This Week in Legacy: Data Classifications for 2025!
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 covering some of the changes being made to the Legacy Data Project classifications for 2025 going forward, as well as how that influences things here on Goldfish. In addition, there was an 85 player Legacy event in China to look at, and some Challenges from this past week.
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
The Legacy Data Collection Project in 2025
As we are starting to make our way in the early weeks of 2025, it's a great opportunity to treat the end of the year as a chance to renew and refresh how we approach the data classifications within the Legacy Data Collection Project. Unfortunately, Data Collection is back to being very spotty, and we've tried to make that better by providing ticket incentives to players willing to do replays. However, that hasn't been 100% successful and we sort of chug along in that regards. I have no intentions of closing down the project, and continue to seek out ways to continue to improve the data collection efforts within the project.
With that said though, we are going to be dealing with some things on the data classification side of things for 2025. This is just a beginning set of Classifications as our system is much more flexible than it has been in the past in regards to adding and removing classifications.
The updated Classifications list can be found here.
One of the big changes for 2025 is the phasing out of a lot of temporary classifications we developed over 2023-early 2024 that simply disappeared off the map and moving them back to an "Other" category for the time being. This includes a lot of decks like Hammer Time, Vial Humans, Affinity, etc. Many of these decks just kind of dropped off entirely to a point where having a specific classification for them just no longer made sense, and I like to try to keep the classifications low if possible.
There wasn't all deletions though. In fact, we made some changes as well to things such as how D&T is classified. Before, we were not breaking out the differences of Yorion D&T that played in Orzhov, Boros, and Mono White colors. All three of these variations play out differently enough to us that we were able to branch out and have different classifications for these variations of D&T.
Another thing that happened here is that I finally bit the bullet on establishing some standardization of color naming conventions for various decks. UB Reanimator became Dimir Reanimator, etc. The primary driving force behind this was simply wanting to be consistent internally with the naming conventions, which was not the case. In addition to this, many of the decks that previously had the word "Delver" in them have been moved over to the "Tempo" nomenclature. This is important to note, as many of the Tempo variants of the format have cut or do actively cut Delver from their decks now that we have more cards in that slot that are generally considered better cards than Delver. The naming convention of Delver, while having been part of the format for a long time, feels like it's actively being diminished over time. Utilizing the "Tempo" name will serve these decks better into the future of the project and data collection.
These changes are also influencing the way we do things on Goldfish currently as well. Some of you may have noticed that there have been plenty of changes to how decks are classified and displayed on Goldfish and how we've broken out various decks like Dimir Reanimator vs Rakdos Reanimator, and Yorion D&T vs 60 card D&T. All of that has actually been part of my own work now on the site and working through developing these to display correctly. I've also tried my best to closely align both the Legacy Data Project and the Goldfish data the same so that it's easier to parse in not only my articles, but for visitors to the website as well.
If you find anything that seems like it needs to be fixed, please feel free to let me know on any of my communication channels linked in my Link Tree, or via the comments on this article or in other places on social media I post these (Reddit, BlueSky, etc).
It's a good time to be ready to collect data, and I hope these classifications can help serve the community to be more informative. Let's look ahead to 2025 and collecting more data!
2025 China Legacy Championship
This past weekend was an event in China! The 2025 China Annual Legacy Championship was held in ShenZhen, Guangdong on 1/4/2025. The prizes for this event looked really cool (as you can see from their Melee page). This event had 85 players out of a total cap of 200. Excellent turnout for sure!
You can find all of the decklists for this event here and the data sheet here.
Eldrazi was the most popular subarchetype deck of the event, and its win rate was quite good. Cephalid Breakfast also looked great, as did Sneak and Show and Red Stompy. Nadu Midrange and Izzet Tempo looked rather poor, and despite having a good finish so did Non-Yorion Beans.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | Player Name |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Reanimator | 1st | miraclechen |
| Eldrazi | 2nd | Sunny Fung |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 3rd | Kelvinau |
| Grixis Tempo | 4th | jinyu |
| Nadu Cradle Combo | 5th | Pok Man Chan |
| Izzet Tempo | 6th | Tsz Kin Ho |
| Eldrazi | 7th | narca |
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 8th | BalefulStrix |
Honestly this is a pretty diverse Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Dimir Reanimator that won.
As we'll see throughout this past week, Dimir Reanimator definitely had a strong weekend overall. There were only three pilots on the deck at this event but its overall win rate was 63.16%. The sample size however is quite small obviously and not super indicative of anything, but I still wouldn't put Dimir Reanimator out at the moment.
In Second Place we had Eldrazi.
Territory Culler is a card I have not seen in these decks, and it's kind of wild. Landfall to get a creature or put the card into the graveyard is some pretty slick card selection for a deck that plays 25 lands total.
Also in this Top 8 we had Nadu Cradle Combo.
Soul Cauldron being added to this deck is kind of sweet. It's a strong card and does some really powerful things, especially if you can nab mana dorks or something like Nomads/Safekeeper to combo with Nadu. It can also tag opponents creatures too, so that's really cool.
Legacy Challenge 32 1/1/2025
The first Challenge event was the New Year's Day event. This event had 80 players in it according 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Reanimator | 1st | 2plus2isfive |
| Tin Fins | 2nd | RandyWoodson |
| Oops! All Spells | 3rd | Cristj1993 |
| Dimir Reanimator | 4th | Capitano_CL |
| Colorless Painter | 5th | XanaZero |
| Izzet Tempo | 6th | O_danielakos |
| Dimir Tempo | 7th | HJ_Kaiser |
| Izzet Tempo | 8th | _INF_ |
Lot of combo here for sure, combined with only three Tempo decks. At the end of the event, in a move we'll see a lot of in this weekend's events was Dimir Reanimator.
Reanimator retooling and taking its time to figure out how best to approach the metagame is not something that I had not considered. I had an inkling that Reanimator, especially Dimir Reanimator, could still be very good in this metagame. Well, here we are, but I also don't think this deck is fully done evolving still. There's a variety of ways to keep improving and tuning it, and I'm sure we'll see more of that soon.
In Second Place we had Tin Fins.
Tin Fins are typically Reanimator piles that play four copies of Shallow Grave as the hallmark of the deck. While some variations of Tin Fins include some form of a Storm based kill in them or something that wins the game on the spot, I think putting into play something like Atraxa or Griselbrand with haste, then maybe getting to do it again with a Valgavoth or Archon same turn is winning the game that turn.
Also in this Top 8 we had Colorless Painter.
This deck sort of takes some of the functionality from the Mystic Forge deck and applies it to a Painter shell, which is sort of sweet. The Planar Nexus+Urza's Tower combo sure makes for some very potent starts.
Legacy Challenge 32 1/3/2025
The second Challenge event was the Friday event. This event had 49 players in it according 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Izzet Tempo | 1st | C_S_W___ |
| Red Painter | 2nd | utley26 |
| Izzet Tempo | 3rd | O_danielakos |
| Stiflenought | 4th | fishduggery |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 5th | Roodslay |
| Red Stompy | 6th | Mogged |
| Dimir Reanimator | 7th | Capitano_CL |
| Doomsday | 8th | artisan |
Bit of Combo, bit of Tempo. Mainly it, though. The winner of the event was Izzet Tempo.
Fairly stock from what we've come to see out of these Izzet Delver Tempo variants as of late. The green splash here is so very light, that it's not quite full on Temur Delver. Price of Progress in the sideboard still seems quite good to me, to exploit a lot of the decks right now playing Ancient Tomb and the other greedy manabases.
In Second Place we had Painter.
This pilot is well known for playing specifically RW Painter, with the splash for Enlightened Tutor. One interesting thing about E-Tutor is that if you really need it to, it can fetch you an Urza's Saga which is sweet. Goblin Cratermaker is also a really cool card. Sideboarding into Lightning Bolt is also kind of wild.
Further down this Top 8 we had Mono Black Reanimator.
Sort of like Tins Fins a little bit, but more leaning on being just straight-fast Reanimator. The sideboard plan of boarding into Chain of Smog is always incredibly clever.
Legacy Challenge 32 1/4/2025
The third Challenge event was the Saturday event. This event had 47 players in it according 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Reanimator | 1st | mortr3d |
| Dimir Reanimator | 2nd | Jumba |
| Oops! All Spells | 3rd | Kuranari-Jackpa |
| Dimir Reanimator | 4th | Faria_Limer |
| LED Dredge | 5th | MahfuzVanGogh |
| Dimir Tempo | 6th | piao |
| Red Stompy | 7th | Bezerra_da_Silva |
| Izzet Tempo | 8th | silviawataru |
Look Ma! More Reanimator! Quite a bit showed up here, and the finals was two Dimir Reanimator. Let's look at the winner.
Harvester of Misery is a really sweet card honestly. It can sweep up some small threats quickly, but also can be discarded to be brought back with a reanimation spell from hand, which is nice. Tainted Indulgence is a pretty sweet card too, since more than likely discarding a card is not going to be a huge downside for you.
Let's look at the Second Place list.
This is closer to what we've seen people switch over to for this deck and closer to the version that won another Challenge this week.
Also in this Top 8 we had LED Dredge.
Satoru Dredge returns! Satoru enabling this deck to be able to self-mill and win with Thassa's Oracle is really sweet. I also really like Poxwalkers. I may have to try out this one at some point.
Legacy Challenge 32 1/5/2025 - 1
The fourth Challenge event was the first Saturday event. This event had 35 players in it according 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Dimir Reanimator | 1st | yPrincipe |
| Red Stompy | 2nd | DayBreakMe |
| Jeskai Stoneblade | 3rd | jibeta |
| Red Stompy | 4th | _Chamytinho_ |
| Tin Fins | 5th | Magic_Dads71522 |
| Dimir Reanimator | 6th | Capriccioso |
| Eldrazi | 7th | Killah_SUV |
| Izzet Tempo | 8th | hutomomo |
Bit more variety here, but a lot of Tomb decks for sure. Shout out to Capriccioso for playing YORION DIMIR REANIMATOR in the Sixth Place spot. At the end of the event it was Dimir Reanimator that won again.
I think Barrowgoyf is a solid threat for this deck. It does mostly everything you want to do in this shell and is very difficult to block. The fact that it costs three though is rough without Dark Ritual.
In Second Place we had Red Stompy.
While this deck lost Vexing Bauble, it didn't really lose any other momentum by having to go back to Chalice of the Void. Red Stompy decks continue to look great right now with all of the decks being exceedingly greedy in their mana.
Also in this Top 8 we had Jeskai Stoneblade.
Very old school build here, with some new school aspects. I would like to see a surveil land in here, as I feel they drastically improve many decks. The Wandering Emperor is not a card I have seen in a while though.
Legacy Challenge 32 1/5/2025 - 2
The final Challenge event was the second Saturday event. This event had 74 players in it according 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Stiflenought | 1st | DethFrmAbove |
| Cephalid Breakfast | 2nd | Thalai |
| Paradoxical Outcome | 3rd | Chris_McNasty |
| Dimir Tempo | 4th | kentaro_hokori |
| Red Stompy | 5th | Darthkid |
| Sneak and Show | 6th | JPA93 |
| Red Stompy | 7th | WadeB |
| Dimir Reanimator | 8th | mRichi |
This is a pretty cool Top 8 here. At the end of the event it was Stiflenought that won.
I think Curie and Abhorrent Oculus is a really sweet addition to this deck. It's wild though to see no copies of Doorkeeper Thrull since that's been a big part of these decks for a while. Still, having multiple Consign and actual multiple Stifle seems quite good.
In Second Place we had Cephalid Breakfast.
This is a really solid Breakfast list. Nadu has definitely worked its way into the deck as one of the big pieces of the deck for sure.
Also in this Top 8 we had PO.
Oh, this is a neat looking list. PO, Thoughtcast and friends is kind of sweet, and seeing Sink into Stupor is definitely giving me some big Vintage vibes.
Around the Web
- BoshNRoll is playing Nazgul and Collected Company. Check it out here.
- 90sMTG has some paper Legacy for us. Check it out here.
- Chrono Moon is playing some GW Depths. Check it out here.
- StrassDaddy is going deep on Wight, Knight, and Reclaimer. Check it out here.
- PunishingWaterfalls has a video on Iso ScepterChant. Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
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!
