'll see.
Ardoz, Cobbler of War
The mana cost and effect of this card are actually somewhat unique. When I look at this I am thinking of cards like Goblin Rabblemaster and Legion Warboss that generate tokens with haste every turn, but also hitting a haste lord and a bunch of good creatures off a Muxus is also interesting. I don't know if this will see play, but it seems like a fun card for sure.
Auntiee Blyte, Bad Influence
The effect of this is weird and pretty interesting, especially since it's any source of damage that triggers it. Manabarbs anyone? Doubtful this sees play at all, but it's a cool effect.
Zask, Skittering Swarmlord
Five mana is a lot for this kind of card, but the amusing thing about this card is its interaction with Grist, the Hunger Tide. Because Grist is an Insect in the graveyard, this allows you to recast Grists from the graveyard, and if a Grist dies, it won't go on the bottom of the library because it's not an Insect on the battlefield, which means you can just recast Grists over and over. It's kind of a cool effect stapled to a Crucible of Worlds.
Legacy Challenge 11/26
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event. This event had 50 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.
Both UR Delver and White Stompy came to play this week with solid win rates. GW Depths also did exceptionally well this week, putting 2/3 of its players in the Top 8 of the event. Reanimator and Red Stompy did poorly despite a Top 8 finish by Red Stompy.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| UR Delver | 1st | Oceansoul92 |
| Maverick | 2nd | DNeeley |
| GW Depths | 3rd | Sol-e22558 |
| GW Depths | 4th | DNSolver |
| Red Stompy | 5th | grumsh |
| White Stompy | 6th | Alpinco |
| White Stompy | 7th | HanktheObese |
| UR Delver | 8th | Cle0h |
Quite a bit of Stompy in this Top 8, in addition to Depths/Maverick-based strategies. At the end of the event though, it was UR Delver that won.
Fairly stock-looking list here. Definitely respecting Depths based decks with the Submerge in the sideboard.
In Second Place we've got Dan Neeley on Maverick.
This list is pretty sweet. We even get to see some new additions of White Plume Adventurer to the mix of this deck and while this deck isn't trying to turbo this card out, the value of it is quite high indeed. I always love seeing Kaya, Ghost Assassin in a deck for sure.
In the Top 8 we had two slightly different White Stompy lists, so let's look at the higher-placing one.
I like the concept of not having Chalice here to enable cards like Esper Sentinel and Swords to Plowshares as early plays. As we will see later on though, Touch the Spirit Realm is a super sweet card.
Legacy Showcase Challenge 11/27
This past weekend we also had a Legacy Showcase Challenge. The Showcase Challenge events are large premier events that are entered using only Qualification Points (QPs) earned by playing in Leagues, other Challenges, and Preliminary events on MTGO. The Top 8 of this event receive invitations to the Showcase Qualifier event at the end of the season. This is the last big Showcase for the season before the Qualifier on December 11th. This event had 292 players in it thanks to the data collected by the Legacy Data Collection Project (and a special thank you to snoopy-magic for helping us finish the data for this event).
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
UR Delver was the most represented deck of the event, but the win rate of the deck was actually just super below middling at 45.15% non-mirror. The real star of the show these past two weekends has been White Stompy decks featuring White Plume Adventurer and Seasoned Dungeoneer as those decks came next in popularity with a non-mirror win rate of 64.62% Time will tell if these decks are a flash in the pan flavor of the month or if they have very real and lasting implications for the format going forward (I personally suspect it is the latter, as we have yet to see where those decks may solidify list-wise). The rest of the field past the cutoff was reasonable enough, with GW Depths doing quite well.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| 4C Control | 1st | Ozymandias17 |
| White Stompy | 2nd | Frodo_BeeGee |
| White Stompy | 3rd | HanktheObese |
| 8Cast | 4th | ziggy_stardust |
| UR Delver | 5th | Diem4x |
| Maverick | 6th | PhilLesh |
| Sneak and Show | 7th | joker10289 |
| UR Delver | 8th | GetDunked |
Definitely an interesting Top 8 here, but at the end of it all, it was our good friend Matt Vook, who is regularly well in tune with Legacy's metagame shifts, that took down the event on 4C Control.
This list is incredibly solid. Lots of powerful options here, and the sideboard is definitely geared well towards adapting to the newer decks of the format like the White Stompy deck. Torpor Orb and Terminus all seem very good versus that deck. Matt is an incredibly solid deckbuilder, so I'm not surprised to see his run to the finish here.
In Second Place we've got an alt account by our good friend John Ryan Hamilton (xJCloud). John is well known for doing supremely well in these kinds of big events, and he does it yet again on White Stompy.
This list has some interesting stuff in it. Touch the Spirit Realm main deck is a super interesting choice. It's a card that gets rid of things like Marit Lage at instant speed with the Channel ability which is really good, and just has some all-around solid flexibility to it such as being able to flicker your own Initiative creature. This is an incredibly solid list for sure.
Also showing up in this Top 8 is some Maverick action.
Splashing into red seems powerful here for cards like Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes and Pyroblast, but we also get access to Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Fury. Seems like a super fun list.
Around the Web
- 90sMTG has the ultimate battle of Dog vs Hamster! Who will win? Check here to find out.
- TonyScapone has some Mono Black Storm action! Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook is on some NEOBRAND. Check it out here.
- All Eternal Durdles wants for Christmas is BOO!
- IN RESPONSE has a new episode with Tom De Decker of the ELM. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
Stiflenought action is always cool, but this one also has stuff like Thing in the Ice and new card Brotherhood's End in the sideboard.
Esper Ephemerate with Raffine? YEAH.
This Enchantress list is super spicy, bringing back old school teck like Cloud of Faeries + Words of Wind.
Tony Scapone has some Mono Black Painter Storm action!
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!
