This Week in Legacy: Collegiate Commander
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 taking a look at a few Strixhaven cards I missed from last week as well as looking at Commander 2021! In addition to that, we have a huge glut of events to talk about from last week's Super Qualifier, this past weekend's Challenge events (one of which was the last Showcase Challenge of this season), and a look at the BIG MAGIC Online Open.
I will note that there will be another Legacy Round Table coming soon as well, so be on the lookout for that very soon!
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Missing On Some Strixhaven
There were a few cards that I missed from last week's set review of Strixhaven, so we're going to take a look at those few cards now!
Baleful Mastery
This got brought up in reference to fringe decks like Pox, and I could see it in those kinds of decks, but the vast majority of the Planeswalkers still that are problematic are CMC 3 (Teferi, Narset, etc.) and a lot of the problematic creatures are still below that so I still think Eliminate is still better in this slot. You have to really justify the downside of letting your opponent have a card. I still think there are plenty of other removal spells that are way better than this, but time will tell.
Expressive Iteration
There was a small amount of hubbub for this card, but I don't think that it is breaking the bank at all. You need to be able to either have a land drop available to possibly play a land off of this or have the mana available to cast whatever spell you exile. To me, this card feels mostly dead in most decks, but could see play maybe in some sort of fringe strategy that can take advantage of it. Either way, I'm not really sold on the power level of this card.
Prismari Command
I actually am surprised I missed this card, because I actually really like how interesting it is. There's a lot of comparisons to Kolaghan's Command that have been made about this card, but I actually think it's definitely an interesting and versatile card, and one thing I have learned is to never count out modal spells because they always present a ton of flexibility. I could see this in some sideboards somewhere for sure.
Commander 2021 for Legacy
The new Commander set has been fully spoiled as well, so let's take a look and see if there are any cards that look interesting, shall we?
Laelia, the Blade Reforged
The biggest thing that drew me to this card is the fact that it's immediately a 3/3 the turn it comes down to attack, digs through the library a tad, and is exceptionally aggressive the more it continues to attack. The other thing I noted is the creature type being Warrior, and that made me super interested in Warrior tribal.
Octavia, Living Thesis
Can you cast this for two? If you can this card is basically unbeatable. Thanks to the Ward ability, this thing can't even be attacked with Karakas, and the Magecraft ability is brutal. If the cost reduction ability had cost one less for each instant and/or sorcery in the graveyard, this would have been essentially insane, but at this point I don't think it fits the bill for anything in Legacy.
Veyran, Voice of Duality
The most interesting thing about this card is the fact that every spell triggers the Magecraft ability twice, effectively giving Veyran +2/+2 for every spell. This gets even more bonkers with Monastery Mentor, since it doubles all the triggers for that as well. There's some interesting space to this card. I doubt it's playable, but it is very interesting.
Keen Duelist
We haven't had another Bob effect in some time, so we were probably due for it. This one is unique in that it also gives your opponent a card, but makes them lose life equal to what you reveal. This could be relatively abuseable by building your deck to manipulate the top of your deck so that your opponent loses a decent amount of life (Brainstorm at end step, put a Force of Will on top, flip Force to make them lose 5 is decent enough). I'd be interested in seeing if this would go anywhere, but there is a lot of downside in certain matchups to also losing to your opponent's stuff (I'm imagining Sneak and Show putting Emrakul on top to make you lose 15).
Trudge Garden
There's still a lot of incidental life gain in decks playing Uro that this could actually be a reasonable card to play, by simply putting extra mana into making 4/4s. Is that good enough though? Probably not, but it would be sweet to see someone try it out at some point.
Gyome, Master Chef
You want some Food, man? I got what you need!
Ruxa, Patient Professor
BEAR STOMPY HERE WE COME!
Legacy Super Qualifier 4/8
We had a Legacy Super Qualifier last Thursday, an event where two qualifications for Arena (PT-level) Championships was on the line. This event brought in 307 players overall, thanks to the efforts of the Legacy Data Collection project.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the data sheet for this event here.
RUG Delver had a good event here in terms of representation and a fairly respectable win rate too. There was also quite a bit of other decks though and not all of them primarily blue decks, with a solid amount of D&T, Red Prison, Elves, and Lands. There was also a good chunk of the Mystic Forge combo deck that has been seeing some increased amount of play.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Elves | 1st | nathansteuer |
| Sneak and Show | 2nd | JPA93 |
| Bant Control | 3rd | Pascal3000 |
| BUG Control | 4th | Ark4n |
| Red Prison | 5th | wordy333 |
| Reanimator | 6th | Shalomas |
| RUG Delver | 7th | ome |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 8th | killersuv |
This is a pretty solid Top 8 really. Plenty of diversity and representation on various aspects of the format definitely going on here. I will note that the finals of the event was a little amusing, as it wasn't actually played out between the two players. JPA93 (Sneak and Show) posted on Twitter about getting the okay from the MTGO DEC to go to bed after thoroughly demolishing the rest of the Top 8, because the other semifinal match was still in the middle of Game 1, and the prizes for both First and Second Place are the same prizes (qualification and same amount of tickets/play points). So the technical winner by MTGO was Elves piloted by Nathan Steuer but both he and JPA acquired a qualification to the next Arena Championship event. Congrats to both of you!
Let's look at Nathan's Elves list!
One thing that is notable here is the singleton Crop Rotation in the deck which is really interesting. Also, a fair return of Progenitus in the sideboard, which is a really solid card that can easily close games very quickly. It is interesting that to make the room for the Crop Rotation that they cut a Birchlore Rangers which has always been a really powerful card in the deck for sure. Still, this list is solid for sure.
Let's take a look at JPA93's Sneak and Show list.
Speaking of solid lists, you can't get anymore solid than the main deck of Sneak and Show. This is clean, raw linear a+b combo at its finest, in the hands of one of the decks undisputed masters and one of Magic Online's most threatening event end boss. JPA went through Swiss undefeated and through the rest of the Top 8 finishing with an 11-1 record overall. Very powerful.
Also in the Top 8 we have another powerful Legacy grinder in Ark4n with a unique take on BUG Control.
Utilizing Elvish Reclaimer in this kind of deck that is trying to play sort of a fair game with Tarmogoyf and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is really intriguing because it lets the deck simply run a one of each of the Depths Combo in order to allow Reclaimer to sacrifice into the combo. This is a really interesting deck for sure.
Down the Top 8 we had a showing by Reanimator!
Lean and clean is the name of this deck, with all the normal pieces of disruption you would expect from this kind of strategy. It's kind of cool to see Tidespout Tyrant again for sure, as it hasn't been a part of the base lists for a while now.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we have the new hotness floating around in Mystic Forge Combo.
A lot of the primary strength of this archetype is largely on the back of Defense Grid being one of the most powerful things you can do on Turn One, following it up with a way to win the game. The Mesmeric Orb combo with Basalt Monolith is one way that this deck can push through its deck and loop mana until it wins the game with something like Aetherflux Reservoir out of the sideboard with Karn.
Outside of the Top 8 we had a showing by Titan Stompy, featuring Omnath!
Omnath in a decklist with Mox Diamond and most especially Green Sun's Zenith and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove just simply makes a lot of sense. This deck is really sweet and interesting.
Legacy Challenge 4/10
The first of our two Challenge events this past weekend was the Saturday morning event with 75 players in it overall.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
UR Delver had a much better presence in this event than RUG Delver did, although there are plenty of UR Delver lists that are primarily UR but splash green for sideboard cards. We do often consider these to still be UR Delver because the primary game plan is of that kind of deck. However, Red Prison had a big presence here but also didn't have a great win rate overall. Furthermore, while Hogaak was represented well, it also didn't seem to do that well either.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| GW Depths | 1st | wara |
| Lands | 2nd | Promidnightz |
| UR Delver | 3rd | Kazuga |
| Death and Taxes | 4th | EmErgy |
| Elves | 5th | Tulio_Jaudy |
| Painter | 6th | Draco_Fyrwing |
| Bant Control | 7th | kanican |
| Omni-Tell | 8th | MaxMagicer |
Definitely some interesting decks here from across the spectrum, and very interestingly enough only one Delver deck. At the end of the event however, it was wara on GW Depths that took it all down. Let's take a look at their list.
This particular list is closer to "Abzan" but it's really only playing into black for a few key spells (Decay, Plague Engineer) so it's much more of a primary GW variant. Having Swords to Plowshares is really strong for the Depths variants to have in being able to deal with particular hate bears or just answer key creature spells efficiently.
In Second Place we have Lands!
Good old RG Lands continues to keep putting up reasonable results in events, and it is safe to say that it is a deck worth keeping on your radar as the power level of Valakut Exploration is really pushing it. I also love the singleton Torpor Orb here, a card that can stick it to things like Thassa's Oracle decks primarily, but other powerful ETB effects as well.
Further down the Top 8 we have RUG Painter!
There are some sweet hits here in this deck. Reverse Engineer?! Witching Well?!?!?! God-Pharaoh's Statue?!?!?!?!? Not to mention the awesomeness of having a card like Niv-Mizzet, Parun in your sideboard. This is some really hot stuff going on here, and I'm in love with all of it.
Also in the Top 8 we had Bant Yorion Stoneblade!
Stoneblade doesn't even begin to describe this deck though, as it also boasts an Emry/Urza package as well as cards that are expected in Bant colors like Uro. This is a really super interesting list overall for sure.
Outside of the Top 8 I'd like to give a shout-out to Nathan Lipetz, who has been championing the UB Omni-Tell variant for a little bit now. This is a neat list for sure.
Thoughtseize is the biggest draw here for the deck, allowing it to clear the way for resolving its combo. Black also gives the deck cards like Duress and Fatal Push out of the sideboard, as well as Eliminate. Really sweet and interesting list for sure!
Legacy Showcase Challenge 4/11
This weekend was also the final Showcase Challenge for this season. Showcase Challenges feed into the Showcase Qualifier events by virtue of making Top 8 in the Showcase Challenge being able to play in the Qualifier event. There were 221 players in this weekend's Showcase Challenge, a very healthy turnout indeed!
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here and the datasheet here.
RUG Delver was yet again super popular in this event, but UR Delver had a solid close amount of lists as well, and also performed a bit better in regards to win rates. The rest of this event looked really good though and there's certainly still a lot of diversity in the format it seems.
Lets take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| UR Delver | 1st | silviawataru |
| Elves | 2nd | fluffy21 |
| Dredge | 3rd | THE_DADDY |
| UR Delver | 4th | MM_17 |
| Red Prison | 5th | stevemlp |
| Mystic Forge Combo | 6th | killersuv |
| Lands | 7th | Phill_Hellmuth |
| Hogaak | 8th | __BMJ__ |
Again, a pretty solid Top 8 with plenty of represented archetypes in it, from fair decks to combo. At the end of the event however, it was silviawataru who took it all down on UR Delver!
I mentioned before that some UR Delver dekcs have had a lot of success with simply splashing into green purely for sideboard cards. This is one instance of that, where cards like Klothys, God of Destiny are very helpful and powerful. Another interesting thing to note in these decks is the greater presence of cards like Bonecrusher Giant and Brazen Borrower more in these lists, due to the overall flexibility these cards provide. This is a super solid list and looks very interesting to play!
In Second Place we have Elves!
This particular list is playing Once Upon a Time in it, and interestingly enough no Archon of Valor's Reach. Elves has a lot of intricate deckbuilding decisions so it is generally interesting to compare the decks and how they function. Elves is probably one of the best permanent-based combo decks in the format, however.
Also in the Top 8 we had a showing by LED Dredge in Third Place!
This is a very clean and powerful list for sure. Dredge always has those moments where it absolutely demolishes whatever else is going on because of players not respecting it enough, and thus it puts up these kinds of results quite often enough to be dangerous.
Outside of the Top 8 we had a showing by RUG Food Chain!
This deck is very powerful as we've talked about before, and it really is a deck that can quite often win games without even hitting the combo, which makes it even stronger. Red gives the deck a lot to go on, especially and most importantly Pyroblast.
BIG MAGIC Open Online 4/10
This weekend was also a Japanese event held via Magic Online called the BIG MAGIC Open Online, organized by BIG MAGIC and supported by StarCityGames. This event had 125 players in it overall.
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet for this event here.
This event looked really neat and there looked like a ton of diversity here. Omni-Tell was very popular here for sure, as was RUG Delver and UR Delver. This looked like a pretty great metagame though for sure.
Lets take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Oops All Spells | 1st | Shunichi Nakashima |
| UR Delver | 2nd | Tatsuya Hasegawa |
| Elves | 3rd | Shin Tomizawa |
| Elves | 4th | Yuki Takada |
| Hogaak | 5th | Kousuke Chinen |
| Bant Control | 6th | Tomoya Kobayashi |
| Omni-Tell | 7th | Shun Asano |
| Infect | 8th | Hiroshi Murase |
This was a fairly solid Top 8, with a fair amount of combo decks in it, and sure enough, a combo deck took the crown but not the combo deck you would expect. That's right, its Oops! All Spells!
I like the Once Upon a Time as a way to locate a combo piece (or mana if you're finding a Spirit Guide). Memory's Journey is also interesting tech against Surgical Extraction.
The Second Place list here was UR Delver.
Again we have the green splash in the sideboard, but only the Brazen Borrower in the main deck. Young Pyromancer is severely strong however so this list looks really good as well.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we have Infect.
There's no Bant shenanigans here with Teferi, just straight Blue/Green based Daze shell with Infect creatures and Inkmoth Nexus (with the title of being the best Infect creature there is). Solid decklist for sure.
Outside of the Top 8 I looked for some real shenanigans and I found them in a 41st place list playing... Gingerbrute?!
This list is sweet. It's like old-school Affinity lists but with some real muscle behind the aggro plan. Cranial Plating! I just really adore this a lot.
Around the Web
- Our good friend Doishy is back with another Doomsday video! Check it out here.
- Jarvis Yu goes over his Super Qualifier run with Food Chain. Check it out here.
- The Eternal Glory Podcast has a new episode on Situational Card Evaluation. Check it out here.
- There's also new episode of In Response out! Check it out here.
- The Dead Format had the crew of the Legacy Pit on to discuss the Legacy Pit Open in September! Check it out here.
- Is Strixhaven Harry Potter? ForceOfPhil has the answer for you on the latest Eternal Durdles.
The Spice Corner
Old school UB Reanimator with Jin-Gitaxias!
This Burn list with Scourge of the Skyclaves is super duper sweet.
PONZA!
Humans with Kelsien, the Plague?!
Llawan, Cephalid Empress in Painter? It's more likely than you think.
What I'm Brewing This Week
I'm still playing the Karn Echo deck for the most part, but I've been doing some Strixhaven brewing here or there. I present THE WITHERFIT.
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 Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, and Patreon! In addition I'm always around the MTGGoldfish Discord Server and the /r/MTGLegacy Discord Server and subreddit.
Until next time!
