This Week in Legacy: Fanatical!
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 about our first week with Duskmourn: House of Horror legal on Magic Online and just how much we're seeing one new card in particular. In addition to that we've got some Challenges to discuss as well as a further peek at the ongoing metagame (with a nod towards the ongoing issues of data collection).
Without further ado, let's dive right in!
Fanatical Processing
This first weekend was the first one with Duskmourn: House of Horror legal on MTGO, and we got to see a bunch of the new cards from this set making small impacts across the format in the Challenges, but the biggest impact overall came from one card we quickly identified as one of the more interesting cards from this set's Commander decks.
Fanatic showed up in pretty solid numbers. Despite not having full data for these events, across the Top 32s for all of the Challenges across the week there was a whopping 68 copies of Metamorphosis Fanatic that saw play. The majority of these numbers were solidified in UB Reanimator lists.
Fanatic's interactions in the Reanimator shells is quite interesting. Much of the discussion on this card seems largely centered on the Miracle alternative casting cost, but I think the card is much more multifaceted than that. Being able to cycle Troll and Entomb for this, reanimating both it and Troll seems quite strong, while also being able to pitch it from hand to Psychic Frog if it is stuck in your hand is also very good.
This is definitely a card to keep an eye on, but at the same time, it's the fact that it does multiple things with Entomb, Psychic Frog, and even Brainstorm that makes it powerful. I do feel that if long term Frog does end up going, the playability of this card gets way worse since Frog lets you negate some of the bigger issues that cards like Triumph of Saint Katherine had by converting it into another graveyard resource and making it easier to Reanimate.
Outside of Fanatic, one card that I kind of expected to see in larger quantities was Demonic Counsel.
It seemed that there were only roughly three copies or so of this card across all the Challenges. I don't know if this one is a slow burn or not, but maybe it ramps up after this weekend. It may end up that this card is not as powerful as initially believed, but I'll be curious to see what happens with it.
One card that definitely looked intriguing overall was Ghost Vacuum.
Being a hit off of Saga seemed quite interesting and sure enough people are trying this one out a bit. It being a card that can hit specific cards in graveyard is very interesting of course. Curious to see how this one plays out as well.
Metagaming Without Data
It's been no surprise that things have been somewhat rough for understanding what is going on with the metagame since the changes in how we are getting data from Magic Online, and the reversion back to having to collect replay data. We're still running into a lot of issues with this from the Legacy Data Collection standpoint, and it makes the data we do have somewhat limiting since we are only getting Top 32 data and no prelim data.
With that being said, what does Legacy really look like right now? Are we in a healthy space or not?
Well, right off the bat we have kind of the big three quote "pillar" creatures of Legacy right now. Psychic Frog is currently the most played "actual" creature in Legacy (we don't count Faerie Macabre) in roughly 35% of decks, so this card is in tons of spaces, from Reanimator to BUG Beans to Dimir Tempo. Frog or decks built around Frog are very reasonable spaces for players used to the Tempo aspect of Legacy.
Next we have Eldrazi, namely driven by Sowing Mycospawn. The fact that this card can go fetch a Wasteland and exile another land at the same time is incredibly impressive. Eldrazi as a shell got incredible powerful things out of Modern Horizons 3, so much so that the only real holdover creature from older Eldrazi builds is Thought-Knot Seer. Gone are the days of Reality Smasher and Matter Reshaper. All hail Mycospawn, It That Heralds the End, and friends. Eldrazi is a powerful deck and has a lot of game versus a lot of other decks in the format, which makes it hard for those decks to metagame against both it and Psychic Frog decks.
Rounding out what I think the Top Three of these big pillars are is Painter. Painter is uniquely positioned because its game plan and deckbuilding align well against both Frog and Eldrazi. Red blasts are incredibly strong versus the deck playing a two mana UB card, and Painter's Servant itself is a strong foil to the Eldrazi deck's primary lands of Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin and the deck often sideboards things like Blood Moon that make it rough on those decks. Painter also has a pretty strong gameplan against a good number of other decks, since it has combo plus Saga as a backup, and sometimes cards like Agatha's Soul Cauldron.
Beyond these top three, we are seeing some great success by decks like Doomsday, Red Stompy, Cephalid Breakfast, and even Stiflenought. There's a smattering of decks here all fighting for some viability. The recent wins by decks like Jeskai Vial and strategies like WR Yorion DnT are being kicked around and seem quite good.
I don't personally believe Legacy is super healthy though, many strategies like Control are in a rough place at the moment and the deck at the top of the metagame isn't really a Delver deck, it's a Delver deck with combo cards that conveniently just got a new toy. That being said, there's a lot of fun to be had in Legacy still and there is a reasonably interesting number of decks to consider, just having to keep in mind that you need to consider the Top Three "pillars" when deckbuilding and approaching things.
We will continue to look at things up to Eternal Weekend this year and see if Duskmourn continues to move a needle on Reanimator, or if something is able to push back on it, but we are not getting any real set releases before Eternal Weekend either, so maybe something is being cooked up with what's already been released? We shall have to see.
Fallout Coming to MTGO on October 16th
In case you don't follow the MTGO blog, it was announced that Universes Beyond: Fallout is coming to MTGO on October 16th! You can find the full announcement here.
Get your Pre-War Formalwear ready!
Legacy Challenge 32 9/25
The first Challenge of the week was the Wednesday event. This event had 41 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. There was no data for this event.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Red Painter | 1st | Untala123 |
| UB Reanimator | 2nd | Sterhelio |
| Doomsday | 3rd | Enrichetta |
| Sneak and Show | 4th | DethFrmAbove |
| UB Reanimator | 5th | boytriton |
| UB Reanimator | 6th | cicciogire |
| Eldrazi | 7th | BERNASTORRES |
| Stiflenought | 8th | HouseOfManaMTG |
Top 8 here is fairly interesting. Little bit of Reanimator, as we will see throughout the Top 8s this week. At the end of the event we had Red Painter as the winner.
Bombardiers is such a sweet card, to be honest. It's very powerful and seems great in decks like this.
In Second Place we had UB Reanimator.
This is definitely a strong list with or without the Fanatic, as I think this shell was already pushing on the format as it stands. The Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in the sideboard is one heck of a throwback.
Also in this Top 8 we had Sneak and Show.
Vexing Bauble seems like a really good card to put in a deck that wants to jam Show and Tell or Sneak Attack and not have to worry about Force. Four Atraxa is definitely sweet, too.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had Stiflenought.
Yorion seems quite interesting for this deck. I love the use of Beanstalk here as well. Seems like a sweet amalgamation of decks for sure.
Legacy Challenge 32 9/27
The second Challenge of the week was the Friday night/Saturday morning event. This event had 41 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. There was no data for this event.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| UB Reanimator | 1st | kentaro_hokori |
| Grixis Control | 2nd | JamesKisau |
| Doomsday | 3rd | Eureka22422 |
| Dimir Tempo | 4th | _INF_ |
| Red Stompy | 5th | OrnatePuzzles |
| Red Painter | 6th | hrvr |
| Mono Black Reanimator | 7th | Roodslay |
| UR Tempo | 8th | PunishingWaterfalls |
Very interesting Top 8 here. Good number of different decks. At the end of the event it was UB Reanimator that won.
As we mentioned earlier, Metamorphosis Fanatic did make a big splash this weekend, and it looks quite good in this list. It is definitely an exceptionally powerful card, so it will be curious to see where this shell goes from here.
In Second Place we had Grixis Control.
JamesKisau is quite often always trying out new cards in his Grixis Control builds, so it's not surprising to see new ones here. Kaito, Bane of Nightmares looks really sweet, as does Abhorrent Oculus. Really neat looking list here.
Also in this Top 8 we had Doomsday.
The Tamiyo/Frog tempo variant of this deck does seem very strong. Cavern of Souls naming Wizard being able to cast both Tamiyo and Thassa's Oracle is pretty huge.
At the bottom of the Top 8 we had UR Tempo.
Oh this is really neat. A Jace, the Mind Sculptor even! Also cards like Thundertrap Trainer which looks really cool. Loving this list.
Legacy Challenge 32 9/28
The third Challenge of the week was the Saturday morning event. This event had 52 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. There was no data for this event.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| UB Reanimator | 1st | RyanWu |
| Eldrazi | 2nd | Dein_Freund_der_Baum |
| Eldrazi | 3rd | grymn |
| UB Reanimator | 4th | Folero |
| Standstill | 5th | John1111 |
| Dimir Tempo | 6th | wiky |
| UB Reanimator | 7th | JPA93 |
| Eldrazi | 8th | ayukawa |
Lot of Eldrazi here, with the other parts being Reanimator. At the end of the event it was Reanimator that won.
Pretty much the same list as the one that one the previous event. The two-for-one aspect of Fanatic makes it very good, for sure.
In Second Place we had Eldrazi.
I've said this before, but I think we have a pretty firm consensus on an Eldrazi list now. The variants all seem to be based around the core green shell at this point, which makes a lot of sense. The mana for those variants is a lot more stable overall than those decks trying to hit cards like Eldrazi Linebreaker and getting to play Chalice is an upside it seems.
Also in this Top 8 we had Standstill.
Actual, factual Standstill is pretty neat to see. I am digging it. This is very old school combined with some new school elements like Tamiyo.
Further down this Top 8 we had Dimir Tempo.
Interesting to see no Mishra's Bauble as that is usually very good at adding a different card type for Nethergoyf. I do like Nihil Spellbomb though as a way to interact with Reanimator main deck.
Legacy Challenge 32 9/29
The fourth Challenge of the week was the Sunday morning 32 player event. This event had exactly 32 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.
UB Reanimator was popular (not by much) and had a good win rate overall. Red Stompy did quite well as did Vial and Sneak and Show.
Let's take a look at the Top 8.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| Jeskai Vial | 1st | Trohck |
| Red Painter | 2nd | choutin |
| Necrodominance Combo | 3rd | fivebrane |
| UB Reanimator | 4th | PhazonMutant |
| Bant Nadu | 5th | jibeta |
| UB Reanimator | 6th | Ozymandias17 |
| Tin Fins | 7th | Magic_Dads71522 |
| Sneak and Show | 8th | Schranz0127 |
Kind of a super interesting Top 8. At the end of the event it was Jeskai Vial that won.
Since this deck won the Showcase Challenge it has definitely been everywhere. I myself played it on stream last week (that video is further down the article), and it's super fun and interesting. Some of the lines for the deck are so incredibly deep. Very cool deck.
In Second Place we had Red Painter.
Molten Duplication is kind of a sweet card. I can see it doing some work here. Also new card Ghost Vacuum from Duskmourn coming into play here is pretty sweet.
Also in this Top 8 we had Necrodominance.
Very straightforward and powerful list. This deck has been somewhat missing from the metagame for a bit, so kind of sweet.
Further down the Top 8 we had 4C Nadu.
Nadu seems like a really strong deck right now. Agatha's Soul Cauldron also seems like a strong card here.
Legacy Challenge 64 9/29
The final Challenge of the week was the Sunday 64 player event. This event had exactly 64 players in it thanks to the MTGO website.
You can find the Top 32 decklists for this event here. There was no data for this event.
| Deck Name | Placing | MTGO Username |
|---|---|---|
| The EPIC Gamble | 1st | TonyScapone |
| The EPIC Storm | 2nd | TheMagePower |
| Grixis Control | 3rd | JamesKisau |
| Ruby Storm | 4th | ChuckNoris43 |
| Eldrazi | 5th | maytwer |
| Beanstalk Control (Non-Yorion) | 6th | AlexanderRosdahl |
| UB Reanimator | 7th | JPA93 |
| Dimir Tempo | 8th | silviawataru |
Very interesting Top 8 here. Lot of Combo. At the end of the event it was The EPIC Gamble that won.
This list is pretty sweet. I like Reforge the Soul here for sure. Vexing Bauble really improving some of these combo decks is interesting for sure.
In Second Place we had The EPIC Storm.
Very neat list. Approach of the Second Sun in the sideboard as a Burning Wish target is pretty sweet.
Also in this Top 8 we had Ruby Storm.
Ral, Monsoon Mage being yet another of the flip-walkers from MH3 that is just super good is really cool. Seems like a strong list.
Further down the Top 8 we had BUG Beans.
Metamorphosis Fanatic in the Beans shell as a Miracle target but also working with Psychic Frog is pretty neat.
My Videos for the Week
I have two things for this week! I played Jeskai Vial on my most recent live stream and also put up another episode of "What Does This Deck Do?"
Around the Web
- Eternal Durdles has an episode on prepping for Eternal Weekend. Check it out here.
- StrassDaddy talking about GHOST VACUUM. Check it out here.
- TonyScapone has Vintage at Home. Check it out here.
- Maxtortion did not crush the Legacy Challenge, but he's crushing it on YouTube! Check it out here.
The Spice Corner
Now that Leagues are posted throughout the week, let's find some Spice!
Cool take on Oops.
EXPLODING KITTENS.
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!
