This Week in Legacy: Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy Open II
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 Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy Open II from this past weekend in Canal Winchester, OH! In addition to that we've got two Challenges to look at.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy Open II 7/29/2023
This past weekend was a really sweet paper event that I got to be a part of in the form of actually doing commentary and coverage for the event instead of playing in it! Held at the Brewdog Hotel & Brewery in Canal Winchester, OH, the Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy Open II was just an absolutely stellar event. You can find all of the info on these events on the BCDLegacy Twitter account.
Overall the event had 98 players and it was so much fun getting to interact with the Legacy community all day. There were some really cool folks that I got to meet for the first time, including both co-hosts of the Dark Depths Podcast (Billy Mitchell and Michael Mapson), Curran Delahantey (Testacular on MTGO), and many others. Of course, there were other folks like Roland Chang, Minhajul Hoq, and Romario Neto who I have had the fortune of hanging out with before this, but it was awesome to see them nonetheless. The list of players who came for this event was certainly staggering and I definitely can't begin to thank the Legacy community for turning up for this event.
This event structure is really utterly unique in that the venue itself is really amazing, and the event also builds in a lunch break after Round 3 with lunch provided by the venue. Seriously, normalize having lunch breaks in your Magic events. It's positive EV every single time to be able to take a bit to decompress and not have to worry about convention center food. Here are a few solid action shots from the venue itself.
From my end of the event, doing coverage was absolutely super fun. We had Anuraag Das on with me for the first four rounds of the event, and then a mixture of Ian Hoffman, Michael Mapson, and Curran Delahantey. Honestly it was absolutely wonderful. We saw a lot of really solid games of Magic all day, and had a real blast. You can find the entire VOD for this event on the Buffalo Chicken Dip Legacy YouTube channel.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
In a real surprise twist where Delver decks usually are underrepresented at BCDL events, Grixis Delver was the most popular deck, and it had quite a strong win rate as well (a 61.90% non-mirror win rate is very good). 4C Uro decks did very well, as did Jeskai Control, and GW Depths. Lands also had a solid performance here, while both D&T and Red Painter sort of suffered a bit.
Let's take a look at the Top 8 of the event.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Abzan Depths | 1st | Nicholas French-Seats |
| Cradle Control | 2nd | Romario Neto |
| Grixis Delver | 3rd-4th | Christopher LaTourette |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 3rd-4th | Jared Cassarly |
| 4C Uro Control | 5th-8th | Ryan Hayes |
| Black Saga Storm | 5th-8th | Cody Ratchford |
| Grixis Delver | 5th-8th | Brady Munroe |
| Grixis Delver | 5th-8th | Arlin Bonfiglio |
This Top 8 had several Grixis Delver players in it, but it only put one into the Top 4 overall. The rest of the Top 8 was wild and the finals match was pretty awesome to see as Nicholas French-Seats overtook Romario Neto in two games playing Abzan Depths.
This list looks really good. Grist is solid, Bowmasters is super solid versus the blue decks of the format, and the game plan of making 20/20s is still so highly relevant when Delver and other related Tempo variants are all in a reasonable spot right now. Just a really powerful deck overall. Nicholas also submitted a Tournament Report over to our favorite Green Sun's Zenith afficionado Douges, which you can find over here on GreenSunsZenith.com.
As indicated, the Second Place finalist was Romario Neto on Cradle Control (otherwise known as "Nightmare on Elf Street").
Romario was on camera a few times during the day with this deck and it always looked really good. We got to see Romario beat a Marit Lage by using Endurance and Atraxa, Grand Unifier as time walking blockers to win with a Craterhoof kill. It's a really powerful deck with a lot of answers, and Fiend Artisan always looked so good.
Further into the Top 8 here we had Ryan Hayes on 4C Uro Control or as he calls it "4C Lord of the Rings Control".
Delighted Halfling here is really pulling some weight with being able to cast Uro, Teferi, and of course The One Ring. This list looked super solid and a lot of fun to play.
Down near the bottom of the Top 8 we had Cody Ratchford on Black Saga Storm.
This deck is just absolutely super cool at the moment. It seems to be doing quite well and has a lot of avenues of attack against decks in the format. It also has a really strong Ad Nauseam line, as we saw in the Quarterfinals match that Cody played against Romario Neto.
Also, I am definitely throwing some decks from this event that are spicy down into the Spice Corner, so be sure to go check those out!
At the end of the day, thanks to Rob Wilson for continuing to support the Legacy community and run these great events. They are always super fun and if you are on the fence about coming out, I hope that this can help you decide to do so!
Legacy Challenge 7/29
The first Challenge event of the weekend was the early morning Saturday event. This event had 60 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 datasheet here.
Grixis Delver was the most played deck and it did have a really good win rate. Several other wide spread of decks followed behind it such as the Mystic Forge deck which didn't do too hot. 4C Uro Control did quite well as well, but a lot of the decks that did well were below the cut here.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| BW Midrange | 1st | CoolUser |
| Grixis Delver | 2nd | xfile |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 3rd | Aigis |
| Grixis Delver | 4th | sn4p |
| The EPIC Gamble | 5th | TonyScapone |
| Grixis Delver | 6th | maver1k |
| Reanimator | 7th | otakkun |
| Black Stompy | 8th | AlessioC |
Pretty wild Top 8 here. Quite a bit of Grixis Delver here, but at the end of the event it was a sweet Black/White Midrange deck that won it all.
Bowmasters and Samwise the Stouthearted seem really good here for sure. This looks like a really powerful deck, especially using Sam with Baubles.
In Second Place we did have Grixis Delver.
This is what we're expecting to see out of the Grixis decks at the moment, where they are back off of black cards like Snuff Out due to the fact that there's a ton of Bowmasters in the format (making Snuff Out pretty problematic from that end). This is a solid-looking list for sure though.
Also in this Top 8 we had Cephalid Breakfast.
This list is pretty sweet. Sauron's Ransom is a really sweet card that we've been continuing to see pop up. It seems very strong for sure.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Black Stompy.
This is a deck I really think is very good right now but isn't played as much for sure. It has a lot of power behind the fact that it has eight ways of forcing your opponent to not have a graveyard, and that seems very strong in current Legacy. The fact that the only card here drawing cards is the Ring (and only at two copies) is a point in its favor too since it won't die so easily to opposing Bowmasters.
Legacy Challenge 7/30
The second Challenge event of the weekend was the mid-afternoon Sunday event. This event had 69 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 incomplete sheet here. Due to technical issues there was incomplete data for this event.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Reanimator | 1st | Magic_Dads71522 |
| Mono Green Cloudpost | 2nd | into_play |
| Grixis Delver | 3rd | xfile |
| Grixis Delver | 4th | kentaro_hokori |
| Red Painter | 5th | utley26 |
| Lands | 6th | alli |
| Maverick | 7th | Harry1232 |
| Grixis Delver | 8th | Andrea94 |
Still a good chunk of Delver in this Top 8, but a lot of diversity otherwise. At the end of the event it was Reanimator that won the event.
Troll of Khazad-dum is a card I think definitely is great in these lists. It's going to fix your mana always and on the flip side it's a creature with super menace if you want it. It also really helps you find your Underground Sea in post board games to go on the Show and Tell game plan. Also interesting here is the single copy of Sauron, the Dark Lord in the sideboard. The Ward cost on this is pretty rough for a lot of decks for sure. Seems definitely interesting.
In Second Place we had Mono Green Cloudpost.
Surprised to not see any copies of The One Ring here since Post seems like a good fit for that kind of card. Still, this deck is incredibly powerful as we saw over the weekend at the BCDL event.
Also in this Top 8 we had Painter.
I quite appreciate that utley26 continues to play the Strawberry Shortcake variant of Painter for sure. This is a deck they know so well and it shows with their consistent results on the deck whenever they play.
Speaking of deck specialists, this Top 8 also had alli on Lands.
The four Sphere lands deck seems like a strong place to be right now. A lot of decks are trying to make velocity with their mana and Lands can very easily capitalize on that with a Sphere of Resistance and Wasteland + Ghost Quarter.
Around the Web
- Douges has a sweet content roundup post. Check it out here.
- Bryant Cook is playing Legacy Leylines. Check it out here.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast has an episode on the Core of Legacy and what it means to shift. Check it out here.
- The Legacy Gambit has a video with Phil Gallagher. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
You can find this past week's 5-0 deck lists over here.
Smog Combo with Bowmasters. Neat.
Queen Marchesa LONG MAY SHE REIGN.
Jeskai Displacer Kitten is sweet.
This Oracle Shift deck also playing Magus of the Moon main is wild.
Yorion Depths is sweet.
From the BCDL, Intuition Lands is one I hadn't seen in a while.
This one was actually on camera Round 1 of the BCDL. Colorless Aggro. Is it a coincidence that Jim Monolith is playing Grim Monolith? I think not!
This Rakdos deck from the BCDL looked nutters. Main deck Surgical, Extirpate, and Bowmasters with Burning Inquiry and Sheoldred. All I have to ask is "Who hurt you?"
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!
